Conservatives need to address middle-class concerns better

Anxious lower middle class families are shaping up to be the crucial political constituency of this year's election. Polls show that financial security is their biggest concern. They worry about health and education costs, about retirement, and about their prospects for getting ahead. Their insecurity has markedly reduced public support for free trade and contributed to public concerns about immigration. They also appear to be behind a great deal of the generally uneasy mood of the electorate. The Democratic candidates have noticed and are championing an old-fashioned economic populism that stokes voters' fears and seeks to direct them toward welfare state-style solutions that expand the role of government.

Among Republicans, only Mike Huckabee has made a real effort to speak to the lower middle class. On the stump, his economic message is always directed at the working family: "We're losing manufacturing jobs, homeowners face a credit crisis, high fuel costs are spiraling, and families are hurting," he noted in a recent campaign ad. But this conservative populism is often merely a rhetorical echo of its liberal counterpart. His distinctive proposal, a form of national sales tax, would hurt many working families.

The other Republican candidates are not even trying to appeal to these voters, which could prove very costly in key states, especially in the upper Midwest, in November. Lower middle class parents have been a crucial Republican constituency in recent years. More important, these voters are the heart and soul of the kind of American culture that Republicans want to promote: industrious and striving, family-oriented, culturally conservative, religious, and patriotic.

With talk of recession in the air, many Republicans will be tempted to make pro-growth tax policies, and particularly cuts to the corporate income tax, the entirety of their economic message. Growth is indispensable. But these voters' concerns made them sour on the economy even at the height of the boom. Higher growth will not by itself address their concerns. Republicans should be careful not to seem more intent on cutting corporate taxes than on listening to these voters.

Without their support, after all, it will be hard to sustain a pro-growth politics. The silence on the right about their problems could lead these voters to conclude that protectionism, redistribution, and nationalized health care are the answers. But there are free-market, conservative solutions, and the Republican candidates can highlight them.

Health care is a particular concern for lower middle class workers. They worry about losing their insurance if they lose their jobs, or getting stuck in jobs they do not want because they cannot carry their insurance with them to new ones. Their wages have stagnated-- almost entirely because of rising health care costs. These voters could be persuaded to support a government-run health care system-- as the Democrats are trying to do-- but surveys suggest that they would prefer a solution that does not risk taking power away from them and their doctors, or compromising their quality of care.

Republican candidates actually already have a set of policy proposals to address these concerns, but they have yet to campaign on their relevance to lower middle class families. The frontrunners have all proposed ending the tax penalty on individuals who buy their own insurance (rather than get it through work). That simple change would make it much easier for people who work for small businesses, or are out of work, to afford coverage--coverage that would stay with them from job to job. The candidates have also proposed a series of measures to increase competition in the health care industry, which would help control rising costs without a government takeover.

More here

***********************

Brookes News Update

Socialist myths vs capitalism: Socialists are forever libelling capitalism by accusing it of all manner of heinous crimes. Clearly the socialist view of economic history is deeply rooted in Western society. What is required is an informed and relentless defence of capitalism
The wrongs of the WA Human Rights Act: The Labor Government of Western Australia is taking a cue from Victoria's Labor Government by introducing bill that will subvert the inalienable rights of Australians. According to these Labor Governments the state will determine what your rights are. This will make 'rights' entirely contingent on the whims of ideologically corrupt politicians and their equally corrupt allies among the judiciary
Obama's Alinsky jujitsu: Obama is the Democrats' Elmer Gantry. The only difference between the two is that Obama's religion is nothing but one of raw political power. Should this political fraud win the White House and successfully implement his policies the result would be an economic, social and political disaster for America. Therefore, an Obama victory is the worst possible outcome for blacks
Why are Jews tending everyone else's garden?: Wealthy American Jews are not only abandoning Jewish charities they are also turning their backs on Israel. Is this the result of the demonization of Israel by the anti-Semitic left? No matter, turning away from Judaism and Israel won't make them any less a target
Who's the worst person in the world?: Why does the media refuse to report that there is a clear conflict of interest between Planned Parenthood and its promotion of sex for children? In 2006 it performed 264,943 abortions from which it made a net profit of $55.8 million and yet the fearless media remains completely silent on the issue
Is the US economy in recession?: Last week President Bush hosted a press conference where he announced a stimulus package of $145 billion that mainly consisted of tax cuts. So will it work? Well, the situation goes far beyond a mere $145 billion 'stimulus'
Will a plunging share market send the economy into recession?: So far this month the Australian share market has dropped by 10 per cent, sending some people into a panic and raising the spectre of recession. But what drove the share market in the first place and can its sudden drop in share prices trigger a recession?
Without savings there can be no economic growth: The economic commentariat is schizophrenic about economic growth. On the one hand, tell us that consumption drives the economy and that consumer spending must be maintained if the economy is to avoid recession. On the other hand, they also tell us that we need to save more if we are to raise living standards. No wonder politicians get confused
Obama, Hillary and Alinsky's tactics: If Mr. Obama is the new face of American politics, a uniter, then why does he support a race-baiting black pastor who also honors the anti-Semite, anti-white racist - Louis Farrakhan. Is it just a matter of time before the Clinton attack machine goes to work on Obama's racist links?
Revisiting the Frank Amendment: Why did Barney Frank and his fellow Dems sponsor a law that allowed all anti-Semites and terrorist supporting activists into the US? And why did they pass laws designed to weaken the CIA and the FBI's ability to keep track of pro-terrorists and their organizations?
Hard-Core pornography isn't "Free Speech": The U.S. Supreme Court held in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), that obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment. It now appears that Attorney General Mike Mukasey might decide to enforce the Supreme Court's ruling

***********************

ELSEWHERE

There is a post here which shows that everybody (both GOP and Donk voters) rightly sees the GOP presidential candidates as being on the conservative side of American politics but Democrat voters see their candidates as centrist. Once again we see a reliance among Leftists on a false "consensus" and a poor grip on reality. The post takes a bit of thought to get the point but it is a striking and important point.

Russian nuclear fuel shipment reaches Iran: "A fourth Russian shipment of nuclear fuel arrived in Iran on Sunday, destined for a power plant being constructed in the southern port of Bushehr, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. The report said 11 tons of fuel arrived at the Bushehr power plant. Iran received its third Russian shipment on Friday."

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

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

****************************

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

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

****************************

A field of RINOS

It looks like the Reagan revolution is now dead



Running for president on a third-party ticket in 1968, George Wallace famously claimed that there wasn't "a dime's worth of difference" between the Republican and Democratic nominees. Would anyone tuning in this year's crop of candidates say the same thing? Consider some recent sound bites:

* "You said we would fight for every job! You said that we would fight to get health care for all Americans! You said we'd fight to secure our border! You said we'd fight for us to be able to get lower taxes for middle-income Americans!"

* "Guess what they're doing in Washington: They're worrying, because they realize, the lobbyists and the politicians realize, that America now understands that Washington is broken. And we're going to do something about it."

