Posting problems

Blogger.com has been playing up. Don't forget my Mirror Sites

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Learning to love McCain

Excerpt:

Perhaps because I'm a neocon, and not a dyed-in-the-wool, native-born conservative, I look at John McCain, with all his flaws, and still think that he's a pretty darn good candidate for our time. More importantly, I think that Obama is a very dangerous candidate precisely because of the time in which we live. I therefore find disturbing the number of conservative purists who insist that they're going to teach John McCain -- and everyone else, dammit! -- a lesson, either by sitting out the election or by throwing their vote away on a third party candidate. This is a kind of political game that may be fun to play in uninteresting eras, but I think it's suicidal given the pivotal existential issues we now face.

It's easy to target John McCain's flaws. Most recently, he's managed to buy into the whole green machine just as it's becoming clear that the greenies probably rushed their fences, and leapt into hysteria well in advance of their facts. Still, whether because you view the world through green colored glasses, or because you really hate funding totalitarian governments that are hostile to America, there is a lot to be said for exploring energy alternatives. McCain's free market approach should help that effort. Also, by the time he becomes President, there should be a sufficient aggregation of rationally based information about the climate to allow McCain a graceful retreat from a foolish campaign promise.

McCain also seems to be unresponsive to the feeling ordinary Americans have that illegal immigration is a big problem. This feeling arises, not because we're all xenophobic nutcases, but because we recognize a few fundamental truths: (a) American law starts at American borders, and it is deeply destructive to society's fabric to have an immigrant's first act in this country be an illegal one; (b) a country's fundamental sovereign right is the ability to control its own borders; (c) unchecked immigration provides a perfect pathway, not merely for the field worker, but for the bomb-maker; and (d) immigrants who come here should be committed to this country and its values, and shouldn't just by moseying over to grab some illegal bucks to send to the folks back home. Nevertheless, while illegal immigrants are irritating, they're not an existential threat that can bring America to its knees within the next four years. They are a problem, but not an imminent one.

McCain may also never be absolved of the sin he committed with the McCain-Feingold Act, a legislative bit of bungling that has George Soros singing daily Hosannas. However, that's done. There is no doubt that it reflects badly on McCain's judgment, but I think it's a sin that needs to be ignored, if not forgiven, in light of the person facing McCain on the other side of the ballot box.

You see, from my point of view, this election isn't really about John McCain at all. It's about Barack Obama. Of course, it shouldn't be about Barack Obama. During a time of war and economic insecurity, one of the two presidential candidates should not be a man who has no life history, beyond a remarkable ability at self-aggrandizement, and no legislative history, despite a few years paddling about in the Illinois State Legislature and three years (count `em, three) doing absolutely nothing in the United States Senate.

That Obama is a man of no accomplishments or experience, though, doesn't mean that he hasn't managed to acquire some bad friends and bad ideas. The friends are easy to identify: Comrade . . . I mean Rev. Wright; Michelle "the Termagant" Obama; the explosive Ayers and Dohrn duo; Samantha "Hillary is a Monster" Power; Robert "Hamas" Malley; Zbigniew "the Jews are out to get me" Brzezinski; etc. Over the years, he's sought out, paid homage to, and been advised by a chilling collection of people who dislike America and are ready to give the benefit of the doubt to anyone who talks the Marxist talk and walks the Marxist walk.

Obama's ideas are as unnerving as his friends. To my mind, the Jihad that Islamists have declared against us is the fundamental issue of our time. Thanks to the nature of modern asymmetrical warfare, the fact that these Jihadists number in the tens of thousands, rather than the millions, and that they're often free operators, not formal armies, does nothing to lessen the serious threat they pose to American freedoms. We've seen with our own eyes the fact that, using our own instruments of civilization, 19 determined men can kill almost 3,000 people in a matter of hours.

Nor was 9/11 an aberration, committed by the only 19 Islamic zealots on planet Earth. Whether they're using the hard sell of bloody deaths, or the soft sell of co-opting a nation's institutions and preying on its well-meant deference to other cultures and its own self-loathing, the Jihadists have a clearly defined goal -- an Islamic world - and they're very committed to effectuating that goal. And while it's true that, of the world's one billion Muslims, most are not Jihadists, the fanatic minority can still constitute a critical mass when the passive majority either cheers on the proposed revolution from the sidelines or does nothing at all. As Norman Podhoretz has already explained, this is World War IV.

I understand this. You understand this. McCain understands this. Obama, however, does not understand this. He envisions cozy chit-chats with Ahmadinejad and loving hand-holding with Hamas. There's every indication that, given his world view, he'll take Clinton's "Ah feel your pain" approach one step further, and engage in a self-abasing "I -- or, rather, America -- caused your pain." That approach failed when Carter tried it, and it's only going to fare worse the second time around.

Obama is also bound and determined to withdraw instantly from Iraq, even though the momentum has shifted completely to the American side. Even though another famous Illinois politician spoke scathingly of General McClellan for "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory" at Appomattox, Obama has not learned from that painful lesson. He is adamant that he will repeat McClellan's errors and enshrine the snatching method as national policy. Every five year old understands that you don't leave the fight when it's going your way; Obama, however, does not. That is scary in and of itself.

There is one thing, though, that Obama understands with perfect clarity: the role of Supreme Court judges. He knows that they should apply compassion and empathy, without the restrictive hindrance of the outdated United States Constitution. I'm not making this up. He's said so: "I want people on the bench who have enough empathy, enough feeling, for what ordinary people are going through."

As someone unfortunate enough to litigate in a jurisdiction filled to overflowing with these empathic judicial actors, I can tell you that this approach is disastrous. First, it's unfair within the confines of a single case when the judge can ignore the law and, instead, decide a case based on the color of his underpants on any given day. Second, and more importantly, judicial activism (for that is what Obama describes) also destroys the stability necessary for a safe, strong society. It becomes impossible for people and entities to make reasoned calculations about future behavior, since they cannot rely on cases or statutes as guides. They simply have to hope that, if things go wrong, the judge before whom they appear likes them better than he likes the other guy. This is no way to run a courtroom, let alone a country.

What should concern all of us is the power a President Obama will have to effect an almost permanent change on the Supreme Court, one that will last far beyond his presidency. Those with gambling instincts point to the fact that, if anyone leaves the Court during an Obama presidency, it will be the existing liberal justices. In other words, they say, Obama, by replacing the departing liberal justices with equally liberal incoming justices, will simply be maintaining the status quo. I'm not so sanguine.

Although I preface the thought with a "God forbid," it is possible that conservative justices might leave the Court too, whether through death, illness, incapacity, or personal choice. If that's the case, Obama, backed by a compliant Democratic Congress, will be able to appoint anyone he pleases to the Court. With a solid activist majority, you can bet that, in your lifetime (as well as your children's and grandchildren's lifetimes), the Supreme Court will become the second Legislative branch, with the sole difference being that it will be completely unhindered by having to woo or be answerable to any pesky voters back home.

It's these last two points -- the War and the judiciary -- that make me feel very strongly that we have to accept John McCain as president, warts and all. While he is far from perfect, he is rock solid on the two issues that can't just be massaged away in four years. He will continue to wage war, both on the field and in the realm of ideas, against the Jihadists, and he will appoint conservative Supreme Court justices.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Iranian regime again calls on Muslims to erase Israel: "Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki yesterday called on the world's Muslims to work to "erase" Israel, in the latest verbal attack by Tehran against the Jewish state. "As the Imam Khomeini said, if each Muslim even throws a bucket of water on Israel, Israel will be erased," said Mottaki in Tehran, recalling a saying by Iran's late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sparked international outrage when called for Israel to be "wiped from the map". While Ahmadinejad and top military commanders regularly predict the demise of Israel, such virulent attacks from the foreign ministry are relatively unusual."

