More media bias: ABC’s strange and questionable Iraq poll

Post below lifted from Dinocrat

ABC has a poll of Iraqis that it positions as highly negative, and of course that is partially true. However, the story is more complicated, and far better than ABC represents, if you are not a Sunni. Here’s the ABC spin from its story, “Voices from Iraq 2007: Ebbing Hope in a Landscape of Loss” — a heck of an objective title for a news article by the way:

A new national survey paints a devastating portrait of life in Iraq: widespread violence, torn lives, displaced families, emotional damage, collapsing services, an ever starker sectarian chasm - and a draining away of the underlying optimism that once prevailed…the sharpest deterioration is in Baghdad, where the number of Iraqis who say their own lives are going well has dropped by 51 points. But it’s also down by 26 points in the rest of Iraq. And even outside of Baghdad, just 32 percent of Iraqis feel “very safe” where they live, compared with 60 percent a year and a half ago.

The poll is quite bizarre in some respects. For example, it features touchy-feely data like this chart below, showing that the poor Iraqis feel “stress” in their transition away from decades of cruel, totalitarian rule towards, perhaps, something better:

We look at the chart above and we wonder how the Western world, the United States of America, and our attendant freedoms, blessings, and wealth were ever created. Did the American Revolution or Civil War, or maybe World War I or World War II, or even Desert Storm, cause “trouble sleeping” among Americans, we wonder? Should we have canceled our own Civil War or opted out of World War II to prevent “feelings of anger” or “difficulty concentrating”? Indeed, is “stress” in the pursuit of freedom a vice?

Leaving aside the fatuousness of the chart above, let’s get down to the real nitty-gritty: do Iraqis feel safe in their environs and are they happy that we liberated them? The way ABC spins the poll, you would say no, since in many cases ABC averages the results of Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites, and the purported nearly 100% negativity of Sunnis weighs down the averages. So you can’t believe the story; you have to look to the poll’s internals to find some truth. Powerline summarized these findings, which show a high level of satisfaction among Shiites and Kurds on these issues:

when asked to rate “today's conditions in the village/neighborhood where you live” with respect to security, by a 61% to 39% margin, Shia respondents rated their local security “good” rather than “bad,” and by an even wider 89% to 11% margin, Kurds rated their local situation “good.” The average is dragged down by the Sunnis, who said 7% “good,” 93% “bad.”…When asked whether it was right for the coalition to invade Iraq and depose Saddam, 70% of Shia and 83% of Kurds say Yes. On the other hand, Sunni responses were 2% Yes, 98% No…

So Kurds and Shiites rate their local security good by wide margins, and they are darned happy that the Americans decided to free them from their torment and bondage. Sunnis, on the other hand, are understandably upset by their loss of power, and the subsequent acts of reprisal against them.

But — and this is our point about the methodological problems with this poll — is it possible or plausible that 98% of Sunnis are virtually unanimous in their disapproval of the deposing of Saddam Hussein? Is is possible that only 2% of Sunnis (a result that could go below zero, since the margin of error is 2.5%) are happy that the US deposed Saddam? Are there no Sunnis in Iraqi government or getting US government contracts or largesse? Are there zero freedom-loving Sunnis in Iraq? Do 98% of any group ever agree on anything at all? Furthermore, as we said, the 2% of Sunnis who are reported to think that liberating Iraq was a good idea is even below the margin of error of the poll:

The survey had a contact rate of 90 percent and a cooperation rate of 62 percent for a net response rate of 56 percent. Including an estimated design effect of 1.51, the results have a margin of sampling error of 2.5 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.

We wonder if the poll’s methodological problems come from the difference between the “contact rate” of 90% and the “cooperation rate” of 62%. What tests did ABC’s pollsters perform to determine that there were no systematic biases among the Sunnis who did and did not cooperate, for example? Might we find an answer to ABC’s counter-intuitive findings of unanimity there?

The ABC poll and story flunk the tests of common sense in at least a few ways: (a) ABC’s relentlessly negative story on its poll, which ignores the regional and confessional differences in results, itself calls into question the objectivity of the poll; (b) the touchy-feely nature of some poll questions are such that any war whatsoever, including the American Revolution, the Civil War and World War II would give the same negative results on certain issues; (c) it is highly suspect that only 2% of Sunnis approve of the US’s removal of Saddam Hussein; and (d) any poll about any issue that results in statistical unanimity among a large group of those polled ought to question the validity of its own methodology. In summary, it’s hard not to conclude that there was an agenda behind both the poll and the reporting of the poll.

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ELSEWHERE

The latest Leftist hero going down the same old path of economic destruction: "While Barbara Walters is busy sucking up to Hugo Chavez, I wonder if her inquiring mind is even aware of the damage this wonderful and passionate guy is doing to Venezuela's economy? Venezuela is knocking three zeros off the bolivar, its currency, and renaming it the "bolivar fuerte" (strong bolivar). This is an effort to cope with rising inflation. Inflation has spiked in recent months due to Mr Chavez's very expansive fiscal policy, and capital flight following recent nationalisations. Ahhh. The wonders of socialism! You would think that this "charming", "passionate", and "intelligent" man might have learned from the economic debacles that socialism wrought in the 20th century. You would think he could look around the world and grasp that a country's embrace of socialist and communist principles is directly proportional to its level of poverty and misery. And that even in the so-called "advanced" and "enlightened" European Union (socialism lite), life is deteriorating."

The rich already pay most of the tax: "The IRS just released some data. One of the most interesting reported facts is this: "For tax year 2004.... Taxpayers with an AGI [adjusted gross income] of at least $328,049, the top 1 percent of taxpayers, accounted for 19 percent of total AGI, representing an increase in income share of 2.2 percentage points from the previous year. These taxpayers accounted for 36.9 percent of the total income tax reported, an increase from 34.3 percent in 2003"

Another charming Muslim: "A man who ripped out his wife's eyes in a fit of rage was sentenced by a French court to 30 years behind bars today. Mohamed Hadfi, 31, tore out his 23-year-old wife Samira Bari's eyes following a heated argument in their apartment in the southern French city of Nimes in July 2003 after she refused to have sex with him. Ms Bari, who had demanded a divorce before the attack, was permanently blinded. Hadfi, a Moroccan, initially fled to Germany. He was finally arrested and sent back to France, where he was indicted for "acts of torture and barbarity leading to a permanent disability". Prosecutor Dominique Tourette demanded that Hadfi be sentenced to 30 years in prison, two thirds of which must be served in full, calling the defendant a "diabolic torturer". Once his sentence is served, Hadfi will be deported and barred from ever returning to France."

