Liberalism on the Couch: In search of root causes

(Excerpt from Mark Goldblatt)

The first factor I'd suggest in the causal chain that leads liberals to their politics is abject failure. People who are frustrated by their lot in life are often drawn to liberal ideas because modern liberalism's contempt for the free market jibes with their efforts to rationalize their disappointments. This thought was driven home for me last year at the Small Press Book Fair in Manhattan. As you climb the stairwell at the Small Press Center on West 44th Street, moving from small presses on the first floor, to even smaller presses on the balcony level, and then to presses-that-exist-only-to-publish-the-press-founder's-screed upstairs, you move progressively leftwards. Talk to any author on the upper floors, and he'll swear that he's been driven to self-publish because he refused to sell out. He wouldn't compromise his message for the sake of wealth and success, unlike fill-in-the-name-of-a-popular-writer. Corporate capitalism beats down the true visionary, he'll tell you, and he's no company hack. What greater proof of his bona fides than the fact that no mainstream publisher was interested in his work?

But of course the majority of liberals are not abject failures. On the contrary, many have attained a considerable measure of social status and financial clout, which calls to mind another reason liberals become liberals-guilt. Guilt-induced liberalism is most common among the more successful members of historically marginalized and currently struggling groups like blacks and Hispanics, or among members of historically marginalized and currently prospering groups like women and Jews. The trappings of achievement-prestigious job titles, comfortable homes, swollen bank accounts-are a kind of inverse torment for such people, an ongoing crisis of authenticity, a sign of the dissolution of their identity within the marginalized group. They feel compelled, therefore, to demonstrate that their sympathies still reside with the underclass. The cartoonish version of this response is found in hip hop-where ostentatiously thuggish rappers ride around in stretch limos, dripping jewelry and sipping champagne, all the while swearing their allegiance to "the street." The more insidious version is found in humanities classrooms-where ostentatiously underdressed professors browbeat their students with the message that good fortune in America carries with it the perpetuation of injustice and the tacit acceptance of oppression.

After failure and guilt, a third obvious cause of the liberal worldview is sin. There is, of course, nothing inherently sinful about the politics of liberalism. But in its modern incarnation, liberalism not only takes to heart the Enlightenment values of tolerance and skepticism, it hoists them aloft as intellectual torches and bears them forward in search of the dreaded Frankenstein Monster of moral judgment. Modern liberals deplore moral judgment-except in their collective outrage at conservatives-because they've decided, in their own lives, to abandon the doctrinal elements of Judeo-Christian morality in favor of an ethic whose guiding principle is, in the words of noted Shakespearean dunderhead Polonius, "To thine own self be true." Hence, the liberal mantra, I'm not religious, but I consider myself a spiritual person. Roughly, this translates into: I don't want to give up on an afterlife, but I don't want to be judged by the stuff I'm doing. Liberals, therefore, seethe with resentment towards public displays of traditional faith out of fear such faith carries with it an implicit condemnation of their personal choices....

Which leads to the final, and perhaps overriding, cause of modern liberalism-genuine compassion.... Intelligent people are often drawn to dumb ideas because the dumb ideas speak to their hearts rather than to their heads. The roster of world-class intellectuals who failed to recognize the evils of Communism in the last century is a testament to human frailty, not human imbecility. Tyranny, like charity, begins with compassion; this lesson is utterly lost on liberals, for whom compassion is an absolute good. So it's important to remember that the prime justification of liberalism, at least in the minds of liberals, is almost always fairness. They feel unfairness in their bones. It upsets them. That's how they know they're compassionate. It is the misguided pursuit of fairness that, in the final analysis, drives the majority of liberals to liberalism. It's a pursuit at which they cannot fail, since it's never-ending; it's a pursuit that alleviates their guilt, since it re-connects them with their roots; it's a pursuit that cleanses their individual sins, since its goal is the common weal. The pursuit of fairness is itself a kind of therapy. Liberals are entitled to it, however ill conceived the enterprise.

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ELSEWHERE



The man with the hat: It has become something of a matter for hilarity in the blogosphere that John Kerry has a hat. In case you missed the reason why, there is a succinct account of the matter here

Death tax: "If you've followed the death tax debate, you know that few issues raise liberal blood pressure more. Liberal journalists in particular are around the bend: How in the world can the public support repealing a tax that most Americans will never pay? Good question, so let us try to answer. Americans favor repealing the death tax not because they think it will help them directly. They're more principled than that. Two-thirds of the public wants to repeal it because they think taxing a lifetime of thrift due to the accident of death is unfair, and even immoral. They also understand that the really rich won't pay the tax anyway because they hire lawyers to avoid it. For proof that they're right, they need only watch the current debate. The superrich or their kin-such as Bill Gates Sr. and Warren Buffett-are some of the loudest voices opposing repeal. Yet they are able to shelter their own vast wealth by creating foundations or via other crafty estate planning. Edward McCaffery, an estate tax expert at USC Law School, argues that 'if breaking up large concentrations of wealth is the intention of the death tax, then it is a miserable failure.' Do the Kennedys or Rockefellers look any poorer from the existence of a tax first created in 1917? The real people who pay the levy are the thrifty middle class and entrepreneurs who've built up a modest nest egg or business and are hit by a 46% tax rate when they die. Americans want family businesses, ranches, farms and other assets to be passed from one generation to the next. Yet the U.S. has one of the highest death tax rates in the world."

Moronic attack on Gitmo: "The Times runs an op-ed headlined "Detainees in Despair" written by someone who has been released from Gitmo. It contains this line: "I made the mistake of listening to my older brother and going to Afghanistan on what I thought was a dream vacation." Somehow, he acknowledges, he ended up in an al-Qaeda training camp. Don't you hate when that happens? You consult your travel agent, you read your Fodor's and the Times travel section and you think you're on your way to Club Med Kandahar but instead of playing tennis and windsurfing you end up firing Kalashnikovs and assembling I.E.D.s. It could happen to anyone."

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

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

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

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

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THE SENATE IMMIGRATION BILL JUST PASSED:

The media have reported on the sections that grant illegal residents amnesty (aka path to legalization or earned citizenship). But the media have censored out of their news reports the sections that are 10 to 20 times more costly and far more dishonest than playing games with the word amnesty. In large print, the 795-page bill announces its "temporary guest worker" plan. Those words are lies because the fine print in the bill converts these workers, who are given H-2C visas, into permanent residents with the right to become citizens after five years.

The plan will start by importing 200,000 H-2C workers in the first year. The H-2Cers can immediately bring in their family members on H-4 visas, without any numeric limits and without being required to have a physical, and they will also get permanent legal residence and citizenship. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this bill would import 7.8 million immigrants, and convert another 11 million current immigrants, legal and illegal, into U.S. citizens over the next decade. The Heritage Foundation estimates that 66 million new citizens will be added to the current population over the next 20 years. The number would accelerate as the racket called family chain migration allows more new residents to bring in more and more relatives.

