It's fascism -- and it's Islamic

(By Victor Davis Hanson)

George Bush recently declared that we are at war with "Islamic fascism." Muslim-American groups were quick to express furor at the expression. Middle Eastern autocracies complained that it was provocative and insensitive. Critics of the term chosen by the president, however, should remember what al-Qaida, the Taliban, Hezbollah, Hamas and other extremist Muslim groups have said and done. Like the fascists of the 1930s, the leaders of these groups are authoritarians who brook no dissent in their efforts to impose a comprehensive system of submission upon the unwilling.

Osama bin Laden urged Muslims to kill any American they could find, and then tried to fulfill that vow on Sept. 11. Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah bragged that "the Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from them" -- and then started a war. Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, promises to "wipe out" Israel, and is seeking the nuclear means to do so.

Sharia law and dreams of pan-Islamic global rule fuel their ambitions. Once again, they seek to fool Western liberals through voicing a litany of perpetual hurts.... Islamic fascism is also anti-democratic and characteristically reactionary. It conjures up a past of Islamic influence that existed before the supposed corruption of modernism. Like Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo, who sought to recapture lost mythical Aryan, Roman or samurai purity, so Islamic fascists talk in romantic terms of the ancient caliphate.

Anti-Semitism is a tenet of fascism, then and now. But so is a generic hatred for unbelievers, homosexuals and blacks. The latter are slurred in the Arab media, while homosexuals were rounded up under the Taliban and the Iranian mullacracy. "Mein Kampf" sells well under its translated title "Jihadi." .... Even now, it is hard to distinguish the slurs against Jews ("pigs and apes") used in the Middle Eastern media from the venom of Joseph Goebbels' propaganda. Goose-stepping and stiff-armed salutes at Iranian and Hezbollah parades are conscious imitations of past fascist armies.

Some object that the term "Islamic fascism" is too vague to encompass the differing agendas of diverse groups such as the Wahhabis, al-Qaida and Hezbollah. But just as racist German Nazis found common ground with Asian supremacists in Japan, so too the shared hatred of the West trumps the internecine rivalries of present-day Islamists.

The common denominators are extremist views of the Koran (thus the term Islamic), and the goal of seeing authoritarianism imposed at the state level by force (thus the notion of fascism). The pairing of the two words conveys a precise message: the old fascism is back, but now driven by a radical fundamentalist creed of Islam...

The real problem is not that "Islamic fascism" is inaccurate or mean-spirited, but that this identification earns such vehement disdain in Europe and the United States. That hysteria may tell us as much about the state of a demoralized West as the term itself does about our increasingly emboldened enemies

More here

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ELSEWHERE



How the Church of England preaches the gospel of Christ: "A priest with the Church of England who converted to Hinduism has been allowed to continue to officiate as a cleric. The Rev David Hart's diocese renewed his licence this summer even though he had moved to India, changed his name to Ananda and daily blesses a congregation of Hindus with fire previously offered up to Nagar, the snake god. He also "recites Gayatri Mantram with the same devotion with which he celebrates the Eucharist", according to The Hindu, India's national newspaper. The Hindu this week pictures him offering prayers to an idol of the elephant god Ganesh in front of his house. However, he still believes he is fit to celebrate as an Anglican priest and plans to do so when he returns to Britain.... "My philosophical position is that all religions are cultural constructs," he said"

Whiners get a reply: "President Bush in the White House East Room Wednesday explained for the first time in detail the importance of interrogation as an intelligence tool in the war on terror. He conceded that some of the techniques used against the likes of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were "tough." But he also used his remarks to declassify a fair bit of information about what's been learned. Quite clearly the interrogations are a major reason there have been no further terrorist attacks on American soil in the past five years. The demagogues alleging senseless "torture" at "secret" overseas prisons have now gotten a proper reply. Like the programs for monitoring bank transfers and warrantless wiretaps overseas, interrogating those who would do us harm has helped keep the country safe with minimal intrusion into the lives of ordinary Americans" [Taranto has some good excerpts from the Bush speech]

Americans like Wal-Mart better than unions: "Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Americans have at least a somewhat favorable opinion of labor unions while 33% disagree and have an unfavorable view. Those figures, from a Rasmussen Reports survey of 1,000 adults, include 23% with a "very favorable" opinion and 12% with a "very unfavorable" view. By way of comparison, 69% of Americans have a favorable opinion of a company the unions love to hate-Walmart. Twenty-nine percent (29%) have an unfavorable opinion of the retail giant".

Got to admit it's getting better ...: "The basic message Greenhouse and Leonhardt deliver is that 'wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation's gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947, while corporate profits have climbed to their highest share since the 1960's.' That is literally correct, according to the federal government's measures. But it's also misleading, for two main reasons, in order of importance. First, as marginal tax rates have increased for most people except the highest-income people, due mainly to rising Medicare and Social Security tax rates over the last 40 years, employers have paid a higher and higher percent of compensation in the form of untaxed benefits. So a more-relevant measure is not wages and salaries but total employee compensation. Second, national income is a better base to use for considering each group's -- employees, corporations, proprietors, landlords, and lenders -- share of income"

Prop 87: Paying at the pump and misdirecting innovation: "Californians pay an average of more than $3.20 per gallon for regular unleaded gasoline. Many consumers are agitated because prices have increased more than a dollar per gallon since the beginning of the year. British Petroleum's Alaskan shutdown has only increased concerns. Unfortunately, if passed, Proposition 87, the Clean Alternative Energy Act (CAEA), would only make matters worse. The Act would increase gas prices and our dependence on foreign oil, while creating a vast new bureaucracy that is unlikely to speed the successful development of alternative fuels."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, 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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ISLAM IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH WESTERN CIVILIZATION

Some excerpts below from a talk by eminent Australian, John Stone:

We need to understand that the core of the Muslim problem-for the world, not merely for Australia-lies in the essence of Islam itself. It is the problem of a culture that, for the past 500 years or so at least, has failed its adherents as its inward-looking theocracy has resulted in it falling further and further behind the West. It is that sense of cultural failure, that sense of smouldering resentment that fuels the fires so busily stoked by the more extremist Muslim teachers. Fiercely exclusive rather than inclusive, Islam holds that church and state are inseparable; that women, while respected so long as they stick to their appointed place in the Islamic scheme of things, are less than equal to men generally; and that even the most extreme violence is justifiable when applied in pursuit of approved Islamic ends. Until all that changes-and it can only be changed from within Islam itself, if indeed it can be changed at all-the Islamic culture will never reside in harmony with others.

This is where all those comfortable (one might even call them "lazy") assumptions about our own Muslim community break down. Contrary to those assumptions, I do not believe that this latest body of newcomers amongst us will emulate the examples of their predecessors from Italy, Greece, Poland, the Baltic states, or more recently Vietnam, Hong Kong and China. How can it be possible for them to become part of a united Australia, when any Muslim woman who wishes to "marry out" risks not merely social and familial ostracism, but outright violence, even death by way of "honour killings", by her father or her brothers? Almost without exception, the only marriages occurring in Australia today between Muslims and non-Muslims involve conversion to Islam of the latter.

The high priests and priestesses of multiculturalism should not be surprised by this. It is after all a product-admittedly, an extreme one-of policies they have been espousing with such religious zeal for thirty years or more....