Scientist "Silenced" By Bush Gave 1,500 On-The-Job Media Interviews In Recent Years: "A NASA scientist who said the Bush administration muzzled him because of his belief in global warming yesterday acknowledged to Congress that he'd done more than 1,400 on-the-job interviews in recent years. James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who argues global warming could be catastrophic, said NASA staffers denied his request to do a National Public Radio interview because they didn't want his message to get out. But Republicans told him the hundreds of other interviews he did belie his broad claim he was being silenced. "We have over 1,400 opportunities that you've availed yourself to, and yet you call it, you know, being stifled," said Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican."

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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

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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MUSLIM HATRED IN AMERICA

Spc. Craig Perkins' uniform made him a target in Baghdad - and, he believes, again in an apartment complex near Clarkston. Perkins, who returned last summer after almost a year's duty in Iraq, shot a man outside his apartment March 9 in what he says was the culmination of months of insults by some of his neighbors from the Middle East. Perkins, 34, said some residents in the ethnically diverse Kristopher Woods Apartments taunted him and made spitting sounds when they saw him in uniform heading to or from National Guard duty. Now Perkins is moving. He said he did not want more conflicts.

Perkins said he shot 26-year-old Tareq Ali Bualsafared in self-defense after Bualsafared and another man threatened him. He said the two men rushed toward his front door even after he fired a warning shot. Bualsafared, a college student from the United Arab Emirates, said Perkins was the aggressor. He said Perkins cursed them. Bualsafared, who was shot in the leg, said neither he nor his friend, Saleh Ali, a 17-year-old refugee from Iraq, knew anything about Perkins before he confronted them as they walked by his apartment. In interviews Friday, the accounts of Perkins and Bualsafared agreed on one detail: There were angry words about Iraq before shots were fired.

He said he had no animosity for his Middle Eastern neighbors in Clarkston. "I've never been a prejudiced person," he said. He noted he is a black man with a white girlfriend. He said he has white and American Indian ancestors. But he said he could feel the animosity when he walked by his Middle Eastern neighbors in his Guard uniform. Women and older men tended to be polite, but the younger men were hostile, he said. On many occasions, he said, he received signs of disrespect he knew from Iraq. Men made exaggerated spitting noises, and "they would raise their shoe at me to show me the bottom of their feet, or they would take off their shoe and wave it at me."

Perkins said that before last week's shooting, he had never seen Bualsafared or Ali, neither of whom lived in the apartment complex. But he believes others helped prod the men to come to his apartment looking for a fight....

Perkins said Ali said something about being an Iraqi and said he wasn't afraid of Perkins' .45 caliber automatic pistol. Bualsafared said Perkins then fired. Perkins said he warned the men to stop and fired a warning shot, but they ran toward him until he fired several shots. He said Bualsafared made it to his front steps, a few feet from his door. Bualsafared said the men were in the parking lot when Perkins shot him. DeKalb police spokesman Michael Payne said a detective's report showed blood was found "just outside" Perkins' door. Police at the scene arrested Perkins and charged him with aggravated assault. But after about 15 hours in jail, he was released when a magistrate's judge declined to sign a criminal warrant. Perkins is not now charged with a crime, Payne said.

On Thursday night, Ali was arrested by DeKalb police for criminal trespass, DeKalb jail records show. The arrest was apparently based on a complaint that he should not have been in Perkins' apartment complex at the time of the incident.

More here

There is a lot of discussion of this case among conservative bloggers. See, e.g. here and here. We seem bound to hear more of it. The fact that the soldier was black might protect him somewhat from the Muslim-lovers, though

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ELSEWHERE

The Durham bully: "Michael Nifong may be about to get his just desserts. His abuse of the legal process has been so outrageous that the government will have to do something, if only to save face. Nifong will be the one exception that proves the rule but, overwhelmingly, government never attacks its own. He's a wounded shark and will be thrown to the others as a sacrifice. Watch him scream as he is slowly consumed."

After constant Arab agreement-breaking: "Since Oslo's degeneration into the murderous intifada and the ongoing Palestinian infatuation with suicide/murder, the vast majority of Israelis have become convinced that their only option for even a modicum of peace is to fully separate from the bulk of the Arabs who surround them. Considering the skewed press coverage by the international media, as documented by sites such as MEMRI, Camera, and the Augean Stables, it takes a great deal of desperation and courage for the Israelis to accept that they have few friends and no choices but to do whatever necessary to protect themselves. Learning that there is nothing you can do to satisfy, or appease, your enemies is a hard lesson to learn. Many Americans are having profound difficulty grasping the lesson"

Textbooks of hate: "At the end of 2006, the Palestinian Authority (PA) Ministry of Higher Education introduced new 12th grade schoolbooks, written by the Center for Developing the Palestinian Curricula. The center is comprised of Palestinian educators appointed by the Fatah governments of Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, and directed by Dr. Naim Abu Al-Humos, former PA Minister of Higher Education, appointed in 2002. The center is backed by foreign funding, with special thanks to Belgium noted in the new schoolbooks.... PMW has found that the new 12th grade Palestinian schoolbooks make no attempt to educate for peace and coexistence with Israel. Indeed, the opposite is true: The teachings repeatedly reject Israel's right to exist, present the conflict as a religious battle for Islam, teach Israel's founding as imperialism, and actively portray a picture of the Middle East, both verbally and visually, in which Israel does not exist at all."

The bad loan panic: "More and more mortgage borrowers can't keep up with their monthly house payments, and Congress wants to rescue them. "I'm determined to do everything we can to allow people to stay in their homes," Democratic senator Chris Dodd, head of the banking committee, said on Wednesday. But congressional meddling is not the way out of subprime-mortgage woes; in fact, government action will prolong the crisis.... Investors in mortgage loans, including investment banks, pension funds, and international bondholders, jumped into risky subprime mortgages because they were paid for that risk, getting higher interest rates than they would have received for investing in, say, Treasury bonds. The reason that the risky mortgages paid more, of course, was that there was a very real possibility that lots of borrowers would default. If the government, or its proxy, now steps in and purchases those mortgages, or otherwise systematically bails out borrowers, it will create a hazard for the future. The next generation of mortgage lenders won't take the high risk of subprime home loans seriously, because they'll expect that, in the event of another crisis, the government will step in and bail them out again. So they'll be even more eager to approve the risky subprime mortgages that are getting so many borrowers into trouble in the first place."