The bill gives these temporary workers some preferential rights that U.S. workers do not have. These new temporary workers can't be fired from their jobs except for "just cause," they must be paid the prevailing wage, and they can't be arrested for other civil immigration offenses if they are stopped for traffic violations.

The bill assures the preference of in-state college tuition (something that is denied to U.S. citizens in 49 states), and certain types of college financial assistance will be available to illegals at the state's option. As minorities, they might even get affirmative action preferences in jobs, government contracts, and college admissions. After the so-called temporary workers and their spouses become citizens, they can bring in their parents as permanent residents on the path to citizenship. Although the parents have never paid into Social Security, they will be eligible for Supplemental Security Income benefits, and in 46 states they will be eligible for full Medicaid benefits after five years. Siblings and adult children (and their families) will be given preference in future admissions.

The demographics of the so-called temporary workers are expected to be similar to those of the illegal immigrants already in our country. More than half will be high school dropouts, they will work low-paid jobs that require payment of little or no income tax, they are 50 percent more likely to receive taxpayer-funded government benefits than natural-born households, and they have a 42 percent rate of out-of-wedlock births (all of whom, of course, will be granted automatic U.S. citizenship).

Estimates of the cost to the taxpayers of this gargantuan expansion of the welfare state are at least $50 billion a year over the long term. U.S. taxpayers will pay for entitlements to these tens of millions of low-income families, including Medicaid, Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, Earned Income Tax Credit (cash handouts of up to $4,400 a year to low-wage households), public schooling and lunches, the WIC program, food stamps, public housing, and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families.

More here

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University Committee Recommends Firing Ward Churchill for Repeated Misconduct: "A University of Colorado committee recommended on Tuesday firing a professor who called some of the World Trade Center victims "little Eichmanns," citing repeated research misconduct. The panel's recommendation now goes to university officials for a final decision. Ward Churchill, a tenured professor of ethnic studies, denied the allegations. He has vowed to fight his dismissal with a lawsuit."

Multiculti breeds Jihadism: "multiculturalism in many ways breeds Islamic radicalism among deracinated "born-again" Muslims in the West. It foments the climate of grievance and honors the quest for radical authenticity. Indeed, jihadism imports any number of Marxist and anti-colonial bugaboos into its worldview and then spits them back out at the West. "This militant evolution is happening, in situ, on our territory. It partakes henceforth of the internal history of the West," Roy observed. The 9/11 hijackers were Westernized, educated and cosmopolitan. Nearly all of the alleged Canadian plotters were raised in Canada and attended Canadian public schools. They were indeed homegrown."

Another "security" bungle: "Federal air marshals say their guns are loaded with bullets capable of running through more than one person, metal doors and thick glass -- too much firepower for an airplane. "Not only is the person getting shot in danger, but everyone on the plane is because of the distance it travels," said one air marshal who testified in a recently completed House Judiciary Committee investigation of policies marshals deemed dangerous."

More heritability: "Children inherit their taste for meat and fish but when it comes to vegetables and desserts it is more nurture than nature, a study shows. Scientists who compared the food preferences of identical and fraternal twins found that some tastes are inherited while others are acquired. "This is the first study to include significant numbers of protein foods and the first to show a high heritability for these," Professor Jane Wardle of the charity Cancer Research UK said. Mothers of 103 pairs of four and five-year-old identical twins and 111 pairs of non-identical twins were given lists of 77 foods in different categories and told to rate how much their children liked them."

Socialist wisdom from 1936: "Assuming that the increase in wealth production and population continue at the present compound rates, it seems likely that in the course of two or three decades, the U.S.S.R. will have become the wealthiest country in the world, and at the same time the community enjoying the greatest aggregate of individual freedom."



Airbus in trouble: "European aircraft maker Airbus has delayed its A380 super jumbo program another seven months, throwing the fleet plans of Qantas and 12 other airlines in disarray."

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

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

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

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

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HAPPINESS

I have been thinking and reading about happiness ever since I came across the work of Michael Argyle on the subject in the 1970s. And I think I can finally summarize the facts about it very simply.

It seems that happiness is to a quite extraordinary degree a trait rather than a state. In other words, we are born happy, unhappy or somewhere in-between. There are a lot of people who are always miserable (most Leftists, for instance) and some who are always sunny in mood no matter what. Even when we find that some classes of people (e.g. married people) are happier than others, it seems likely that it is more a case of happier people tending to marry rather than marriage making you happy.

That is of course rather counter-intuitive. We can all think of events that have made us happy or unhappy so we assume that it is events (or at least external things) that are responsible for our degree of happiness. But it is not so. The events only ever have a transitory effect. We soon settle back to how we were before. The most striking evidence of that is that people who have accidents that leave them paraplegic or quadriplegic (i.e. with very limited use of their limbs) do not sink into irretrievable depths of despair but in fact report after a year or so that they are roughly as happy after their accident as they were before their accident.

So policies aimed at making people happy are pissing into the wind. They are trying to alter what basically cannot be much altered. So in a democracy, political policies have to be aimed at what people WANT, not at what will make them happy -- because nothing can do that.

Which is very pesky for the Left. They have recently discovered the happiness research literature and it has perked them up greatly. "If money will not make you happy, then there's no problem with us taking it off you", has been their hopeful cry. By the same reasoning one might argue that if losing your legs does not make you lastingly unhappy, then there is no harm cutting everybody's legs off either.

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ELSEWHERE

Hamas Murders Children in Palestine, Blames Israel: "An Israel Defense Forces intelligence officer has confirmed that the explosion that killed eight Palestinians on Friday, was caused by a stockpile of Hamas explosives. "Shortly after we stopped defensive firing at Hamas rocket launch pads which were deployed behind Palestinian human shields, members of Hamas scrambled to fire more rockets at our positions," said Col. M. "We have eyes on every meter of Gaza, from the sky, from the ground and from the sea. One of their rocket tripods collapsed inadvertently setting off an explosion of a stockpile of Qassam rockets. The Palestinians killed their own children. And this was not the first time." Hamas terrorists fired rockets and mortar bombs from a crowded Gaza beach at southern Israel. Some of the rockets fell near the Israel city of Ashkelon. Some 17 rockets were fired between Saturday and Sunday morning. A man at a school in the Israel town of Sderot was wounded, Israel officials said. Israel Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant said today that the Israel Defense Forces has additional evidence that it wasn't Israel artillery that hit the beach in Gaza. Galant, who commands Israel's southern command, said Israel stopped firing 15 minutes before the explosion. It's all on secure videotape from both sides of the conflict". (*HT Jihad Watch)

Lots of sarcasm from Larry Kudlow: "So the estate tax cut went down in the Senate, to the cheers of class warriors everywhere.... Our rich people don't need another tax break. No, they need higher taxes. And they should be vilified, too. That's right: America should attack rich people. In fact, we must abolish wealth, which is a tremendous drag on our economy. It's high time that we made the rich poor. As for all the xenophobes who want to deport the illegal immigrants who toil in this economy, may I respectfully suggest that their generals (i.e., Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan, and Tom Tancredo) consider expanding their dragnet? Let's deport rich people, too! These rich people are bad for America. We don't need their ingenuity, their entrepreneurship, or their capital investment. In the name of egalitarian socialism, the only thing we need from them is more tax dollars. We now tax their incomes as salary, corporate profits, dividends, capital gains, and at death. But we must do better. Perhaps we can tax them when they contribute to charities, or the building of a new church or synagogue, or a symphony orchestra, or a small-town cultural center; or when they create another college; or when they finance private scholarships for inner-city educations. But we can't stop there. Let's criminalize the entire class of successful American entrepreneurs."