* "Washington told us that they'd get us better health care and better education -- but they haven't. Washington told us they'd get us a tax break for the middle-income Americans -- but they haven't."

You don't have to be a political junkie to recognize those as specimens of populist Democratic boilerplate, right? The only challenge is to match each quotation to the Democratic candidate who said it. Except that no Democrat uttered those words. The three big-government platitudes above were taken from Republican Mitt Romney's Michigan primary victory speech on Tuesday.

No one is surprised when Dennis Kucinich or John Edwards insists that it's the federal government's responsibility to "get us better health care and better education." Coming from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the claim that the Bush tax cuts shortchanged middle-income Americans is all too familiar. But from a Republican like Romney, who casts himself as the truest, most Reaganesque conservative in the GOP field?

Romney's message used to be one of unabashed small-government conservatism: "Government is simply too big. State government is too big. The federal government is too big. It's spending too much." Those words still appear on his website, but there was nothing like them in his remarks last week. He told his supporters that Washington is broken and needs to be fixed -- which is decidedly not the same as saying it needs to be shrunk. Romney used to boast of the hundreds of spending line-items he vetoed as Massachusetts governor; "I like vetoes," he told audiences. But these days he's singing from a different hymnal.

To be sure, Romney is hardly the only Republican candidate to distance himself from the gospel of less-intrusive, less-expensive government. Certainly no one would confuse Mike Huckabee -- who as Arkansas' governor raised taxes, hiked spending, and expanded state regulation -- with Barry Goldwater, the original "Mr. Conservative." And the man who succeeded Goldwater in the Senate, John McCain, is guilty of such big-government abominations as the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law and opposing the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.

Source

**************************

Is this what GOP voters are going to have to settle for?

At least McCain is good on defence, I suppose -- and that is probably the most important thing at this juncture. I would not be surprised if a lot of GOP voters stayed home on Nov. 4, though. The best hope for conservatives on Nov. 4 is probably to win back GOP control of the Senate



In 2004, one of John McCain's closest associates, John Weaver, spoke to John Kerry about the possibility of McCain running as Kerry's vice presidential running mate. In "No Excuses," Bob Shrum's memoir of his role in numerous presidential campaigns, including Kerry's, Shrum writes that Weaver assured Kerry that "McCain was serious about the possibility of teaming up with him," and Kerry approached McCain. He, however, was more serious about seeking the 2008 Republican nomination. But was it unreasonable to think McCain might be comfortable on a Democratic ticket?

In ABC's New Hampshire debate, McCain said: "Why shouldn't we be able to reimport drugs from Canada?" A conservative's answer is: That amounts to importing Canada's price controls, a large step toward a system in which some medicines would be inexpensive but many others - new pain-relieving, life-extending pharmaceuticals - would be unavailable. Setting drug prices by government fiat rather than market forces results in huge reductions of funding for research and development of new drugs. McCain's evident aim is to reduce pharmaceutical companies' profits. But if all those profits were subtracted from the nation's health care bill, the pharmaceutical component of that bill would be reduced only from 10 percent to 8 percent - and innovation would stop, taking a terrible toll in unnecessary suffering and premature death. When McCain explains that trade-off to voters, he will actually have engaged in straight talk. There are decent, intelligent people who believe that equity or efficiency or both are often served by government setting prices. In America, such people are called Democrats.

Because McCain is a "maverick" - the media encomium reserved for Republicans who reject important Republican principles - he would be a conciliatory president. He has indeed worked with Sen. Ted Kennedy on immigration reform, with Sen. Russ Feingold on restricting political speech (McCain-Feingold) and with Kennedy and Sen. John Edwards - a trial lawyer drawn to an enlargement of opportunities for litigation - on the "patients' bill of rights."

McCain says he would nominate Supreme Court justices similar to Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Sam Alito. But how likely is he to nominate jurists who resemble those four: They consider his signature achievement constitutionally dubious. When the Supreme Court upheld McCain-Feingold 5-4, Scalia and Thomas were in the minority. That was before Alito replaced Sandra Day O'Connor, who was in the majority. Two years later, McCain filed his own brief supporting federal suppression of a right-to-life group's issue advertisement in Wisconsin because it mentioned a candidate for federal office during the McCain-Feingold blackout period prior to an election. The court ruled 5-4 against McCain's position, with Alito in the majority.

In the New Hampshire debate, McCain asserted that corruption is the reason drugs currently cannot be reimported from Canada. The reason is "the power of the pharmaceutical companies." When Mitt Romney interjected, "Don't turn the pharmaceutical companies into the big bad guys," McCain replied, "Well, they are." There is a place in American politics for moralizers who think in such Manichaean simplicities. That place is in the Democratic Party.

Source

****************************

ELSEWHERE

Hillary 110 Minutes Late in St. Louis: "Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was scheduled to appear at a St. Louis-area high school at 8 p.m. Central tonight. In a manner reminiscent of her husband Bill, however, the former first lady is, as of this moment, 1 hour and 50 minutes late for the campaign stop. By operating on “Clinton Standard Time” and placing her needs, wants and desires above those of ordinary Americans who came out to see and hear her speak, she demonstrates how truly arrogant she is. And this lady wants to be president?"

Crooks in the FBI too: "The FBI has been accused of covering up a key case file detailing evidence against corrupt government officials and their dealings with a network stealing nuclear secrets. The assertion follows allegations made in The Sunday Times two weeks ago by Sibel Edmonds, an FBI whistleblower, who worked on the agency's investigation of the network. Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency's Washington field office. She says the FBI was investigating a Turkish and Israeli-run network that paid high-ranking American officials to steal nuclear weapons secrets. These were then sold on the international black market to countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. One of the documents relating to the case was marked 203A-WF-210023. Last week, however, the FBI responded to a freedom of information request for a file of exactly the same number by claiming that it did not exist. But The Sunday Times has obtained a document signed by an FBI official showing the existence of the file. Edmonds believes the crucial file is being deliberately covered up"

Inflation and the tax man: "Rudy Giuliani's tax-reform proposal includes indexing capital-gains taxes for inflation -- that is, putting the original price of the asset in today's dollars. All of the Republican candidates have called for low or lower taxes on capital gains, while the Democrats favor higher capital-gains taxes. But inflation-indexing of capital gains should be part of every candidate's 'economic stimulus' package, regardless of party affiliation."

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

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

****************************

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

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

****************************

Best. Campaign. Question. Ever.

Post below lifted from Andrew Romano

CLEMSON, S.C.--Imagine a wiry little man with a flop of gray hair. He's wearing a brown leather bomber jacket. Medium build. Every word he says, he shouts. Like he's half deaf. Sounds like an irate hillbilly, even if he's not. (He could be.) After each sentence, he pauses, lifts his chin, then plunges back in. Theatrical. Now imagine him saying the following to Fred Thompson at the Stable Steakhouse in Prosperity, South Carolina, with one hand resting on the back of his booth and a portrait of a horse hanging over his head:

Thompson: Yes, sir.