Academics, and timid politicians seeking excuses for their inactivity in addressing the Muslim problem, may therefore continue to dance on the points of philosophical needles about those supposed differences between "moderate" Islam and "extremist" Islam. And it is true that it often seems as though there are as many hostilities between different Islamic sects-the Shia and the Sunnis, to name only the most topical example-as there are between Islam and non-Islam. Nevertheless, as Father Paul Stenhouse has reminded us in a typically scholarly but also extremely pointed article in the March issue of Quadrant, all followers of Islam, "moderate" or otherwise, divide the world into two areas: the Dar al-Islam and the Dar al-Harb. The former, the house of submission, is that part of the world where Islamic governments and Islamic law prevail: the latter, the house of war, is the rest of the world. Australia, to all Muslims, is part of the house of war.

In May this year Quadrant printed a thoughtful paper by Cardinal George Pell arising from his recent study of the Koran. He distils a clear distinction between the revelations Mohammed claimed to receive (via the Archangel Gabriel) while in Mecca, and those which followed his later move to Medina. During the former period he was "without military power" and was still seeking to convert the non-believers by way of proselytising. During the latter period, proselytising had given way to the ravages of the sword. In Pell's words, "the spread of Islam through conquest and conversion began".

Cardinal Pell notes that those passages from the Koran that are often quoted by those seeking to show the "moderate" nature of Islam are all drawn from the earlier period, whereas the Koran of Medina is replete with the most blood-curdling injunctions to kill all infidels wherever they are found. As Pell notes, just as in our own legal system a later law overrides any earlier one to the extent of any inconsistency between them, so it may not be unreasonable to assume that the Koran of Medina overrides the Koran of Mecca where any inconsistencies are concerned. That is indeed the view taken by the scholars of fundamentalist Islam.

There is another point relevant to this debate about "moderate" versus "extreme" Islam-namely, the Islamic doctrine of taqiyya. This has been the subject of two most interesting articles in National Observer in 2005 by Andrew Campbell. Without going into detail, taqiyya is the doctrine whereby any lies, deceit, or other forms of treachery may be justified in the cause of defeating the infidel. It is "a cloak for the believer" that provides a religious dispensation for such things as "friendship with unbelievers" and other subterfuges "in defending oneself from one's enemies". I suggest that, when one reads the soothing words of our own Islamic "moderates", the doctrine of taqqiya should never be far from our minds.

It is clear that, in Muslim countries throughout the world, the forces of extremism are winning the battle within Islam. (Of course, the usual apologists would undoubtedly argue that that is all our fault because of such things as our support for the continued existence of Israel, or the US-led coalition's invasion of Iraq; but let that pass.) In many Muslim countries, such as Egypt, those forces today are held back and driven underground by the present regime's security apparatus; but then, the same was true of the Shah's Iran until 1979....

More generally, and while I am open to correction, I believe the evidence is incontrovertible that Islamic and Western cultures are today, within any single polity, incompatible. Certainly, I know of no example that can be cited to the contrary.

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ELSEWHERE

Growing antisemitism in Britain now recognized: "A sinister alliance has developed between far-Right groups and Islamist extremists who are united in their hatred of Jews, Israel and Zionism and are contributing to increasing anti-Semitism in Britain. A report criticises police forces for failing adequately to monitor anti-Jewish incidents. It calls on the Crown Prosecution Service to investigate why fewer than one in ten reported incidents leads to a prosecution. The report was published after The Times revealed that conflict in the Middle East had led to a surge in anti-Semitism. It says that Britain’s 300,000 Jews are “more anxious and more vulnerable to abuse and attack than at any other time for a generation or longer”. It refers to “anti-Semitic discourse”, defined as a “widespread change in mood and tone when Jews are discussed, whether in print or broadcast, at universities, or in public or social settings”. But it expresses particular concern about a new, “symbiotic” relationship between the traditional perpetrators of anti-Semitism — the far Right and some Islamist extremists — who are united in their hatred of all things Jewish... Of particular concern to the inquiry was anti-Semitism on campuses, with literature being distributed that called for the killing of Jews and the destruction of Israel."

The fallacy of open immigration: "Nothing is more common than for well-intentioned people to believe that if everybody just does what is right (as they see it), nothing but good can possibly result. Libertarians have always been skeptical about that assumption. They know, for example, that wars have always been fought for causes believed to be right. The vast fabric of the modern welfare state was created to ensure proper care for the poor and needy. Yet very terrible things have resulted from the impulse to assert the right through warfare and to create the right through social engineering. This, more than anything else, has caused thinking men and women to look for ways of limiting, rather than increasing, the power of the state and, with it, the bad effects of good intentions. But libertarians themselves have not always succeeded in resisting the allure of good intentions, the assumption that there will be no unfortunate consequences of our good ideas."

Happy Labor Day: We're all workers! "Marx, of course, was wrong and the implications of Labor Day were wrong as well. There is not a separate class of individuals called 'worker' who are opposed to other economic classes. To begin with, without entrepreneurs, investors, managers and, in general, capitalists, workers would have no factories in which to work or those factories would be as inefficient as those in the Soviet Union and the workers as poor as those under communism. Entrepreneurs, investors, managers and capitalists are all workers. Further, as the great Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises pointed out, economic roles are artificial."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, 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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"STOMP ISRAEL LIKE A BUG" (!)

Nazism is definitely back. And, just like last time, it is Leftist. Below is a comment by Steve Frank on a post by Taranto covering some of the gibberings appearing on the website of the influential "MoveOn" organization within the American Left

"Finally!!! It is no longer the Jews that cause all the problems in the Middle East. No, it is those crazy Christian Zionists!!! Just ask the supporters of MoveOn.org

Bigotry and hatred runs rampant among the supporters of MoveOn.org. The leadership could denounce it, stop it, but they don't. When you read the MoveOn blogs and article, you would think the Ku Klux Klan became socialists and instead of white sheets, they wear the look of fear and hatred. Of course what they really dislike is Freedom--that works against their worldview. If people can make decisions for themselves, then government won't be needed. But, if you believe people are too stupid to govern themselves, then MoveOn is the place for you. Nothing people eat, drink, learn, say, believe is good enough--only government can shine the light on "Truth".

When you read the pages of MoveOn you see that all the worlds problems start with the Middle East and US foreign policy in support of Israel. I had always thought that the United Nations certified the creation of the State of Israel, but we now know, according to MoveOn supporters that Christian Zionists conspired to create a State just for the purpose of stealing oil. Yet in the almost 60 years of the State of Israel, the US has yet to steal a drop of oil. We even give foreign aid (bribe money) to Egypt, Lebanon and other trouble spots controlled by terrorist groups. Just a reminder of history: When Israel was certified as a State, Jordan offered to take in all the Palestinian Arabs--yet the leadership decided it was better to live in poverty and war, than get an education and success. It was the choice of the forerunners of Hamas and Hezbollah to force the Muslim population in the Middle East to become a warrior class.