Ban the falafel?: "Recent news reports from the Iraqi capital indicate radical Islamists are launching a campaign to prohibit the sale of ... falafel. Yes, you heard right, falafel. While this is the sort of news you might expect to hear from a late-night stand-up comedian on television, sadly, this is not a joke, and a number of falafel vendors who failed to heed the warnings have paid with their lives. Several vendors of the popular deep-fried chickpea sandwich were told they had just two weeks to change their profession or face death. And indeed, several vendors where shot and killed simply for selling falafel sandwiches. The logic offered by the religious zealots -- if there is any -- in imposing this inane diktat on the people is that there were no falafels in the time of the Prophet Muhammad."

The answer to panic about America's debt: "The second mistake was pointed out, as best I recall from my high school researches, by Daniel Webster c. 1832. Then as now, there were vocal worries about foreigners owning too much of America. Webster pointed out that foreign investment meant, not that they had our stuff, but that we had their money. If push came to shove, if foreign governments tried to pressure the U.S. by threatening to withdraw their citizens' investments, we could keep it-refuse to pay back the debt. Their capital, after all, in the form of canals and the first railroads, was immovably located under our jurisidiction."

MSM: Terrorists now "security forces": "Palestinian security forces were on high alert Monday after Palestinian Authority and Hamas security forces clashed in Rafah, resulting in two deaths. Hamas forces also fired shots at a government building in Rafah. In response, Fatah supporters set fire to a building used by the Hamas-led government in Ramallah" (*HT Reliapundit)

Leftist Rabbi wants libertarian marriage for homosexuals: "Marriage ought to be taken out of the state's hands entirely. Let people be wed in the private realm with no official legal sanction. Then, religious communities that oppose gay marriage will not sanction them, and those like mine that sanction the practice will conduct it. Rather than issuing marriage certificates or divorces, the state would simply enforce civil unions as contracts between consenting adults and enforce laws imposing obligations on people who bring children into the world." (*HT Liberty & Power)

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

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

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

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

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THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND PREFERS POLITICS TO RELIGION

Peter Hitchens responds to episcopal pronouncements on poverty and the Leftist solutions the bishops put forward

"Here's what we should really be worrying about: the dismal conditions of the British 'poor' are often the result of their moral and educational deprivation, and of the collapse of order - not lack of money. Teenage single mothers, with no real experience of child rearing or housekeeping, struggle to provide for their children because they do not know how, not because they do not have enough money. Their lives are often made worse by the moral squalor resulting from the collapse of stable family life.

The moral conditions on the worst housing estates, conditions which lead to women being battered and children being abused, also create a tyranny of crime and drugs. These circumstances make it incredibly hard to raise a happy and well-behaved next generation. Appalling schools, where illiteracy is normal and chaos tolerated, reinforce the dismal message. Some of the worst-placed are old people, who have worked hard all their lives, who hate debt, and now find that their tiny pensions barely stretch to pay for food and heating - and who have been abandoned by their families to a chilly solitude.

So, if you were a Bishop, what would you be worried about? Would you get involved in an essentially political argument about income gaps and taxation? Would you make headline-catching criticisms of vulgar wealth? Would you put your name to yet another dreary politically correct tract, to join all the other standard-issue, half-baked leftist whingeing that has got us more or less where we are?

Or would you address the moral collapse of our society which is so very much more important, and which is actually so much more your business?"

More here

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The task at hand: "Americans see the Republican Party's leadership as untrustworthy, which is a reputation it has earned. The challenge for conservatives is to convince American voters that Republican and conservative are not synonyms. Conservatives have to remind the country that the principles Republicans claimed to uphold but abandoned once in office still offer the best approach to governing the country. Conservatives need an aggressive campaign to hold Republicans accountable for their apostasy and remind America that conservatism's Jeffersonian [sic] principles remain an untried and viable alternative to the programs the two main parties are offering."

Tax cuts as government curb: "Sitting in a pleasant cafe on a sunny spring day, my Italian friend arrives and says, 'Richard we have had a wonderful month here in Italy because we have had no government.' He referred to the fact that between the defeat of the last government at the polls and formation of the new government, no new initiative to tax, misspend the taxpayers' money or new major regulation had been possible. People intuitively know that when governments are capable of activity, most often the citizens' pocketbooks and liberties are at risk."

Model hypocrites: "You can bet that almost anytime a politician attempts to raise your taxes or pushes for a big, new government spending program, the justification is at least partially based on the results of some mathematical model. Al Gore, and many others endorsing the global warming rage, tell us the climate models show government must do something about global warming before we are all cooked (or at least lightly tanned). Having spent three decades around model builders and reading their studies, I have concluded it is infinitely easier to obtain government funding to build a mathematical model likely to show the need for more government activity and spending rather than less."

The Swedish "success": "Almost a quarter of the population of working age does not have a job to go to in the morning, and polls show a dramatic lack of trust in the welfare system and its rules.... Our ancestors worked even when they were sick. Today, we are "off sick" even when we feel fine"

Windfall profits tax on oil companies a loser for citizens and the economy: "Congress may prove unable to resist passing a windfall profits tax before voters go to the polls this fall. If so, we'll experience the full meaning of H.L. Mencken's adage that democracy is that form of government in which the people get exactly what they want, good and hard. What they won't get, however, is nearly as much money out of such a tax as they probably think. A windfall profits tax targeted at earnings far beyond the U.S. industrial average would return zero revenue to the Treasury because windfall profits in the oil sector are figments of the imagination. While the raw earnings figures sound big, they are unexceptional when we take into account the size of those companies. Divide profits by sales, for instance, and you'll find that in the fourth quarter of 2005 (the last quarter for which data are available), profit margins were 6.8 percent at British Petroleum, 7 percent at ConocoPhilips, 7.1 percent at Shell, 7.7 percent at Chevron, and 10.7 percent at ExxonMobil. The 20 largest investor-owned oil companies earned a collective 8.8 cents on every dollar of sales for that quarter."