Man: Fred, I drove over 500 miles to see you.

Thompson: Bless your heart. Let's give this man a hand. (Applause, cheers)

Man: I came over Finch Mountain in a snowstorm. (Pause) May I call you Fred?

Thompson: Absolutely.

Man: That's okay until January and I can call you Mr. President. (Laughter, more applause). Now, I've got a question.

Thompson: Yes sir.

Man: (Pause) I'm looking for a tall man who will stand tall for America. (Pause.) Who will cut the ears off of earmarks! (Pause.) Stop dead illegal immigration! (Pause.) And pull the teeth of activist judges...

Thompson: Yep.

Man: ... who take your house to build 7-Eleven! (Pause, then louder) And I want to know if you've got a Jim Bowie knife and a good strong pair (pause) of Channellock pliers! (Laughter, even more applause, calls of "That's right!" and "Hear, hear!")

Something tells me Mitt Romney doesn't field a whole lot of questions like that. Thompson, for his part, answered with Southern-fried aplomb.

"Did you ever see the movie 'Walking Tall'?" he said, referring to the 1973 action flick about Buford Pusser, a Tennessee sheriff who single-handedly rid his town of crime and corruption.

"You know the ax handle that old Buford used to carry? I got me one of them. I knew Buford Pusser. His daughter gave me one of those ax handles and I still got it. I thought about it many, many times. There's a lot you can do with that."

I hate being a Yankee.

****************************

ELSEWHERE



Those of us who are old enough to remember the Vietnam era will remember how the two photos above were ceaselessly used by the media to denigrate the American war effort. Larger versions of the photos are here and here. One depicts a little girl running naked from a napalm bombing and the other depicts a Vietcong assassin being executed. The impression always given is that America was guilty of brutality towards innocent Vietnamese. See here for the real story. American forces were not involved at all. It helps put in context the way deceptive photographs are repeatedly used to denigrate Israel's attempts to defend itself -- with the connivance of the Western media again, of course.

Another pro-suicide Jew (but nestled safely in an American university town) has come out with the old story of how wonderful Muslims once were to Jews. There is a rebuttal here.

Helmet economics: "A government that "protects" you from recessions also "protects" you from profits, innovation and plain old fun. The United States is no more in a recession than man is causing global warming. The facts are the U.S. economy grew by 3.8% in the second quarter of 2007 and 4.9% in the third quarter. Fourth quarter numbers are not yet ready but it is evident that while the growth slowed it is still well above recession levels. And remember, you need two consecutive quarters of negative growth before you have a recession. This nonsense of having to act before it is too late is the high-pressure sales pitch of the slickest of salesmen. And George Bush and Hillary Clinton sure are trying to outslick one another. The New York Times reported: "President Bush called Friday for roughly $145 billion in tax relief for individuals and businesses that he said would "provide a shot in the arm" for the economy, while Congressional Democrats, in a rare show of Washington bipartisanship, pledged to work with him to enact a plan quickly. This is another incremental step toward having the federal government - not the consumer - control the economy."

Bungling BritGov again: "A laptop containing the details of 600,000 people has been stolen, Britain's Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced today, in another staggering loss of personal data in the UK. The MoD said the laptop, containing the details of potential recruits, was stolen from a Royal Navy officer in Birmingham, Britain's second city, on the night of January 9. The bank details of 3500 people were on the laptop's database. The MoD said nothing until now for fear of hampering an investigation were the theft to become public knowledge. It comes less than two months after the personal details of 25 million people, approaching half the British population, got lost in the post in a spectacular blunder by a junior official. "The stolen laptop contained personal information relating to some 600,000 people who have either expressed an interest in, or have joined, the Royal Navy, Royal Marines and the Royal Air Force," the MoD said in a statement. In some cases of casual enquiries, just the name was on record. However, for those who submitted applications to join the military, "extensive personal data" could be held. Such details could include passport and National Insurance numbers, driving licence details, family details, doctors' addresses and National Health Service numbers."

California meddlers goof again: "Just two weeks after new restrictions on raw milk took effect, the Assembly Agriculture Committee voted unanimously this week to repeal them after the state's two raw milk producers said they would go out of business if they had to comply. Assemblywoman Nicole Parra, the Hanford Democrat who supported the new limits last year and is now leading the charge to repeal them, said she was deceived by agriculture officials in the Schwarzenegger administration who said the limits had broad support. As the committee met Wednesday, hundreds of raw milk backers protested the tighter restrictions on bacteria counts, which took effect Jan. 1."

Black corruption in California: "The president of the California NAACP has been paid more than $40,000 in consulting fees - and the organization itself has received $60,000 - from a coalition of Indian tribes at the same time the civil rights group has endorsed four ballot measures pushed by its tribal benefactors. The payments to Alice Huffman, who has served as president of the state conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People since 1999, continue a three-year pattern in which Huffman's political firm has been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by special interest groups. Those same interests, including tobacco and pharmaceutical companies, have also donated tens of thousands of dollars directly to the state NAACP while receiving the organization's backing."

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

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

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

****************************

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

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

****************************

Genes for race again

And it's reported in the NYT too! So it must be right! The finding that Polynesians (as in Hawaii) are unrelated to Melanesisans is a bit of a "grass is green" finding, though. Nobody who knows the first thing about Melanesians (e.g. New Guineans) would mistake one for the other. Among other things, the Melanesians are (as the name implies) quite black, whereas Polynesians are light brown. Excerpt below:

The ancestral relationships of people living in the widely scattered islands of the Pacific Ocean, long a puzzle to anthropologists, may have been solved by a new genetic study, researchers reported Thursday. In an analysis of the DNA of 1,000 individuals from 41 Pacific populations, an international team of scientists found strong evidence showing that Polynesians and Micronesians in the central and eastern islands had almost no genetic relationship to Melanesians, in the western islands like Papua New Guinea and the Bismarck and Solomons archipelagos.

The researchers also concluded that the genetic data showed that the Polynesians and Micronesians were most closely related to Taiwan Aborigines and East Asians. They said this supported the view that these migrating seafarers originated in Taiwan and coastal China at least 3,500 years ago.

The findings were described in the online journal Public Library of Science Genetics (www.plosgenetics.org) by researchers led by Jonathan S. Friedlaender, professor emeritus of biological anthropology at Temple University. He was assisted in the data analysis by his wife, FranØoise R. Friedlaender, an independent researcher. Other participants included scientists in the islands and at the Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation in Marshfield, Wis. "Our analysis," the scientists wrote, "indicates the ancestors of Polynesians moved through Melanesia relatively rapidly and only intermixed to a very modest degree with the indigenous populations there." [i.e. they wiped the other guys out] ...