Globalization does not lead to inequality: "Another investigation -- this one by Fernando Borraz and Jose Ernesto Lopez-Cordova -- of some of the economic consequences of freer trade finds that freer trade has not increased income inequality in Mexico: "Our findings strongly indicate that globalization has not raised income inequality in Mexico. On the contrary, we present compelling evidence showing that income distribution is more equitable in states that are more closely linked to the world economy and that those states exhibit larger declines in inequality. We also find some statistical evidence suggesting that deepening globalization results in reduced inequality"

I have just put up a lot of postings from Chris Brand but I did not have time to put in the links. So email me if you want to follow something up.

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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

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 SELF-ABUSING DREAMERS WE HAVE TO COPE WITH

An excerpt from Vanderleun below

Four years in to the most gentle war ever fought, a war fought on the cheap at every level, a war fought to avoid civilian harm rather than maximize it. Picnic on the grass at Shiloh. Walk the Western Front. Speak to the smoke of Dresden. Kneel down and peek into the ovens of Auschwitz. Sit on the stones near ground zero at Hiroshima and converse with the shadows singed into the wall. Listen to those ghost whisperers of war.

Four years in and the people of the Perfect World ramble through the avenues of Washington, stamping their feet and holding their breath, having their tantrums, and telling all who cannot avoid listening that "War is bad for children and other living things." They have flowers painted on their cheeks. For emphasis. Just in case you thought that war was good for children and other living things.

There were children and other living things on the planes that flew into the towers. They all went into the fire and the ash just the same. But they, now, are not important. Nor is the message their deaths still send us when we listen. That message is to be silenced. The rising brand new message is "All we are say-ing is give...." And it is always off-key. Four years in and they are upset that their party of the 90s has been so long interrupted; that their raves are foreshortened; that their sleep is persistently shaken by car bombs beyond the far horizon; that their time at the mall can not be entirely, completely, and utterly without guilt.

Four years in and the clear and present danger to the nation must be closeted in favor of the unclear and distant end of the world if we insist on exuding, as all life does, carbon dioxide. Send the nation and its armies and its wards and protectorates to the block, but keep the polar bears cold. "Can't you see that worldwide wall of water sweeping in to inundate all life in 30, 50, 100, 500 years?"

"No. I cannot see it from here." "Ah well, you are a warmonger, an evil person, a vile Christian, a shameless, shameless American. "You must have shame. Shame is what we have when we look around us. We are ashamed. You must join us, share in our shame at being Americans, at being the last best hope of earth. "Join us and join the rising despair of people who, believing in nothing, believe only in the self, the life of the senses, the mollifying of guilt, of 'the expense of reason in a waste of shame.'" Four years in and the fools in the streets multiply. They are tired of the war, but full of themselves.

It is taking too long. | It will be with you, blowing hot and cold, for decades yet to come.

It is costing too much. | How much will it cost to rebuild a burned and irradiated Los Angeles?

Too many soldiers have died. Even one soldier's death is too much. | What is the nature and duty of a soldier? Is a soldier there only to come in and sandbag a flooded New Orleans? Bring you a Red Cross sandwich and a cup of weak coffee after a tidal wave?

We shall overcome. | Overcome who? Your fellow citizens? Certainly not the enemy. You'll not get over on this one with your Ghandiesque platitudes, unless you are ready to all go like lemmings over the cliff and onto the spikes. You don't strike me as the kind of people with that level of commitment. You strike me as the kind of people who like to prance, rant, and chant, and then go home for a nice chilled Chardonnay and a slab of grilled tofu. Then you spend an hour bitching about Bush before taking a bong hit and sucking up some MTV. I know you well. I was you.

We shall take our no balls and go home. | You will return when your children are slaughtered in their schools. You will return when one of our cities burns. You will return when your cities freeze in the winter, your beer warms without ice in the summer, your iPods go flat as you walk streets with few lights, and the shelves of your store are bare when the crops fail and the trucks cannot run.

Look around you. Everything you have, everything, is there because of oil. The brute fact of the planet right now and into the next few decades is that without oil, the machine that enables you to be you runs on oil. If that oil runs out, your nation, any nation, will do all that it can to get it back. And you will be back not "with peace, but with a sword" of a terrible fire. In your name. In all our names.

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ELSEWHERE

That great mathematical whizz, La Griffe du Lion has recently put up another of his rare but extremely erudite articles on intelligence measurement. He looks at the recent contention that men are on average slightly more intelligent than women. He trialled his analytical methods on the well-known black/white gap and got a difference of 16 IQ points -- which agrees well with the 15 points usually found. When he applied the same methods to the male/female difference he confirmed that too -- finding a difference of 2.4 points -- not too far off estimates by others of a 3 to 5 point difference. Don't criticize his conclusions unless you can find a hole in his analysis. He gives that in detail but you might need to be a mathematician to follow it.

BBC "impartiality" at work: "At this year's conference, I was stopped by a BBC radio reporter who was soliciting opinions on the scandal involving Israel's president. "Should he resign?" asked the reporter. "I'm not sure," I replied. "I don't know the facts." "Nice to be able to sit on the fence," the BBC's seeker of truth responded. "Sorry," I added, "but in my country, someone is innocent until proven guilty." He was obviously disappointed by my wanting to examine the evidence before voicing an opinion. That's apparently not a requirement for the BBC in its coverage of accusations of Israelis' transgressions."

German support for the Ayatollahs: "Only Europe could force Teheran to change course by non-military means. While the USA don't trade with Iran, China, Japan, and Russia are expendable for Teheran. Europe isn't: Most technologically sophisticated imports originate from the European Union. "Two thirds of the Iranian industry is equipped mostly with machines of German origin", reports the former president of the German-Iranian chamber of commerce, Michael Tockuss."The Iranians depend on German replacement parts and suppliers." A study of the Iranian parliament confirms: Without European replacement parts and industrial products the Iranian economy would be paralysed within months. Instead of using this last available leverage to force a change of course by non-military means, Berlin in particular rejects an efficient regime of sanctions"

Another killer Kennedy: "For four decades there have been rumours that Marilyn Monroe's death was not a simple suicide. Now a Los Angeles-based Australian writer and director, Philippe Mora, has uncovered an FBI document that throws up a chilling new scenario. Bobby Kennedy's affair with the screen idol Marilyn Monroe has been documented, but a secret FBI file suggests the late US attorney-general was aware of - and perhaps even a participant in - a plan "to induce" her suicide....The report was in effect buried for decades as a classified document, and even the released version contains censored sections. Never before mentioned despite thousands of articles, books and documentaries about her death, it details aspects of Kennedy's on-and-off affair with the movie star, including sex parties and a lesbian dalliance... The document gives no precise reason why she would be killed but hints it may be linked to her threats to make public her affair with Kennedy" [You can see one of the documents concerned here]

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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

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 SDAs

I rather like a slogan I saw up today on the signboard of my local Seventh-day Adventist church: There is no shortcut to anywhere worth going to.