Now, the new scapegoats are the Christians, never the terrorists. In fact, the whole question of the Middle East to the Left is a cover for their latent anti-Semitism. Remember the father of modern liberalism, Franklin Roosevelt, refused to allow Jews to come into this country from Germany and the rest of Europe. Roosevelt, though he knew about the Holocaust, he said nothing, did nothing, and cared very little. So, the fact that his philosophical grandchildren don't like Jews and the Christians that support them, is no surprise. Just listen to the words of Kerry, Clinton, Kerry, Schumer, and the others. It is Israel and US foreign policy, not terrorists, that are the problem. If only Israel would give up more land and give up their weapons, the crisis would be averted. This is terrorism, in the name of anti-Semitism, with a compassionate heart. Phooey, these are bigots in the old KKK style. The sooner we admit it, the sooner we can solve the problem.

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ELSEWHERE



A joyous day for Japan: "Princess Kiko of Japan gave birth this morning to the country's future emperor, defusing the imperial succession crisis and provoking celebration across the country. Commuters travelling to work were handed special editions put our by all the major Japanese newspapers after the princess gave birth to a 2.55kg (5lb 10oz) baby boy by Caesarean section at 8.27am Japanese time. The baby prince, who has not yet been named, is expected to be the 128th Emperor of Japan after his grandfather, Emperor Akihito, his uncle Crown Prince Naruhito, and his father, Prince Akishino. There had been unprecedented speculation over the gender of the child, who is the first male to be born into the family for nearly 41 years. The lack of a male heir threatened the long-term extinction of the world's oldest monarchy. Crown Prince Naruhito and his wife, Masako, have a four-year old daughter, Aiko, but under law women are not eligible to take the throne."

National identities reviving: "Far from softening, national and other local identities are hardening again, reverting to ever-narrower blood-and-language relationships that Europe's dreamers assumed would fade away. Who now sees himself as fundamentally Belgian, rather than as a Fleming or Walloon? Catalans deny that they are Spaniards, and the Welsh imagine a national grandeur for themselves. In the last decade, the ineradicable local identities within the former Yugoslavia split apart in a bloodbath, while a mortified Europe looked away for as long as it could. The Yugoslav disaster was written off as an echo from the past--anyway, Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, and Kosovars were "not our kind"--but the Balkan wars instead signaled a much broader popular discontent with pseudo-identities concocted by political elites. The collapse of Yugoslavia hinted at the future of Europe: not necessarily the bloodshed, but the tenacity of historical identity."

Has NASA learnt nothing from the shuttle?: "NASA on Thursday gave a multibillion-dollar contract to build a manned lunar spaceship to Lockheed Martin Corp., the aerospace leader that usually builds unmanned rockets. The nation's space agency plans to use the Orion crew exploration vehicle to replace the space shuttle fleet, take astronauts to the moon and perhaps to Mars. Unlike Apollo and earlier spacecraft perched atop rockets, it will be reusable. NASA estimated the cost at $7.5 billion through 2019 for likely eight separate spaceships."

Progress in Sweden? "One of the longest-serving leaders in Europe is facing a young challenger from the resurgent Right who has transformed his party's appeal, particularly to first-time voters. Goran Persson's ten-year grip on power in Sweden is being threatened by Fredrik Reinfeldt, who has ditched his tie along with a raft of right-wing policies, adopted a modern pale blue logo and spoken at a gay pride event.... Mr Reinfeldt's core appeal is based on lowering high income tax and using benefit cuts to invest in what he calls real jobs as opposed to the Social Democrats' training schemes. Mr Persson is pushing green policies and promising more of the high-tax policies that support the so-called Swedish Model, which is widely cited as the most successful and generous social system of childcare, schools, healthcare and public transport in Europe. But, unlike his predecessors on the Right, Mr Reinfeldt is not talking of dismantling it. "In the 1970s there was a clear difference of ideology, with real socialism standing against a market economy," he said. "But it is a new kind of world now and the ideology from the past is not really valid. We are not asking for a mandate to tear anything down. "We are asking for support for job-creation policies and to focus more on results from the school and healthcare system."

Progress in France? "The battle to be the next French President heated up yesterday when Nicolas Sarkozy, the centre-right favourite, set out his manifesto for a revolution to restore basic values that would win the confidence of a younger generation that distrusts him. M Sarkozy, 51, the Interior Minister and leader of the Union for a Popular Majority (UMP), President Chirac's party, blamed the Sixties generation for squandering France's heritage and creating a sense of entitlement and despair among the young. He would, he promised, create a new, better-educated France of hard workers and entrepreneurs."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, 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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SUICIDE BOMBING PSYCHOLOGY

The origins of suicide bombing lie among the Shi'ite in Iran. A 13-year-old child, Hossein Fahmideh, strapped rocket-propelled grenades to his chest and blew himself up under an Iraqi tank in November 1980. Ayatollah Khomeini's embattled Islamic republic adopted Fahmideh as a national hero and as an inspiration for further bloodshed and martyrdom. Even today on the streets of Tehran huge propaganda posters depict Fahmideh as the "grandson" of the Islamic revolution.

The posters are adorned with tulips and beds of flowers - symbols of eternal life. His tomb on the outskirts of the city is a national monument, a site of pilgrimage for hundreds of thousands of Iranians. The Khomeini regime even issued every Iranian schoolchild with a plastic knapsack depicting Fahmideh's heroic sacrifice under the tank and the grenades he used to blow himself up. It's not difficult to read the message. In life you may be a nobody but if you die for Khomeini or his successors you will become a blessed shahid, a martyr, and rise up in death, and dwell in paradise.

Normally, it is not easy to persuade anyone to kill themselves. Think how instinctively even small children are wary of potential harm. To create a willing martyr like Fahmideh or Hasib Hussain you need to overwhelm every natural instinct. Suicide bombers are not born but indoctrinated. And it helps to have a cult that glorifies those who have blown themselves up and so encourage fresh recruits.

The cult has easily spread itself, like the recipe for the bomber's home-made explosives, over the internet. If you have just a few words of Arabic and know where to look you can download a constant stream of martyrdom videos from Iraq.

Western suicide bombing is a collective act, a tight conspiracy of individuals drawn together by what at the beginning is an unfocused anger at the West, their own sense of frustration with their lives and a search for identity. As the group tightens in on itself its distorted view of the world blocks all alternative viewpoints. Every allied blunder in Lebanon/ Iraq/ Afghanistan merely confirms what the group sees as a revealed truth that the US and its ally the UK are at war with the ummah, the entire Islamic world.

The videos, the glorification, compound the distorted world view of the would-be bombers and help cancel out other loyalties like marriage, love and education. A willingness to die becomes the ultimate loyalty test to the group and its leader. Both the September 11 cell, based in Hamburg, and the July 7 bombers spent a huge amount of time in each other's company at mosques and gyms insulating themselves against the outside world.

But what makes suicide bombing different from other terrorism is its doctrine of religious sacrifice. For the would-be bomber the deliberate sacrifice of his or her own life is a guarantee of a place in paradise and thus a vindication of the deed. Dying on a distant Afghan battlefield fighting British troops and blowing yourself up in the toilet of a crowded transatlantic plane are one and the same.