The annual foreign aid rip-off: "This week, Congress will vote to send more than 20 billion of your hard-earned dollars overseas, when it passes the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill for 2007. Our annual foreign aid bill is one of the most egregious abuses of the taxpayer I can imagine. Not only is it an unconstitutional burden on America's working families, but this yearly attempt to buy friends and influence foreign governments is counterproductive and actually results in less goodwill toward the United States overseas. Why is foreign aid so bad? Isn't it our obligation to help those less fortunate? What is not mentioned by proponents of foreign aid is that it very seldom gets to those who need it most. Foreign aid is the transfer of US dollars from the treasury of the United States to the governments of foreign countries. It is money that goes to help foreign elites, who in turn spend much of it on contracts with US corporations. This means US tax dollars ultimately go to well-connected US corporations operating overseas.



There is an amusing cartoon video here in the form of a "Mexican Tourism" advertisement.

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

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

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

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

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WHAT THE MEDIA WILL NEVER TELL YOU ABOUT THE USA

Excerpt:

Social Indicators: We are witnessing a remarkable cultural renewal in America. Violent crime rates remain at the lowest levels in the history of the Bureau of Justice Statistics' survey (which started in 1973). We are experiencing the sharpest decline in teen crime in modern history. Property crimes are near the lowest levels in the history of the federal survey. Welfare caseloads have declined almost 60 percent since 1996. Both the abortion rate and ratio are at the lowest levels we have seen in the 30-year period these data have been tracked. African American and Hispanic fourth-graders posted the highest reading and math scores in the history of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test. The use of illegal drugs by teens has dropped 19 percent since 2001, while the use of hallucinogens such as LSD and ecstasy has declined by more than half. The teen birth rate has fallen for a dozen consecutive years. The percentage of high school students who reported having had sex is significantly lower than in the early 1990s. The divorce rate has fallen steadily for over a decade. And teen smoking has dropped by almost 50 percent since the late '90s....

The Economy : The American economy is the strongest in the world and growing faster than that of any other major industrialized country. It grew at an annual rate of 5.3 percent in the first quarter -- the fastest growth in 2 1/2 years. It has added more than 5.3 million jobs since the summer of 2003, and employment is near an all-time high. The unemployment rate (4.6 percent) is well below the average for each of the past four decades. Mortgage rates remain near historical lows, homeownership remains near a record high, and sales of new and existing homes reached record levels in 2005. Real disposable personal income has risen almost 13 percent since President Bush took office; and core inflation rose just 2.3 percent over the past 12 months. The Dow Jones industrial average has risen from under 7300 in 2002 to above 11,000 for most of this year. Tax revenues are at an all-time high -- and so is total household net worth.

National Security : Perhaps no nation has ever been as dominant as the United States is today -- and we are using our military power to promote great purposes. As a reference point, it's worth recalling that the 1930s and early-'40s were regarded by many as the twilight of freedom. Democratic societies were threatened both internally (by a depression) and externally (by Nazism and fascism). There were only a dozen or so democracies on the planet.

Today we are witnessing one of the swiftest advances of freedom in history. In the past four years more than 110 million people have joined the ranks of the free -- and for the first time freedom is taking root in the Middle East. Once ruled by cruel dictatorships, the people of Afghanistan and Iraq are now governed by constitutions and are participating in national elections. The governments of the two countries once provided safe haven to terrorists; now they are engaged in a mortal struggle against them. This struggle is longer and harder than any of us would wish, but by any standard or precedent of history, Afghanistan and Iraq have made remarkable political progress. Kuwait's parliament has granted full political rights to women. Arab intellectuals are pushing for a rapid acceleration of democratic reform. After almost 30 years, Syrian troops left Lebanon in response to the Cedar Revolution. And Libya has abandoned its program of weapons of mass destruction. The biggest nuclear-smuggling ring in history, run by Pakistan's A.Q. Khan, is being rolled up. The government of Pakistan has cast its lot with us against al-Qaeda.

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ELSEWHERE

PBS paying a price for bias: "House Republicans yesterday revived their efforts to slash funding for public broadcasting, as a key committee approved a $115 million reduction in the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that could force the elimination of some popular PBS and NPR programs. On a party-line vote, the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees health and education funding approved the cut to the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes money to the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. It would reduce the corporation's budget by 23 percent next year, to $380 million, in a cut that Republicans said was necessary to rein in government spending. The reduction, which would come in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, must be approved by the full Appropriations Committee, and then the full House and Senate, before it could take effect. Democrats and public broadcasting advocates began planning efforts to reverse the cut."

The Dutch decay: "The full-throttle and state-sanctioned hedonism of 21st century Holland finds no inspiration or legitimacy in the intellectual attitudes of any of the centuries preceding the Twentieth. In short, Dutch society used to have--dare I say it?--a more religious foundation on which the values of humanism, intellectual openness and tolerance were based. I think it can be convincingly argued that the departure from this past--and the virtual erasure of Holland's rich Christian humanism--has contributed directly to the rise of the culturally confused, politically cowed, self-negating and guilt-ridden Dutch of today. One might even say that the modern history of Holland is the history of Europe, writ small".

Dutch defeat: "The removal of an immigrant raising awkward political questions is a warning sign over the future of the tradition of free speech and tolerance in Holland. There are times when a small event raises an issue of enormous importance. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born politician and women's rights activist, is leaving Holland for good. It's a strange irony that a country which has for centuries welcomed all those fleeing persecution should find it impossible to continue to provide Hirsi Ali with a refuge".

Blowing up a "damnable tax": "During his 2006 State of the County address, Oakland County (Michigan) Executive L. Brooks Patterson called for a petition drive and ballot initiative to eliminate the state's economically destructive Single Business Tax. Patterson called the SBT a 'damnable tax' and correctly cited it as an important factor in holding down Michigan's ailing economy. Michigan has been in a 'one-state recession' for several years, while every other state except those slammed by hurricanes has experienced impressive growth. The causes of Michigan's recession are complex, but they largely come down to the fact the state is burdened with destructive business taxes, excessive regulations, and bad labor laws that give the state one of the least-competitive business climates in the United States."

Far Left most intolerant: "In 1998, 48 percent of people saying they were "extremely liberal" gave conservatives a score of 20 or under. By 2004, this had risen to 65 percent of this group. And about one in three of these people gave conservatives the lowest possible score: zero. (Note that in 2002, even Saddam Hussein received an average score of eight.) In contrast, the percentage of "extreme conservatives" giving an under 20 score to liberals inched up only slightly over this period, from 45 to 48 percent. Remember, thermometer scores are ratings of people, not ideas: An ice-cold score is equivalent to saying, "I don't like certain people simply because of the views they hold." It is the essence of intolerance, and it describes two-thirds of America's far left today (and nearly half of America's far right, which is not a whole lot better)."