Bad news for the Defeatocrats: "May could turn out to have been one of the most important months of the war. While Washington's attention has been fixed elsewhere, military analysts have watched with astonishment as the Iraqi government and army have gained control for the first time of the port city of Basra and the sprawling Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, routing the Shiite militias that have ruled them for years and sending key militants scurrying to Iran. At the same time, Iraqi and U.S. forces have pushed forward with a long-promised offensive in Mosul, the last urban refuge of al-Qaeda. So many of its leaders have now been captured or killed that U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, renowned for his cautious assessments, said that the terrorists have "never been closer to defeat than they are now."

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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THE CORRUPTION OF SCIENCE

Science has a good reputation in our society and it has that for a good reason: It gets results. Lots of opportunistic people look on that reputation with jealous eyes, however. They want that reputation for themselves and to prop up their own beliefs. So they go into a scientific career with that somewhere in mind. And those who wish to USE science for their own ends are, sadly, very much the majority. Seekers after objective truth are an eccentric minority among scientists.

That is of course a bold statement and a sweeping accusation but, in saying that, I am speaking as an insider. In my own field of psychology, it became evident to me very early on that most of what as accepted as good psychological research was glaringly defective. So I wrote critiques of the research that I saw as defective and submitted the critiques for publication in the academic journals. Journal editors greatly dislike publishing critiques. They see critiques as "negative" rather than interesting. The points I made were so clearly right, however, that about 50% of my critiques were accepted and eventually appeared in print. See here

I was however of the view that bad research is driven out not by critiques but rather by better research. So I did a LOT of new research of my own. And that was almost all published. And it was not hard to do better research than what was generally being done. My lackasdaisical colleagues who were not really interested in truth would, for instance, hand out a bunch of questionnaires to their students and use the answers they got from that to generalize about all mankind. And they were the good guys. Lots of other psychologists would play tricks on white rats and use the results of that to generalize about all mankind.

So all I had to do to obtain more useful data than that was to use the accepted assumptions and procedures but gather my data from a properly randomized sample of the population of a major metropolitican city, such as Sydney, London or Los Angeles. And I did a lot of that. See here. That was in fact the reason my research usually got published: Because my data was so obviously better than almost anything else in the field.

But the results I got from doing the research properly were almost always greatly at variance with what was the accepted wisdom in the field. So my results, being better based, should have had considerable influence on what was believed? Right? No way! My results were, as far as I can tell, totally ignored. My colleagues just went on believing what they wanted to believe as before. My endeavour to influence their thinking by the use of facts was pissing into the wind.

So after 20 years of doing that (1970-1990), I gave up. I concentrated on my business interests and bringing up kids instead. About 5 years ago, however, I started to take an interest in the global warming theory and what I found there was very much what I was familiar with. Facts and reason did not matter. Distortion, bias and ignoring the evidence was the order of the day. Speculation was treated as fact. Climate science was no better than psychological science. And my blog GREENIE WATCH presents findings to that effect on a daily basis.

More recently, I have also taken an interest in medical science. One would hope that something as important as medical science would be pursued with high-minded objectivity and concern for truth. To expect that is however to ignore the great prestige attached to medical research. That prestige attracts egotists and knowalls as flies are attracted to honey and the result, I am sad to say, is that medical science is even worse than psychological science. I used often to accuse my colleagues in psychology of making mountains out of molehills. In medical research they make mountains out of pimples. Most of it is utter crap and dietary science is the crappiest of the crap. Logic and proper caution about inferences regularly fly out the window. There is of course good research done but the good stuff is swamped by trash. Finding the truth amid it all is a Herculean task. And I document all that daily on my FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC blog.

But the corruption in science is not random. It has a direction. Scientists tend to be pretty pleased with thermselves. They see themselves as an elite who are entitled to tell others what to do. And their conclusions in their research -- particularly in medical research and climate research -- tend to be highly prescriptive. They are constantly saying what people SHOULD do with their lives, diet etc. Sadly for them, however, most people dislike being told what to do by others and ignore the many prescriptions hurled at them.

So scientists make common cause with those people in society who want to FORCE people to do their bidding. That very often means that they become Leftists. And the direction in which scientific beliefs tend is almost invariably Leftist in some way. Leftists don't care very much about evidence nor do most scientists. What they care about is changing the behaviour of other people -- and lies and deception in that cause are just fine.

As I say, I have detailed up-close knowledge of the unscientific nature of most science in three fields: Psychology, climate science and medicine. But I have every reason to believe that other scientific disciplines are just as bad. I am already too overstretched to go into it but what I see in astrophysics is amazingly wrongheaded at times too.

But for sheer and constant dishonesty, the prizewinner has to be feminist "science". I have yet to find anything at all good in it. I have had papers published that show feminist dogma to be the reverse of the truth (e.g. here) but one is so obviously arguing with hormonal disturbance rather than with reason in that field that I generally don't waste my time on it. I can however show what I mean by way of example. Read the article immediately below and decide what you think of it. Disregard the fact that its conclusions fly in the face of 100 years of results from good psychometric research and consider it on its own merits. I think you will find that it makes a reasonable case -- though one of its conclusions -- that shootemup computer games are good for your brain -- must be seen as upsetting a few applecarts!

Then read the complete demolition of it that immediately follows it. Sad, isn't it? There is more that I could add to what appears below but what's the point? I cannot resist noting however that the surname of the feminist ninny concerned means "wisdom" in Italian. In her dreams!

Gender math gap erasable, studies suggest

It's been a long, sometimes vicious controversy: are boys better at math than girls? Some say they are, because boys tend to outscore girls in math. Opponents blame that on sexist upbringing.

New studies may be shedding light on the issue. In a nutshell, some of the latest research points to three conclusions that offer something to satisfy both sidesbut overall paint a bright picture for those eager to see more women enter mathematics and sciences. The key findings: Girls are as good at math as boys given the proper environment.

Males may have an edge in spatial thinking abilities, which are useful in mathand this advantage may be very ancient, evolutionarily speaking.

Deeprooted though this difference may be, females can surmount it with just a little work. "The socalled gender gap in math skills seems to be at least partially correlated to environmental factors," said Paola Sapienza of The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Illinois. "The gap doesn't exist in countries in which men and women have access to similar resources and opportunities," added Sapienza, summarizing the results of a new study published in the May 30 issue of the research journal Science.

In it, Sapienza and colleagues analyzed data from more than 276,000 children in 40 countries who took an internationally standardized test of math, reading, science and problemsolving. The data came from the 2003 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Programme for International Student Assessment.

The researchers found that globally, boys outperformed girls in math by 10.5 points on average on this test. But this advantage vanished in some of the most progressive and genderequal countries such as Iceland, Sweden and Norway.

Now that the apparent good news is out, does this mean anyone who dared suggest the existence of natural gender differences in math was being sexist?

Not necessarily, if one believes other studies suggesting sexism isn't the only reason for the math gap. Some research has attributed that gap to a deeper discrepancy in spatial reasoning abilities. One new study even suggests an evolutionary reason: better spatial reasoning in males might be related to larger range size in their ancestral environment.

This discrepancy may extend all the way down the evolutionary tree to invertebrates, according to the research, which focused on cuttlefish and appears in the May 27 online issue of the research journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

"Evidence of sex differences in spatial cognition have been reported in a wide range of vertebrate species," but never the simpler invetebrates, the authors wrote. The investigators found that male cuttlefish both range over a larger area, and have better orienting abilities than female cuttlefish. "The data conform to the predictions of the range size hypothesis," they wrote.