More here

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THE MOST RECENT POSTS ON ICJS

Downer's unfounded faith in the internet
Red Cross rocket snares Downer
Not the hole truth
ABC will surrender documents
Reciting the Shehada in Gaza
The responsibilities of the media
Israel's fight for life in the name of the West
Israel Lebanon adjournment debate
Israel fostering Islamofascism
The peacekeepers of Penzance
Silencing enlightenment
War on the home front
Apocalyptic Ahmadinejad rattles sabre
Khalil Eideh
Israel grotesquely cast as villain in one-sided TV news
PM’s Muslim hardliners
Time for radical change
State-funded terror stalks UK campuses
Arabist lobby
Watching Lebanon
Why the world hates Jews
Bleeding heart ignoramuses
Systemic failure
Olmert cannot remain in prime minister’s office
Resolution 1701
We must win we shall win
Jews Dying
This ongoing war
Worry about the West -- not Israel
The Cease-Fire Stakes
The Spectre of the Shi'ite Crescent
Red State Jews
Protection of civilians
Your ABC of bias
Shut down Iran’s deadly ambitions
Faked Picture on ABC website
HRW Hezbollah must end attacks on civilians
Media missiles. Working for the enemy
ABC admits program was unbalanced
Ronaldson calls for proactive stance
ABC lets down Australian students with breach of charter
Two Paragraphs
Ronaldson praises prompt action by ABC
Ronaldson demands further action on ABC bias
Behind the News Discussion and Teaching Resource
ABC sorry for bias on children’s show
ABC Letter of apology
ABC acknowledges program bias
When the devil dislikes the stink of brimstone

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, 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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MY FATHERS' DAY

Sunday just past was Father's Day in Australia and I was delighted that my 19 year-old son came over in the afternoon and joined me in a drive down to Wynnum (a Brisbane seaside suburb) in the Humber. Joe (my son) has now got very high marks in all three years of his university studies (in Mathematics) so I am of course very pleased to have such an academic son. And he has never given me a moment of worry about his personal life either. There is a picture of him here with his Asian girlfriend.

We bought takeaway coffee and cakes as soon as we got to Wynnum and sat down on the grass a few feet from the sea to eat, drink and chat. We had no sooner sat down than Joe spilt his coffee. I am myself a bit clumsy so it is no mystery where he got a bit of clumsiness from. He was apologetic about the spill but I gave him half of my coffee and remarked that he would probably learn from what he did. I pointed out to him that I give him thousands of dollars every birthday and Christmas precisely so he can make mistakes on the stockmarket and learn from them. I want him to have learnt investing by the time I die and he gets my money to manage.

We talked about politics and current affairs and I pointed out to him the number of fronts on which I am doing battle at the moment. Some of the things I mentioned to him were:

On my FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC blog I am doing battle with the obesity warriors and trying to get the results of the longevity studies known -- which show that it is people of MIDDLING weight, not slim people, who live longest.

And I mentioned that on this blog I try (among other things) to demolish the great Leftist coverup about their prewar liking for Fascism and I also pointed out what a myth is the Marxist claim that Fascism was "bourgeois" by referring to a scholarly study by Fischer (1978) which shows that it was WORKING class people, not middle class people, who were over-represented in the Sturm Abteilung (S.A.; Brownshirts). See here.

I did however advise him to keep out of all politics at university as it would be bad for his career. So we in fact spent most time reading poetry together. I read him poems by Keats, Coleridge, Blake, Burns, Fitzgerald, Hopkins etc which I myself had mostly read at school but which he had never heard of. Schools these days have robbed our kids of their literary heritage but I am doing my best to see that my son is not robbed in that way.

Reference:

Fischer, C.J. (1978) The occupational background of the S.A.'s rank and file membership during the depression years , 1929 to mid-1934. In: Stachura, P. The shaping of the Nazi state. London: Croom Helm.

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EVEN AN ANTISEMITE CAN SEE THROUGH THE BIAS OF THE ISRAEL-HATING MEDIA

Comment by Tibor Machan:

My mother has always had a tinge of the anti-Semite about her, especially back when she was married to my father in the late 1930s, a man who was the epitome of the virulent Central European anti-Semite. Till the day he died, in 1970, he continued with this attitude, so much so that he alienated both his children as a result, not to mention innumerable acquaintances who knew him mainly professionally. My mother was never quite like my father in this regard but she clearly shared the widespread prejudice against Jews shown by millions throughout Europe, east and west.

We had managed during my previous visits to skirt this topic-there was no way that I could make any headway with her during a day's worth of chit chat, although in her mid 80s she is entirely lucid. This time, however, she initiated a discussion on the topic of the Jews by turning to me and saying, "You know, Richard (she calls me by my middle name), I have never liked the Jews, but recently I have begun to wonder why it is that so many people around the world begrudge them that tiny plot of land they got back in the 1940s." I was taken aback by this and my shock increased as she continued: "I have been watching television news throughout the recent upheaval (indeed, she can do little else but that and read, given that she is physically quite frail), and have noticed that nearly all the commentators, including reporters, seem to favor the Hizbullah even though they were the ones who started all of this."

By my own fragmented information, too, I came to this conclusion but having my anti-Semitic mother in agreement with me on the matter was quite a surprise. Because she seemed to me to be right. Everything I read and listened to about the conflict kept emphasizing the collateral victims in Lebanon, produced from Israeli shellings, with hardly any reminders that (a) the Hizbullah initiated the conflict and (b) the Hizbullah routinely locate themselves-their artillery and inventory of weapons-within the Lebanese civilian population so that efforts at placating them and any retaliation could not but do damage to these civilians.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Some libertarians are hard to tell from Leftists. Note this post, which just oozes contempt for ordinary Americans, calling them "sheeple" and what not. No respect for the individual there.

France deports more illegals: "France has accelerated its deportation of illegal immigrants and is more than halfway toward its 2006 target of 25,000, the Interior Ministry says, but with a new school year approaching the government appears to have largely refrained from expelling families with school-age children.... the expulsions of Africans, Asians and East Europeans are moving forward, reaching 12,716 as of July 31, and accelerating in August, according to Franck Louvrier, spokesman for Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. France expelled 20,000 illegal immigrants in 2005, and Sarkozy vowed to step up the pace after suburban riots last autumn in areas largely inhabited by people of foreign extraction. "We are on track for our objective of 25,000 expulsions," Louvrier said. At the same time, following protests by teachers and parents, families with children in school appear to have been spared, advocacy groups say... There are 4.9 million immigrants in France, just over 8 percent of the population"

No Virginia Moneys to Illegals: "A lot of us were saying, instead of raising taxes, why don't we start prioritizing where we're spending our existing money,' said Delegate David B. Albo, Fairfax Republican, who sponsored the bill. `One of the things we found was the state was not checking for legal presence for Medicaid,'" according to AP's Dionne Walker. Therefore, the new law goes into effect on New Year's Day. Happy New Year, Virginia. Illegals will not be able to get state-funded moneys. Illegals with no social security numbers will not be receiving Medicaid via Virginia. They also will not be handed temporary assistance for welfare-style families. They will not get aid from some other state and local offices. Virginia could pocket millions through this one new law.... "Mr. Albo could not specify how many illegal aliens might be receiving public benefits. But he said the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles rejected 187,000 applicants the first year after 2004 legislation restricted illegals from obtaining driver's licenses."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, 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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DID THE NAZIS BAN IQ TESTS?