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

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

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

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

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FOR THE RECORD

There's hope yet. I posted a comment on the site of the academic journal (Pediatrics) in which the "Parenting Styles and Overweight Status in First Grade" article (by Rhee, Julie C. Lumeng, Danielle P. Appugliese, Niko Kaciroti, and Robert H. Bradley) appeared. The comment has been passed and now appears there. Being a cautious soul, however, I am reposting the comment below -- in case it gets deleted.

"As I have had a great deal published on psychological rigidity and authoritarianism, I found this article interesting but lacking in background in those fields. My take on what the research shows is that a general trait of psychological rigidity exists only insofar as it is a byproduct of low IQ -- and psychological rigidity is clearly at work in what the authors studied.

Further: Low IQ people are more likely to get fat and low IQ people tend to be more rigid and have more simplistic approaches to things.

It's IQ that we see at work in the above study. You need to look at WHY some parents treat their children less flexibly.

So: Fat parents tend to have fat children -- mainly for genetic reasons, though not entirely so. So low IQ, fat, rigid parents will tend to have fat children -- which can arise solely from the genetics for fatness that are passed on, not anything at all that the parents do."

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Brookes News Update

The US economy: when will there be another recession?: When looking for signs of an impending recession keep a close eye on manufacturing conditions. No matter what most economists and media pundits say, business spending is several times greater than consumer spending. It's all a question of arithmetic
The Australian economy is looking sick: Statistics reveal that Australian manufacturing is contracting and shedding jobs. The downturn is concentrated in the higher stages of production. This suggests that Australia has left the final phase of the boom and entered the first phase of a recession
The Brotherhood of St Laurence crashes on labour market reform: The striking thing about organisations like the Brotherhood of St Laurence is their complete ignorance of economics and the lessons of economic history. This fact reveals itself in their opposition to labour market reform
Australian economy: Protectionists are on the march - again, part I: Victoria saddled Australia with tariffs, the consequences of which were compounded by Justice Higgins' wage-fixing stupidity which helped keep unemployment high, even during the Great War, and above 7 per cent during the 1920s
Why my marriage with Israel is nearly over: Israel needs to remember that she once had guts and did not consider herself impotent or act like a banana republic. This would be the time to conduct mass protests against the Chamberlain appeasement now in progress
Loving Mexico and Che Guevara: Once again the mainstream media lied to the American public. This time it was about demonstrations by illegal immigrants, revanchists and their leftwing cheerleaders and enablers
The mainstream media is lying about the US economy: Nowhere in the civilized world can an institution or a government so blind their population to the truth like the mainstream media in America
Dean Smith: Politics is just not his game: Dean Smith is a great basketball icon who is very liberal in his politics. He has a winning record on the basketball court but his political support is definitely the political kiss of death

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ELSEWHERE



The above pic is from the NY Post. Are they risking a fatwa?

There is a great story here of the 1980 destruction of Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor by Israel.

Bolton assails supercilious British Leftist: "America's bitter dispute with the United Nations escalated last night when John Bolton, the US envoy to the UN, threatened to withhold funding to the organisation unless it apologised for the remarks of a senior British official. Speaking at the Centre for Policy Studies in London, Mr Bolton assailed Mark Malloch Brown, the British Deputy UN Secretary-General, for the disparaging remarks he made about the American public this week. "Mark Malloch Brown has a sentence in his speech where he says the role of the UN is a mystery in Middle America," he said. "Maybe it is fashionable in some circles to look down on Middle America, to say they don't get the complexities of the world and they don't have the benefit of continental education and they are deficient in so many ways," Mr Bolton added. "It is illegitimate for an international civil servant to criticise what he thinks are the inadequacies of citizens of a member government."

House OKs Bill To Speed Permits For New Refineries: "The House passed legislation Wednesday aimed at streamlining permits for new refineries, a step Republican leaders stung by public anger over high gas prices said could expand energy supplies and eventually cut prices. The Republicans, fighting to keep control of the House in November's elections, used the debate to attack minority Democrats who they say have been obstructionists, opposing any step that would increase gas supplies."

Race based State stopped in US Senate: "The Senate on Thursday dashed efforts to give indigenous Hawaiians some of the same powers of self-governance granted to American Indians, with critics warning that could lead to race-based privileges in a state known for its diversity.A procedural vote fell four short of the 60 votes needed to keep the bill on the Senate floor."

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

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

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

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

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THE DEEP IRRATIONALITY OF THE LEFT

The lack of interest in rational argument that pervades the Left is one of the most striking things about them. As Jeff Jacoby points out, even such senior Leftist figures as Ted Kennedy seem to think that a constant spew of hate-speech suffices as an argument. And, as Jeff Jacoby also points out, the hate speech usually has no rational basis either. If I were to refer to Ted Kennedy as "The fat man from Chappaquiddick", that would be similar abuse to what the Left dish out but everything in such a description would have a factual basis. He IS fat and his conduct at Chappaquiddick IS notorious. But factual underpinning is usually too much to ask of Leftist abuse. Let me illustrate by giving a recent example of Leftist abuse and by then pointing out a few things about it. The following comment is from a review of an "antiwar" film of the Michael Moore genre:

"This film illustrates in crystal clear detail why the U.S. military needs to recruit very dumb, totally uneducated, and mostly southern cracker soldiers who are already racist bastards who have never left their hometowns and believe all the garbage they are taught in school about how we are the good guys, and everything we do is just and right. The Army can then brainwash them to treat other human beings in such a grotesque and inhuman manner. Anyone who had any previous education, intelligence or just plain decency, would never consent to treat people in the unbelievably harsh manner in which these prisoners, most of which were just swept up in raids and had nothing to do with the Taliban, were treated.

I would normally not waste any time on such a spew of hate but for once I will make a few notes. Note for a start that the derogatory term "cracker" implies that the soldiers are white. He skates over the fact that a large part of the U.S. army is comprised of minorities. And would he refer contemptuously to black soldiers as "niggers". Hopefully not. But why is it OK to use a term of contempt for white soldiers? And Southerners are "racist bastards"? I guess they may have been in North/South war days but even Abraham Lincoln wanted to send the blacks back to Africa so was he a racist too? Or were racial views simply universal at that time? And what of today? I constantly hear that black/white relations are in fact more cordial in the South than they are in the North. Has our Leftist ever looked into that possibility? He offers no basis for his assertion at all.

And the idea that the army recruits dumb and totally uneducated soldiers is simply and demonstrably false. Our Leftist author can have no basis for that careless assertion. As a former army psychologist, I can vouch for the fact that no modern Western army does that. Dumb and totally uneducated would-be soldiers are simply knocked back. No modern Western army wants them. The army does careful psychological assessment of each volunteer, using psychological tests, biography etc., to ensure that all recruits measure up in terms of education, intelligence and emotional stability. Putting deadly weapons into the hands of anyone other than that would make him more of a danger to his buddies than to the enemy.