The new genetic research, said Patrick V. Kirch, an anthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who is an authority on Pacific cultures, was "overwhelming biological evidence for a clear population movement out of Southeast Asia and Taiwan to Polynesia." Dr. Kirch, who did not participate in the genetic study, said that it reinforced research showing that Polynesian speech patterns were unrelated to Melanesian languages, suggesting - along with discoveries of the distinctive Lapita pottery across the Pacific - links to Taiwan and China, not Melanesia. "The combination of evidence shows we really can read this history," he said.

In the research, scientists examined more than 800 genetic markers known to be useful in distinguishing the ancestry of people. These involved mitochondrial DNA, passed down through females, and the Y chromosomes in males. Previous investigations along these lines had been conducted on a much smaller scale, Dr. Friedlaender said. The new test results were repeatedly analyzed with a software program recently developed to classify genetic similarities and variations among different populations.

Source

***********************

ELSEWHERE



An update here from Tim Blair about his sudden cancer diagnosis. It's pretty serious.

A heartening story here about New York governor Eliot Spitzer getting some of his own medicine.

Bidinotto has a good demolition of Ron Paul's simplistic foreign policy. Excerpt: "Just as I reject the liberal "excuse-making industry" that denies volition and rationalizes the acts of criminals, I am totally fed up with the disgraceful foreign-policy perspectives of those libertarians who portray the United States as the causal agent of every evil on earth -- thus rationalizing the atrocities of foreign terrorists and despots. Ron Paul has become the most visible exponent of that malignant view of America"

Obama has praised Reagan and the Left has gone bananas over it: "The episode is most telling, though, for what it says about the ancient mariners of the Democratic Party and how little they've changed. Supposedly Mr. Obama committed a grievous blunder by nodding at the achievement of one of the most consequential Presidencies of the 20th century. If the rest of the Democrats can't even recognize the same, it suggests that the change they have in mind is back to the 1960s and '70s."

What a crock! "Hillary Clinton never doubted her husband's Bill Clinton's love for her, despite the former president's affair with a White House intern. The former first lady, locked in a tight battle for the Democratic presidential nomination with Barack Obama, candidly revealed her inner torment after the infidelity, first reported 10 years ago. "I really had to dig down deep and think hard about what was right for me, what was right for my family,'' Senator Clinton said on the Tyra Banks talk show on Fox television. "I never doubted Bill's love for me, ever, and I never doubted my faith and my commitment to our daughter and our extended family. "But I had to decide what I ought to do, I think it is so important to be able to hear yourself at a moment when it is hard ... there are so many times when you really have to listen to yourself.'' [I am sure she does a LOT of listening to herself]

Anti-Christian Pentagon? "Liberal anti-religious sentiment toward conservative Christians is finding its way into the upper reaches of the Pentagon and the U.S. military, generally viewed in the past as conservative bastions. A recent example is the case of a senior aide to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon R. England who criticized a co-worker with impunity in disparaging Christians, a favorite target of left-liberal elites. Pentagon aide Hasham Islam remains a key adviser on Muslim affairs to Mr. England and faced no punishment or even criticism for recently calling Joint Staff counterterrorism analyst Stephen Coughlin a "Christian zealot with a pen" because of his views on the linkage between Islamic law and terrorism. There was no outcry in the press, as could be expected if the criticism had been reversed and Mr. Islam was called a Muslim zealot. The confrontation in a meeting several weeks ago led to Mr. Coughlin's firing."

New Lepers? : "I've had a huge response to Tuesday's column about The New York Times' obscene bid to smear veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan as mad killers. Countless readers seem to be wondering: Why did the paper do it? Well, in the Middle Ages, lepers had to carry bells on pain of death to warn the uninfected they were coming. One suspects that the Times would like our military veterans to do the same. The purpose of Sunday's instantly notorious feature "alerting" the American people that our Iraq and Afghanistan vets are all potential murderers when they move in next door was to mark those defenders of freedom as "unclean" - as the new lepers who can't be trusted amid uninfected Americans."

UK government toughening up? "Gordon Brown has brushed aside a chorus of protest to press ahead with plans to allow terror suspects to be locked up without charge for up to 42 days, leaked documents obtained by The Independent show. The Prime Minister's refusal to compromise leaves the Home Secretary facing a desperate struggle to avert Mr Brown's first Commons defeat. Up to 40 Labour MPs have vowed to oppose any extension of the current 28-day limit, already the longest in the Western world."

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

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

****************************

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

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

****************************

Barack Obama and Israel

The ascent of Barack Obama from state senator in Illinois to a leading contender for the Presidential nomination in the span of just a few years is remarkable. Especially in light of a noticeably unremarkable record -- a near-blank slate of few accomplishments and numerous missed votes.

However, in one area of foreign policy that concerns millions of Americans, he does have a record and it is a particularly troubling one. For all supporters of the America-Israel relationship there is enough information beyond the glare of the klieg lights to give one pause. In contrast to his canned speeches filled with "poetry" and uplifting aphorisms and delivered in a commanding way, behind the campaign faOade lies a disquieting pattern of behavior.

One seemingly consistent them running throughout Barack Obama's career is his comfort with aligning himself with people who are anti-Israel advocates. This ease around Israel animus has taken various forms. As Obama has continued his political ascent, he has moved up the prestige scale in terms of his associates. Early on in his career he chose a church headed by a former Black Muslim who is a harsh anti-Israel advocate and who may be seen as tinged with anti-Semitism. This church is a member of a denomination whose governing body has taken a series of anti-Israel actions.

As his political fortunes and ambition climbed, he found support from George Soros, multibillionaire promoter of groups that have been consistently harsh and biased critics of the American-Israel relationship. Obama's soothing and inspiring oratory sometimes vanishes when he talks of the Middle East. Indeed, his off-the-cuff remarks have been uniformly taken by supporters of Israel as signs that the inner Obama does not truly support Israel despite what his canned speeches and essays may contain.

Now that Obama has become a leading Presidential candidate, he has assembled a body of foreign policy advisers who signal that a President Obama would likely have an approach towards Israel radically at odds with those of previous Presidents (both Republican and Democrat). A group of experts collected by the Israeli liberal newspaper Haaretz deemed him to be the candidate likely to be least supportive of Israel. He is the candidate most favored by the Arab-American community.