I must say that I respect the way the SDAs keep the Sabbath. That most Christians regard the Day of the Sun as sacred is paganism, with no warrant in the Bible. But, as I have pointed out on my scripture blog, so much of modern Christianity is pagan with no warrant in the Bible -- the celebration of Christmas and Easter included, of course. The only day that Christ instructed his followers to commemorate was the Passover (1 Corinthians 11:25).

I imagine that all my readers are aware of Christmas as a development of the pagan winter solstice festival but some may be less familiar with the history of Easter. The name comes ultimately from the Babylonian goddess Astarte, who was a fertility goddess -- and to this day the symbols universally associated with Easter are pagan fertility symbols -- eggs and rabbits.

And the day of the sun (the first day of the week) was the day sacred to almost all pagans of course. It was presumably because it was so pagan that those pesky Hebrews decided to celebrate the last day of the week instead. For pagans, however, the last day of the week remained the day of Saturn. I wonder how many of my readers know why we have seven days in the week? The answer is on my scripture blog and it's not what you most probably think.

Update:

There is a site here which lists how the days are named in different languages. It is interesting to see that where we name Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday after Norse gods, the Italians, Spanish and French still use names that are derivatives of Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus.

One or two readers seemed to think that I was proselytizing for the Seventh Day Adventist church in what I wrote. So I guess I should mention that I have never been inside an SDA church nor have I ever read an SDA book. Does that cover it?

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ARTICLES RECENTLY UP ON ICJS

Professor Israeli public lecture
Without a great fuss
Group hugs can be dangerous
Why the peaceful majority is irrelevant
In fear for the future of Britain
Melanie Phillips speaks to a Melbourne audience
Do not appease hatred
Melanie Phillips
Moderates must not become apologists for radical Islam
A man of the people
Raphael Israeli: Muslim apologist, thy name is coward
Let people say when to give in to minorities
Jimmy Carter's Bonfire of the Vanities
The Rape of Europe
Braving the wrath of latte man
Liberals are now the appeasers of hate
Gagged - or just challenged?
Protector of the free world deserves better
No wisdom mollycoddling Muslims
Beyond burger imperialism
Israeli police storm temple
Intimidation tactics
Modern Israel is a far cry from old South Africa

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ELSEWHERE

Muslims seem determined to make themselves unpopular: "Six Muslim imams who were forcibily removed from a US Airways flight last year and are now suing the airline for discrimination may also be suing some passengers who were aboard the flight. In the lawsuit filed last week, the imams say that unnamed "John Doe" passengers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport reported that they engaged in "suspicious" behavior — praying in the terminal — before they boarded the plane on Nov. 20. Omar Mohammedi, the imams' New York-based lawyer, said that the imams have not yet decided whether to pursue this complaint, but if they do it would affect only those passengers who were prejudiced in their suspicions."

Nothing to Fear? "Suspected terrorists sign up to drive school buses. I don't know about your kids, but my kids ride on school buses. FBI says nothing to fear. OK. Same agency that missed the boat on 9/11. My kids' driver doesn't look like al-Qaeda, but what does al-Qaeda look like, anyway? Same agency that can't figure out where Whitey Bulger is, either, although same agency was up to its eyeballs in Bulger murder and helped him escape. Same agency that couldn't read the rules on the Patriot Act, while we're at it".

Your government will protect you: "The Army Corps of Engineers, rushing to meet President Bush's promise to protect New Orleans by the start of the 2006 hurricane season, installed defective flood-control pumps last year despite warnings from its own expert that the equipment would fail during a storm, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. The 2006 hurricane season turned out to be mild, and the new pumps were never pressed into action."


WMDs used in Iraq: "At least 350 Iraqi civilians needed hospital treatment after insurgents detonated three trucks filled with toxic chlorine gas, killing two policemen. The gas attack yesterday was the seventh this year in which insurgents have used chemical gas bombs on civilians and security forces in what appears to be a new terror tactic for al-Qaeda militants. The attacks were carried out between 4.11pm (12.11am AEDT Saturday) and 7.13pm on Friday, two of them just south of the town of Fallujah and one northeast of the nearby city of Ramadi, both hotbeds of al-Qaeda militants. "Approximately 350 Iraqi civilians and six coalition force members were treated for chlorine gas exposure," Lieutenant Roger Hollenbeck of the US-led Multinational Division West said.

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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

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

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JEWISH LEFTISM

I am a great admirer of the Jewish people and, as far back as I can remember I have always been a cast-iron supporter of the State of Israel. What I find hard to understand, however, is how a people who are in general so smart, can overwhelmingly be simpletons in politics. At least since the beginning of Zionism in the 19th century right up until today, Jews have been overwhelmingly Leftist. From memory, about 80% of Jews voted Democrat in the 2004 Presidential election. Jewish alienation is probably the explanation. Dissatisfaction with the world around you IS Leftism and Jews do have reasons to be very dissatisfied with the world in which they find themselves.

As I mentioned, even Zionism was originally very Leftist -- which is why the kibbutzim were the longest-running experiment in Communism -- an experiment that has only recently been abandoned. That Zionism could have been far-Leftist might seem surprising to some today but Leftists were commonly very nationalist up until WW2 -- though you would never believe it from listening to today's Leftists. And to this day, leading Leftist intellectuals -- such as Noam Chomsky -- are Jewish and the many Jews in the U.S. Congress are also almost all Democrats. So I want to say a few words now about one particular achievement of that subset of Jews who are Leftist.

Leftism is usually destructive (to tear down is, after all, its first aim) in one way or another and Jewish Leftism is no exception. It is most incorrect to mention it, but, at risk of being "insensitive", I am now going to mention it: It was Marxist Jews who antagonized Hitler. Hitler started out with the view that antisemitism was ignorant so there is a need to explain what changed his mind. What he says in Mein Kampf is that in Linz -- where he grew up -- there were few Jews and he saw them at that time as no different from other Germans. So when he moved to Vienna he was horrified at the antisemitism of much of the Viennese press. As he says:

"For the Jew was still characterized for me by nothing but his religion, and therefore, on grounds of human tolerance, I maintained my rejection of religious attacks in this case as in others. Consequently, the tone, particularly that of the Viennese anti-Semitic press, seemed to me unworthy of the cultural tradition of a great nation".

