ATTEMPT TO CRIMINALIZE SUSPICION OF MUSLIMS

Kudos to US Airways. Risking fines and a boycott, it did the right thing this week by removing a group of Muslim men from a flight to protect its crew and passengers. By most accounts, the six bearded men were behaving suspiciously at a time when airports were on high alert for sky terror during the holidays. "There were a number of things that gave the flight crew pause," an airline spokesman said. According to witnesses and police reports, the men:

* Made anti-American statements.
* Made a scene of praying and chanting "Allah."
* Asked for seat-belt extensions even though a flight attendant thought they didn't need them.
* Refused requests by the pilot to disembark for more screening.
Also, three of the men had only one-way tickets and no checked baggage.

Police had to forcibly remove the men from the flight, whereupon they were taken into custody. A search found no weapons or explosives, and they were released to continue on their journey.

Within hours, the men enlisted a Muslim-rights group to make a stink in the press, insisting they were merely imams returning home from an Islamic conference in Minneapolis. They say they were "harassed" because of their faith. But were they victims or provocateurs?

All six claim to be Americans, so clearly they were aware of heightened security. Surely they knew that groups of Muslim men flying together while praying to Allah fit the modus operandi of the 9/11 hijackers and would make a pilot nervous. Throw in anti-U.S. remarks and odd demands about seat belts, and they might as well have yelled, "Bomb!"

Yet they chose to make a spectacle. Why? Turns out among those attending their conference was Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, D-Minn., who will be the first Muslim sworn into Congress (with his hand on the Quran). Two days earlier, Ellison, an African-American convert who wants to criminalize Muslim profiling, spoke at a fundraiser for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim-rights group that wasted no time condemning US Airways for "prejudice and ignorance."

CAIR wants congressional hearings to investigate other incidents of "flying while Muslim." Incoming Judiciary Chairman John Con-yers, D-Mich., has already drafted a resolution, borrowing from CAIR rhetoric, that gives Muslims special civil-rights protections.

While it's not immediately clear whether the incident was a stunt to help give the new Democratic majority cover to criminalize airport profiling, it wouldn't be the first time Muslim passengers have tried to prove "Islamophobia" -- or test nerves and security.

More here

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MORE LEFTIST SELF-DELUSION

David Frum is commenting on a review of a book about ancient Roman history:

And then I find this , in a Newsweek review by Tara Pepper:

Bryan Ward-Perkins's "The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization" (256 pages. Oxford University Press) was published in paperback over the summer, and recently won the prestigious Hessell-Tiltman prize for history. In it he casts new light on the end of the Roman Empire, arguing that it was in fact an era of positive cultural transformation rather than decline.

I read Ward-Perkins' book last winter, and it is terrific, really an important new contribution. Well written and powerfully concise. I strongly, strongly recommend it. And it does cast new light on the fall of Rome - more than that, it positively revolutionizes contemporary understanding of the events of the 5th century of the Christian era - by attacking the currently fashionable idea that the fall of Rome "was in fact an era of positive cultural transformation ..." And as a special aid to lazy book reviewers like Pepper, Ward-Perkins even put his main thesis in his title.

Of course, something more than ordinary incompetence is at work here. As Ward-Perkins points out in a very courageous introduction, the idea that decline never happens, that all changes are in fact "positive cultural transformations" holds such a grip on the contemporary liberal mind that even so smashing and universal a catastrophe as the barbarian invasions of Europe gets reinterpreted out of existence. Instead, academics and the journalists who write about them have reinterpreted invasion, the collapse of civil authority, the implosion of Europe's economy, and the destruction of literacy and culture not as "decline," but as evolution toward a more vibrant diversity.

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ELSEWHERE

There is a great video here of a popular female singer who SUPPORTS the troops.

Iran in demographic decline: "Iran's plunging birth rate, I observed in essays past, will burden the country with an elderly population proportionately as large as Western Europe's within a generation, just at the point at which this impoverished country will have ceased to export oil. By 2030, Iranian society will collapse. One does not have to destroy an opponent's military forces to defeat him. Russia collapsed without a single shot fired when Mikhail Gorbachev and his generals understood that they could not compete with Ronald Reagan's United States. The Islamic world also has been defeated, by a globalized economy in which the US dominates the top, and China blocks entry at the bottom. As the most urbane people of Western Asia, the Persians grasped the hopelessness of circumstances quicker than their Arab neighbors. That is why they have ceased to bear children. Iran's population today is concentrated at military age; by mid-century, today's soldiers will be pensioners, and there will be no one to replace them..... In the case of Iran, deracination and cultural despair impel millions of individual women to eschew motherhood. ... Iranians already behave like a defeated people. That is why they are so unstable, and so dangerous. The new Persian Empire masquerading as an Islamic Republic is a wounded beast."

Courts protect illegals instead of sending them home: "A federal judge ruled Monday that a suburban New York village discriminated against Hispanic day laborers when it closed a hiring site and stepped up police patrols on the streets where they looked for work. The ruling against the Village of Mamaroneck could influence the treatment of day laborers elsewhere around the United States, where they have become an increasingly visible part of the immigration debate as they solicit construction and landscaping jobs. The victory is at least the second this year for day laborers in federal court. In May, a federal judge prohibited the city of Redondo Beach, California, from arresting day laborers for violating a local ordinance against soliciting work in public."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (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 selective attention to the facts from the Left

In recent months a spate of atheist books have argued that religion represents, as The End of Faith author Sam Harris puts it "the most potent source of human conflict, past and present". Columnist Robert Kuttner gives the familiar litany: "The Crusades slaughtered millions in the name of Jesus. The Inquisition brought the torture and murder of millions more. After Martin Luther, Christians did bloody battle with other Christians for another three centuries." In his bestseller The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins contends that most of the world's recent conflicts - in the Middle East, in the Balkans, in Northern Ireland, in Kashmir and in Sri Lanka - show the vitality of religion's murderous impulse.

The problem with this critique is that it exaggerates the crimes attributed to religion while ignoring the greater crimes of secular fanaticism. The best example of religious persecution in America is the Salem witch trials. How many people were killed in those trials? Thousands? Hundreds? Actually, fewer than 25. Yet the event still haunts the liberal imagination. It is strange to witness the passion with which some secular figures rail against the misdeeds of the Crusaders and Inquisitors more than 500 years ago. The number sentenced to death by the Spanish Inquisition appears to be about 10,000. Some historians contend that an additional 100,000 died in jail due to malnutrition or illness. These figures are tragic, and of course population levels were much lower at the time. But even so, they are minuscule compared with the death tolls produced by the atheist despotisms of the 20th century.

In the name of creating their version of a religion-free utopia, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong produced the kind of mass slaughter that no Inquisitor could possibly match. Collectively these atheist tyrants murdered more than 100 million.