Much more here

************************

ELSEWHERE



Against the Trend, U.S. Births Way Up: "Bucking the trend in many other wealthy industrialized nations, the United States seems to be experiencing a baby boomlet, reporting the largest number of children born in 45 years. The nearly 4.3 million births in 2006 were mostly due to a bigger population, especially a growing number of Hispanics. That group accounted for nearly one-quarter of all U.S. births. But non-Hispanic white women and other racial and ethnic groups were having more babies, too. An Associated Press review of birth numbers dating to 1909 found the total number of U.S. births was the highest since 1961, near the end of the baby boom. An examination of global data also shows that the United States has a higher fertility rate than every country in continental Europe, as well as Australia, Canada and Japan. Fertility levels in those countries have been lower than the U.S. rate for several years, although some are on the rise, most notably in France." [The French births are mostly to Muslims]

Mitt Romney Vows to Save Buggy Whip, Chamber Pot Industries: "Following on the heels of his promise to save the auto industry in Michigan and the textile industry in South Carolina, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has pledged to save the buggy whip and chamber pot industries, as well as increase the number of professionals in the bloodletting industry. "The buggy whip, chamber pot, and bloodletting industries can only thrive if Washington is an engaged partner and not a disinterested partner," Romney said. "If I'm president of this country, I will roll up my sleeves in the first 100 days I'm in office, and I will personally bring together industry, labor, Congressional, and state leaders and together we will develop a plan to rebuild America's covered wagon, copper crapper, and bleeder industries," promised Romney." (Satire)

Another Hollywood distortion: "A group of retired US drug enforcement agents have sued Hollywood studio NBC Universal, saying the Russell Crowe movie American Gangster falsely makes them out to be villains. The lawsuit claims the movie defamed hundreds of Drug Enforcement Agency agents and New York City police officers by claiming that heroin trafficker Frank Lucas, played by actor Denzel Washington, collaborated with prosecutors, leading "to the convictions of three-quarters of New York City's Drug Enforcement Agency". Lucas became a government informant after his conviction in 1975, and his tips led to prosecutions of several drug dealers. According to the lawsuit, no DEA agents or New York City police officers were ever convicted as a result of Lucas's tips. "This is absolutely off the wall," said Dominic Amorosa, a prosecutor in the federal case against Lucas in 1975 and now representing the DEA agents. Mr Amorosa said the filmmakers unfairly blackened the reputation of agents who risked their lives to put away Lucas and other drug felons in the 70s and 80s. "I don't know what these people were thinking, but they are going to pay for it," he said."

Airport screening ludicrous in Australia too: "The company responsible for security at Brisbane's airports has failed two Federal Government weapons tests in the past three weeks, casting a further cloud on safety levels at the international and domestic terminals. Transport Department inspectors slipped two knives past screeners working for contractor ISS Security as part of random checks on anti-terror measures in the nation's airports. The failures come amid controversy over security at Brisbane's airports after a former Australian Federal Police officer and six former ISS employees revealed regular and unreported security breaches. The concerns included two knives being found on passengers who had already passed through security checkpoints before boarding flights and broad failures of screeners to monitor passengers and baggage. More current and former ISS workers came forward to detail concerns, revealing how Transport Department inspectors had recently slipped knives in a backpack and a briefcase past screeners. They followed another failed random test in the second half of last year."

Congress caves in on defence bill: "The House on Wednesday passed a new defense policy bill that includes a pay raise for troops. President Bush had rejected an earlier version of the legislation because he said it would expose the Iraqi government to expensive lawsuits. The new bill, which passed 369-46, would let Bush grant Iraq immunity under the provision, which otherwise guarantees that U.S. victims of state-sponsored abuse can sue foreign governments in court. Iraqi officials objected to the measure because they said it would have subjected Baghdad to high-dollar payouts in damages from the Saddam Hussein era. The administration now supports the bill, said White House spokesman Tony Fratto"

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

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

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

****************************

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

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

****************************

Lots of interesting news and commentary to catch up with today so I am not putting up a single leading post



Faith in a failed process: "During his recent trip to Israel, President Bush visited several places that re-affirmed his faith, including Bethlehem and the Sea of Galilee. Then exhibiting far greater faith than believing Jesus could walk on water, he asserted that "peace" could be had between Israel, the Palestinians and her Arab neighbors. One exhibition of faith has some historic roots and witnesses; the other is rooted in fantasy. Since 1937, there have been 18 formal attempts by commissions, conferences, resolutions, summits and other gatherings to persuade the Jewish lamb to lie down with the Arab lion. All have failed. This latest attempt by President Bush, like those of presidents before him, will also fail"

McCain to Pharmaceutical Innovators: Drop Dead : "Voters will be pardoned for speculating whether aliens have somehow captured Senator John McCain, nominally a Republican candidate for President, and replaced his mind with that of Democratic class-warrior candidate John Edwards. The latest evidence came during the January 5, 2008 Republican candidates' debate in Manchester, New Hampshire, when Senator McCain slurred the pharmaceutical industry as "the big bad guys." Thus, in addition to his dubious positions on tax cuts, waterboarding of terrorists and McCain/Feingold's free speech restrictions, he has now gone on record attacking America's pharmaceutical companies, which constitute one of this country's most innovative and valuable industries."

Fox News, the most trusted name in television: "Poll shows it is more trusted than the No. 2 and No. 3 combined. Sacred Heart University in Connecticut polled 800 people in the 50 states and found: "The most trusted national TV news organizations, for accurate reporting, in declining order included: Fox News (27.0%), CNN (14.6%), and NBC News (10.90%). These were followed by ABC News (7.0%), local news (6.9%), CBS News (6.8%) MSNBC (4.0%), PBS News (3.0%), CNBC (0.6%) and CBN (0.5%)." The pollsters noted that just 4 years earlier, CNN was the most trusted at 23.8% followed by Fox at 14.8%."

Investors say their No. 1 fear is a Democratic president: "So what do investors fear most in the coming year? The election of a Democrat as president. Aaron Siegel of Investment News reported that investors believe the No. 1 risk to the economy is a Democratic president. He cited the Brinker Barometer. "The results jibe with a poll that Brinker conducted last summer in which 60% of advisers said that Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., would be the worst choice in terms of the economy and investing," Siegel reported."

UK says Iran hoodwinked U.S.: "The head of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, has expressed "grave doubts" that Iran has mothballed its nuclear weapons program as reported last month in the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate... The U.S. report was blasted again last week by a furious President Bush on his visit to Israel. His anger was reinforced by an MI6 report supported by Israel's Mossad intelligence service. MI6 chief John Scarlett and Mossad leader Meir Dagan believe the U.S. report not only has undermined efforts to impose tough new sanctions on Iran but, ironically, makes a pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities more likely. The prospect of that attack came closer when Israel's new ambassador in London, Ron Prosor, said that Iran "will have enough uranium to make an atomic bomb by 2009." Proser is one of Israel's leading experts on Iran's nuclear program."

The coming oil price decline: ""Oil prices have finally reached $100 a barrel. I now hear predictions of $200 a barrel. People who make forecasts like round numbers. I do not expect $200 oil any time soon. I expect $85 oil first, and $70 oil first, and $50 oil first. I do not believe in doomsday scenarios that relate to the earth's resources. There are phenomena in the universe that can end the earth or human life on it. They do not include running out of energy because we lack resources."