The conventional explanation is that it was rejection by the Jewish-led Vienna Art Academy that changed his mind. But I know of no good justification for that explanation. It is an explanation of convenience only. Mein Kampf may be unreliable as objective history but there is no reason to doubt that it is good subjective history -- i.e. it records how Hitler saw things. And in Mein Kampf he does not even mention the word "Jew" in connection with the Academy. He says that the Rector rejected him from the painting school because his main talent and interest was in architecture -- a judgement with which Hitler himself emphatically agreed! So what DID antagonize him?

Long before the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, Hitler had despised the destructive and divisive side of Marxism and when he found that practically every preacher of Marxist class-emnity that he encountered in Vienna was a Jew, he began to see Jews as bent on the destruction of the German people he loved. In other words, for him it was the strong association of Jews with Marxist hate that led to his generalized horror of all Jews. He in fact describes his conversion to antisemitism as "a great spiritual upheaval" -- i.e. he abandoned his previous "cosmopolitan" (tolerant) views only with great reluctance.

Whatever else he was, Hitler was a fervent German nationalist and the great love affair of his life was a love-affair with the German people (Volk) as he saw them. But in the aftermath of WWI, Germans were furiously divided among themselves and apparently on the verge of class-war. That grieved Hitler deeply and to salvage his romantic view of his Volk he had to attribute the divisions among Germans to outside forces deceiving them rather than as something intrinsic to Germans themselves. And since the active preachers of class war at the time were often Jews, the scapegoat was obvious. So it was Hitler's nationalist passion combined with the reality of Marxist Jewish hate-preaching that transformed him into an active antisemite.

So Jewish far-Leftists did all Jews a great good turn there, didn't they?

And something very similar happened in Britain. It is sometimes forgotten that Britain too had a considerable Fascist movement in the interwar period. And the leader of the British Union of Fascists -- Sir Oswald Mosley -- was a person of some consequence. The King even came to his wedding! And, like Hitler, Mosley started out seeing antisemitism as ignorant. In the early days he would even expel from the BUF anybody who made antisemitic utterances. But after his street meetings had come under constant attack from far-Leftist Jewish demonstrators, he began to think that Hitler had a point. So again, Jewish Leftists converted a friend of Jews into an enemy. Dreamers and simpletons might like to contend that Hitler was somehow ALWAYS an antisemite but it is very clear that Mosley was not.

The only reliable friends Israel has in the world today are American conservatives and Christians. Will the totally unappreciative attitude of most Jews towards those groups convert a friend into an enemy too? Will the consistent attacks by the ADL on Christian expression in the public square eventually alienate Christians? I fervently hope not but Leftist Jews are not helping the cause at all. With Muslims and the Left now heavily antisemitic, I think that the opposition by Leftist Jews to their only remaining friends almost indicates a death-wish. One can only hope that the many conservative Jews -- such as Jeff Jacoby and Dennis Prager -- who very wisely give every support to Christians will be the voices that Christians mostly hear. Surely nobody with any grasp of history needs to be told that Christian antagonism to Jews is possible!

I imagine that any Leftist Jew reading this will immediately put all their defence mechanisms into overdrive but a distinguished Jewish psychiatrist -- Sigmund Freud -- long ago pointed out that defence meachanisms are pathological and self-destructive so I do hope that denial will give way to an honest contemplation of reality in at least some cases.

Dennis Prager also has some wise words on Jewish Leftism.

Update:

A Jewish reader has written to me saying that Jews who work against the interests of Jews generally should not be regarded as Jews. So humans who work against the interests of humans generally (as Greenies, Leftists and criminals normally do) should not be regarded as human beings? I think not. The reader does have a good academic point however: I have not defined what I mean by "Jewish". As the matter is a very contentious one, I am not big on definitions of "Jewish" but I think that for most purposes the definition offered in the law of the return is sufficient: A Jew is someone who regards himself as a Jew. I would add to that, however, that someone from a clearly Jewish family (e.g. a family committed to halacha) should also be regarded as a Jew, no matter how he regards himself -- which is part of the reason why we have the common expression: "Non-observant Jew".

The same writer implied that I was proposing discrimination against Leftist Jews. Much though I loathe Jews who undermine Israel, nobody will ever find a single word that I have written which proposes discrimination against Jews of any sort. I think the only way one can deal with Jewish Leftism is the way one has to deal with Leftism generally -- through reason, facts and persuasion.

Note also that I am NOT saying that Leftist Jews are responsible for the holocaust. Hitler was. But it serves us very ill if we fail to look into his motivations.

Update 2

I have come across some figures on American Jewish political allegiances:

The 2006 midterm elections confirmed once again a truism of American politics: American Jews remain overwhelmingly devoted to the Democratic party. According to exit polling, the tilt this year was, if anything, even more pronounced than it has been in the past. Some 88 percent of Jewish votes went to Democratic candidates, while a mere 12 percent went to the GOP.

Along with this lopsided outcome, a historical extreme, comes the news that the number of Jewish representatives in Congress has itself reached an all-time high. Although Jews represent a marginal sliver—a mere 2 percent—of the U.S. population, they now hold 13 seats in the U.S. Senate, all but two of them—Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Norm Coleman of Minnesota—Democratic. (Bernard Sanders of Vermont, elected as an independent, has pledged to vote with the Democratic caucus.) In the House of Representatives, Jews, all but one of them Democrats, now occupy 30 seats.

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ELSEWHERE

Pelosi hears boos at AIPAC "Members of the main pro-Israel lobbying group offered scattered boos to a statement by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that the Iraq war has been a failure on several scores. The boos, mixed with some polite applause, stood in stark contrast to the reception House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) received minutes earlier. Most of the crowd of 5,000 to 6,000 stood and loudly applauded Boehner when he said the U.S. had no choice but to win in Iraq. Pelosi and Boehner were speaking at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual meeting. AIPAC has not taken a position on the war in Iraq or the supplemental spending bill to be considered this week by the House Appropriations Committee, but much of Boehner's speech was about the future of the Iraq conflict. Boehner sought to link the fight in Iraq to the future of Israel, as he said a failure in Iraq would pose a direct threat to Israel"



The hysterical Left: ""Liberals' aversion to Fox News has finally gone over the top. The Nevada Democratic Party had agreed to let the right-tilting network co-sponsor, of all things, an August debate in Reno between Democratic presidential candidates. Party officials were serious about drawing national attention to the state's January presidential caucus, the country's second in the 2008 nominating process. What better way for the party to reach conservative and `values' voters who might consider changing allegiances? But the socialist, Web-addicted wing of the Democratic Party was apoplectic. The prospect of having to watch Fox News to see their own candidates would have been torture in itself. So they set the blogosphere aflame with efforts to kill the broadcast arrangement, or at least have all the candidates pull out of the event. Before Friday, the opportunistic John Edwards was the only candidate to jump on that bandwagon... No, even unfiltered, unedited, live debate between loyal Democrats couldn't be entrusted to Fox News. The approach of outfits such as MoveOn.org is so juvenile it's laughable... This hyperventilation results from the fact that far-left Democrats have no comparable media outlet, nor any widespread national appeal, for their radical views in favor of heavy-handed regulation, wealth redistribution, diplomatic capitulation and economic protectionism. So they attack their rivals' messenger with a reckless barrage of rhetoric that cuts down their own allies with friendly fire. By Friday, the Nevada Democratic Party caved in to the lunatic fringe and began seeking a more `appropriate' television partner. Comedy Central, perhaps?"