Nevertheless, differences in spatial cognition are easily surmountable, if one believes yet a third study, which might help explain why ultimately girls and boys can perform equally in math. Published in last October's issue of the journal Psychological Science, this study found that malefemale differences in some tasks requiring spatial skills are largely eliminated after both groups play a video game for 10 hours.

"On average, women are not quite as good at rapidly switching attention among different objects and this may be one reason why women do not do as well on spatial tasks," said the lead author, University of Toronto psychology doctoral student Jing Feng. But "both men and women can improve their spatial skills by playing a video game," he added, and "the women catch up to the men. Moreover, the improved performance of both sexes was maintained when we assessed them again after five months." The game used was a first-person shootemup game, "Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault."

The game "may cause the expression of previously inactive genes which control the development of neural [brain] connections that are necessary for spatial attention," said Ian Spence, director of the university's engineering psychology laboratory. "Clearly, something dramatic is happening in the brain" thanks to the playing.

"One important application of this research could be in helping to attract more women to the mathematical sciences and engineering," he added. "Since spatial skills play an important role in these professions, bringing the spatial skills of young women up to the level of their male counterparts could help to change the gender balance in these fields that are so important to our economic health."

Source

And now for the demolition:

Economist says girls actually better than boys at maths. Shows no sign of it herself however...

An economist in America has published research stating that girls have at least as much innate mathematical ability as boys. Paola Sapienza contends that the fact of girls almost always doing worse in maths exams results mainly from sexual discrimination. "The math gender gap can be eliminated, and it is indeed eliminated in some countries," says Sapienza. "Our research indicates that in more gender equal societies, girls will gain an absolute advantage relative to boys."

Sapienza and her co-authors reached their conclusion by looking at boy-vs-girl maths performance in different countries, and checking this against various measures which indicate how sexually equal each country is believed to be. The maths test figures used were from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), set up by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The PISA data included standardised test results from some 276,000 children in forty countries.

As for equality, various figures were used, most notably the Gender Gap Index from the World Economic Forum. This is worked out according to various measures, such as the support given to working mums, proportion of women who work, females in politcs etc. A value of zero GGI indicates "inequality" (males totally dominating; women do no work, earn no money, don't appear at all in politics etc). A GGI of 1 equals "equality" (women just the same as men in these areas).

Presumably there could exist a condition where the GGI approached infinity, in which the zero state was reversed and men were totally crushed. However, no country has even achieved a rating of 1 yet; in every nation on Earth, according to the GGI, women are disadvantaged to some degree.

Sapienza and her colleagues noted that in Iceland, girls actually beat boys by a small margin on the PISA maths tests. Iceland scores high on womens' lib, at GGI 0.78. By contrast, Turkey - where the men keep their women firmly under the thumb (GGI 0.59) - showed girls lagging. The top four countries for gender equality are all in northern Europe: Sweden, Norway and Finland are the only ones which beat Iceland. (You can see the latest rankings here (PDF)

"As a European, I'm not surprised that the top countries are the northern European," said Sapienza - who comes from Italy herself. QED, then. In the northern-Euro countries, where the human race is most nearly approaching gender equality - though not by any means there yet - girls are already outstripping boys at maths, as they often do in non-mathematical subjects. In the gender-equal society of the future, girls really could be expected to trounce the chaps on all suits. Men just aren't as intelligent as women.

Steady on, though. You can download the PISA 2006 figures here (xls spreadsheet, table 6.2c). As far as we can make out, Turkish girls aren't doing nearly as badly as Sapienza says (6 points down on the boys, not 23). Perhaps there's a typo somewhere. But there are other problems: the Icelander girls' 4-point lead is there, as noted, but it's a statistically insignificant result. That means it's within the variation you could expect from the sample with no bias present.

There is, however, one country where the girls thumped the boys at maths in a statistically significant fashion. But it's not in progressive northern Europe - it's Qatar, lying 109th in the gender-equality rankings with a GGI of 0.6 - almost as male-chauvinist as Turkey.

And what of so-progressive Finland, actually ahead of Iceland in gender equality? Boys ahead in maths by a statistically-significant 12 points. Ouch. Boys are significantly ahead in Norway, too, the second-most-gender-equal country in the world. In Germany - seventh best worldwide at gender equality - the girls are simply nowhere, a shocking 20 points down on the chaps. Indeed, very few girls anywhere lag as far behind their male contemporaries as those of progressive Germany. (Those of Austria and Colombia do, though. Both countries score higher than the USA on gender equality.)

Meanwhile, girls appear to be somewhere near equal maths performance with boys - that is, the difference between the sexes falls within expected variation - in various other places. Jordan and Kyrgyzstan rather leap to the eye, actually. Girls do fine at maths in both nations, yet these places are way down (104th and 70th) in the equality rankings.

"What are these northern European countries doing so that there is no gap?" asks Sapienza. But Norway, Germany, Denmark and Finland do show a statistically significant gap in her own chosen data set, for goodness' sake. Unlike Qatar, Jordan and Kyrgyzstan. Even for an economist, this shows a poor grasp of mathematics.

In the end boys may or may not be innately better than girls at maths, but one thing's for sure: associate professor Sapienza hasn't added anything to the debate, perhaps because she herself doesn't seem to understand maths at all.

Her twaddle can be read in the new issue of Science, or there are summaries here and with more detail here.

Update:

We've already had a fair bit of angry mail on this one. Sample quote: "To you, one word only: Moron" [many more words then followed, and indeed another email from the same person]. However, two further points: the research apparently draws on the PISA 2003 survey rather than the 2006 one, presumably explaining the discrepancy in the Turkish maths scores. Also, another reader flags up the fact that Sapienza's co-authors are all male, which makes this article "an excellent example of discrimination against women". (Sapienza is the lead author, though, and none of the others have their picture at the top of the press releases.)

Source

There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc.

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or 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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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McCain puts forward a good idea

If this gets going, the disgusting UN might simply fade away

Gaining ground this political season is a proposed League of Democracies designed to strengthen support for the next president's overseas agenda and ensure a global leadership role for the United States. John McCain, the virtually certain Republican presidential nominee, has endorsed the concept of a new global compact of more than 100 democratic countries to advance shared views and has discussed the idea with French and British leaders. "It could act where the U.N. fails to act," he said last month, and pressure tyrants "with or without Moscow's and Beijing's approval." McCain said the League might impose sanctions on Iran, relieve suffering in the Darfur region of Sudan and deal with environmental problems.

Barack Obama, who has a lead in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, has not taken a stand. But Anthony Lake, one of Obama's policy advisers, has spoken in favor of the idea.

Analysts at think tanks in Washington and elsewhere envision a league focused on maintaining peace and limiting U.S. military intervention, such as the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. But missing so far are specific, proposed steps to turn the idea into reality, such as where to have a headquarters, who would finance the league and how its membership would be decided. "Cooperation is an absolute essential," Ivo Daalder, a national security expert at the Brookings Institution, said Thursday at a seminar.

An originator of the idea, Daalder said it would give democracies a better opportunity to reform the United Nations. "If there had been a dialogue on Iraq there would have been more rigorous containment of Saddam Hussein," possibly averting war, said Tod Lindberg, a Hoover Institution research fellow, at the seminar held at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

But not all foreign policy experts support the proposal. Thomas Carothers, vice president for studies at Carnegie, said "the world has no appetite for a U.S.-led league and many countries do not want the U.S. going around the U.N." In fact, Carothers said, the United States cooperates often with non-democracies in its foreign policy. China's help in trying to end North Korea's nuclear weapons program is just one example, he said.

President Bush's Iraq war policy was bitterly opposed by two leading democracies, France and Germany, among others. But Bush went ahead despite their strong objections. "It is wishful thinking" that a league of democracies would any more readily approve U.S. military intervention in support of another U.S. president, Carothers said. And while "some people like Senator McCain imagine it might become a replacement for the U.N., that is not the initial intention," Carothers said in a telephone interview after the seminar.