And as for the idea that the army wants its men to treat anybody in a "grotesque and inhuman manner", has our Leftist ever heard of publicity? The army comes under sustained attack on the home front if ever its men lapse from the most ideal behaviour so to say that the army wants brutal behaviour of its men is not to credit them even with pursuit of their own self-interest.

And the idea that preventive detention of terrorists captured in the field would not be consented to by anyone with education or intelligence is again counterfactual. The officer corps is even more highly educated and intelligent than the foot soldier. To get into officer school, you have to be a very high quality person on almost any criterion and officers graduate with at least the equivalent of a university degree. And it is the officer corps that runs the prisons.

So even disregarding the hatred and abuse in the extract above, there is nothing in it that even resembles the truth. That the author is contorted by hate is all that one can reliably conclude from it.

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ELSEWHERE

Sowell on Leftist indifference to the facts: "Despite the warm glow of self-satisfaction that the liberal vision confers on liberals, ugly facts keep intruding to undermine that vision.... Research dealing with innate biological differences are of course anathema to those with the liberal-left vision. Even research that turns up cultural or other behavioral differences between groups is almost as great a danger. Both kinds of research undermine the notion that there are "solutions" that government can impose to eliminate differences, gaps, disparities or "inequities" that liberalism claims to be able to eliminate. Scientific research into differences in the way male and female brains function is denounced by radical feminists, who are calling for a ban on such research. No matter what the MRIs say, the radical feminists say all differences are due to "society." ... That the black family, which survived centuries of slavery and generations of discrimination, has disintegrated in the wake of the liberal welfare state is only one example. Liberals have been driven to the desperate expedient of attributing this and other social pathology in today's ghettos to "a legacy of slavery" -- even though black children grew up with two parents more often under slavery than today. Blacks only a generation or two out of slavery also had higher rates of employment and lower rates of crime than today."

The British are whitewashing Che Guevara. London's famous Victoria and Albert museum is having an exhibition about him which describes him as "young, handsome, charismatic". No mention that he was a murderous totalitarian thug. (HT Astute Blogger).



French wine junked: "The unquenchable desire of Britons for New World wines has forced Brussels to order nearly a billion bottles of French and Italian wine to be turned into fuel and disinfectant. The European Commission will then spend 2.4 billion euros digging up vineyards across the continent. The drastic measures to drain Europe's swelling wine lake come as winemakers across the Continent face a seemingly unstoppable invasion of cheaper and more consistent wines from Australia, Chile, the US and South Africa. Wine critics say it is an inevitable result of French wine producers not adapting to demand".

NYC Squandered Billions in 9/11 Aid: "New York politicians allowed up to one-third of the $20 billion in federal aid awarded to the city in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks to be squandered right under their noses, an analysis by the New York Daily News found last December. But that hasn't stopped some of the same politicians from complaining all weekend about a mere $80 million cut in New York City's federal anti-terrorism budget. Senators Hillary Clinton, Charles Schumer and Rep. Peter King say they're outraged over the new cuts, with Clinton and King teaming up to launch a post-card writing campaign against the Department of Homeland Security. The bipartisan duo sounded a lot less angry six months ago, when the News uncovered evidence that billions in 9/11 cash had been misspent, gone unaccounted for and, in at least one case, was awarded to the Mafia."

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

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

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

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

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LEFTIST NARCISSISM

Excerpts from Dennis Prager

Virtually every news report about President George W. Bush's support for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman describes it as "pandering" to the "far Right," the "radical Right" or, less pejoratively, "social conservatives" of the Republican Party. Democrats regularly describe the amendment as enshrining "discrimination in the Constitution." In the words of Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., "A vote for the amendment is a vote for bigotry -- pure and simple."

This is another example of how the news media present news. First, Democrats are rarely, if ever, described as "pandering" to the Left, let alone "radical Left." Why not? For one thing, the news media do not believe there is a "radical Left," only a "radical Right." Second, liberalism regards positions held by Democrats to be sincere and noble, therefore, Democratic positions can never pander to anyone.

This is part of the larger liberal view of Republicans and conservatives: They are not merely wrong; they are either phonies or bad. It is inconceivable to most liberals that a Republican politician can sincerely oppose redefining the most important social structure of society. And if that Republican's opposition to redefining marriage is deemed sincere, it is inconceivable to most liberals that the person is anything but a bigot.

That most liberals cannot understand conservatives' views about marriage as anything but bigotry and/or pandering is part of a narcissism that characterizes much of the Left. The very definition of narcissism is an inability to see the world through the eyes of another. Whatever conservatives' flaws, far more conservatives understand liberals' views on same-sex marriage. Most opponents of same-sex marriage appreciate that liberals feel bad about gays' inability to marry a person of the same sex. In fact, as a proponent of a marriage amendment, I not only understand the liberal desire to enable people to marry someone of the same sex, I feel genuine compassion for gays on this matter. But such empathy for ideological foes is all but absent from the narcissistic world of the Left. To virtually every liberal writer and spokesman, only liberals mean well, only they are sincere, only they are compassionate, and only they are intellectual, rational and tolerant.

Liberals' use of the word "radical" to describe opponents of same-sex marriage illustrates this self-aggrandizing mindset. To describe as "radical" those who wish to preserve the man-woman-based definition of marriage known to every civilization is to stand the word on its head. It is beyond intellectually dishonest -- it is mendacity -- to describe those who favor preserving the definition of marriage as "radical" rather than to so describe those who wish to change the gender-based definition of marriage for the first time in history. Even if you support same-sex marriage, you should at least have the honesty to admit that it is you who favors something radical.

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ELSEWHERE

Good to see that Taranto reproduced a point I made on Majority Rights about political correctness. It gives my thinking a much wider readership than usual.

Serious lawbreakers escape U.S. law: "You may have heard about the shooting in Milwaukee over the Memorial Day weekend. Even in America's volatile, crime-infested urban areas, it's not every day that a guy goes on a firearms rampage, killing two and injuring three others. The suspect's name is Octaviano Juarez-Corro. Yes, he was in the U.S. illegally when he spilled all this blood and created all this mayhem. Yes, he is one of those Mexican illegal immigrants we're told will do the work Americans wouldn't do. And, yes, like so many other violent and wanted fugitives in the U.S., he is believed to be back in Mexico - safe from extradition to barbaric America where he could, of course, face the death penalty... Because of a 1978 treaty and a 2001 court ruling, Mexico generally has refused to return suspects to the United States if they face the death penalty or a life-without-parole sentence, paving the way for thousands of suspected drug kingpins and killers to flee to Mexico to avoid U.S. prosecution"

French Jews facing Nazis again: "On the last Sunday of May, 30 angry black men stormed into the heart of the old Jewish quarter, terrorizing residents, shopkeepers, and Sunday strollers. The self-styled militia of the Ka Tribe, a black separatist group originally connected to the no-longer funny black comic Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala, embodied the worst fears of a Jewish community exposed, since January 2006, to a new rise in anti-Semitic attacks. Three months after the torture-murder of Ilan Halimi, the intimidating incursion of the Ka militia into the narrow "Jewish" street of the Marais looks like an ominous sign of worse to come... Eyewitnesses concur about the incursion: 30 men in paramilitary formation stormed into rue des Rosiers, shouting threats and insults against Jews. Some wore boxer's mouthpieces and leather gloves with brass knuckles. They burned with anger and itched for a fight. Frantic calls to the police met with laconic replies: "Yes, we have been informed." ... Outside the ORT school, where the minister met with residents, a dapper gray-haired shop owner said, with dignified regret, "It's over for Jews in France." And added, "The police told me . . . they said it's over for us . . . they can't handle this problem. . . . It's too late."