Moreover, many of the conflicts that are counted as "religious wars" were not fought over religion. They were mainly fought over rival claims to territory and power. Can the wars between England and France be called religious wars because the English were Protestants and the French were Catholics? Hardly. The same is true today. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not, at its core, a religious one. It arises out of a dispute over self-determination and land. Hamas and the extreme Orthodox parties in Israel may advance theological claims - "God gave us this land" and so forth - but the conflict would remain essentially the same even without these religious motives. Ethnic rivalry, not religion, is the source of the tension in Northern Ireland and the Balkans. Yet today's atheists insist on making religion the culprit.

Source

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COULTER ON THE SIX IMAMS

An excerpt:

Six imams removed from a US Airways flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix are calling on Muslims to boycott the airline. If only we could get Muslims to boycott all airlines, we could dispense with airport security altogether.

Witnesses said the imams stood to do their evening prayers in the terminal before boarding, chanting "Allah, Allah, Allah" -- coincidentally, the last words heard by hundreds of airline passengers on 9/11 before they died. Witnesses also said that the imams were talking about Saddam Hussein, and denouncing America and the war in Iraq. About the only scary preflight ritual the imams didn't perform was the signing of last wills and testaments.

After boarding, the imams did not sit together and some asked for seat belt extensions, although none were morbidly obese. Three of the men had one-way tickets and no checked baggage. Also they were Muslims.

The idea that a Muslim boycott against US Airways would hurt the airline proves that Arabs are utterly tone-deaf. This is roughly the equivalent of Cindy Sheehan taking a vow of silence. How can we hope to deal with people with no sense of irony? The next thing you know, New York City cab drivers will be threatening to bathe.

Come to think of it, the whole affair may have been a madcap advertising scheme cooked up by US Airways. It worked with me. US Airways is my official airline now. Northwest, which eventually flew the Allah-spouting Muslims to their destinations, is off my list. You want to really hurt a U.S. air carrier's business? Have Muslims announce that it's their favorite airline.

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ELSEWHERE

Another crazy Muslim: "A Muslim who killed a swan while fasting during Ramadan has been given a two-month prison sentence. Shamsu Miah, 52, killed the mute swan at a boating pond in Llandudno, North Wales, on September 25.When challenged by police he said: "I am a Muslim, I am fasting, I needed to eat." Llandudno magistrates were told that Miah, from the town, had white feathers stuck in his beard and blood on his shirt. Jim Neary, for the prosecution, said: "The officers told him the swan was the property of the Queen and he replied, `I hate the Queen, I hate this country'." Miah, who has no previous convictions, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to intentionally killing a wild bird and possessing a bladed article. He was released from custody, having served two months on remand."

Europe as a BAD example: "Some Americans look to European countries such as France, Germany and its Scandinavian neighbors and suggest that we adopt some of their economic policies. I agree - we should look at Europe for the lessons they can teach us. Dr. Daniel Mitchell, research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, does just that in his paper titled "Fiscal Policy Lessons from Europe." Government spending exceeds 50 percent of the GDP in France and Sweden and more than 45 percent in Germany and Italy, compared to U.S. federal, state and local spending of just under 36 percent. Government spending encourages people to rely on handouts rather than individual initiative, and the higher taxes to finance the handouts reduce incentives to work, save and invest. The European results shouldn't surprise anyone. U.S. per capita output in 2003 was $39,700, almost 40 percent higher than the average of $28,700 for European nations ... We don't have to rely on these statistics to make us not want to be like Europeans; just watch where the foot traffic and money flow. Some 400,000 European science and technology graduates live in the U.S"

Inequality is just: "In a free market, income inequality is the inevitable result of individual productivity inequality, and of course productivity inequality exists due to variations in natural ability, industriousness, education, risk-aversion and dumb luck. The reason income equality has grown rapidly (although hardly "infinitely," as Mr. Webb hyperbolically asserts) is that productivity inequality has grown. And the reason productivity inequality has grown is that with the advance of technology and globalization, the impact of a good idea or exceptional performance can be leveraged dozens of times more than it could be even one generation ago. J. K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, has made more than $200 million for each book she has written. Is that too much? Absolutely not, when one considers the benefits that each book brings to tens of millions of children (and adults) around the globe. But the impact of J.K. Rowling's creativity and hard work, and the income she has earned from it, would have been perhaps orders of magnitude smaller 30 years ago.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (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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CRICKET



Cricket is an immensely important sport in Australia and Australia wins the annual international "Tests" more often than not -- despite Australia having a much smaller population than most other cricketing nations.

Today, Australia is playing England -- always the most-followed matches -- and they are doing so at the "Gabba" in Brisbane -- within earshot of where I am sitting. I have just heard a huge roar from the crowd so I imagine Australia must be doing well.

AMERICA'S COMING BURDEN

"The American people voted for change and they voted for Democrats to take our country in a new direction," said a triumphant Nancy Pelosi upon becoming the new Speaker of the House. This might well turn out to be a case of being careful what you wish for, lest it come true.

Not only is Pelosi herself radical, but many of the powerful Democratic committee chairmen-in-waiting are members in good standing of what veteran bipartisan presidential advisor David Gergen has called the "loony Left."

Much of American commerce that depends on innovative science and technology will likely suffer in the new regime - biotechnology, nanotechnology, and pharmaceutical R&D, to name just a few sectors. Many senior Democratic members of Congress and their staffs are relentlessly anti-science, anti-technology, and anti-business. Worst of all, they're uneducable. They remind me of the reputation of France's King Charles II, about whom it was said that he never learned anything and never forgot anything.

From my days as an official at the FDA during the '80s and early '90s, when the Democrats were in the congressional majority, I recall the incessant, uninformed, and highly politicized meddling by prominent members of Congress. They did incalculable damage to science and technology. And now they're back.

More here

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Brookes News Update

The Clinton recession and Britain's railway boom: What needs to be explained are the forces that create the boom, trigger off the speculation, create excess capacity and finally leave, as John Stuart Mill regretfully put it, so many "to repent at leisure"
Australian economy and the trade deficit: blame the Reserve Bank, not the market: It is the Reserve Bank of Australia that has been fuelling the housing boom, domestic borrowing and the demand for imports
Kevin Rudd's imaginary contradiction: Kevin Rudd has demonstrated that he has no grasp of the extended order, the concept of conserving but evolving institutions that lies at the very heart of free market liberalism. There is no contradiction between conservatism and economic liberalism
Why industrial relations reforms flopped with the public: The recent decision by the Fair Pay Commission to raise the minimum wage by $27 reinforces Senator Nick Minchin's embarrassing admission that the Government had failed to get a mandate from the Australian people for its labour market reform legislation
Are the Democrats already aiming for a boot in the jack-ass?: In a post-election poll 69 percent said they were concerned the Democrats would keep the president from doing what is necessary to combat terrorism, and 78 percent said they feared Democrats would seek too hasty a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq
A blueprint for a Republican victory: If the political spectrum were a football field and the network news anchors were acting as referees, "center" would be defined as the two yard line - in other words, somewhere in Hillary Clinton territory
Abortion stops a bleeding heart: With even liberals backing away from Roe, apparently the last group of people on Earth to realize the Supreme Court's abortion jurisprudence is a catastrophe is going to be the Supreme Court