Source

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ELSEWHERE

Windfall-profit nonsense: "Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama want to raise the price of oil, as well as most everything else, and lower the value of the pension and mutual funds that union members and retirees depend on. Of course, they don't describe their plan that way. Instead, they call for a windfall-profits tax on the oil companies. But it's the same thing. Taxing a 'windfall' sounds appealing, but stock prices are based on expected profits. Throw a new tax on profits, and retirement portfolios of regular people take a hit."

Cowboys the rage in Paris: "They turn out in their hundreds in Stetsons and boots as hits such as the Crazy Foot Mambo and the Cowboy Strut echo around their village halls. They are drawn by a love of American culture - although definitely not American politics - and a passion for line dancing, which enables them to swing but avoid all human contact. Now country and western has become so big in France that the country's bureaucrats have decided to bring the craze under state control. The French administration has moved to create an official country dancing diploma as part of a drive to regulate the fad. Authorised instructors who have been on publicly funded training courses will be put in charge of line dancing lessons and balls".

Israel sets the example: "The corruption case against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has earned Israel tremendous respect throughout the Arab world, where many have called on their leaders to benefit from Israel's democratic system and independent judicial system. Words of praise for Israel are a rare phenomenon in the Arab media. But judging from the reactions of many Arabs to the corruption case in the past week, the trend appears to have changed. Even some Arabs who describe themselves as "sworn enemies of the Zionist entity" have begun singing praise for Israel. Over the past week, the corruption case against Olmert received wide coverage in the mainstream Arab media, prompting an outcry about the need for transparency and accountability in the Arab world."

George W. Bush - Walking Away a Winner?: "We went through similar times in the early 1990's. The Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union crumbled and we won the Cold War. Yet it was beyond the typical liberal's ability to acknowledge that Ronald Reagan had anything to do with these accomplishments... We're seeing something similar happen now. In the past couple of weeks, two extremely promising news stories have sprung from the War on Terror. The situation in Iraq is looking promising, and there is a real possibility and perhaps even a likelihood that the Iraq war will leave as its legacy a remarkably civilized and progressive country by the standards of the region. More importantly, the war may leave behind a stable and humane nation that will not be hostile to American interests, one that may serve as a beacon for it neighbors. Perhaps more noteworthy is the CIA's assessment that "portrays Al Qaeda as essentially defeated in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and on the defensive throughout much of the rest of the world"

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or 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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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McCain Should Run Against Congress

When House Minority Leader John Boehner is asked whether his party needs to distance itself from George W. Bush, he likes to point out the president isn't on the ticket this fall. True. Several hundred incumbent GOP members of Congress are, however, and don't think John McCain hasn't noticed.

With Congress's approval rating at record lows, the time is ripe for a slam campaign. Barack Obama won't do it, since his Democratic colleagues are running the joint. But it's a huge opportunity for Mr. McCain, who could play Congress's failings off his promises for reform. Even as Republicans sagely warn their nominee to distance himself from the president, they're beginning to see that his more productive option might just be to throw them - and Congressional Democrats - under the Straight Talk bus....

Today's Congress is ripe for a shredding. The GOP kicked off an era of public disgust with its corruption and loss of principle, a reputation it has yet to shake. Democrats have, impressively, managed to alienate voters further with inaction and broken promises. Congress has come to represent the institutional malaise that so frustrates voters. That distaste explains this year's appetite for "change."

Mr. McCain could play off that hunger, and in the process provide his campaign with the theme it still sorely needs. Mr. Obama has his "change" slogan, but as of yet no innovative policies to hang on it. Mr. McCain's problem is opposite: He's laid out smart ideas - an optional flat tax, health-care tax credits, a veto of all earmarks - but has yet to find a narrative to bring them together. One solution: Latch on to a subject that today occupies only a part of his speeches - the promise of "political reform" - and turn it into a full-fledged philosophy. Theme: "Your government has failed you, and here's how I plan to fix it."

Congress is the embodiment of that failure, and Mr. McCain could use it to draw distinctions. He could swivel the focus away from the Bush comparison, and toward Mr. Obama's kinship with today's all-talk Democratic Congress. He could tell voters that the party they feel is today failing them in the Capitol will also fail them in the White House.

As for bad-mouthing the GOP as part of this process, it isn't likely Mr. McCain would offend his conservative base. Most of it is already offended by Congress. His criticism of today's diminished GOP brand, and a promise to revive it, might even help him with the rank-and-file, and would certainly draw independents.

Mr. McCain has so far only flirted with this idea. He wrote an op-ed criticizing the farm bill, but it was largely an abstract complaint about policy. He might have instead made its focus the skewering of a Congress that relentlessly shovels subsidies to agribusiness, and then directly tied that naked vote-buying to today's high prices. A proponent of entitlement reform, he could flay Congress for its decades of inaction on Social Security. His earmark criticism might name names, including those in his party, whose pork addiction has sullied politics. If he's looking for suggestions, he could start with the Alaska delegation.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Rupert's 99-year old mother beats the tax man: "Dame Elisabeth Murdoch has been spared from paying tax on a multi-million dollar payment after a successful Federal Court appeal against the tax office. Dame Elisabeth, 99, had received the $85 million payment in 1994 after alleged breaches in relation to four of the family trusts set up by her late husband Keith Murdoch and administered by her son Rupert Murdoch. The tax office classified the payment as taxable income.... Today, Federal Court judges Kevin Lindgren, Margaret Stone and Peter Jacobson ruled that the 2007 decision of the Administrative Tribunal had incorrectly classified the lump sum payment as income instead of capital. The court ordered the Tribunal's decision be set aside and that her tax assessment for the 1995 financial year be ammended. The taxation commissioner was also ordered to pay Dame Elisabeth's court costs."



Pope cracks down on pretend-Catholics: "The Vatican has issued its most explicit decree so far against the ordination of women priests, punishing them and the bishops who try to ordain them with automatic excommunication. The decree was written by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and published in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, giving it immediate effect. A Vatican spokesman said the decree made the Church's existing ban on women priests more explicit by clarifying that excommunication would follow all such ordinations. Excommunication forbids those affected from receiving the sacraments or sharing in acts of public worship. Father Tom Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Centre at Georgetown University, said he thought the decree was meant to send a warning to the growing number of Catholics who favour admitting women to the priesthood."

Bibi on Israeli socialism: "Netanyahu: "Yeah, we [Israel] have had high tech for quite some time. We produce more conceptual products per capita than any other country in the world, so we should be perhaps the richest or among the richest countries. And yet we're not. Countries that were behind us 20 years ago -- Ireland, Singapore, Spain -- they don't have nearly the capacity to produce information and conceptual products that we did. They beat us. Why? It's because they liberated their markets a lot faster. In other words, high tech without free markets doesn't go very far."

Blind boy killed by Muslim teacher: "A blind seven-year-old student at an Islamic school in eastern Pakistan has died after his teacher punished him for not learning the Koran, police said today. Muhammad Atif was hung upside down from a ceiling fan and severely beaten by his teacher, Qari Ziauddin, at the seminary or madrassa in Vihari, near Lahore on Thursday, they said. Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had ordered in inquiry into the death, an official statement said. "The Prime Minister has expressed his deep sorrow and concern over the tragic death of Muhammad Atif, who reportedly died as a result of corporal punishment by his teacher,'' the statement said. Police said the teacher had been arrested on charges of torturing and murdering the boy."

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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The British scene

In the latest policy screw-up, Labour back-benchers are screaming about a planned 200 pound ($396) tax increase on any high-carbon-emitting vehicle registered in the past seven years. Even green-minded politicians realize that punishing citizens for their past purchases won't shrink Britain's carbon footprint today.