Boycotts of Israel: "Anti-Semitic or not, the movement to boycott Israel is hypocritical, sanctimonious, and quite simply wrong. It is a shocking example of selective outrage. Yes, Israeli policies are a legitimate target for criticism, and even most of Israel's supporters will admit there has been ill-treatment of Palestinians. Yet no one is demanding a boycott of Russian academics over Russia's occupation of Chechnya, and the accompanying atrocities (which dwarf Israel's human rights abuses in the occupied territories). No one wants to boycott China because of the occupation of Tibet, the persecution of religious minorities, and other abuses by the Chinese regime. No one wants to boycott Saudi Arabia because of its misogyny and religious intolerance."

Genetics for entrepreneurship: "Scientists believe entrepreneurship could largely be a genetic trait after a study found that almost half an individual's propensity to become self-employed was due to genetic factors. Contrary to popular belief, family environment and upbringing had little bearing on a person's desire to go it alone. Researchers from Britain and the USA studied 609 pairs of identical twins and 657 pairs of same-sex non-identical twins in the UK. Identical twins have the same genes whereas non-identical twins share only half. Comparing the two can therefore highlight genetic traits. The scientists looked at whether entrepreneurship was more common among identical twins, suggesting a genetic influence. They found that if a pair of twins were identical, they were significantly more likely to both be self-employed than if they were non-identical. Professor Tim Spector, director of the Twin Research Unit at St Thomas's Hospital, London, who took part in the study, said: "This relatively high heritability suggests the importance of considering genetic factors to explain why some people are entrepreneurial, while others are not..." (HT Chris Brand)

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

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

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

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

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ANOTHER SHONKY "STUDY"

"Shonky" is a very useful word much used in Australia which is ROUGHLY translatable as "fraudulent", "misleading" or "a confidence trick". In academe, political correctness is a great source of shonky research reports. An article in "The Times" of London drew my attention to this study. The basic claim of the article is that student motivation is the main determinant of success at school. Ability is given short shrift. As soon as I read the report in "The Times", I thought it looked like the authors were spinning like a top. And so I found it to be when I looked at the research report itself.

The authors start out under their heading Explanations with: "there is no evidence that genetic factors such as systematic differences in innate ability play a significant role in ethnic test score gaps". NO evidence? A very bold claim -- particularly in the light of around 100 years of psychometric research showing LARGE interracial differences in IQ and in view of the undoubted correlation between IQ scores and educational attainment. If the authors had said that there was "some controvesy" about the importance of innate differences in ability, they would have made a properly cautious academic statement. What they DID say is a straight-out lie.

And in their own data analysis they make sure that ability will not be shown to have any effect. They "match" (control) for the neighbourhoods from which the students are drawn by using the official "Index of Multiple Deprivation" (IMD) for the neighbourhoods concerned. No prizes for guessing that deprived neighbourhoods tend to be inhabited by lower IQ people. Smart people are not often "deprived".

Not satisfied with that, they also matched students on their "Mosaic" postcode classification -- a classification which again picks out poor versus affluent neighbourhoods. They were determined that nothing in their study would reveal anything about ability. They used proxies of ability to remove its influence on their results.

So in the end they conclude that some ethnic groups outperform whites in educational attainment. That may well be true. As far as Indians are concerned, I have little doubt of it. But that is not what their research showed. What it showed is that blacks outperformed POOR whites only, not whites as a whole.

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A MOST UNUSUAL FRENCH LEFTIST

Segolene Royal, the leftwing favourite for the next French presidency, outraged fellow Socialists for the second time in a week yesterday by attacking the 35-hour working week, the main legacy of the party's last term in office. The 35-hour week had the "unintended consequence of worsening the situation for the most vulnerable workers, notably for women with few qualifications" who now had less time to spend with their families, she said. Mme Royal's criticism of the sacrosanct 1999 working time law followed her call last week for military training for delinquent teenagers from the housing estates and boot camps for their parents.

The unorthodox positions are part of a campaign by Mme Royal, 52, who is far ahead of other contenders, to cast herself as a tough-minded reformist who is in touch with the people rather than just the Socialist party. Among the rivals whom Mme Royal is unsettling is Francois Hollande, who is party leader as well as her partner and father of her four children. So far the self-described "gazelle" of French politics, is succeeding in her strategy of winning so much public support that the party will have to nominate her for the spring 2007 elections, despite what traditionalists see as her heresy over cherished doctrines....

Laurent Fabius, one of the other would-be nominees for next April's election, demanded that Mme Royal, an admirer of Tony Blair in a party which abhors the British Prime Minister, be reprimanded for promoting ideas contrary to Socialist tradition. Yesterday, however, an Ipsos poll by Le Monde showed that Mme Royal had struck a nerve. Some 69 per cent of the public said that they agreed with her ideas for imposing discipline.

More here

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ELSEWHERE



We were evil, Google founder admits: "Google Inc. co-founder Sergey Brin acknowledged the dominant internet company has compromised its principles by accommodating Chinese censorship demands. He said Google is wrestling to make the deal work before deciding whether to reverse course. Meeting with reporters near Capitol Hill in Washington, Brin said Google had agreed to the censorship demands only after Chinese authorities blocked its service in that country."



Australian PM firmly against homosexual marriage: "Prime Minister John Howard said today he had scuttled the ACT's homosexual unions law because it challenged a major characteristic of Australian society. "The Bill is plainly an attempt to mimic marriage under the misleading title of civil unions," Mr Howard told ABC radio. "We are not anti-homosexual people or gay and lesbian people, it is not a question of discriminating against them, it is a question of preserving as an institution in our society marriage as having a special character."

The egregiously destructive war on drugs: "I personally find all currently illegal drugs loathsome; they stunt the mind, inhibit the body, and curtail productivity. I would never consume such substances myself, and I would advise others against doing so. Yet, compared to the adverse effects of their illegalization, the harm of drugs themselves is small indeed. Drug-taking is extremely unhealthy for the persons engaging in it, but not for anybody who abstains from it. The 'War on Drugs,' by contrast, harms everybody subject to a government that undertakes it. I have no sympathy for drug addicts; I wish to argue the case of the innocent, moral, productive people who have never used such substances in their lives but are nonetheless harmed by the coercive illegalization of drugs."