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ELSEWHERE

Nutty British "security": "It's a Boy's Own gift that will be stuffed into thousands of Christmas stockings, but a retired brigadier has discovered that the credit card-sized toolkit - complete with 5cm (2in) blade, compass, tweezers and toothpick - could put the recipients on the wrong side of the law. Tom Foulkes, 56, who spent 35 years working for the Ministry of Defence developing real weapons, was arrested, locked up and had his fingerprints and DNA sample taken after the kit was discovered in his overnight bag by police. The former Royal Engineer was preparing to board a Paris-bound train at Waterloo when an X-ray machine alarm was triggered by the toolkit. He was hauled from the station, placed in a cage in a van and taken to a police station for questioning. Four hours later he was released and cautioned"

Britain: What about the human rights of the general public? "A man who has been barred from every pub in his village after behaving aggressively towards staff at his local is being backed by a leading civil liberties group. Liberty is contending that the ban infringes the man's human rights."

Primitive Saudis: "A Saudi mother has issued an appeal from prison for King Abdullah to reunite her with her husband after a court divorced the couple against their will. Fatima al-Timani was jailed in July with her two children, a girl of 2 called Nuha and a boy, Sulaiman, who has just turned 1. The court has said that she could be freed if she returns to her estranged family, who engineered the annulment of her marriage last year because they despised her husband, Mansour. But Ms al-Timani, 34, insisted: "I'm leaving this place on one condition only - that I go back to my husband." ... The case has riveted the usually reserved Saudi media, which have been sympathetic to the couple who wed for love more than four years ago in a country where most marriages are arranged. The couple had been married for more than three years and already had Nuha when two of Fatima's half-brothers demanded that they divorce on the grounds of "tribal incompatibility" and took the case to court."

Good news for bloggers: "The California Supreme Court held today that "plaintiffs who contend they were defamed in an Internet posting may only seek recovery from the original source of the statement." In other words, Web publishers currently have absolute immunity for the republication of allegedly defamatory statements originally made by others. The implications of this ruling are significant, and are, in my view, a net positive for free speech in this country."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (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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Politicians Pursue Power, Not Truth or Understanding

Comment by economist Don Boudreaux:

Arnold Kling points out that Jim Webb's op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal lacks any real suggestions for how to solve the problem that Webb allegedly believes now haunts America. If this lack of specifics means a lack of action by government, I'd be pleased. But I suspect that there are lots of harmful interventions on the horizon. Greg Mankiw quite wisely notes that many of the favored policies now promoted by the American left -- raising the minimum-wage, protectionism, labor cartelization, and Wal-Mart bashing -- are poor policy tools to address the problems the left frets over. Here's a letter that I sent today to the Wall Street Journal in response to Webb's huffing and puffing:

Jim Webb's fear-mongering essay about income inequality obviously is meant to justify higher taxes on "the rich," boondoggle programs for "working Americans," and protectionism for special-interest groups posing as victims of nefarious foreign merchants ("American Workers Have a Chance to Be Heard," Nov. 15). And like all such efforts, Webb's is a series of illogical arguments and half-truths.

For example, he says that "manufacturing jobs are disappearing." True. Contrary to his suggestion, though, this fact is unrelated to recent trends in globalization, corporate governance, or tax policy. Manufacturing jobs as a percentage of the U.S. work force peaked in 1945 and have declined steadily ever since - even though manufacturing output continues to rise. Today this output is at an all-time high.

I understand that politicians pursue power rather than truth. Still, it's galling to read such concentrated deceitfulness.

Source

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ELSEWHERE

A nice summary of Leftist hate from a Leftist: "What Democrats need to do is spend the next two years crushing their opponents like bugs."

Colonialism was beneficial: "James Feyrer and Bruce Sacerdote, both of Dartmouth College, consider the effect of a particular aspect of history-the length of European colonization-on the current standard of living of a group of 80 tiny, isolated islands that have not previously been used in cross-country comparisons. Their question: Are the islands that experienced European colonization for a longer period of time richer today? ... Feyrer and Sacedote's key findings are that the longer one of the islands spent as a colony, the higher its present-day living standards and the lower its infant mortality rate. Each additional century of European colonization is associated with a 40 percent boost in income today and a reduction in infant mortality of 2.6 deaths per 1,000 births."

Strange silence about the voting-machine "conspiracy": "Like claims the U.S. was responsible for 9/11 and Republicans were fixing gas prices, the media promoted the left-wing electronic vote-rigging conspiracy. Now that the votes have been cast and counted, Republicans lost, and the silence of the national media has been deafening. The idea was that somehow the company Diebold had programmed the machines to let Republicans win. The theory, perpetuated by left-wingers posting on Daily Kos and The Huffington Post and Bev Harris' book, "Black Box Voting," was embraced by all three broadcast networks, as well as CNN and MSNBC. Following Sen. John Kerry's (D-Mass.) defeat in 2004, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann ignored statements by the candidate's own Ohio attorney about the lack of evidence of "confirmed fraud." Instead, Olbermann ranted for days about fraud causing the Kerry defeat during his show "Countdown with Keith Olbermann."

Globalization fosters peace: "Critics of globalization forget that free trade fosters prosperity and know almost nothing about its most important benefit-its tendency to prevent war. Quantitative studies have shown that trade fosters peace both directly, by reducing the risk of military conflict, and indirectly, by promoting prosperity and democracy."

Democrat myths about the army: "Rep. Charlie Rangel wants to reimpose the draft, partly "as a means of spreading military obligations more equitably," according to the Wash Post. Do you think he means that the poorest Americans should start pulling their weight? This report from the Heritage Foundation recently crossed my desk: Our review of Pentagon enlistee data shows that the only group that is lowering its participation in the military is the poor. The percentage of recruits from the poorest American neighborhoods (with one-fifth of the U.S. population) declined from 18 percent in 1999 to 14.6 percent in 2003, 14.1 percent in 2004, and 13.7 percent in 2005.