It's not luck: "On St. Patrick's Day, we wear green and celebrate the culture of Ireland. I'll be down at the pub tomorrow, but I'll be toasting Ireland's success at attracting greenbacks -- all that investment flowing into the Emerald Isle and the resulting prosperity. Ireland has boomed in recent years, and it now boasts the fourth highest gross domestic product per capita in the world. In the mid-1980s, Ireland was a backwater with an average income level 30 percent below that of the European Union. Today, Irish incomes are 40 percent above the EU average. Was this dramatic change the luck of the Irish? Not at all. It resulted from a series of hard-headed decisions that shifted Ireland from big government stagnation to free market growth."

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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

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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MYTHS, MYTHS, MYTHS

In my various blogs I am constantly doing battle with myths -- the myth that Hitler was a Rightist, the myth that global warming is a danger, the myth that Leftists are smarter than Rightists, the myth that being overweight will shorten your lifespan, the myth that salt is bad for you, the myth that more money spent on education will educate the kids better, the myth that Islam is the religion of peace, the myth that America needs illegal immigrants, the myth that the government does anything well, etc., etc.

Two myths that I want to revisit today are the myth that Pope Pius XII was a Nazi collaborator and that Fascism was antisemitic. As a libertarian, I have no time whatsoever for Fascism but it is so grossly misrepresented that I think the untruths have a serious potential to mislead.

In the prewar period, there were Fascist movements in most countries and, largely because they were nationalist movements, there were great national differences between them. Under Hitler's influence, the German version was horribly antisemitic but that was not true of most other versions. In Mussolini's Italy, for instance, Jews were prominent members of the Fascist party in the prewar period and during the war Italy was about the safest place in Europe for Jews to be! Italy rescued most of its Jews during the period of Nazi control there late in the war. And in Britain of the early interwar era, Sir Oswald Mosley used to expel from the British Union of Fascists anybody who made antisemitic speeches. Antisemitism was very common in the interwar era so early in that era the British party which most opposed antisemitism was in fact Mosley's BUF! Pesky! When his meetings came under constant attack from Jewish Leftists, however, Mosley eventually had something of a rethink.

And concerning Pacelli (Pius XII), the true tale of his great efforts to rescue Jews has now long been told but it is still the old Soviet propaganda about him being a Nazi collaborator that lives on in the public consciousness. Like so many myths, what is popularly believed is the reverse of the truth. Pius was simply being a good Italian in failing to see anything wrong with the Jews and doing his best to save them. Although Italy fumbled about on the wrong side of WW2, Italians have nonetheless much to be proud of concerning their treatment of Jews at that time. Extensive data on that in the books below:

And what does all that prove? It shows what conservatives have always said: That reality is a heck of a lot more complex and surprising than the simple generalizations that constitute Leftism.

References:

Herzer, I. (Ed.) (1989) "The Italian refuge: Rescue of Jews during the holocaust". Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press

Steinberg, J. (1990) "All or nothing: The Axis and the holocaust". London: Routledge.

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Brookes News Update

The US and Australia: are their foreign debts a problem?: Our economic commentariat refuses to even consider the role monetary policy plays in distorting the pattern of production, destabilising exchange rates and creating balance of payments crises. It's as if they would rather the economy sank than admit they were wrong
Chinese spying, nationalism and the future: China's regime has now gone from politicising everything to trying to abolish politics. Hence its citizens have enormous access to the West via the net, books, DVDs, television news and visitors. There is the possibility that Beijing would quickly adopt a more aggressive foreign policy stance should the banking system implode
Hong Kong and the Asian success story: The so-called Asian tigers did not owe their growth rates and their export success to 'cheap labour'. If it were that simple, Bangladesh and Ethiopia would outperform all them. Genuine growth is fuelled by savings and driven by entrepreneurship. The tigers were successful with labour intensive industries because they had a comparative advantage in labour
Failing to understand the election of 2006: The American death rate in Iraq is 25 percent less than the murder rate in Washington DC for the same period. The media has done an outstanding job for their fellow Democrats by featuring individual deaths on the nightly news to discourage Americans; likewise every trash can turned over in Baghdad
Keynes' errors, fallacies and contradictions: No less a personage than John Stone, considered one of Australia's arch economic rationalists, described Keynes' 'General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money' as a monumental work . As I have tried to make clear, the only thing monumental about the General Theory is the sheer magnitude of its fallacies, inconsistencies and embarrassing contradictions

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ELSEWHERE

Obama runs off the Road Map: "Presidential candidate Barack Obama has misinterpreted a few key principles of the Road Map, an international agreement regarding the steps the Palestinians and Israelis must take for the peace process to begin and to conclude. Senator Obama spoke recently in Iowa, and his remarks have caused some consternation among supporters of Israel in America. As well they should. He stated: "the Israel government must make difficult concessions for the peace process to restart...." This position contradicts the key principle of the Road Map that states steps must be made by both sides in parallel. Israel is not obligated to take the first steps to restart the peace process. Sen. Obama seems to be following the Palestinian interpretation that places this responsibility upon Israel.

The deceptive Obama: "Obama's campaign aides have emphasized his strong Christian beliefs and downplayed any Islamic connection. The candidate was raised "in a secular household in Indonesia by his stepfather and mother," his chief spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said in a statement in January after false reports began circulating that Obama had attended a radical madrasa, or Koranic school, as a child. "To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago," Gibbs' Jan. 24 statement said. In a statement to The Times on Wednesday, the campaign offered slightly different wording, saying: "Obama has never been a practicing Muslim." The statement added that as a child, Obama had spent time in the neighborhood's Islamic center. His former Roman Catholic and Muslim teachers, along with two people who were identified by Obama's grade-school teacher as childhood friends, say Obama was registered by his family as a Muslim at both of the schools he attended"

Washington stasis: "Democrats have leapt on reports of mold, rats and bureaucratic hurdles at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as further proof of President George Bush's failed war policies. To the contrary, the problems at Walter Reed are further proof of the Democrats' failed domestic policies - to wit, the civil service rules that prevent government employees from ever being fired (a policy that also may account for Robert Byrd's longevity as a U.S. senator). Thanks to the Democrats, government employees have the world's most complicated set of job protection rules outside of the old East Germany. Oddly enough, this has not led to a dynamic workforce in the nation's capital."