Hollywood distortions: ""American Rhapsody is a movie about a family that gets smuggled out of Hungary in the early 1960s and all the various complications this gives rise to. Since I went through this ordeal myself when I was 14, not with my family but several perfect strangers and a paid guide, I thought I'd check out the movie. Expecting to see something familiar I'd witness, instead a very distorted picture of the escape emerged right from the start. And I have met up with this distortion before, when in 1981 TIME magazine carried a lengthy story about what TIME called flesh peddlers, the people who hired out their skills of leading escapees across the dangerous Iron Curtain. Just as TIME did, so American Rhapsody depicted the people-smugglers not as heroes, not as folks doing an important piece of work for which hundreds of refugees would forever be grateful. No. Both TIME and American Rhapsody depicted the smugglers as rapacious, greedy, heartless brutes who had no concern for their clients at all, especially not the young children who accompanied them. My experience was completely different."

Should the state regulate envy?: "Falling Behind belongs to an unfortunate genre: books by well-known economists that endeavor to justify crude soak-the-rich policies. Paul Krugman and, from an earlier day, John Kenneth Galbraith are perhaps the best-known authors of such works; but Frank fully equals these eminent figures in his railings against the well-off. Tax relief for the rich fills him with dismay."

Israel's TRUE friends: "John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt are at it again, attempting to poison the well of American politics with their misleading depiction of an Israeli stranglehold on presidential candidates and elected officials like us. In their Op-Ed article, the two professors charge that the so-called Israel lobby, composed of pro-Israel Jews, Christians and their "friends in the media," manipulates American political leaders to act counter to American - and, in their view, Israeli - interests. Mearsheimer and Walt accuse all of us who support Israel in its struggle to live in peace and security of being Israel's "false friends." The accusation is remarkably disingenuous since it implies that Walt and Mearsheimer are Israel's true friends. These so-called true friends put the entirety of the blame for the failure of the peace process on the Israelis."

Felon-Friendly Congress: "Often, what emerges from Congress is a parody not only of good government, but of common sense. The chairman of the House subcommittee on the federal work force thinks the feds should actively recruit felons into government employment. "The federal government is one of the places that has not been doing enough to help give people a second chance," said Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill. "We can't lead where we haven't been," so Davis intends to introduce a bill to make the federal workplace more felon-friendly. Never mind that rehabilitation of felons is largely a pipe-dream: According to the Department of Justice, more than 50 percent of convicted felons re-offend. (And that statistic includes only the ones who are caught)"

Louisiana prefers Jindal to corruption : "Little is ordinary about Louisiana's new governor, Piyush "Bobby" Jindal. He's the nation's youngest governor, the first whose parents are from India, and his state's first nonwhite chief executive since Reconstruction. A convert from Hinduism to Catholicism, he likes fast food and rises early - like 3 a.m. - to lift weights. But all that pales in comparison to the extraordinary task he's promised to undertake: cleaning up a state government widely considered one of the most corruption-prone in America. Perhaps equally extraordinary: Some political observers say he can do it. Governor Jindal was inaugurated here in Baton Rouge Monday amid the booms of a 19-cannon salute and a children's choir singing "The Crawdad Song." With government flaws exposed by the 2005 storm, "the stars are now aligning" for deep reforms in a state infamous for having more imprisoned politicians per capita than any other, Jindal says. "After years of scandals and jokes, it's almost become a self-fulfilling prophecy that there was this Louisiana way. Now, people are optimistic that we can actually do something about it," he adds.

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

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

****************************

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

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

****************************

A not so merry old Cole

Juan Cole is a University of Michigan Middle East studies professor who is so dumb as to believe that Iraq is on the Mediterranean. And if you read here you will see that the wacky Prof. Cole does not even know that a large part of what is the USA today was taken from Mexico! He really is a rather pathetic case. Leftists and the facts just do not get on. Cole calls his blog Informed Comment, in the fine old Leftist tradition of calling a thing by its opposite.

Unfortunately, however, many unaware people could well take him seriously so we need to note that he is also a deliberate distorter of the facts and a deceiver of the public -- as this article reveals. Cole purports to believe the Iranian propaganda about the recent confrontation in the Straits of Hormuz between the U.S. navy and Iranian speedboats and is willing to misrepresent easily checkable facts in order to support that propaganda.

He must be one of the lowest-quality professors around. Students who have paid to attend his courses ought to demand a refund! Pro-Leftist and pro-Islamic distortions are just about all that they will have learned.

**********************

The Other Foot

By Bob Parks

Under normal circumstances, this election cycle would be gearing up for the coming explosion. We'd be waiting for the inevitable. At some point in the coming weeks, a Republican would be accused of being a racist. With that, it's kind of fun watching the media scratch their collective, oversized, dandruffed heads, contemplating why the current Democrat primary race is being plagued by the very infection normally reserved for their enemies.

Democrats now have the shoe on their other foot. They have spent decades honing their skills, planting race IEDs on the sides of the Republican campaign trail, waiting for some unsuspecting conservative candidate to set off a race controversy. Every speech, every appearance, every word uttered from a Republican's mouth was dissected in search for the intolerance ammunition to be used for Democrat blaxploitation.

It's not news that Democrats have used blacks for their political benefit. Blacks have been told they are victims of racism. Blacks have been intentionally kept angry because of the lack of campaign promised improvements in their lives. Blacks have been conditioned to look at every syllable uttered by a Republican and insert a racist motive where one didn't exist. Blacks have been strategically rendered as ultra-sensitive as a bone bruise on the shin.

While Democrats knew where all the bombs were planted, never in their wildest dreams did they think they would need to disarm them. In what were probably typical retorts between candidates, the Clintons are now experiencing the angst caused when their words have been reinterpreted, motives have been assumed, and the unintentional has now been taken as the ingrained. While the Clintons are probably not racist people, they now have to spend valuable campaign time attempting to convince a portion of our population that they're not. My only question to them is, "How does it feel?"

More here

*****************************

ELSEWHERE

Amusing story here. Obama could be scuppered not by the white vote but by the Hispanic vote!

Hillary Clinton's Messiah Complex: "It's no secret that Hillary Clinton views herself as a member of the God Squad, divinely anointed to shepherd the masses to greater gender consciousness. "Hillary acts as though she has been chosen by God," recounts Edward Klein, author of The Truth about Hillary. "I find her to be among the most self-righteous people I've ever known," explains former New York Times reporter Bob Boorstin. And during her senate campaign Hillary glowed approvingly whenever Black preachers declared her "a woman of God." But how many people know how Mrs. Clinton's messianic streak may lead to her political undoing? During her childhood Hugh Rodham treated Hillary as Daddy's favorite, sparing her from many of the chastisements and chores he imposed on her hapless brothers. As brother Tony remarked enviously, "Little Hillary could do no wrong." Hillary's teenage involvement with the local Methodist church only reinforced her emerging priggishness. By the age of 17, Hillary's "messianism and sense of entitlement" were already evident, reveals Carl Bernstein in A Woman in Charge."