Death for scum: "A general has affirmed the death sentence for a US Army sergeant convicted of murdering two fellow soldiers in a grenade attack in Kuwait at the outset of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the army said today. Sergeant Hasan Akbar, 35, is the first US soldier to face the death penalty for killing another soldier since the end of the Vietnam War. Lieutenant General John Vines, commander of the 18th Airborne Corps, acted on Friday to affirm the death sentence against Akbar, which was handed down on April 28, 2005, after the unanimous vote of a military court, the army said. "The case now goes to the Army Court of Criminal Appeals under an automatic appeal," it said. Akbar rolled grenades into three tents at Camp Pennsylvania in the northern Kuwait desert on March 22, 2003 as soldiers slept. The attack, on the night before the unit was to have crossed into Iraq, killed Captain Christopher Seifert, 27, and Air Force Major Gregory Stone, 40, and wounded 14 other soldiers. Defence attorneys argued that Akbar, a Muslim convert, was mentally ill at the time of the attack."

Muslim Britain: "Rival groups of Muslim inmates have created a potentially explosive situation over the interpretation of the Koran in Britain's biggest jail, prison watchdogs said yesterday. Deep divisions among Muslims in Wandsworth jail developed after the appointment of an imam with particular views of the Koran's teachings. Some Muslim inmates at the jail in southwest London are also pressurising fellow Muslim prisoners to adopt more militant beliefs and lifestyle. The disclosures will fuel fears that attempts are being made to radicalise young Muslims held in jails in England and Wales."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (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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SOME IN THE MEDIA SEEM FREAKED BY WHAT THEY HAVE DONE

Like the sorcerer's apprentice, some in the media are desperately trying to control the destruction wrought by the product of their labors. The 527 Media - those politically-activist media who present campaign ads as news -- worked long and hard to convince the nation that the Democrats weren't wild-eyed liberals. The Democratic congressional candidates including their leaders were, according to the media script, trustworthy moderates. But the Dems have read too much into the election results and while they've hit the ground running, their media pals are icing their path hoping to slow them down (and in the case of Jack Murtha, stumble)....

How much the media are owed - really, how much they can control the Dems - is being measured this week on Jack Murtha and his stance on Iraq.... The Washington Post, having achieved the defeats of George Allen and Michael Steele, endorsed on Tuesday long-time Maryland Cong. Steny Hoyer for the majority leader's post. In its endorsement, it voiced opinions about Hoyer's opponent, Jack Murtha, that were startling for their vehemence: "Mr. Murtha's candidacy is troubling for several reasons, beginning with his position on the war in Iraq...his descriptions of the stakes there have been completely unrealistic, and his solutions irresponsible." The Post's editorial comes soon after Sen. Carl Levin, incoming Armed Services Committee Chairman, said that Democrats wanted to pressure the White House into beginning to withdraw American troops in four to six months. The Post condemnation of Murtha is a sign of media panic. They know that if the Democrats unite around the Murtha policy of cutting and running, they may damage themselves significantly for the 2008 presidential race.

More here

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EUROBUNGLING

Like some overblown African dictatorship, the EU keeps confusing grandiose ego projects with sensible expenditures on defense; as a result of which Europe and Britain look increasingly vulnerable and defenseless. On the day after Milton Friedman's passing it is a reminder of the bizarre and self-destructive nature of politicized decision-making-- because that's the trouble, of course: Everything in the EU is political, and all large military projects are pork-barreled to ensure that enough bacon fat goes to France, Italy, Germany and Britain itself. It works about as well as nationalized health care.

Britain's MOD spent almost twice as much money for a German anti-artillery radar than a US version would have cost. More than five hundred million dollars were wasted on a failed effort to produce European anti-tank missiles, which then had to be purchased from the US anyway. An armored vehicle had to be dumped after spending about 75 million dollars because it was too big to go into Hercules transport planes.

The Defense Ministry has ordered 232 Eurofighters at more than 90 million dollars each for "an acknowledged Cold War relic." The Eurofighter can't perform ground support or other bombing missions, but the terrorists don't have fighter jets to knock out.

To top it all off, Europe has embarked an a completely unnecessary doubling of the US GPS system for navigation; since the GPS system is free to users all over the world, it's like building a second world-wide web

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Iraqis fighting terrorists: "While the world’s attention has been focused on Baghdad’s slide into sectarian warfare, something remarkable has been happening in Ramadi, a city of 400,000 inhabitants that al-Qaeda and its Iraqi allies have controlled since mid-2004 and would like to make the capital of their cherished Islamic caliphate. A power struggle has erupted: al-Qaeda’s reign of terror is being challenged. Sheikh Sittar and many of his fellow tribal leaders have cast their lot with the once-reviled US military. They are persuading hundreds of their followers to sign up for the previously defunct Iraqi police. American troops are moving into a city that was, until recently, a virtual no-go area. A battle is raging for the allegiance of Ramadi’s battered and terrified citizens and the outcome could have far-reaching consequences. Ramadi has been the insurgency’s stronghold for the past two years. It is the conduit for weapons and foreign fighters arriving from Syria and Saudi Arabia. To reclaim it would deal a severe blow to the insurgency throughout the Sunni triangle and counter mounting criticism of the war back in America.

Hewitt on judges: "Today, soon-to-be Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told the Federalist Society that if "Democrats want our cooperation, they'll give the president's judicial nominees an up-or-down vote." The AP account terms this a "veiled threat," even though there is no "veil' in McConnell's statement. The forthright priority he is giving the repair of Constitutional process in the nomination and consideration of federal judicial nominations is in fact consistent with his much longer discussion of the importance of the judicial nominations' issue with me from Wednesday's program, and very similar to the opinions aired by Senator Coburn -a Judiciary Committee member-- on yesterday's broadcast from D.C., opinions widely shared by most Republican senators and most center-right activists and originalists."

Nicaragua plans big dig to rival Panama Canal: "The southern part of Ometepe Island is barely touched by modernity. On the single dirt road that flanks Lake Nicaragua, pigs are left undisturbed to cool off in puddles. But if planners in the nation's capital, Managua, have their way, people here will bear witness to the day's most advanced technology, with boats the length of five soccer fields plodding from the Atlantic to the Pacific, passing Ometepe along the way. Amid news that the Panama Canal will be expanded to accommodate the growing size and number of ships traversing the globe, Nicaragua has announced its own plan for an interoceanic canal, which planners say would be the world's largest."

In defense of "Borat": "Critics say 'Borat' is anti-American. In fact, the U.S. government could not begin to match Borat's contribution to the image of the United States abroad if it increased the budget of the under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs by a factor of 10. The most important thing the movie has done for America is to show that it is a society capable of laughing at itself."

Chris Brand has just done a new lot of posts on his usual themes of race, IQ and political correctness -- with particular emphasis on the British scene.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (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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TWO KINDS OF STEREOTYPING

Now and then people will characterize groups in various ways. Some of this is clearly prejudice-as when one ascribes to blacks, whites, women, those from Poland, or Latin Americans certain moral attributes which some of those from these groups may exhibit but which are certainly not innate to all members of the group. Thinking that all Mexicans are lazy or that Germans are by nature methodical or, again, that Americans are phlegmatic would be such prejudice. These are traits of individuals and while some in these groups may have them, many clearly do not. One needs to see if the ascription is justified instead of making it just because someone is a member of the group. One is, to put it somewhat differently, not morally good or bad because one is born black or Australian or Chinese. One is good or bad as a result of one's own judgments and actions.