And did they recognize Jews as more intelligent?

Given the hostility of modern-day Leftists towards IQ tests, it is interesting that the Nazis too seem to have been opposed to them. I have been on an email list that discusses the matter -- a list including some of the authorities on the history of IQ testing. No-one as yet however has found any documentation of a formal ban by the Nazis. It seems that the tests were frowned on by the Nazis rather than banned outright -- which is also broadly true of today's Left of course. And there was certainly some acceptance of the greater intelligence of Jews in prewar Germany.

Some interesting points have come up in the discussion however and I thought the email below from Volkmar Weiss, a most erudite psychologist from the former East Germany, made some very unusual points:

"On my desk I have: Lenz, Fritz: Menschliche Auslese und Rassenhygiene (Eugenik) [Human Selection and Race-hygeine (Eugenics)]. Third edition. Muenchen: J. F. Lehmanns Verlag 1931. It is a famous book, at least for people who can understand German. It is said that Adolf Hitler read this book -- or at least the first edition -- during his imprisonment at Landsberg, where he wrote Mein Kampf. The publisher, J. F. Lehmann, sent a copy of all the books he published to Hitler. Therefore, the story may be true, Hitler was very erudite.

In this book by Lenz you can find many pages on the above-average social status and intelligence of Jews. Also the sentence on page 417: "Den einseitigen Antisemitismus des Nationalsozialismus wird man natuerlich bedauern. Es scheint leider, dass die politischen Massen solche Anti-Gefuehle brauchen, um zur Aktivitaet zu kommen." [One naturally regrets the one-sided antisemitism of National Socialism. Regrettably, it appears that the political masses need such antagonisms in order to be moved to activity].

In 1933 and 1934 Hitler personally did nothing to instigate the hatred against the Jews. He was and could never be sure whether not one of his grandfathers was a Jew. Maybe he considered seriously to assimilate as many Jews as possible. But the voelkisch wing of the Nazis prevented such a development and instigated a rising wave of persecution. There was no law about who was a Jew and who not. In 1935 therefore Hitler was forced to proclaim the Nuremberg laws, which said that quarter-Jews were Germans.

In 1936 or 37, maybe in the Zeitschrift fuer Psychologie [Journal of Psychology], an article was published on "Jewish intelligence tests". I myself have read this article. I am sure, Hans Eysenck was always aware of this article, too. But I have thousands of references and reprints and it would need hours to locate the source again.

There were "Eignungspruefungen", also for the entrance eximation into the SS, which could be understood as minimal IQ tests, but no fully-fledged IQ-tests.

In the German army (Wehrmacht), even in World War Two, there fought hundreds or even thousands of Jews. Hitler had the the right to declare Jews to Aryans and Germans and used this right in many cases. I myself had a letter to Heinrich Himmler in my hands (in the Bundesarchiv Berlin), in which Himmler was asked what should be happen with two SS-men who were Jews. Himmlers handwriting: The question will be answered after the war. With Hamlet I would like to say: There are more things in heaven and earth ...

Note that the above is just a part of an informal email discussion. I have no doubt that Volkmar would be able to refine and document his points more fully given time. From my reading in Mein Kampf and elsewhere, I agree with Volkmar's judgment that Hitler was quite erudite by the standards of his day and I am sure that the presence of Jews in the SS is very little-known

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ELSEWHERE

Parts of Europe are learning: "There have been labor changes across continental Europe recently. Denmark's measures to liberalize hiring and firing have helped the country cut its unemployment rate in half from about 10% in the early 1990s to under 5%. Spain, too, has introduced short-term employment contracts which have helped cut its unemployment rate by more than half from 20% a decade ago. But elsewhere, attempts at change have met with staunch opposition, often resulting in watered-down measures. Italy passed changes to its labor laws in 2004, introducing an extension of temporary-work contracts that were introduced in 1997 and were credited with helping cut Italy's overall unemployment rate to 7.1% from 12% when the contracts began. Yet many economists say Italy, which recorded zero growth last year, hasn't gone far enough. In Germany, where unemployment stands at 11%, a coalition government headed by conservative leader Angela Merkel has promised to reduce unemployment by introducing similar measures to those hotly debated in France. The government had to settle on compromise measures that can extend a current probation period for workers to 24 months, from the current six. But companies don't have the right to terminate contracts within those two years without giving just cause. Other, more difficult, provisions, are still on hold."

Fortune 100 loves the Left: "Led by Goldman Sachs, the charitable foundations of Fortune 100 companies overwhelmingly supported liberal groups over conservative groups, according to a new study by the Capital Research Center. Authors David Hogberg and Sarah Haney found that the corporate foundations of the Fortune 100 preferred liberal groups by a 5.8:1 ratio."

Incomes and politics: "One sure sign that the economy is doing well is when the left revives that old political warhorse, inequality. With GDP growth of nearly 4% for three years running and a jobless rate of 4.7%, it's their last economic resort in an election year. But when you look at the actual evidence, the inequality campaign also proves to be trumped up. The Treasury Department will soon release the latest IRS data on who paid how much in taxes in America through 2004. We've had an early look at the numbers, and anyone who reads the front pages of our leading dailies may be surprised to learn that the Bush years compare very well by tax and income equality to the sainted Clinton era. First, the new data show that the bottom 50% of Americans in income--U.S. households with an income below the median of $44,389--paid a smaller share of total income taxes in 2004 (3.3%) than in Bill Clinton's last year in office (3.9%). That 3.3% is the lowest share of total income taxes paid by the bottom half of earners in at least 30 years, and probably ever. The majority of American families with an income below $40,000 pay no income tax at all today, and many of them also get a welfare subsidy from the Earned Income Tax Credit that effectively offsets much of what they pay in payroll taxes."

Sen. Byrd also blocked sunshine legislation: "In a new twist in this week's Capitol Hill whodunnit, Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., acknowledged Thursday that he also placed a 'secret hold' on legislation that would open up the hidden world of government contracts to public scrutiny. Byrd and Alaska Republican Ted Stevens, two of the most skilled purveyors of federal funds, used the parliamentary maneuver to stop legislation that would create a searchable database of some $2.5 trillion in federal spending."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, 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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MORE ON LEFTIST PSYCHOLOGY

Excerpt from a post by Ray Kraft:

I am getting some liberal response to my article at ChronWatch about Islamic Nazism - and some of these people give drivel a bad name. The intellectual vacuity is truly amazing.

I am coming to suspect that liberalism may be a genetic defect, or at least a congenital defect, because in the correspondence I get froms libs I observe that most of them are completely unable to grasp even the most rudimentary concepts of logic and reason, and also completely unable to grasp the idea that they are not grasping the most rudimentary concepts of logic and reason. I am not sure that it is merely beyond their will, I am coming to suspect it is beyond their ability.

Those who are able to think more or less rationally and logically tend to become conservative and Republican, while those who are unable to think more or less rationally and logically tend to become liberal and Democrat. Which makes the Democratic party (as it is today) by definition the party of illogic and unreason, the party of emotionalism rampant.