Lawmakers are also panning a prospective 2-pence-per-liter hike in the fuel tax just weeks after the Brown government had to abandon separate plans to effectively raise the lowest income-tax rate to 20% from 10%. The latter move, which would have raised taxes on millions of workers at the bottom of the pay scale, figured heavily in Labour's disastrous results in the May 1 local elections and last Thursday's loss of an ultrasafe parliamentary seat in a by-election.

Mr. Brown doesn't only soak the poor. There's also been tremendous blowback from the œ30,000-a-year levy he and Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling want to slap on wealthy foreigners who live and work in Britain but claim residency - and keep most of their taxable assets - elsewhere. The government finally agreed to modify this new tax on "nondomiciled" residents. But it remains to be seen whether the tax drives away some of the very workers who have helped London become a financial powerhouse.

Some of Mr. Brown's policy problems are older than his premiership. Take the collapse of mortgage lender Northern Rock last autumn, a situation that the government promptly and repeatedly botched. It quickly became apparent that part of the blame lay in Mr. Brown's decision years earlier, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, to divide banking supervision among three different departments. This unwieldy "tripartite" arrangement made it more difficult for regulators to spot banks in danger before it was too late and to respond to a snowballing crisis.

Mr. Brown's once-solid reputation as an able steward of the economy is fading. As in the U.S., British homeowners worry that their country's housing bubble will burst; consumers are struggling with soaring grocery and gasoline bills. One wonders whether Britain was simply riding the wave of world-wide growth in the past decade of Labour rule - and if it might have done even better had the Chancellor not increased public spending from 37% of GDP in 1999-2000 to more than 41% in each of the last four budgets.

More here

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Brookes News Update

Putting the Bush boom in perspective: Speculation that the housing 'crisis' could sink the Bush economy are completely off-beam. As usual, commentators are ignoring the monetary factors, especially credit expansion, that create booms and generate housing bubbles
Safe from truth: Democrats move to silence the Pentagon: With the support of the treasonous New York Times House Democrats passed a bill that would prevent the Pentagon from publicising the good news that the allies are winning in Iraq
How interventionists drive up rents: The real enemy is not lying two-faced lefties but public ignorance of basic economic principles. If these principles were widely understood those regulations that have done so much to harm the poor by driving up rents would not have passed muster
More offshore oil drilling: The U.S. government has banned drilling in thousands of square miles off the U.S. Coast. These areas hold an estimated 115 billion barrels of oil and 633 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. This insane ban has left America's energy needs increasingly at the mercy of foreign autocrats, despots and maniacs
Left-wing racism remembered: Did you know.Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican? Every civil rights law, beginning in the 1860s through the 1950s and 1960s, was fought against by Democrats? Or the KKK had links to the Democratic Party? Is the Democrats' racist past is finally catching up with them?
Global warming: "These are the times that try men's souls": Despite reams and reams of scientific data and increasing numbers of real science experts denouncing the idea that mere humans can accomplish earthly changes in climate, politician after politician continue to promote policies that will cause irreparable harm to the people they seek to put them in office
Madness of a self-destructive world: Sixty years have passed since Israel won her independence. During this time Israel absorbed several millions of Jewish refugees, including 850,000 from Muslim countries. When WW2 ended, 50 million refugees were scattered across Europe. All of them have found a country where they can live and work, for themselves and their families. This experience expose as a fraud the so-called tragedy of 'Palestinian refugees'

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ELSEWHERE

Iran is building a bomb: "More worrying is what the IAEA delicately calls the "possible military dimensions" of Iran's programs. Given that Iran insists its nuclear drive is for peaceful purposes only, it's interesting to note "the fact that substantial parts of the centrifuge components were manufactured in the workshops of the Defense Industries Organization." Also interesting is what the report describes as "the development of high voltage detonator firing equipment and exploding bridgewire (EBW) detonators including, inter alia, the simultaneous firing of multiple EBW detonators, an underground testing arrangement . . . and the testing of at least one full scale hemispherical, converging, explosively driven shock system that could be applicable to an implosion-type nuclear device." If there's an innocent explanation for this kind of work, we'd love to hear it".

Leftist Geraldine Ferraro sees anti-white racism in the media: "These two historic candidacies in 2008 would take racism and sexism and show the world that it is not in the DNA of the United States to deal with those issues the way they were dealt with years and years ago. Well folks, I was proven wrong. It is in the DNA of this country and it's in the DNA of the press. And, I think the press has been absolutely, unbelievably sexist and in some instances racist; not racist against blacks but in some instances racist against whites; picking up everything that was said and running with it as if it's true; attacking people for speaking up." "I have to tell you I hear people... they come up to me and say they're worried. They're worried about what the future has because anytime anyone who speaks up who's white, it's a problem..."

Shootout in Harlem, Al Sharpton Unavailable for Comment: "Monday evening saw seven people shot in Harlem and now there are wails for healing, anti-gang messages and, reflexively, more gun control. Yet one name is missing in every news account I read: Al Sharpton. Yoo-hoo, Reverend Al. How about protesting in your own backyard? Oh, that's right, there were no police involved. So no threats, no shakedowns, no tying up traffic, no multimillion-dollar lawsuits. It's just black kids shooting other black kids, so he doesn't give a damn. Never mind."

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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WHY TWO WORLD WARS WERE FOUGHT

Pat Buchanan knows his history, whatever else you might think of him, and he has just written a good summary of the revisionist arguments about the two world wars. I myself alluded briefly to such arguments on 23rd.

I am one of the many history buffs who agree that WWI was the big mistake so I agree with Buchanan there and I certainly agree with him that the peace-obsessed politics of the interwar period were the breeding ground for WWII.

Buchanan is however being wise in hindsight, something easy to do. What he seems largely unaware of is the psychology behind those two disastrous wars. WWI was NOT fought over the assassination of an Austrian archduke in Serbia. Politicians can be pretty foolish but we do our ancestors discredit to think that they were as foolish as that.

Strangely, WWI was the fruit of the long peace engineered by the "Iron Chancellor" of Prussia, Prince Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck gained great authority from the way he used both war and politics to extend the Prussian domain to the point that almost the whole of the German-speaking lands came under the sway of the Prussian crown in the form of a united Germany -- with the Prussian defeat of Napoleon III at Sedan being the clincher.

So how did Bismarck use that great authority and the pre-eminent German military machine that he controlled? If he had been a Leftist like Napoleon, he would have attempted to conquer the world. But he was a conservative so he did no such thing. Once he had attained his aim of a united Heimatland (homeland) -- i.e. a united Germany --- he used his great talents and resources to ensure that there were no more wars in Europe.

And the long peace from 1872 onwards allowed Europeans to concentrate on constructive pursuits for change -- leading to vast economic growth in most of Europe (including Russia). But the huge leap forward in science, technology and prosperity in the late 19th century led to hubris among the populations concened. They were so impressed by their own achievements that they thought they could conquer the world -- literally. And they actually did to some extent -- bringing large slices of what we would now call the Third World under their rule.

Sadly, however, communications then fell a long way short of the global village that we inhabit today and most people in the national populations concerned concluded that their great achievements were the fruit of a national genius peculiar to them. That other nations were doing about equally as well was lost sight of. It was, in short, a time of overweening national pride and they all thought that they could conquer anyone. So they were all spoiling for a fight. They thought that if they could have a war, they could conquer the other nations around them in six weeks. So after Bismarck was no longer there to restrain them, a pretext for a fight was found and the nations of Europe all marched into WWI in full confidence of a rapid national triumph. It was however reality that triumphed.