But sometimes it makes good sense to ascribe traits to people in light of their membership in certain groups. This is so when they belong to the group as a matter of their own choice. If someone, as an adult, joins the Mafia or the Nazi Party, or becomes a Roman Catholic or a Muslim, and if it turns out that such membership amounts, in part, to agreeing to think and act in certain ways, then it makes perfectly good sense to expect members to favor the thinking and acting that goes with membership in these groups. And if such thinking and acting turns out to be morally or politically objectionable, holding such members responsible for what they have freely agreed to accept in terms of thinking and acting is justified.

Even if one is born into a religion or political party-as most of us are-we aren't forced to remain members in near-free countries but in time freely accept our membership, even if only by acquiescence. If my parents are Nazis or members of the Ku Klux Klan and they inculcate their vile ideology in me, if after I reach the age of reason I remain a member, this can certainly be held against me.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Today's postings on AUSTRALIAN POLITICS should be of considerable interest to most readers of this blog -- with reports of both Leftist and Musim mayhem.

Europe summarized "In an article in the German daily WELT Jeffrey Gedmin, Director at the Aspen Institute Berlin, writes: " (...) When some Europeans say they like Americans, they tend to mean those Americans who seem most like European Social Democrats, and even then they airbrush out inconvenient details like the fact that Bill Clinton favoured the death penalty, that Hillary voted for the Iraq war, or that John F. Kennedy, that suave and promiscuous East coast liberal was also a staunch anti-communist, who frequently quoted from the bible. George W. Bush is the full package of everything that makes Europe squirm. He is anti-elitism. He's religion. He's morality and muscle. He's patriotism and self-confidence. He is very un-European."

New York oil price slumps: "The price of crude oil in New York sank overnight beneath $US55 per barrel, striking a level last seen in June 2005 amid concerns over the full implementation of a recent cut in OPEC oil output. New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in December, plunged $US54.86 per barrel in electronic trade. That marked the lowest point since June 14, 2005 before Hurricane Katrina had devastated US Gulf Coast energy facilities and sent crude futures to then-record levels. The contract later stood at $US55.50 in pit trading, marking a fall of 76 cents."

Calls for Israel to control Gaza borders: "A member of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's cabinet called on Saturday for Israel to recapture a part of Gaza evacuated a year ago and dismissed moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as "irrelevant." Avigdor Lieberman, an Israeli rightist recently named minister of strategic affairs, told Israel Radio "we have to take back control of the Rafah crossing and the Philadelphi corridor", zones along the Gaza border with Egypt. Israel accuses the Palestinians of smuggling in tonnes of ammunition across from Egypt, and blames this for a recent spate of rocket fire at southern Israeli towns that killed an Israeli woman on Wednesday and seriously wounded a guard. Gunmen have stepped up rocket fire at Israel after the deaths of 19 civilians in a Nov. 8 Israeli artillery shelling on the town of Beit Hanoun. Israel apologised but said it was in response to Gaza rocket fire."

Burqa ban splits Holland: "The Dutch government's decision to ban the burqa in public places on security grounds has not only outraged Muslim groups but also prompted accusations of political opportunism from opposition figures. The move to outlaw "face-covering clothing - including the burqa" was announced last Friday by Rita Verdonk, the hardline immigration minister, five days before a general election. She said it was in the interests of "public order" and the "protection of citizens".

New Trident to go ahead: "The [British] government will signal within the next two to three weeks that it wants to continue with the submarine-based Trident missile system as the UK's nuclear deterrent, according to Whitehall sources, writes Michael Smith. Tony Blair has promised MPs a full debate on the issue and reportedly told a cabinet meeting last week that he wants the debate to begin quickly "because a decision needs to be made". The government has promised to launch the debate with a white paper outlining options, but defence sources said the key decisions have in effect "been made".

Can they do it? "The midterm elections that ended GOP control of both House and Senate turned on two overriding themes: the war in Iraq and corruption in Congress. Now, beginning with leadership elections this week, both parties are out to show voters they got the message. For Democrats, united in a keen desire not to slip back into the minority in 2008, a first step is the promise of a new style of leadership on Capitol Hill: open, bipartisan, and above reproach -- and an agenda anchored in the needs of the average American family. 'Voters rejected the Bush agenda, but they haven't yet embraced us,' said Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, who was elevated Tuesday to No. 3 in the Democratic leadership after chairing the party's senatorial campaign committee to a victory few of his colleagues believed would happen. 'What we have here could vanish if we don't do the job.'"

MA: Imams arrested in alleged visa scheme: "Federal immigration agents arrested imams from two Boston-area mosques yesterday on charges they were involved in a scheme that provided religious worker visas to immigrants who used them to enter the United States and work instead as gas station attendants, truck drivers, and factory laborers. Hafiz Abdul Hannan, imam, or leader, of the Islamic Society of Greater Lowell in Chelmsford, and Muhammed Masood, imam of the Islamic Center of New England in Sharon, were among 33 people taken into custody nationwide after a multi-year investigation led by agents in Boston and New York, said Paula Grenier, a spokeswoman for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (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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DOES THIS REMIND YOU OF ANYBODY?

The paranoid person always takes himself seriously. It is rarely the case that such a person presents to a psychiatrist seeking help or complaining about their psychological projections, no matter how bizarre or out of touch with reality they may be. Because for the paranoid individual, his paranoia and the accompanying projections explain so much about his life and situation.

* Is he poor? Someone must have robbed him of what he is entitled to!
* Is he angry and feel hatred? Then the object of his hatred magically becomes the one who hates...him!
* Is his genius not recognized? He must have powerful enemies that prevent him from achieving the success he knows should be his.
* Has he made mistakes in his life? Someone has tricked him into acting a certain way.

The above mental gymnastics allow the paranoid person to external blame and avoid responsibility for his situation in life, as well as his own feelings. It is always someone else's fault and not his. It is always someone else who has the objectional feelings, and he is always the victim of it.

In addition to externalizing blame for one's own pitiful situation in life, there is yet another advantage to paranoia and projection: often, a creative distortion of reality can reliably pump up one's own self-esteem. You are righteous, persecuting the true racists and you, yourself, are incapable of any racist thoughts or emotions. Sometimes, it pumps it that self-esteem up at the expense of a great deal of fear; but nevertheless, it is comforting to know that someone appreciates your genius or the threat you represent. Clearly if the CIA, FBI, aliens, Jews , POTUS, Republicans [fill in your favorite bogeyman here] are out to get you, you must be special and unique.