The libs who are not thinking coherently always think (or feel) that they are thinking coherently, no matter how clearly and cogently one points out that they are not. They are apparently unable to recognize (much less understand, or analyze) the inconsistencies and non sequiturs in their own thinking -

For instance, if one points out that the observed one degree of global atmospheric warming over the last century (per the IPCC report) is hardly conclusive proof of catastrophic runaway global warming, and probably within the margin of measuring error (!) the response is Yes! There is Global Warming! Didn't you see Al Gore's movie?! . . . so there really is Global Warming, Toto, I guess, even if we can't actually see it.

Yes, some glaciers are melting, but the fact that glaciers have been melting for the last ten or fifteen thousand years since the beginning of the end of the last ice age is an uncomprehended, or incomprehensible, idea, that cannot possibly have any relevance at all to the faith and doctrine of Global Warming!

Another correspondent keeps insisting that Israel is engaging in "ethnic cleansing," even after I point out that there are more than a million Muslim Palestinians living in Israel (who haven't been ethnically cleansed in the last sixty years) and that Israel recently removed its own Jewish citizens from Gaza and gave Gaza back to the Palis - the exact opposite of "ethnic cleansing." He feels that Israel is doing ethnic cleansing, and no quantum of objective facts can change his mind, or the feelings in his mind.....

The Liberal mind forms a conclusion, and then looks for evidence to support the conclusion, and rejects evidence inconsistent with the conclusion, and holds faithfully to the conclusion even if there is no evidence to sustain it.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

"Islamized" classics: "Pinocchio, Tom Sawyer, and other characters have been converted to Islam in new versions of 100 classic stories designed for the Turkish school curriculum. "Give me some bread, for Allah's sake," Pinocchio says to Geppetto, his maker, in a book stamped with the crest of the Ministry of Education. "Thanks be to Allah," the puppet says later. In "The Three Musketeers," D'Artagnan is told that he cannot visit Aramis. An old woman explains: "He is surrounded by men of religion. He converted to Islam after his illness." Tom Sawyer may always have shirked his homework, but he is more conscientious in learning his Islamic prayers. He is given a "special treat" for learning the Arabic words. Pollyanna, seen by some as the embodiment of Christian forgiveness, says that she believes in the end of the world as predicted in the Koran".

NYT lies again: "I suppose it's a dog bites man story-I shouldn't be upset when the New York Times news division writes a intellectually dishonest story that plays to the biases of its readership base. But today's front-page above the fold story on wages depresses and surprises me anyway... Here's how the article opens: "With the economy beginning to slow, the current expansion has a chance to become the first sustained period of economic growth since World War II that fails to offer a prolonged increase in real wages for most workers". The Bureau of Labor Statistics does calculate real hourly compensation for the nonfarm business sector, a measure that includes benefits. Let's see what those numbers look like... What these numbers show is that for every year since the recession of 2001, real hourly compensation has actually increased. It's up since 2003 as well. And this year it's up quite dramatically. Any of these measures are at odds with the Times's conclusion."

Reuters again: "Not content with just doctoring photos to get us to buy into personal agendas of the editors, Reuters, knowing that most people skim headlines to get their news, are now into creating headlines that speak the opposite of their own news stories. Reuters article excerpts: "The economy grew at a faster clip in the second quarter and inflation was slower than originally reported" .... "The U.S. economy grew at a 2.9 percent annual pace in the second quarter, faster than the 2.5 percent rate initially reported but marginally below what analysts were expecting," And your reaction might be the same as mine. Pretty good news for the US. But if pretty good news for the US is not what you want to tell people, you create the following headline: GDP Growth revised up less than expected.

Amazing: Chinese textbooks downplay Communism: "When high school students in Shanghai crack their history textbooks this fall they may be in for a surprise. The new standard world history text drops wars, dynasties and Communist revolutions in favor of colorful tutorials on economics, technology, social customs and globalization. Socialism has been reduced to a single, short chapter in the senior high school history course. Chinese Communism before the economic reform that began in 1979 is covered in a sentence. The text mentions Mao only once -- in a chapter on etiquette."

Canadians as bad as the TSA: "The family of an 87-year-old diabetic great-grandmother says she is the latest victim of new, tighter security regulations at airports. Hetwig Strohmeier is supposed to take heart medication every four hours, but had to go almost 12 hours without it after the drugs were confiscated Friday by screening officers at Pearson airport, said her son Helmut Strohmeier. "What did they think were in the pill bottles with my mother's name on them - dynamite?" said an irate Helmut Strohmeier, who is demanding answers from the Greater Toronto Airport Authority."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, 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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Life in a "backwater"

Anne and I got into my 1963 Humber Super Snipe yesterday morning and motored down to the seaside for brunch. We took sandwiches with us and got takeaway coffee from a cafe close to our destination. When we got there, the park had a few people wandering around but the picnic shelter where we sat down was uninhabited. So we sat there in perfect peace and quiet and had our brunch looking out to sea across Moreton Bay. And there were no "minorities" to trouble us.



The English used to "motor" to salubrious places once too but from what I hear these days, all that they now do is crawl along in traffic jams. I encountered no traffic jams or holdups at all and we drove through some quite nice green countryside on the way -- so if any English person had been with us it would have seemed to them like a trip back in time.

We did stop at a liquor barn on the way to pick up some choice Tokay. The liquer Tokay that Australian vintners produce is lightyears ahead of the rough red that Hungarian vintners make out of the same grape. Australian liquer Muscat is remarkably good too -- so, if you are a drinker of fortified wines, scrap the Port and go for Australian Muscats and Tokays. It will be a definite step up.

Today is the first anniversary of Anne and I meeting so we are going to celebrate by going to the smorgasbord at the Hilton. The Brisbane Hilton does an impeccable smorgasbord with lots of seafood -- of which Australians are usually very fond. They seem to do the best Sydney rock oysters in town -- large and succulent. If you have never eaten raw Sydney rock oysters, you haven't lived. I know of no other oyster remotely as good.

It is so nice not to live in a "vibrant" place.

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ELSEWHERE



Iran wins: "So, what now? Iran has defied the United Nations order to stop its most controversial nuclear work. It looks as if there will be a fudge by the European Union, dragging the US along behind. At yesterday's deadline, which was supposed to be the climax of this long-running stand-off, Europeans blinked first. Germany and Italy, in particular, have taken the view that more talks would be preferable to sanctions, even at the cost of blurring the force of the UN Security Council demand. That has played into the hands of Russia and China, who never much wanted sanctions. It has left the US, Britain, and France, who favoured an immediate move to sanctions, frustrated on the sidelines."



Australian PM unapologetic about the need for migrant assimilation: "Mr Howard sparked controversy yesterday by saying on talk-back radio a small group of Muslim migrants had refused to accept their adopted country's values and had not learned English. The Prime Minister said today he had no reason to apologise or water down those remarks. "There's a small section of the Islamic population which is unwilling to integrate," he said. "And I have said, generally, all migrants ... they have to integrate, and that means speaking English as quickly as possible, it means embracing Australian values and it also means making sure that no matter what the culture of the country from which they come might have been, Australia requires women to be treated fairly and equally and in the same fashion as men. "And if any migrants that come into this country have a different view, they better get rid of that view very quickly. "I don't retreat in any way from that."