You can't win with the Left: "Do you notice how the left is trying to paint this mortgage crisis on the lenders? It's all about crooked or unscrupulous or greedy mortgage lenders and brokers. It happens that when many of these substandard loans were being made by these "unscrupulous" lenders I wasn't that far away from making my living practicing law and was doing quite a few real estate closings. I can remember a series of articles in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about redlining and all of the horrible, racist things evil mortgage lenders do to avoid making loans to blacks and low income people. The pressure was clearly on. Either the mortgage lenders start to do something creative to bring more low income types and minorities into the realm of home ownership, or the government was going to step in and make them do it. What did we get? Substandard mortgages. The left was out there whining that the mortgage companies weren't doing enough . so here come the loans who otherwise couldn't have qualified . and now we haver the mortgage crunch and record foreclosures."

Freedom has a history: "The Heritage Index of Economic Freedom for 2008 is out. Only 7 nations out of 162 listed were declared free. In order, they are Hong Kong, Singapore, Ireland, Australia, the United States, New Zealand and Canada.Ireland is the Celtic Tiger thanks to slashing tax rates 10 years ago... It is no accident that all 7 are former colonies of Great Britain, which fell to 10th place (Chile and Switzerland were 8 and 9).

It couldn't happen to a more deserving guy: "Disgraced and disbarred, Mike Nifong is now bankrupt. The former North Carolina prosecutor, whose career imploded with his botched handling of the Duke University rape case, today filed for bankruptcy, listing liabilities in excess of $180 million".

Saving Major Coughlin: "It may not be too late to save the career of a Pentagon analyst of jihad threats whose frank and honest work has gotten him into trouble. Bill Gertz in his weekly Washington Times "Inside the Ring" column (1/11/08) reported that "Pentagon and military leaders, along with lots of working-level officials, are quietly rallying" in support of Major Stephen Coughlin (USAR), whose plight I have discussed, earlier here. Gertz also makes clear in no uncertain terms, dismissing some rumor mongering, that Coughlin was being accused "falsely" of talking "out of school to the press."

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

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

****************************

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

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

****************************

OBAMA AS A "THIRD WAY" CANDIDATE

The most influential "third way" politician of the 20th century was that famous Marxist theoretician, Italy's Benito Mussolini, the founder of Fascism. The idea seems to have enduring appeal to Leftists. But it always seems to end up as just another mask for the same old Leftist reliance on big government and coercion. And now Obama is playing that fiddle too. Few conservatives would see any substance in Obama's third-way claims. His actual policies all seem -- as far as one can tell -- to be boilerplate Leftism. The article excerpted below from a Left-leaning Australian writer does however buy the claim. He compares Obama to Australian centre-Leftists. Australian centre-Leftists do however exhibit a lot of genuine conservatism and I am at a loss to see any of that in Obama.

Now Barack has published a book with an improbable name. The Audacity of Hope. It has been a sales pitch for his presidential run, an attempt to make himself a crossover candidate for more progressive Republicans. Describing himself as a Christian and a sceptic, he distances himself from Huckabee by confirming his belief in evolution and stem cell research, but talks up a faith-based politics while defending secularism. It's a hard act in a society where religious and ideological differences have never been so emphasised and manipulated.

Obama became famous overnight when, in July 2004, the junior senator from Illinois (he's from Abraham Lincoln's Springfield, not Homer Simpson's) electrified the Democratic National Convention with a speech that sought to bridge the divide. And the book expands on all the themes of that address. I'm listening to the audio version, read by Obama with an energy and attack that's deeply impressive. If he weren't running for the presidency he'd be a contender for a Pulitzer in journalism. The political analysis of what he calls the dead zone of US politics is superb, as is the writing.

This is the classic third way argument, developed by Bob Hawke, Paul Keating, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, but with refinements. Most of all, Obama reminds me of Kevin Rudd in his views on the role of a social democrat party in a 21st century Western democracy. Their natural affinity was shown in Obama's congratulatory phone call to Rudd after his recent victory. If he wins the White House the two of them will be natural allies, capable of working more closely and more cordially than John Howard and George W. Bush....

On Jon Stewart's The Daily Show, Obama was a revelation. Not once in more than 50 years of watching telly had I seen a politician so utterly and seductively relaxed. Not the faux relaxation that most affect, it seemed to come from Obama's oft-stated view that he's learned to campaign without a fear of losing. If so, it's transformational, giving him a freedom of expression and a depth of humour that leaves Hillary and Mike Huckabee for dead. He's the least processed and manufactured of candidates, and certainly one of the smartest.

For example, he opposes the demonisation of Bush. We do that, we're the losers. While powerfully opposing the President's policies, he concedes the possibility of personal decency. When he argues that the administration, though monstrously wrong, believes that what it's doing is right for the country, fellow Democrats get very angry. But it wins Obama crossover Republican votes, as evidenced in Iowa.

More here

**************************

ELSEWHERE

VERY sad news: Tim Blair has cancer. He is in his early 40s.

There is an interesting article here by the occasionally sensible Andrew Hotcock on the latest survey of violent deaths in Iraq since the U.S. intervention there. I think that there is now general agreement among those who know anything about it that the "600,000 deaths" report by Lancet has no credibility but the more recent NEJM survey reporting 151,000 deaths (of which only a sixth were due to violence) has not attracted much criticism. Hotcock makes a strong case that the 151,000 figure is also highly arbitrary. As a Leftist he thinks it is too low but nobody really knows -- and maybe nobody ever will know.

Hillary keeps mentioning that she is female and that Barack Obama is black, while also insisting that none of that matters: "This is the most exciting election we've had in such a long time because you have an African American, an extraordinary man, a person of tremendous talents and abilities, running to become our president. You have a woman running to break the highest and hardest glass ceiling. I don't think either of us want to inject race or gender in this campaign. We are running as individuals. . . . Well, you know, I don't think that either of us should use gender. I don't think this campaign is about gender, and I sure hope it's not about race. It needs to be about the individuals. . . . "

Hillary booed in NY: "Dogged by continuing racial tensions around her presidential campaign, Hillary Rodham Clinton drew a smattering of boos on Monday when she spoke at a religiously tinged Martin Luther King Jr. rally put together by a union organizing predominantly black security workers. The catcalls came when Clinton was introduced and her speech drew only tepid applause compared to the boisterous ovations drawn by many of the pastors and reverends - not to mention a hip-hop artist and slam poet - who took the podium before her."

Obama not so different from white racist David Duke?: "I have no idea how a member of a black church that apparently feels it owes greater allegiance to Africa than to America and that pays homage to a bigot like Farrakhan, has the gall to present himself as the one candidate who can bring us all together. To be fair, I acknowledge that he has a pleasant smile and speaks better than most politicians. The truth is, he sort of reminds me of David Duke."