In short, paranoia and its little brother projection organize and distort reality in a way that makes it palatable; and, at the same time help the user to avoid recognizing some unpleasant truths about himself.

Psychological projection, which is often not as bizarre as full-blown paranoia, is a particularly good way of doing this, because by projecting one's own feelings onto someone else, you can make yourself appear particularly virtuous.

More here

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Indian alliance firms up

The US Senate has overwhelmingly approved Washington's nuclear deal with New Delhi, just hours after a telephone conversation between President George W.Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Under the agreement, India, a non-signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, will be allowed access to long-denied civilian nuclear technology in return for placing its atomic reactors under global safeguards. Yesterday's go-ahead for the deal seals India's historic shift towards closer ties with the West.

US Senate support for legislation implementing civilian nuclear energy co-operation between the two countries had been stalled, and New Delhi feared the deal could collapse following the Democrats' congressional election victories. But with Mr Bush backing the legislation -- which he affirmed when he spoke to Dr Singh -- it passed the Senate by a majority of 85-12 after a debate lasting 11 hours. The delight among Indian officials yesterday appeared almost boundless.

"This is great news indeed," one senior official said. "We've had some very, very anxious moments on this over the past few months, and after last week's results in the US we were worried. But the result now could not be better. This is a great day for India and for the US."

The deal with Washington represents much more than civilian nuclear energy co-operation. It is emblematic of the shift by India, the biggest and most powerful country in South Asia, towards alliance with the West, after decades of putative non-alignment by New Delhi. This is a giant step for India, and a bold move by the Congress-led coalition Government of Dr Singh, who has had to face down domestic critics from powerful left-wing parties to conclude the deal with Washington.

More here

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ELSEWHERE



Iranian fanatic funds British university: "Durham university is in the process of opening a new centre for Shii Studies with financial support from Mesbah Yazdi. An Ayotllah whose statement "If anyone insults the Islamic sanctities, Islam has permitted for his blood to be spilled, no court needed either" made headline news in Iran, is funding a British university!"

Israelis shoot back: "Israeli troops killed a Palestinian man and wounded 30 others when they opened fire during an arrest raid in the West Bank town of Qalqilya overnight, residents and the army said. Local hospital staff said the dead man was aged 18. Several people who threw firebombs and stones during clashes with troops were in critical condition. Local residents said the soldiers were attempting to arrest a militant from the governing Islamist group Hamas. An Israeli army spokesman said troops had fired at a group of some 200 protesters who hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails at troops in the central West Bank town. He declined to give details of the raid but said live ammunition had been fired at the troops. Israeli forces often enter Palestinian towns and villages in the occupied West Bank to arrest militants."

U.S. prices FALL: "Dresses and trousers are already on sale in department stores. And gasoline prices, after their recent spike, are back down to where they were about a year ago. Falling prices on many goods are reining in the nation's inflation rate. Thursday, in an economic report that cheered just about everyone, the government reported that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in October fell 0.5 percent. Even taking out volatile energy and food prices, inflation barely registered, rising only 0.1 percent.... The inflation numbers are also improving on a year-over-year basis. Compared with last October, prices are up 2.7 percent, a rate that is still higher than the Fed would like to see but a decline from prior months. "The numbers are [going] in the right direction," says Professor Owen. The improvement in the CPI follows a similar report on Tuesday for the Producer Price Index, a measure of inflation for businesses, which fell 1.6 percent. Taking out food and energy, prices dropped 0.9 percent."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (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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IN MEMORIAM: MILTON FRIEDMAN

Milton Friedman, one of the most influential economists of the past century and winner of a 1976 Nobel Prize, died today of heart failure at a San Francisco-area hospital, aged 94. Friedman preached free enterprise in the face of government regulation and advocated monetary policy that called for steady growth in money supply. How his ideas were implemented by governments and central banks and how Friedman helped popularise them made him perhaps the world's best-known economist, Gary Becker, who won the 1992 Nobel Prize for economics, said today. "If you had to ask people across the world to name an economist, by far his name would be the most common,'' Becker said. "He could express the most complicated economic ideas in the most simple language.''

Brooklyn-born Friedman's ideas played a pivotal role in informing the governing philosophies of world leaders like former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and former US President Ronald Reagan. "Milton Friedman revived the economics of liberty, when it had been all but forgotten. He was an intellectual freedom fighter. Never was there a less dismal practitioner of 'the dismal science' (economics),'' Thatcher said in a statement.

"I am deeply saddened at the passing of Milton Friedman,'' former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said. "He had been a fixture in my life both professionally and personally for a half century. My world will not be the same.'' St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President William Poole, another noted monetarist, said much of modern central bank thinking stemmed from Friedman's work. Poole said Friedman's most important contribution was to bring theoretical economic thinking to bear on a range of public policy issues.

Friedman's ideas on public policy were seized by Reagan, who shared Friedman's interest in low taxes and less regulation, said Martin Anderson, a Hoover Institution fellow and former domestic and economic policy adviser to Reagan. "You look at what Reagan did, it was what Milton had been advocating for a long time,'' Anderson said. "What Milton did was to confirm what he (Reagan) thought and make it more confident, and that became 'Reaganomics.'''

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who recruited Friedman as an adviser after becoming governor, said in a statement, "`When I was first exposed to his powerful writings about money, free markets and individual freedom, it was like getting hit by a thunderbolt. "I wound up giving copies of his books and 'Free to Choose' videos to hundreds of my friends and acquaintances.''

More here

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ELSEWHERE

More government waste: "Hundreds of modular homes purchased by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for people left homeless by hurricanes Katrina and Rita were damaged beyond repair while in storage because they were not properly protected, according to a government report. Units worth a total ranging from $3 million to $4 million will have to be written off, Homeland Security Inspector General Richard L. Skinner writes in a report to FEMA Director R. David Paulison. Most of the homes were at an Army depot in Texarkana, Texas, where intense heat and rain had destroyed tarps covering the units. Cardboard containers holding toilets and fittings had deteriorated in the weather and caused the frames and wood of some components to warp, Skinner wrote".

AZ: Maverick dairyman fights lobbyists, lawmakers: "Long before he discovered a way to sell milk for far less than his competitors, before he enraged the multibillon-dollar dairy industry so much that Congress passed a law to stop him, Hein Hettinga clipped cow hooves for a living. It was menial work. But it put him on a career path that, in time, would lead him to found Yuma-based Sarah Farms, one of the largest and most innovative private dairy operations in the country. Now, 12 years after building his dairy business into a proverbial cash cow, Hettinga finds himself waging war against big-dairy lobbyists, high-profile lawmakers and the federal government."