Sweden no better for the poor: "In the USA the poor get 39% of the US median income and in Finland (and Sweden) the poor get 38% of the US median income. It's not worth quibbling over 1% so let's take it as read that the poor in America have exactly the same standard of living as the poor in Finland (and Sweden). Which is really a rather revealing number don't you think? All those punitive tax rates, all that redistribution, that blessed egalitarianism, the flatter distribution of income, leads to a change in the living standards of the poor of precisely ... nothing."

Albion's wayward children: "There is, to be sure, a very 'special relationship' that exists between England and America. Usually undefined, this relationship is essentially characterized by warm and collaborative ties between the two countries -- in the diplomatic, military, economic and political spheres. But there is also a deep cultural affinity between the two countries -- one that is, too often, left unexamined. Many people only see the linguistic expression of America's cultural bond with Britain -- the fact that we speak the same language. But there are 'fundamental customs and values that form the core of English-speaking cultures' according to a website inspired by The Anglosphere Challenge by James C. Bennett."

FEMA was the biggest disaster in New Orleans: "FEMA's failure was that it employed a command and control approach -- central planning -- as the basis for organizing relief activities. This compounded disaster with disaster, because the great weakness of central planning is its inability to respond quickly and adapt to changes and unforeseen circumstances. No centralized authority, no matter how well-intentioned its employees and well-functioning its internal operations, can overcome this problem. How could any one agency go about coordinating thousands of people with different needs with thousands of people who have supplies that could help them? FEMA's model required both the demands for relief and offers of supply to be communicated first to the agency for approval. Private individuals and local governments that attempted to bring in their own supplies quickly found that FEMA would not allow it."

Wal-Mart and Toddler economics: "Whether we handle WalMart and the attendant issues as intelligent adults, capable of reasoning, or we do so as whining three-year-olds with all the attendant knowledge of incentives, utopian wishes and economic consequences such a three-year-old might possess is, indeed, one of the important questions facing the country. At the heart of Klein's cluster of concerns is an entirely valid, even admirable, concern. He wishes the low paid to be paid more and to have better benefits to go with that higher pay. However, like a three-year-old, he's not quite capable of seeing what the consequences of such a wish would actually be."

Strange silence: "For the national media, higher gas prices at the pump are always deserving of banner headlines and sob stories about how tough it is for families to make ends meet. But reductions in gas prices are invariably a snoozer. So that's why the latest data on gasoline prices falling comfortably below $3.00 a gallon in most markets has been mostly ignored. AAA reported an average price of $2.84 -- which, in the wake of prices as high as $3.29 a gallon at many service stations, is a blessed relief. Lower gas prices act like an economy-wide tax cut"

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, 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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RUMSFELD CALLS OUT THE DEMS

About time!

The US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, has compared Bush Administration critics to those who sought to appease the Nazis before World War II, warning that the US is confronting "a new type of fascism". Mr Rumsfeld, speaking at an American Legion convention in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, delivered some of his most explicit and extended attacks yet on the Administration's critics, provoking an angry response from Democrats who accused him of "campaigning on fear".

By comparing US foreign policy with World War II and the Cold War, Mr Rumsfeld sought to portray sceptics of the Bush foreign policy as being on the wrong side of history. Mr Rumsfeld again ridiculed US officials who, before World War II, wished to negotiate with Adolf Hitler. "I recount that history because, once again, we face similar challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism," he said. "But some seem not to have learned history's lessons. Can we truly afford to believe that, somehow or someway, vicious extremists could be appeased?"

His use of the word "appease" is seen as an attempt to associate critics of the Administration with the failed efforts of the British government to mollify Hitler in the 1930s.... Mr Rumsfeld aggressively defended the war in Iraq and his leadership of it.While he acknowledged the reality of debate in a free society, he attacked the media, saying reports have been manipulated by Iraqi insurgents or al-Qaeda terrorists. He suggested that negative news stories and criticism of the war sap the nation's will to fight in Iraq. "The struggle we are in is too important to have the luxury of returning to the 'blame America first' mentality," Mr Rumsfeld said.

More here. Taranto has more on the speech and the slippery Democrat reaction to it.

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ELSEWHERE

Generation gap: "It turns out that NPR lefty Juan Williams' kid is a conservative. Sweet. He's running for the D.C. city council as a Republican. Where did Juan go wrong? Then again, with Juan's recent attack of common sense on the race issue, maybe the kid's influencing the dad."

Dumb Californians want to make their fuel even dearer: ""As Los Angeles motorist Jill Cantrell removes the pump nozzle from her Honda Civic gas tank, she spouts out two figures: '$56 for a gas tank for me and $78 billion in profits last year for the oil companies,' she says. 'I'm livid.' How many other Californians are angry about gasoline prices -- and ready for their state to take action -- will be clear this November, when voters decide whether to levy a new tax on oil companies that drill in California and use the money for in-state development of alternative fuels."

More UN corruption: "For years the United Nations tried to cover up perverted and outrageous behaviour by uniformed and civilian personnel who have served in East Timor since 1999. But as a new wave of more than 2000 UN-employed police and staff prepare to travel to the capital Dili, Sukehiro Hasegawa, the top UN official in East Timor, has acknowledged for the first time that the UN system failed to bring anybody to justice for crimes that included sexual abuse of children and bestiality. Dr Hasegawa declared that the UN's Integrated Mission in East Timor, which officially became operational on Monday, would enforce a "zero tolerance" policy towards sexual exploitation and abuse committed by uniformed and civilian UN personnel. He said several UN staff would be employed solely to enforce the policy, which will include briefings for all staff at which "they will be made aware of the consequences of any activity they may carry out that could blacken the authority of the United Nations".



Cynics mock stars' African charity: "Madonna feels responsible for the children of the world and has found herself a "big, big project" to help orphans in Malawi. Gwyneth Paltrow declares "I am African" in a new advertisement for a charity working in Africa. The continent has long been a favourite destination for celebrity campaigners, going back to 1954 when Danny Kaye became UNICEF's goodwill ambassador. U2's Bono and fellow Irish rocker Bob Geldof are Africa veterans, and more recently Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have brought Hollywood gloss to the continent. But the latest flood of stars searching for a good cause has prompted a collective groan in the press and among bloggers, as people question their methods and motives. "We are on the verge of farcical at this point," said Michael Wolff, columnist for Vanity Fair, when asked about Africa's popularity among famous performers. "This has become just a part of the public relations play book. Everybody has a PR person and every PR person says 'which country do you want to adopt?'."

Califonia tries to rein in irresponsible judges: "A bill concerning sentencing of dangerous juveniles authored by state Sen. Roy Ashburn, R-Bakersfield, is headed to the governor for a final yea or nay, Ashburn's office announced Thursday. Senate Bill 1626, also known as "Dylan's Law," would discourage judges from giving "slap on the wrist" judgments to teenage rapists and other dangerous young offenders, Ashburn says, by requiring judges to formally explain their decisions when issuing lenient outcomes. Ashburn introduced the law in honor of Dylan Pardo of Bakersfield. Pardo was 14 in 2003 when she was drugged and raped by a 17-year-old who received almost no punishment. The Californian typically does not name victims of sexual assault but Pardo has chosen to talk about her case publicly. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has 30 days to sign the bill, veto it or take no action, in which case it would automatically become law".