And after the colossal horror of WWI, who can blame the politicians of the interwar years for doing everything they could to run away from another war? That running away does more harm than good is however the lesson we must learn from that.

Buchanan's article stops before the events of WWII so I will stop there too. Much to be said there but some other time. I do think Churchill was right in his unswerving enmity to Nazism, however.

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ELSEWHERE

Rather odd to see in the WSJ an essay by Thomas Frank, that well known hater of American working-class people (particularly in Kansas). And in his essay he tries to strike back at the many people who have accused him of elitism. He does that mainly by linking people who dislike elitism to Richard Nixon. Association with Nixon makes you ridiculous of course. And ridicule of ordinary people is all that he seems to have to offer. He answers critics of elitism with more elitism. His deliberate offensiveness suggests to me that he is profoundly insecure about his own claims to elite status.

Stupid Michigan Democrats: "Officials in Lansing reported this month that the state faces a revenue shortfall between $350 million and $550 million next budget year. This is a major embarrassment for Governor Jennifer Granholm, the second-term Democrat who shut down the state government last year until the Legislature approved Michigan's biggest tax hike in a generation. Her tax plan raised the state income tax rate to 4.35% from 3.9%, and increased the state's tax on gross business receipts by 22%. Ms. Granholm argued that these new taxes would raise some $1.3 billion in new revenue that could be "invested" in social spending and new businesses and lead to a Michigan renaissance. Not quite. Six months later one-third of the expected revenues have vanished as the state's economy continues to struggle. Income tax collections are falling behind estimates, as are property tax receipts and those from the state's transaction tax on home sales. Michigan is now in the 18th month of a state-wide recession, and the unemployment rate of 6.9% remains far above the national rate of 5%..... The tax hikes have done nothing but accelerate the departures of families and businesses."

Congress more stupid than Mexico: "In Congress, rising oil and food prices are leading to all sorts of bad ideas - from new farm and energy subsidies to talk of import controls and higher taxes. The Members should take their next foreign trip to Mexico or Indonesia, where governments are adapting to the commodity price boom with sensible reforms. In Mexico on Sunday, President Felipe Calderon decreed a reduction or elimination of import tariffs on wheat, rice, corn, soy, soymeal and fertilizer. He also cut by half the tariff on powdered milk imports, and he'll allow up to 100,000 tons of beans to enter the country duty free, among other tariff reductions. The reforms are intended to ease the burden of rising food costs on Mexicans, both by allowing cheaper imports and encouraging more domestic food production. They will have the added benefit of spurring more competition for that country's protected food producers."

Iranian mines used in attacks on Brits in Afghanistan: "The underside of armoured vehicles deployed in Helmand has proven to be highly susceptible to mines buried by the Taleban, and the Ministry of Defence is preparing to add extra armour to key vehicles. The relatively new Viking armoured troop-carrying vehicle - which was built for the Royal Marines for use in Norway but is now being used across desert routes in northern Helmand - has proven to be vulnerable to the mines, which are suspected of being supplied from Iran. Five Vikings have been destroyed by mines."

Greenie Britain runs out of power: "Hundreds of thousands of people were hit by electricity blackouts yesterday when seven power stations shut down. The unscheduled stoppages were regarded as an unprecedented sign of the fragility of Britain's power infrastructure. Operations were cancelled, people were stuck in lifts, traffic lights failed and fire engines were sent out on false alarms. Householders were unable to use any appliances or make phonecalls as the blackouts hit areas including Cleveland, Cheshire, Lincolnshire and London. It was unclear last night why the power stations had failed. As the cuts escalated, the National Grid was forced to issue the most serious possible warning - "demand control imminent" - and urged suppliers to provide lower-voltage electricity to meet demand. Energy suppliers affected by the shutdown, including British Energy and EON, said that they could not reveal the reasons for the cuts"

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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U.S. Memorial Day

The world of blogs picks up lots of stuff that you would never read in the old media. An excellent example is a post by John Rubery who has marked Memorial Day by a tribute to the Australians who have fought alongside Americans in America's wars since 1900 -- even in Vietnam and currently now in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Australians celebrate their equivalent of Memorial Day on April 25th. And our ANZAC day is undoubtedly our most solemn national day. So it is easy for Australians to understand how Americans feel on their similar occasion. You can read what I wrote last April 25th here.

John Rubery is a "blogging friend" of mine so I think I should warn him about the Australian sense of humour if he ever comes to Australia. Australians have great fun with nicknames. There is a short stocky Australian mining magnate who is referred to even in the media as "Twiggy" (after a very thin British model of yesteryear); Redheads are commonly addressed as "Bluey" and I have even heard German immigrants with the Christian name of "Heinz" referred to as "57 varieties". So if he were ever here for long John Rubery would undoubedly be addressed by his friends as "Rubbery".

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The hate-filled NYT versus GWB

In its Memorial Day editorial the NYT insists the Iraq War is unwinnable:

President Bush opposes a new G.I. Bill of Rights. He worries that if the traditional path to college for service members since World War II is improved and expanded for the post-9/11 generation, too many people will take it.

He is wrong, but at least he is consistent. Having saddled the military with a botched, unwinnable war, having squandered soldiers' lives and failed them in so many ways, the commander in chief now resists giving the troops a chance at better futures out of uniform. He does this on the ground that the bill is too generous and may discourage re-enlistment, further weakening the military he has done so much to break.

So lavish with other people's sacrifices, so reckless in pouring the national treasure into the sandy pit of Iraq, Mr. Bush remains as cheap as ever when it comes to helping people at home.

The White House immediately countered this outrageous Memorial Day article.

The White House on Monday blasted The New York Times for irresponsibly distort[ing] President Bushs strong commitment to strengthening and expanding support for Americas service members and their families.

...This editorial could not be farther from the truth about the presidents record of leadership on this issue, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said in a statement. She added that the newspapers editorial board doesnt let the facts get in the way of expressing its vitriolic opinions - no matter how misleading they may be.

More... The White House released this statement today in response to the hateful reporting at The New York Times:

Once again, the New York Times Editorial Board doesn't let the facts get in the way of expressing its vitriolic opinions - no matter how misleading they may be.

In today's editorial, "Mr. Bush and the GI Bill", the New York Times irresponsibly distorts President Bush's strong commitment to strengthening and expanding support for America's service members and their families.

This editorial could not be farther from the truth about the President's record of leadership on this issue. In his January 2008 State of the Union Address, while proposing a series of initiatives to support our military families, President Bush specifically called upon Congress to answer service members' request that they be able to transfer their GI Bill benefits to their spouses and children. In April, he sent a legislative package to the Hill that would expand access to childcare, create new authorities to appoint qualified spouses into civil service jobs, provide education opportunities and job training for military spouses, and allow our troops to transfer their unused education benefits to their spouses or children.

As Congress debates the best way to expand the existing GI Bill, Secretary Gates has laid out important guidelines to ensure that legislation meets our service members' needs and rewards military service. First, since our servicemen and women have regularly requested the ability to transfer their GI bill benefits to their family members, legislation should include transferability. Second, legislation should provide greater rewards for continued military service in the all volunteer force.

There are several GI bill proposals under consideration in both the House and Senate. The Department of Defense has specific concerns about legislation sponsored by Senator Webb because it lacks transferability and could negatively impact military retention.

The President specifically supports the GI Bill legislation expansion proposed by Senators Graham, Burr, and McCain because it allows for the transferability of education benefits and calibrates an increase in education benefits to time in the service.

More here

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A dangerous Democrat

Are we engaged in a war? If so, against whom? To Sen. Joe Biden, the answers are apparently "no" and "I don't know." In this op-ed, Biden asserts that the regimes and movements sworn to the destruction of the West are merely "a small number of radical groups." He adds that "to compare terrorism with an all-encompassing ideology like communism and fascism is evidence of profound confusion."