Woman kicked off flight for breast-feeding baby: "A woman has complained that she was kicked off an airplane about to leave Burlington airport because she was breast-feeding her baby. A complaint against two airlines was filed with the Vermont Human Rights Commission, although Executive Director Robert Appel said he was barred by state law from confirming the complaint. He did say state law allows a mother to breast-feed in public. Elizabeth Boepple, a lawyer hired by 27-year-old mother Emily Gillette, confirmed that Gillette filed the complaint late last week against Delta Air Lines and Freedom Airlines. Freedom was operating the Delta commuter flight between Burlington and New York City. A Freedom spokesman said Gillette was asked to leave the flight after she declined a flight attendant's offer of a blanket."

Pathetic Canadian public broadcaster: The CBC’s television news coverage of the United States is consistently marked by emotional criticism, rather than a rational consideration of US policy based on Canadian national interests, according to The Canadian "Garrison Mentality" and Anti-Americanism at the CBC released today by The Fraser Institute. This anti-American bias at the CBC is the consequence of a “garrison mentality” that has systematically informed the broadcaster’s coverage of the US. Garrison mentality was a term coined by Canadian literary critic, Northrop Frye. He used it to describe a uniquely Canadian tendency reflected in our early literature, a tendency, as he put it, to “huddle together, stiffening our meager cultural defenses and projecting all our hostilities outward.” “The anti-Americanism of the CBC, we argue, is a faithful reflection of the garrison mentality evoked by Frye,” said Professor Barry Cooper, co-author of the paper ... In total there were 2,383 statements inside the 225 stories that referred to America or the United States on CBC in 2002. As with most news coverage, the largest number of statements was neutral; they constituted 49.1 percent of the attention. Thirty-four percent of the attention to America or the United States was negative, over double the 15.4 percent positive descriptors. Only 1.6 percent of the statements were considered ambiguous.

No cut and run? "The election of Rep. Steny Hoyer, a Democrat of Maryland, as House majority leader staves off, at least for the moment, the threat of a Democratic Congress cutting funding for the war in Iraq. Mr. Hoyer, who has signed three leadership letters to President Bush calling for a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq, beat out Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, who wants to set a date for an American exit and send the troops elsewhere in the Middle East. Last night, both the Democrats and the founder of the Democratic Leadership Council, Al From, said the Appropriations Committee would not cut funding for American forces, as the party did in 1974 to help end the Vietnam War.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (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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'Blue Dog' Democrats Seek Larger Role

For a dozen years, the Democratic conservatives known as Blue Dogs have been baying at the moon, ignored by Republicans and tolerated by their more liberal Democratic colleagues. Now, these House lawmakers say that is about to change.

Republicans "did not lose their seats to liberal Democrats" in last weeks elections, said Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark. "Republicans lost their seats to Blue Dog Democrats." "We'll have a lot to say about what passes and what doesn't" when the 110th Congress convenes in January with Democrats in control for the first time in 12 years, said Ross, new communications director for the caucus.

With the addition of nine newly elected freshmen, the Blue Dogs claim 44 members, nearly 20 percent of the incoming Democratic majority. They will be led by Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Fla., and include Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., in line to become the next Agriculture Committee chairman.

The Blue Dogs were formed in 1994 after Republicans swept the long-entrenched Democrats from power. They tend to be social conservatives on such issues as abortion. But their big issue is fiscal discipline - balancing the budget and reducing the federal debt.

More here

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Brookes News Update

Democrats, taxes and the US economy : Now that the Democrats have won both houses I think we can count on the leftwing Media Party to start reporting on the Bush boom as soon as it figures out a way to credit the Dems for the economic recovery and full employment
Storm clouds gather over the Australian economy as the money supply increases: Australia has been running a reckless monetary policy for about 10 years. From March 1996, when Howard once his first election, to August this year bank deposits rose by 133 per cent and M1 by 105 per cent. Since October last year bank deposits rose by 9 per cent and M1 by 8 per cent. Monetary figures like these can only bring grief
Boris, Bill and Monica: trouble ahead for Hillary?: Did the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service use Bill Clintons affair with Monica Lewinsky to extort from him billions of dollars from American taxpayers to save the Russian economy from financial collapse? If so, will this destroy Hillarys presidential ambitions?
Rupert Murdoch just doesnt get the message: Murdoch, the man who complained about the emergence of neo-socialism, is cosying up to Hillary Clinton a politician that embodies those things he affects to despise
Why the Democrats accept lies : The Modern Liberal marches down the streets of San Francisco cheering on Hezbollah not because theyre rationally, morally and intellectually thought through the terrorist groups motives and actions but simply because it is an opportunity to attack the Jews
Christian socialism v economic reality: Christian socialists are just as ignorant as other secular socialists when it comes to the market place and capitalism. To read this lot you would think the world was on the verge of destruction and that the exploited masses are clothed in rags
Malcolm Fraser's ignorance and the Soviet collapse: Malcolm Fraser has become a ridiculous figure, strutting about the public arena, parading intellectual pretensions that he sadly mistakes for serious thought, becoming the despair of thoughtful and informed opinion, the but of jokes of the malicious and a source of propaganda for the ignorant and self-serving

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ELSEWHERE

Doug Ross has a very good fisking of the lunatic Democrat strategy for "Energy independence"

Islamic fruitcake works in British immigration office: "A senior member of the Islamist group Hizb ut- Tahrir is working as a computer technician at the Home Office, despite calls by Tony Blair for the group to be banned. The activist, named as Abid Javaid, is said to be an official at the Immigration and Nationality Directorate in Croydon, one of the department's most sensitive branches. Shortly after the July 7 bombing attacks, the Prime Minister included the group in a list of those he planned to proscribe, but it has not been among those banned. An investigation by the BBC Two programme Newsnight also claimed that the group preached hatred to young men using staged videos of persecution of Muslims. Newsnight said that Hizb ut-Tahrir targeted disaffected youngsters, particularly the unemployed and members of gangs in South London, and encouraged them to attack non-believers - a claim denied by the group's spokesman, Abdul Wahid, on the programme... The Home Office refused to confirm whether Mr Javaid worked at the Immigration and Nationality Directorate but added: "All Home Office civil servants are expected to abide by Home Office rules governing their conduct and are subject to the Civil Service Code."

Arafat's stolen billions: "Two years after Arafat's funeral, an international scavenger hunt continues for the revolutionary leader's far-flung riches. A motley assortment of investigators ranging from Israel's security establishment to the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which now rules in Ramallah, maintain an ongoing interest in every lost stash. "The only man who knows the whole story is dead," says a senior Israeli military intelligence official who agreed to answer questions on condition of anonymity. "But the deeper you go into it, the more it stinks."

Al Qaeda "nothing to do" with Iraq? "Al Qaeda recently issued a statement that it has 12,000 fighters in Iraq. If we were not accomplishing important strategic goals there, why would al Qaeda be deploying so much of its resources to Iraq? It would be nice to know everything, like the folks at the Times, Seymour Hersh, Bill Maher, Michael Moore and the long list of left-biased journalists and academics. Unfortunately, they are unschooled bufoons with respect to this question, and their views are, well, dumb."