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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

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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Democrats Force American Energy Companies to Flee

Post below excerpted from Gateway Pundit

Democratic policies of "no drilling zones" are forcing energy companies to invest elsewhere. The Democrats also keep America dangerously dependent on foreign oil.


Oil giant Exxon announced that of the 32 new major projects for 2006-09 only one is planned in the United States territory.

Investor's Business Daily has the latest on how democrats are forcing American energy companies to flee the mainland and as a result leave our country more dependent on terror regimes for our energy. This is the last thing our country needs.
"Hil verses Hal"

Democrats gleefully demonize oil companies, outlaw offshore drilling and, in Hillary Clinton's case, vow to expropriate profits. In that kind of climate, why the surprise that Halliburton is moving to Dubai?

Halliburton's pullout from its Houston headquarters Monday for a new home in the Middle East drew umbrage from the very Democrats who've had the oil-services company in their gun sights for years.

Clinton led the charge, hinting at more punishment ahead. "I think it raises a lot of very big concerns, and we're going to be looking into it in Washington," she warned.

One of industry's most innovative firms, Halliburton provides the operative brawn to transform the discoveries of oil exploration into fuel ready for pipeline transport all the way to the gas station. It holds 4,700 patents.

The only thing Democrats see in this showplace of U.S. innovation is a criminal conspiracy. But then, leftists have built a whole culture around hating Halliburton. Their Amazon-listed books hawk conspiracy theories about how Halliburton supposedly runs the U.S. or the world or both.

"Tantamount to fleeing the scene of a crime," huffed the Huffington Post, claiming Halliburton's move was to avoid taxes and slip investigations. The company, of course, denies this -- credibly, we might add, considering its remaining base in Houston.

The reality is, Halliburton's pullout is the result of Democrats doing everything possible to give the company reasons to leave. Yet they don't seem to have a clue that that's what's happening.

Clinton says she is "troubled by the continued outsourcing of jobs and . . . eager to find out how the tax code can be strengthened to encourage American companies to invest here rather than abroad."

Invest in what? Democrats have effectively taken away every opportunity that might keep Halliburton in the states. They've blue-penciled all but a small portion of the Gulf of Mexico for offshore drilling. They also have made the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge off-limits and now want that ban permanent.

Add to that Clinton's threat to confiscate the profits of companies such as Exxon, profits now being used to develop the very energy that fuels the electricity in her microphone. The result is a climate so hostile that the only way oil concerns can produce oil is by moving.

It's not just Halliburton. Exxon last week announced 32 new projects for 2006-09. Only three are based in the U.S., and just one is in the Gulf of Mexico. Another project is in Canada, and the rest are overseas, where no Hillary-like hatred of oil companies exists.

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ELSEWHERE

Big problems with ethanol: ""It's easy to see the appeal: Like the flat tax or missile defense, biofuels suggest a simple solution to a complex problem. Like missile defense, they cater to our faith in technological progress. Instead of drilling rigs blighting coastlines, biofuels evoke vistas filled with amber waves of grain. Just like that, dirty, bloody Mideast crude turns out to have a clean homegrown substitute. It's a fairy tale of course, like so many others featuring magically prolific plants.The reality is that it's costly and incredibly inefficient to unlock energy stored inside plant cells, relative to the effort needed to distill comparable volumes of fuel from crude, even crude as expensive as it is today. The reality is that making biofuels from Brazilian sugar cane is much easier, cheaper and kinder to the environment than using Midwestern grain. The reality is that we care about all those principles so much as to impose a stiff tariff on Brazilian ethanol, lest it displace our homebrew."

The poor track record of diplomacy: "There's something about diplomats, no matter how brilliant, that leads them to see a world that never existed, and most likely never will. The past results achieved by the grand master of diplomacy were often disappointing. Kissinger attempted to tame the Soviet Empire by constructing "d,tente," which probably extended the life of the Communist superstate by a decade or more; it took Ronald Reagan to bring it to an end. Kissinger attempted to negotiate peace between Israel and its enemies, thereby spinning out a grand illusion-the misnamed "peace process"-that has created a cottage industry for negotiators but an expanded war for the citizens of the region. The illusion that "diplomacy" can accomplish anything worthwhile with the Islamic Republic of Iran will only intensify the mullahs' conviction that killing Americans is both divinely sanctioned and a winning strategy".



Comeback for Catholic tradition: "Catholics could soon be singing Gregorian chants during worship after Pope Benedict announced he wants the singing style to make a comeback. The 79-year-old German Pope, who last week told the world he does not care much for Bob Dylan, said the Catholic faithful should learn more of the chanting traditionally sung in Latin by choirs of monks. "The better-known prayers of the Church's tradition should be recited in Latin and, if possible, selections of Gregorian chant should be sung," he said in part of a 140-page booklet on the Mass. He lamented that Latin, the Church's official language, was disappearing and said he wanted future priests to study the language. "Nor should we forget that the faithful can be taught to recite the more common prayers in Latin, and also to sing parts of the liturgy in Gregorian chant," he wrote."

Dutch turn to bible belt: "Just 90 minutes' drive from the temptations of Amsterdam is a village so devout that swearing is banned, women refuse to wear trousers and the bank machine does not dispense cash on a Sunday. The Netherlands, best known abroad for its liberal policies on sex, drugs and homosexuality, is also home to a Protestant "Bible Belt" mapped out by villages such as Staphorst. Now a small political party long associated with the Bible Belt, the Christen Unie (United Christians or CU), is benefiting from a surge of support outside its rural heartland triggered by nostalgia for a more moral, compassionate society. After almost doubling its vote in last November's general election to 4 per cent, the CU has become the kingmaker in the Netherlands' new centrist coalition government, a feat unthinkable at the time of the previous election in 2003. "Society has opted for more traditional values, for principles such as security and community feeling," says Gerard Vroegindeweij, a political correspondent with the Reformatorisch Dagblad, a Protestant newspaper".