Indeed, terrorism is a weapon so it makes no sense to compare it with an ideology. But Biden should by now have at least a passing acquaintance with the ideologies and movements utilizing the terrorist weapon to wage an asymmetrical global conflict. Those ideologies go by various names including militant Islamism, Jihadism, Islamo-Fascism, Khomeinism, Salafism and bin Ladenism. Has Biden not heard these terms? Or does he think he might offend some peaceful merchant in Casablanca were he to utter them?

Biden insists, too, that "Sunnis and Shiites, Persians and Arabs, Iraq and Iran, al Qaeda and Shiite militias" are "more at odds with each other than with us." That the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is not familiar with the abundant evidence to the contrary is frightening.

Source

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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A small meditation

I had a small surgical procedure on one of my eyes a few hours ago so posting on some of my blogs is a bit reduced. I put up initially below something I wrote a few days ago

I still love the old hymns that I learnt in my Christian days and my favourite remains that great Blake hymn:

Jerusalem

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold:
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire.

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.

I particularly love the incredible imagery of the 3rd verse, which is in part derived from the book of Ezekiel.

What the poem tells me is how intertwined Christianity is with Judaism. I sometimes refer to Christianity as a Jewish sect for that reason. The hymn is a great English patriotic poem but what is its criterion for excellence, what is its aspiration? It is: Jerusalem. I will never understand how any sincere Christian can sing in his church of Jerusalem and read in his Bible of all the central events in his faith that took place there and not be unreservedly pro-Israel. It seems to me that Israel and Jerusalen are as central to the Christian faith as they are to the Jewish faith. And it is a wonderful legacy that Christians have received from the old faith. So to my mind, Christians who are not pro-Israel have lost the faith. If your Bible tells you that Israel is the promised land of the Jews, how can you deny it and still be a Christian?

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"Big Oil"

I hadn't realized, until the hearings on energy that were held this week in House and Senate committees, that the United States doesn't have any big oil companies. It's true: the largest American oil company, Exxon Mobil, is only the 14th largest in the world, and is dwarfed by the really big oil companies--all owned by foreign governments or government-sponsored monopolies--that dominate the world's oil supply.

This graph tells the story; you can barely see the American oil companies as minor players on the right side of the chart. The chart was presented to the House committee by Chevron:



With 94% of the world's oil supply locked up by foreign governments, most of which are hostile to the United States, the relatively puny American oil companies do not have access to enough crude oil to significantly affect the market and help bring prices down. Thus, Exxon Mobil, a small oil company, buys 90% of the crude oil that it refines for the U.S. market from the big players, i.e, mostly-hostile foreign governments. The price at the U.S. pump is rising because the price the big oil companies charge Exxon Mobil and the other small American companies for crude oil is going up.

This is obviously a tough situation for the American consumer. The irony is that it doesn't have to be that way. The United States--unlike, say, France--actually has vast petroleum reserves. It would be possible for American oil companies to develop those reserves, play a far bigger role in international markets, and deliver gas at the pump to American consumers at a much lower price, while creating many thousands of jobs for Americans. This would be infinitely preferable to shipping endless billions of dollars to Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela.

So, why doesn't it happen? Because the Democratic Party--aided, sadly, by a handful of Republicans--deliberately keeps gas prices high and our domestic oil companies small by putting most of our reserves off limits to development. China is now drilling in the Caribbean, but our own companies are barred by law from developing large oil fields off the coasts of Florida and California. Enormous shale oil deposits in the Rocky Mountain states could go a long way toward supplying American consumers' needs, but the Democratic Congress won't allow those resources to be developed. ANWR contains vast petroleum reserves, but we don't know how vast, because Congress, not wanting the American people to know how badly its policies are hurting our economy, has made it illegal to explore and map those reserves, let alone develop them.

In short, all Americans are paying a terrible price for the Democratic Party's perverse energy policies.

Source

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or 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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Leftists want control

For nearly two hundred years liberals have believed that the government can solve complex economic problems like the provision and fair distribution of goods and services. For two hundred years they have tested that belief and for two hundred years they have failed. How is it possible for human beings to stay fixated on an idea that has proven untenable time after time after time? The reason: control.

Liberals, like the rest of us, do not expect the government to mow their lawns. They know how to do that. They control the growth of their lawns. Liberals do not expect the government to repair their cars when they break down. They may not know how to fix their automobiles, but they know how to find someone who does. They can control the working condition of their cars.

But when it comes to almost any problem that is not directly under their control, liberals tenaciously cling to the belief that the government can and should fix it. Our socialized system of education is a deteriorating wreck. I can't fix it by myself -- and neither can you. The liberal solution? More government control of education. Our health care system is the best in the world. But not everyone in America has immediate access to all of its amenities. The liberal solution? Governmental control of medical treatment.

Conservatives have misunderstood this notion of control that dominates the liberal mindset. Conservatives tend to believe that liberals want power. Conservatives point to liberal politicians and their efforts to socialize various aspects of our lives as proof. But all politicians want power. Generally speaking, politicians are driven by two things: election and ego. The actions of the politician are dictated by the beliefs of the electorate plus the politician's egocentric desire for the recognition of that electorate. Democrats running in the south run as conservatives-not liberals.

As a percentage of the population, very few Americans run for federal office- -- far less than one per cent. The vast majority of liberals do not want power ... they want control. These are, for the most part, decent, caring human beings. They want control of things that they feel are unfair or unjust. They want to control, collectively, the things in their lives that they cannot control individually.

There is a problem with this liberal effort to establish communal control over things outside of the ability of the individual to control. It does not and cannot work. Individuals labor and create and provide. Governments do not. A government may hire a person, call that person a government employee, pay the person, and order him to perform a certain task; but the individual hired must choose to perform and then physically perform the requested task. The work of governments is performed by individuals....

And it all comes back to control. Without the direct intervention of force, I cannot control your actions and you cannot control mine. Nor can I, again without the use of force, designate some abstract process of sharing, call it "government," and pretend that I can control something outside of my immediate sphere of influence.

We can talk about communal control and such speech appears to be rational to most people. But it is not. If I say, "The government should clean up the environment." I have not made a rational statement. Governments cannot clean up anything. "Government" is an abstract concept -- not a labor-performing subject, like a janitor, that exists in the real world. People can clean up the environment. More exactly, individuals can clean up the environment.

Liberals falsely believe that speech about communal control can result in actual communal control. But there is no such thing as "communal control."[ii] Nearly all of the millions of people who chant in unison with Barack Obama "yes, we can change," do not want power. They want the impossible. They want communal control. And if they cannot have that control, they can still feel good about their effort to obtain it.