The pitfalls of government "wars": "We have heard that "war is hell," "all's fair in love and war," and "war is politics by other means" (any combination of which illustrates the risks of compounding imperfect analogies). We heard that the 1970s oil crisis was the moral equivalent of war (although government price controls did far more damage than OPEC, making one wonder who declared war on Americans). Government has declared war on every conceivable problem, from drugs and crime to poverty and illiteracy. But the imagery of urgency, resolve, and "giving it all we've got" for the good of the country doesn't match the policies or their effects on the taxpayers' pockets and liberties. Rather, declarations of such "wars" are often just dramatic rhetoric used to promote politicians' pet programs, which frequently do more harm than good, such as the vast invasions of property and privacy, and the increases in violence and corruption, triggered by the War on Drugs.

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

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

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

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

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Dubious link between strict parenting and overweight kids

Those who did the study excerpted below admit that they left out a couple of important factors but they fail to mention the factor that REALLY explains their results

"Clean your plate or else!" and other authoritarian approaches to parenting can lead to overweight children, a new study finds. Strict mothers were nearly five times more likely to raise tubby first-graders than mothers who treated their children with flexibility and respect while also setting clear rules. But while the children of flexible rule-setting moms avoided obesity, the children of neglectful mothers and permissive mothers were twice as likely to get fat.

"The difference between the different parenting groups is pretty striking," said the study co-author, Dr. Kay Rhee of Boston University School of Medicine. The study of 872 families appears in the June issue of Pediatrics, released Monday. Rhee speculated that parents who show respect and warmth within a framework of rules may help their children learn to make good decisions about food and exercise. Or it could be that strict parents create a stressful household where overeating becomes a comfort and escape, she said...

Not enough fathers participated in the study to measure their effects on children's weight, Rhee said. And since more than 80 percent of the study participants were white, the findings may not be applicable to other racial groups, she said. The study also did not take into account the weight status of the mothers, so the researchers couldn't rule out that a mother's weight might influence both her parenting and her children's weight. However, a previous study showed that parenting style is not linked to weight status, Rhee said.

To determine parenting style for the new study, researchers surveyed the mothers and observed them interacting with their children when the kids were 4 years old. The children's body mass indexes were measured later when the children were in first grade..."

Sorry to mention it, but dumb people are more likely to get fat and dumb people tend to be more rigid and have more simplistic approaches to things. It's that nasty old IQ that we see at work again in the above study. You need to look at WHY some parents treat their children less flexibly. Too much to ask of many academics, sadly

Update:

I did not think it necessary to state the obvious above but perhaps I should: Fat parents tend to have fat children -- mainly for genetic reasons, though not entirely so. So dumb, fat, rigid parents will tend to have fat children -- which can arise solely from the genetics for fatness that are passed on, not anything at all that the parents do.

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ELSEWHERE

Taranto has another excellent takedown of the contemptible Andrew Sullivan. I like Taranto's sarcasm about the would-be bombers recently arrested in Canada too.

Wicked Thoughts has a good coverage -- or should I say uncoverage? -- of the naughty Mrs McCartney affair. Australian Politics is a bit colourful today too.

German bias again: "Members of the German media have tried and convicted American soldiers of alleged war crimes before they ever go to trial. The latest case involves an article featured on the homepage of ARD tagesschau, a large, state-sponsored news program... Ironically, the same ARD journalists who can't seem to stop screaming about the denial of judicial due process to Guantanamo inmates are not even willing to afford the same privilege to American soldiers, despite the fact that American soldiers stood guard for decades and guaranteed their freedom of speech during the Cold War. In the ARD world, Guantanamo terrorists are innocent until proven guilty, American soldiers guilty until proven innocent."

Good if it happens: "Immigrants to Britain who have refused to learn the English language should be required to do so, Gordon Brown said yesterday. The Chancellor said that immigrants should also gain an understanding of British history to learn the values of freedom, liberty and tolerance. "People who come into this country, who are part of our community, should play by the rules," he told the Today programme on Radio 4. "I think learning English is part of that. I think that understanding British history is part of that. That is why I want to see changes in the curriculum. "I would insist on large numbers of people who have refused to learn our language that they must do so. If someone is unemployed, who does not speak English, they should have to learn English to make themselves employable. "If you take preachers coming into this country, they should be speaking the English language and not refusing to speak the English language." Mr Brown was expressing an opinion that goes farther than present Home Office legislation. Since last year immigrants have had to show a Standard 3 level of competence in English to acquire citizenship and, if they do not, they must take a course to reach the requisite level."

How the welfare state corrupted Sweden: "Old people in Sweden say that to be Swedish means to supply for your own, to take care of your self, and never be a burden on anyone else's shoulders. Independence and hard work was the common perception of a decent life, and the common perception of morality. That was less than one hundred years ago. My late grandmother used to say something had gone wrong with the world. She was proud to never have asked for help, to have always been able to rely on herself and her husband, proud that they could throughout their lives care for their family. I'm happy that when she passed away at the respectable age of 85, she did so with that dignity still intact. She was never a burden."

Lying is Acceptable for Some: "Wednesday's Washington Times ran a column on global warming by Cato's Patrick Michaels in which he quoted Al Gore as saying, "I believe it is appropriate to have an overrepresentation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience." As a public service I will now translate this politically obtuse statement into English; It is alright to lie to people in order to scare them into doing something that is against their own interest. I feel qualified to present this rendition, as I am very familiar with the concept expressed by Gore, because the main focus of my studies has been the war on people who use certain kinds of drugs".

NYC: Tammany Hall lives on: "Clients big and small spent a whopping $36.1 million last year to hire an army of lobbyists to push their varied causes and financial interests with city officials. The ever-rising lobbying tab jumped by more than 7% over the $33.6 million spent in 2004. And it's 21/2 times the $14.5 million spent only five years ago in 2000. The top 10 earning lobbying firms alone were paid more than $16 million, according to the annual report issued yesterday by the City Clerk's office. The No. 1 slot went to Kasirer Consulting, with $2.4 million in fees. It's headed by Suri Kasirer, a fund-raiser for city Controller Bill Thompson and the wife of former Rudy Giuliani political lieutenant Bruce Teitelbaum. Her clients include Cemusa Inc., the Spain-based firm that recently won the city's huge franchise for bus shelters, newsstands and pay toilets. Cemusa paid Kasirer $96,000. Gene Russianoff, a lawyer with the New York Public Interest Research Group, a nonprofit watchdog organization, called the rising lobby tab "disturbing" because "more and more people seem to think government is so complicated they have to grease the skids to get anywhere."

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

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

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

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