Brit Muslim leader speaks out against "honor" killings: "One of Britain's leading Muslims has called on his community to rise up against a culture of fear and help stamp out forced marriages and honour killings after the third high-profile court case in Britain in the past year. Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, head of the Muslim Parliament in Britain, spoke out after a coroner ruled on Friday that 17-year-old Shafilea Ahmed was "unlawfully killed" and that "the concept of an arranged marriage was central to the circumstances of her death". Mr Siddiqui said he was certain the schoolgirl, who wanted to go to university and become a lawyer, was the victim of an honour killing. No charges have yet been bought by police"

The financial cost of the Iraq war: "The future historian would note that for the past century America has been one of largest military powers on the planet. This naturally involved a budgetary commitment. For some of the past century, the American military was quite small. But on average American military spending was about twice the share of GDP that it now is, about 5%. Moreover, with Iraq consuming between 15% and 20% of that figure, the future historian would likely view the entire affair as relatively minor in purely budgetary terms. That is hard for us to comprehend while living through it, but it is the way the numbers break."

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

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

****************************

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

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

****************************

"Culture" is what you have when you are not having "race"

The research summarized below shows that whites and Asians think differently but the authors ASSUME that all differences between Asians and Caucasians are cultural. There is not a breath of a suggestion about the obvious possibility that the two groups may be genetically different. To give the authors their due, however, they do make some attempt to show that the differences are cultural. They show that Asians who have the most Asian attitudes also have the most Asian brain function. That, however, is simply to confuse cause and effect. The evidence that attitudes are strongly transmitted genetically is summarized here. Sadly, however, the authors HAD to attribute their results to culture. Otherwise they would have been tarred as "racists"

Psychological research has established that American culture, which values the individual, emphasizes the independence of objects from their contexts, while East Asian societies emphasize the collective and the contextual interdependence of objects. Behavioral studies have shown that these cultural differences can influence memory and even perception. But are they reflected in brain activity patterns"

To find out, a team led by John Gabrieli, a professor at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, asked 10 East Asians recently arrived in the United States and 10 Americans to make quick perceptual judgments while in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner--a technology that maps blood flow changes in the brain that correspond to mental operations. Subjects were shown a sequence of stimuli consisting of lines within squares and were asked to compare each stimulus with the previous one. In some trials, they judged whether the lines were the same length regardless of the surrounding squares (an absolute judgment of individual objects independent of context). In other trials, they decided whether the lines were in the same proportion to the squares, regardless of absolute size (a relative judgment of interdependent objects).

In previous behavioral studies of similar tasks, Americans were more accurate on absolute judgments, and East Asians on relative judgments. In the current study, the tasks were easy enough that there were no differences in performance between the two groups. However, the two groups showed different patterns of brain activation when performing these tasks. Americans, when making relative judgments that are typically harder for them, activated brain regions involved in attention-demanding mental tasks. They showed much less activation of these regions when making the more culturally familiar absolute judgments. East Asians showed the opposite tendency, engaging the brain's attention system more for absolute judgments than for relative judgments.

"We were surprised at the magnitude of the difference between the two cultural groups, and also at how widespread the engagement of the brain's attention system became when making judgments outside the cultural comfort zone," says Hedden.

The researchers went on to show that the effect was greater in those individuals who identified more closely with their culture. They used questionnaires of preferences and values in social relations, such as whether an individual is responsible for the failure of a family member, to gauge cultural identification. Within both groups, stronger identification with their respective cultures was associated with a stronger culture-specific pattern of brain-activation.

Source

**************************

ELSEWHERE

Jeff Jacoby has a useful summary of why the "600,000 Iraqi deaths" study published in The Lancet was just propaganda. Tigerhawk has some good comments too.

Change: the empty word: "It's hard to think of a more meaningless political watchword than "change," but "change" is what the presidential candidates are promising. Barack Obama's endless repetition of the word won him the Iowa caucuses, prompting other Democratic and Republican presidential candidates to make it their mantra too. Hillary Clinton and [RINO] John McCain won in New Hampshire by arguing that they too wanted change and that they had the experience necessary to bring it about." And Mark Steyn rightly points out that it is WHICH change that matters, not just any change.

Reality dawns very slowly in the EU: "The use of armed "sky marshals" on passenger planes is set to spread across Europe, following a deal on aviation security hammered out in the 27-nation European Union. After the September 11 attacks in the United States, the European Union adopted joint rules for checking air passengers, their baggage, freight, mail and flight and ground crews. But measures such as the use of on-board security personnel were optional. At the end of consultations, European parliament members and officials from EU states agreed on a compromise setting new common rules and standards. "The necessity of new security measures that are implemented quickly and effectively is undoubted," transport committee chairman Paolo Costa said."

Britain. The cancer of bureaucracy again: "A quango distributing lottery money has been accused by the Conservatives of wasting millions of pounds on salaries and administration while cutting donations. Costs at the Big Lottery Fund, which is responsible for handing out half the money for good causes raised by the Lotto, have risen from 73 million in 2006 to 77 million pounds last year. The amount distributed has dropped from 696 million to 469 million because the Government has diverted funds to the 2012 Olympics. The fund's administration costs amounted to 12.8 per cent of its income. In comparison the charities Scope and Children in Need spent 2 per cent and 4.4 per cent respectively. The research showed that the fund, where five of the twelve board members are Labour members, has 1,103 employees compared with 1,170 at the Treasury, but while the fund distributes 630 million annually, the Treasury distributes 500 times that amount."

Some of the doubts about Obama: "When Hillary Clinton warned that Barack Obama had not been thoroughly "vetted", as she has been, she was hinting darkly at trouble to come over her rival's radical pastor and shady patron in Chicago, the Illinois senator's home town.... The smear that Obama is secretly a Muslim, or too close for comfort to that religion, has already taken hold among some voters. "We have to peel back his identity," said one elderly white voter in South Carolina, a state Obama must win on January 26. "Did you know his middle name is Hussein? He is a Muslim and was raised in an Islamic school." ... The unorthodox pastor of Trinity church is the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who is refusing all interviews. He married Barack and Michelle Obama and baptised their two daughters. He is already attracting attention on right-wing websites for describing the September 11 attacks as a "wake-up call" to America for ignoring the concerns of "people of colour", and for claiming that Americans "believe in white supremacy and black inferiority . . . more than we believe in God". The other potential threat to Obama comes from the indictment of one of his leading donors, Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a Syrian-born property developer in Chicago, who is accused of extortion.

9th Circuit - No background checks on NASA employees: ""A federal appeals court ruled Friday that NASA should be blocked from conducting background checks on low-risk employees at its Jet Propulsion Laboratory, saying the practice threatens workers' constitutional rights. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the 28 scientists and engineers who refused to submit to the background checks "face a stark choice - either violation of their constitutional rights or loss of their jobs." The decision written by Judge Kim Wardlaw reversed a ruling by U.S. District Judge Otis Wright and sent the case back to him with orders to issue an injunction on the workers' behalf. The workers sued the federal government, claiming that NASA was invading their privacy by requiring the investigations, which included probes into medical records and questioning of friends about everything from their finances to their sex lives. If they didn't agree to the checks, they could be fired."

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

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

****************************

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

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

****************************