More here

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Brookes News Update

Ill-omens haunt the US economy: Therefore conditions in manufacturing clearly indicate that the US economy is now in recession. Can the recession be averted or the trend reversed? Not really, but it is possible that it could be delayed by a massive monetary injection like the one the Reserve Bank of Australia unleashed on the Australian economy in 2001
Rep. John Conyers: America-hating political bigot and Democrat targets Rove for destruction: The United States is largely inhabited by two groups: leftists and Americans. Leftists sound like Americans and were 'educated' in America. However, they despise America and those who cherish her. Conyers is among those who pretend to be Americans while doing everything he can to destroy his country
Obamastan: How anti-Hamas and pro-Israel is Obama? This is the man who wants us to believe that the unrepentant Weatherman terrorist bomber William Ayers, who played host to Obam's first fundraiser and with whom he would later serve on a board, is just a regular guy. So why does Obama attract the support of terrorists?
The "non-judgmental" Michael Moore and Cuban-American: The cowardly Michael Moore viciously libelled Cuban-Americans. Instead of being pummeled as a bigot by the usual media sniffers and snouters, he was feted as the guest of honor at the last Democratic National Convention, squatting his gargantuan gluteus in the very President's Box alongside the notorious Jimmy Carter
Media silent as Obama plays the 'Cross' card: Whenever a Republican invokes God or refers to his faith the mainstream media immediately castigate him. However, the same media is now giving Obama a free pass on religion even though he is sending out campaign flyers showing him at the pulpit of a church. This is another example of the mainstream media's political bigotry and double-standards
Mugabe's thugs torture one of Zimbabwe's leading sportsman: 'They dragged my wife outside and they were trying to strangle her. At this stage she managed to bite the hand of the man who was grabbing her round the throat. Whereupon he started to beat her'. Welcome to Mugabe's socialist paradise.
Israel and the empty rhetoric of deceitful candidates: There are three runners for the position of the President of the United States: not one of them has integrity to admit the mistakes of the past and speak up with clarity about the rights of Jews and the state of Israel

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ELSEWHERE

I have up on FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC at the moment a post titled: "Wacko vets": DOES MILITARY SERVICE SEND YOU MAD?. The research-based answer is the opposite of what the media preach.

They Are Dying, Send Them Condoms: "The United Nations will send nearly a quarter of a million condoms into cyclone-hit Myanmar to help needy survivors with no access to contraceptives, a UN official says. So far, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) said it had sent 72 800 condoms to survivors struggling to maintain their family planning after the storm hit in early May. [.] Cyclone Nargis left at least 133 000 people dead and missing"

Muslim gangs taking over UK prison: "Prison officers at one of Britain's maximum security jails are losing control to Muslim gangs, according to a confidential report obtained by The Observer. An internal review of Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire warns that staff believe a 'serious incident is imminent' as several wings become dominated by Muslim prisoners. The report, written by the Prison Service's Directorate of High Security, says there is an 'ongoing theme of fear and instability' among staff at Whitemoor, where just under a third of the 500 prisoners are Muslim. It claims: 'There was much talk around the establishment "

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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The corruption of public "service"

"The Boston Globe recently reported that retirements are suddenly spiking at the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority. Why? Because a new law taking effect in 2009 slightly reduces benefits for workers who retire before age 65. The major change: As of next year, retirees will have to pay 15 percent of their health insurance premium. Current retirees get free healthcare for life. That's in addition to their pensions, of course. MBTA workers can retire with a full pension after just 23 years on the job, at which point they are perfectly free to find another government job and get right back on the public payroll.

Such double-dipping is common in the public sector, as are so many other lucrative perks that government employees take for granted and most private employees can only dream about. "The nation is dividing into two classes of workers: those who have government benefits and those who don't," USA Today noted in 2007. "The gap is accelerating in every way -- pensions, medical benefits, retirement ages." According to the Congressional Research Service, the pension collected by the average private-sector retiree is worth less than half of what a typical government retiree can expect. If you don't have your snout in the government trough, you can expect to work ever-longer hours and pay ever-higher taxes and fees to support those who do.

Those, to mention just a single example, like Michael Mulhern. He is the 40-something former MBTA general manager who "retired" in 2005, began collecting a $130,000 annual pension, then hired on as head of the MBTA retirement fund, a job that pays about $225,000 annually. Mulhern's total take: more than $350,000 a year. He is just one illustration of a huge problem growing more urgent by the day -- the staggering sums that taxpayers are shelling out for the care and feeding of avaricious public employees. In Massachusetts and nationwide, a backlash is coming.

Source

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NEW REPORT: 'CHOOSE ECONOMIC GROWTH OR ACCEPT POVERTY FOR BILLIONS'

An official advisory body walks in the real world for once, sees gloabalization as a major factor in making poor countries rich

The world will contain 4 billion people living in abject poverty by 2050 unless the poorest countries adopt policies to deliver rapid and sustained growth over the coming decades, a report backed by the World Bank and the British government said yesterday.

After a two-year investigation, a group of policymakers and economists published a blueprint designed to allow the least developed nations to emulate the 13 countries that have expanded at an average rate of at least 7% a year for 25 years or longer since the second world war.

Professor Mike Spence, chairman of the Commission on Growth and Development, said there was no prospect of meeting the Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations - which include halving of the number of people living in poverty by 2015 - without faster growth. Two billion of the 6 billion people in the world live in countries with stagnating or declining incomes, but the report said this figure would rise to 4 billion if they continued to suffer from low growth.

"The Growth Report kills off once and for all the misguided notion that you can lift people out of poverty in the absence of growth," Spence said. "It is impossible for poor countries to lift large populations out of poverty without growth. Equality of opportunity and a focus on individuals and families, gender inequalities and economic security, however, is critical to maintaining the support for growth-oriented policies."

The report said that the 13 countries that had grown rapidly in the post-war era were diverse, including Indonesia, Oman, Malta, Brazil, Botswana and China, but all had made the most of the global economy. "This is their most important shared characteristic and the central lesson of this report. Sustained growth at this pace was not possible before 1950. It became feasible only because the global economy became more open and more tightly integrated. The global economy is still a work in progress, of course, but its effects have already been dramatic.

The study acknowledged that faster growth might worsen climate change but said the onus was on rich countries to promote technologies for cutting carbon and saving energy....

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Muslim English teacher admits to plot to blow up mall : "A Muslim English teacher yesterday today pleaded guilty to threatening to blow up the giant Bluewater shopping centre. Saeed Ghafoor said he was going to bomb Europe's largest shopping complex using three limousines with gas canister explosives. But when questioned further, the former English teacher said Bluewater was in Exeter, the Old Bailey heard. When told it was near the Dartford tunnel in Kent, Ghafoor said he had not 'finalised' his plans, the Old Bailey was told. Ghafoor, 33, of Southampton, pleaded guilty to threatening to cause criminal damage".

McCain could win big in November: "It sounds crazy at first. Amid dire reports about the toxic political environment for Republican candidates and the challenges facing John McCain, many top GOP strategists believe he can defeat Barack Obama - and by a margin exceeding President Bush's Electoral College victory in 2004. At first blush, McCain's recent rough patch and the considerable financial disadvantage confronting him make such predictions seem absurd. Indeed, as Republicans experience their worst days since Watergate, those same GOP strategists are reticent to publicly tout the prospect of a sizable McCain victory for fear of looking foolish. But the contours of the electoral map, combined with McCain's unique strengths and the nature of Obama's possible vulnerabilities, have led to a cautious and muted optimism that McCain could actually surpass Bush's 35-electoral-vote victory in 2004. Though they expect he would finish far closer to Obama in the popular vote, the thinking is that he could win by as many 50 electoral votes."

McCain has nationwide edge over Obama, poll shows: "Rasmussen Reports' Daily Tracking Poll has John McCain leading Barack Obama 46% to 42% nationally, the first time in weeks that either candidate has had a lead of four points or more. McCain leads Hillary Clinton 47%-44% in the poll; Rasmussen's daily tracking results are reported on a four-day rolling average based on interviews with 1,600 likely voters. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points. Pollsters say McCain's lead "can be traced directly to the fact that just 66% of Democrats say they will vote for Obama at this time" and 23% of Democrats say if the election were held now, they'd vote for McCain. Another 11% say they'd go for some other candidate or remain undecided... "The numbers for Florida and Ohio are good news for Sen. John McCain and should be worrisome for Sen. Barack Obama. That is especially true about Ohio, which decided the 2004 election. Ohio's economy is worse than the rest of the country and the Republican brand there is in disrepute. McCain's Buckeye lead may be a sign that nationally this may not be the easy Democratic walk to the White House that many expected," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute."

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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