Nuke attack on Britain: "British intelligence officials believe that al-Qaida is determined to attack the UK with a nuclear weapon, it emerged yesterday. The announcement, from an officially organised Foreign Office counter-terrorism briefing for the media, was the latest in a series of bleak assessments by senior officials and ministers about the terrorist threat facing Britain. UK officials have detected "an awful lot of chatter" on jihadi websites expressing the desire to acquire chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons. Asked whether there was any doubt that al-Qaida was trying to gain the technology to attack the west, including the UK, with a nuclear weapon, a senior Foreign Office counter-terrorism official said: "No doubt at all."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (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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THE LYING JIMMY CARTER -- and his crosseyed hatred of Israel

Excerpt from a review of Carter's latest book

But it is when he gets to the 2003 Road Map that Carter is at his most egregious. Carter states the Palestinians "accepted the road map in its entirety" (page 159), that Palestinian leaders had "accepted all provisions of the Quartet's Roadmap for Peace" (page 173), that there was "no doubt" Abbas was "dedicated" to a "peace agreement in accordance with the Roadmap" (page 173), and that Abbas "has publicly endorsed [the Road Map] without equivocation" (page 187). He attributes the failure of the Road Map to Israeli "caveats." Surely Carter is aware that the Palestinians had, under Phase I of the Road Map, an immediate obligation-not contingent on any Israeli action-to begin

"sustained, targeted, and effective operations aimed at confronting all those engaged in terror and dismantlement of terrorist capabilities and infrastructure."

And surely Carter is aware that Abbas bragged to the Palestinian Legislative Council on September 6, 2003 that he had in fact refused to carry out that obligation, and had repeatedly ignored American and Israeli entreaties to meet the Palestinian obligation he had accepted "without reservation." Abbas' speech can easily be retrieved using Google, but it is nowhere mentioned in Carter's book.

And finally, Carter is obviously aware that in August 2005, notwithstanding the Palestinian failure, Israel exceeded its own Phase I obligations-which required only that Israel "dismantle settlement outposts erected since March 2001" and freeze settlement activity-by uprooting all 21 of its longstanding settlements in Gaza (and four more in the West Bank) in their entirety, in order to give the Palestinians a chance to demonstrate their readiness to "live side by side in peace and security" and resume the Road Map.

For this, Israel reaped more than 1,000 rockets from Gaza since August 2005, and tunnels and attacks across an international border, from an area in which no Jews remained. This, too, is ignored in Carter's book. He complains instead that Gaza has its own "separation barrier" that can be "penetrated only by Israeli-controlled checkpoints" (the same way that the international border of most other countries of the world can "only" be "penetrated").

Carter's discussion of the Israeli West Bank security barrier-built as a last resort against years of mass murder bombers targeting Israeli civilians, and in the face of a complete and continuous Palestinian refusal to meet its Phase I Road Map obligation-is never other than pejorative. He uses various terms-the "segregation wall," the "imprisonment wall," the "encircling barrier . . . imposing a system of . . . apartheid," the "huge dividing wall"-that are simply Palestinian talking points, not an attempt at serious discussion. He makes no effort to describe the conditions that produced the barrier, and does not even fairly state the Israeli position regarding it.

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ELSEWHERE

GWB's new Iraq adviser has a track record of failure: "As chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Soviet desk during the early 1980s, Gates shared the consensus academic view that the Soviet economy was strong and stable. A prosperous Russia, he reckoned, would respond rationally to management by carrot and stick. Fortunately for the United States, then-CIA director William Casey recruited outsiders such as journalist Herbert E Meyer, and listened to them rather than to Gates... Baker, Gates and their Iraq Study Group will report to President Bush next week. Judging from press leaks and the public record, they will propose a ghastly misevaluation of Iran, identical in character to their misevaluation of the Soviet Union a generation ago. As widely reported, they will propose to "engage Iran"; but for what object should Iran be engaged? .... In other words, the Bush administration's threats against Tehran are not a response to Iran's nuclear ambitions, but rather the cause of Iran's nuclear ambitions, according to the sages of the Carter and the Bush Sr administrations. It is a peculiarly self-referential argument, but not a new one, for that is just how the "realists" viewed the Soviet Union in 1981."

Big cars to be hit hard in London: "Drivers of gas-guzzling cars may have to pay 25 pounds a day to enter London's enlarged congestion charge zone, under plans by Ken Livingstone to tackle climate change. The Mayor of London is proposing an emissions-based congestion charge fee that will penalise drivers of the highest-polluting vehicles, including many 4x4s and luxury saloons. The new 25 pound rate would apply to cars rated in band G for vehicle excise duty, which covers those emitting more than 225g of carbon dioxide per kilometre..... Owners of fuel-inefficient cars in Richmond upon Thames, southwest London, are already facing a tripling in the cost of parking permits to œ300, under proposals put forward by the local council."

Futile attempt to make British bureaucrats work: "Being told to clear your desk used to be synonymous with dismissal. But civil servants have been asked to remove photographs, food and mobile phones in an attempt to improve efficiency. Under an edict sent to Revenue & Customs staff in tax offices, desks have to be tidy, clean and free from clutter to promote "efficient business processing". The so-called Lean programme, designed to improve productivity in government offices, has provoked a work-to-rule among 14,000 civil servants. An internal memo from a senior manager in North Wales outlining the process evoked claims from the Public and Commercial Services Union that the organisation was trying to "dehumanise" working conditions."

Arabs preserve Frenchness??? "Abdellah Fatih owns a corner shop in a Paris suburb where he says that he sells "everything from condoms to whisky, with a warm welcome for my customers". The ebullient Mr Fatih was born in Morocco and emigrated to France in the 1980s. He has come to represent a core ingredient of the French identity that President Chirac is striving to preserve - the small, local shopkeeper. Although Mr Chirac has performed many about-turns during a tortuous career, he has been steadfast in his determination to halt the decline of village stores and urban corner shops, announcing tax cuts yesterday for "micro-businesses". His campaign may at last be paying off, thanks largely to the immigrant families who are now the guardians of this particular aspect of Frenchness. After falling from 125,000 to 28,500 between 1970 and 2000, the number of grocers in France has stabilised and appears to be rising again as Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian families invest in what Mr Fatih describes as a "business with a future".

Getting tough on terrorism? "Immigrants arrested in the United States may be held indefinitely on suspicion of terrorism and may not challenge their imprisonment in civilian courts, the Bush administration said Monday, opening a new legal front in the fight over the rights of detainees. In court documents filed with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., the Justice Department said a new anti-terrorism law being used to hold detainees in Guantanamo Bay also applies to foreigners captured and held in the United States."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (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)

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