Donkey police in South Africa: "Police in South Africa, which has one of the highest rates of violent crime in the world, have been told to ride donkeys or bicycles to crime scenes. The advice, offered by a smiling Charles Nqakula, the country's embattled Minister of Safety and Security, to a passing-out parade for new recruits, drew immediate criticism. Mr Nqakula was responding to complaints that because his force was undermanned and underequipped, officers were often slow to reach the scene of a crime. "If you don't have a car, ride a bicycle or a donkey," Mr Nqakula told the newly qualified officers at the weekend. His remarks came after an upsurge in armed attacks and concern that the country's criminals are better equipped than its police. "This is typical of the complacency of a government which is no longer accountable to any except its own," a spokesperson for the opposition Democratic Alliance said. The South African murder rate is second only to that of Colombia and reported rape cases rank among the highest in the world. Residents are 12 times more likely to be murdered in South Africa than in the United States and 50 times more likely than in Europe"

Arab Prince speaks out: "Arab leaders wasted billions of dollars to fund a war they can never win, a member of Jordan's royal family charges. "Arab leaders stole billions of dollars from the Arab people in order to spend them on weapons to fight Israel, which they can never defeat, instead of using the money for health and education purposes to aid their people," Jordanian Prince Hassan Bin Talal told an international conference in Kyoto, Japan, according to the Israeli Ynet news. Once in line for the Jordanian throne, Prince Hassan spoke to the world conference of the interfaith group "Religions for Peace," attacking Iran's nuclear development program and warning against nuclear armament, especially on Iran's part."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here). Other backups 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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A VISITOR'S REPORT ON CUBA

Two years ago, I was given what quickly became an awful assignment. I was told to visit Cuba. Oh sure, like everybody I thought: dark rum, hot nights, fat cigars, the rumba. The reality was very different. Cuba was wretched. Every day the photographer and I encountered distressing scenes of women, children and ageing Cubans living in terrible poverty....

Elsewhere, we found barefoot children searching through rubbish bins for food. There is a large black population in Cuba - many of them are descendants of sugar-cane cutters - and there were many blacks among the beggars. Women with babies at the breast tugged at our clothes, begging for pennies. In the Western-style bars, beautiful Cuban girls hung off the arms of Western men.

We drove into the countryside and found people living with open sewers and dirt floors, with no food, no coffee, no rum, no pork, no music, none of the things a Cuban needs to thrive. Castro's revolution - free food, free education, free health care for all - was a sad, sorry joke. The classrooms were decrepit, the school books so old as to be useless. Store shelves were empty. It was a police state, too. Nobody would speak ill of Castro (if they did, it was quietly, with a pale, strained face and a furtive glance over the shoulder).

We visited the homes of dissidents and heard that librarians, poets and free-marketeers - good, friendly people - had been taken to prison, some of them sentenced to 20 years or more in a cell no larger than a toilet block, forced to walk around and around in circles, 400km from home in a nation where it's impossible to visit anybody unless you hitch a ride in the back of a creaking, humpbacked truck known as a "camel", made in eastern Europe and liable to break down in the Cuban heat.

It was a terrible shock because, like many people, I'd believed the hype about Cuba: that it was a socialist paradise; that Castro was a visionary leader; that the Cuban people were happy communists. In fact, Castro is a gutless dictator who has never been brave enough to hold a presidential election. Yet across the West he continues to be celebrated as some grand, visionary leader, instead of being derided as a lunatic on his last legs.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

In the last week or so, there has been a lot of media hype about the latest "obesity" study -- which purports to show that fat kills you. In my usual pesky way however, I looked up the original academic journal article. The result is what I think is a pretty good slash and burn of the article concerned -- just up on FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC.

Illegal immigrant driver's license bill is back in California: "Legislation to allow illegal immigrants in California apply for driver's licenses was resurrected Monday in a weakened version that's contingent on federal funding. Senate Bill 1162 by Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, was approved by Democrats in the Assembly on a 42-34 vote, a week after Democrats derailed its precursor, fearing a voter backlash in November. The emotionally charged measure still requires confirmation by the state Senate, which passed an earlier version, SB 1160. It also faces a likely veto by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who vetoed similar legislation last year. Unlike SB 1160, the amended legislation does not require state funding. It would be implemented only after the state receives funding from the federal Real ID Act of 2005, which requires every state to issue licenses that comply with a national standard. The law, passed in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, allows states to provide driving-only licenses to illegal immigrants. But those licenses must have a distinguishing color or mark, a provision that Cedillo -- who has waged an unsuccessful eight-year battle to obtain licenses for illegal immigrants -- once resisted."

Hezbollah lost: "As the scale of the destruction in the Shiite south becomes more clear, the pro-Hezbollah euphoria (much of it created by Western media and beamed back to Lebanon through satellite TV) is evaporating. Reality is beginning to reassert its rights. And that could be good news for Lebanon as a nation. It is unlikely that Hezbollah will ever regain the position it has lost. The Lebanese from all sides of the political spectrum are united in their determination not to allow any armed group to continue acting as a state within the state."

Muslims make Muslims second-class citizens: "I’m with Rushdie and Amis as I read all the sympathetic coverage in the liberal press about the poor, puzzled Muslims who feel that they are being picked on in airports and flights. If the parents of the young men who are attracted to this murderous martyrdom have lost control of their sons, then they must shoulder part of the blame. If the Muslims who choose to live in our society, with all its so-called tempting freedoms, do not protest against those who wish to destroy it, then how can they expect our tolerance? Why are the moderates not, in their hundreds and thousands, standing outside those mosques that are known to preach hatred, shouting “Not in our name” down their megaphones or “One, two, three, four, no more terror anymore”?"

Piggybacking on terror in Britain: "Two days after British authorities broke up an alleged plot to blow up multiple aircraft over the Atlantic Ocean, the "moderate" Muslim establishment in Britain published an aggressive open letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair. It suggested that Mr. Blair could better fight terrorism if he recognized that the current British government policy, especially on "the debacle of Iraq," provides "ammunition to extremists." The letter writers demanded that the prime minister change his foreign policy to "make us all safer." One prominent signatory, the Labour member of Parliament Sadiq Khan, added that Mr. Blair's reluctance to criticize Israel increased the pool of people whom terrorists can recruit. In other words, Islamists working within the system exploited the thwarted Islamist terror plot to pressure the British government to implement their joint wishes and reverse British policy in the Middle East. Lawful Islamists shamelessly leveraged the near death of thousands to forward their agenda.... "

We will MAKE you happy! "A new breed of permanently "cheerful" mouse is providing new hope for treatment of clinical depression, researchers say. The scientists studied a gene called TREK-1, which can affect the flow of a brain chemical called serotonin. This in turn influences mood, sleep and sexuality. By breeding mice without TREK-1, the re-searchers said they created a depression-resistant strain. ... Debonnel's team tested the newly bred mice using "behavioral, electrophysiological and biochemical measures known to gauge `depression' in animals," he said. "The results really surprised us. [They] acted as if they had been treated with antidepressants for at least three week-s." The research represents the first time depression has been eliminated by genetically modifying an organism, he added. "The discovery of a link between TREK-1 and depression could ultimately lead to the development of a new generation of antidepressant drugs."

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