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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

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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Research into that pesky Left/Right division in politics

Describing the entire domain of political attitudes in terms of a single Right/Left dimension does have its problems. Many people say they have a mix of views that does not makes them clearly either Leftist or Rightist. Libertarians in particular are always promoting a two dimensional description of political attitudes. The political compass and the "World's Smallest Political Quiz" are popular applications of such theories. Below is one example of such a description:



I regret to report, however, that we seem to be pretty stuck with the old Left/Right schema. Academics have been talking about this at least since the 1940s. Various authors (e.g. Eysenck, 1954; Rokeach, 1960; Kerlinger, 1967) have proposed that an adequate description of world politics really needs two dimensions, as we see above. They propose, for example, that the Left-Right dimension be supplemented by an Authoritarian/Permissive dimension. So that democratic Leftists and Rightists are Permissive Leftists and Rightists whereas Communists and Fascists are Authoritarian Leftists and Rightists. They have not however been able to produce strong evidence that the attitudes of the man in the street are organized that way -- as I point out here and here and here, for instance.

The dimensionality of political attitudes was a topic of great interest to me also throughout my research career and many of my published papers bear on it. I attempted an answer to the dimensionality question in the second paper I ever wrote, in fact -- written in 1968 and published in 1973.

What we usually find when we do surveys of people's attitudes on political questions is that MOST people lean one way or the other. A person who agrees with one "conservative" opinion is highly likely to agree with lots of other "conservative" opinions. Very few people are evenly balanced between Leftist and Rightist opinions. THAT is the basic fact of the matter.

By contrast, people are not at all likely to be predictably pro- or anti-authority. Typically they will agree with about equal numbers of pro-authority and anti-authority questions. Leftists will tend to agree with the enforcement of Leftist authority (e.g. over business activities) and conservatives will tend to agree with enforcement of conservative authority (e.g. over moral matters). The Left/Right division swamps everything else. See here.

The account of Left/Right attitudes given in my monograph on conservatism suggests why this is so. For a start, the assumption that Fascists or Nazis are Right-wing is false. Hitler himself energetically claimed to be a socialist and Mussolini (the founder of Fascism) was a lifelong Marxist. The evidence for this has been summarized at great length elsewhere so will not be elaborated here.

Historically, the core of conservatism has always been a suspicion of government power and intervention and conservatives therefore accept only the minimum amount of government that seems needed for a civil society to function. So it is no wonder that there is no authoritarian version of conservative ideology. If it were authoritarian it could not be conservative.

Leftism, on the other hand, IS intrinsically authoritarian and power-loving and will always therefore tend in the direction of government domination. It is only non-authoritarian to the extent that is thwarted by external influences (such as democracy) from achieving its aims. Leftists in democratic societies do of course commonly deny authoritarian motivations but that is just part of their "cover". Deeds speak louder than words.

A way in which a two-dimensional schema is NEARLY correct

As conservatives characteristically know and as Leftists characteristically deny, reality tends to be peskily complex -- and the present subject is no exception. I wish therefore to point out now one of the complexities not mentioned so far.

There IS a way to divide up normal political discourse into two distinct dimensions but those two dimensions tend to be correlated. They are not independent. Knowing a person's position on one dimension will give you a weak prediction of his/her position on the second dimension. Ferguson in fact published such a description of the attitude domain in the 1940s, though he failed to see that his two dimensions were correlated.

And the dimensions identified by Ferguson can always be found in comprehensive survey research and they are in fact rather familiar. They are the religious/moral dimension and the economic dimension. In other words, it is perfectly possible for people to be conservative on religious and moral matters but at the same time to be socialistically inclined on economic matters -- as indeed America's founding fathers initially were. For an extended discussion of just that combination, see here. There IS even now a religious Left who favour all sorts of government intervention in economic matters. As Waldman says: "Actually, in 2000, at least 10 million white "evangelical Christians" voted for Gore".

Some attitude combinations are more common than others, however, and it will be no news to anybody to hear that the PREPONDERANCE of religious conservatives also support conservative (non-interventionist) economic policies.

What is surprising, in fact, is how weakly the two attitude clusters are associated. In one of my 1973 papers, I found, for instance, a correlation of only .24 between economic conservatism and social conservatism. It was this weakness of association that misled Ferguson into thinking that his two dimensions were not correlated at all.

It would appear, however, that this weakness of association stems from areas of discourse that are less central to overall political orientation -- as, in some 1984 research, I found that moral issues lay at the centre of all conservatism/Leftism issues. See the second Appendix in the paper. It is no wonder, then, that religious conservatives figure so prominently in America's Grand Old Party at the beginning of the 21st century. It shows, perhaps unsurprisingly, that the most personal issues are also the most important in politics.

In summary, then, religious/moral conservatism and economic conservatism are distinct but related -- and the more important the issue is the more highly they become related. It is perhaps encouraging that psychological research from many years previously in Australia predicted so well what is happening in American politics in the early 21st century.

References:

Eysenck, H.J. (1954) The psychology of politics. London: Routledge

Ferguson, L. (1941) The stability of the primary social attitudes. J. Psychology, 12, 283-288.

Kerlinger, F. N. (1967). Social attitudes and their criterial referents: A structural theory. Psychological Review, 74, 110-122.

Rokeach, M. (1960) The open and closed mind. N.Y.: Basic Books.

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ELSEWHERE



The Democrats are at the moment trying to make a big case out of the firing of eight Federal prosecutors by the Bush administration -- something the administration was perfectly entitled to do as the appointments are politiical ones anyway. I have some comments by Attorney General Gonzales about the matter up on Immigration Watch and there is more from him here. What the Democrats are determinedly ignoring was that Bill Clinton fired ALL 93 Federal prosecutors when he came to power -- thus bringing to an end investigations of his dubious personal history. See here. See also here for another way in which the pot is calling the kettle Afro-American.

There is so much being written at the moment about General Peter Pace and his adverse view of homosexual acts that I hate to add to it. Keith Burgess-Jackson does however, summarize the matter succinctly.

Reuters ignores Muslim attacks on Arab Christians: "In an outrageous piece of Anti-semitic journalism, Reuters blames "Israeli occupation" for the Christian flight from the West Bank"

Hating Halliburton, episode 9341: "Halliburton apparently does now, as this report from the Houston Chronicle indicates. And to answer the important question, no, Dubai doesn't. Extradite everyone we ask for, that is. Perhaps Dubai will extradite Halliburton executives in the future, and Halliburton accountants and administrators and operators, too. We will surely need their testimony, and their bad selves, for all those future criminal charges here in the United States. Maybe Dubai will, maybe Dubai won't. If I were Halliburton's CEO Dave Lesar, with less than two years left in a Cheney administration, I'd move all the junk in my trunk to Dubai, and quick. Time is money. And there could be a lot of time served given the way Halliburton has 'earned' their government paycheck over the past six years." [If I had been subjected to as much abuse as Halliburton has, I would want to move somewhere else too]

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

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

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

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