Friday, July 25, 2008

Why is the right happier than the left?

Summary and comments by Andrew Norton below followed by a few comments from me -- JR

So far as I am aware, every survey that asks about political orientation and happiness finds that right-wingers are happier than left-wingers. In the 2007 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes, Liberal identifiers were a massive 13% ahead of Labor identifiers as describing themselves as `very happy', 40%/27%. At his blog, Winton Bates summarises a new article on this subject, by Jaime Napier and John Jost in the June issue of Psychological Science, this way:
The study suggests that some of the association between political orientation and subjective well-being is accounted for by beliefs about inequality. The authors examined the effect of introducing ideological variables - relating to beliefs about inequality and meritocracy- in regression analyses explaining life satisfaction in the U.S. and nine other countries. They found that when the ideological variable was introduced into the analysis it took some of the explanatory power away from the political variable. .

The authors conclude that "inequality takes a greater psychological toll on liberals than on conservatives, apparently because liberals lack ideological rationalizations that would help them frame inequality in a positive (or at least neutral) light"

I don't doubt that there is a statistical relationship between beliefs about inequality, meritocracy, and getting ahead that helps explain why leftists are not as happy as conservatives and others on the right. Even the new president of the American Enterprise Institute, Arthur Brooks, makes this point in his book Gross National Happiness.

But how likely is that when people are asked how happy they feel, their mind turns to ideological rationalisations of inequality? Why would some local income inequality disturb some respondents so much, and not all the people who are sick in hospital, or dissatisfied with their personal relationships, or any of the other things known to have big negative effects on personal well-being?

I think there is a better theory, one that is more consistent with the subjective well-being literature, which explains this result: that both lower average happiness and leftism have a common link to a weaker sense of personal control and optimism. Both these attributes are strongly correlated with happiness; and one of the tasks of the `positive psychology' movement (the clinical side of subjective well-being research) is to try to enhance these senses.

For example, in the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes 2005 those who agreed or strongly agreed that they had a good chance of improving their standard of living were more than twice as likely as those who disagreed or strongly disagreed to rate themselves at 9 or 10 on a 0 to 10 happiness scale. By lesser margins, those who thought that they could get a new job at least as good as their current one, and those who enjoyed having a lot of choices, were significantly happier than those who thought it would be difficult to get a new job or did not enjoy having choices.

When we tabulate these against party ID, Liberal supporters are 10 to 23 percentage points more likely to give answers suggesting that the respondents feel in control and optimistic about the future.

People who don't feel like they are fully in control of their lives or optimistic about their own prospects are more likely to support left-wing parties, which promise to look after them. But optimistic and in-control people are more likely to want the government to let them get on with their lives without interference, and support right-of-centre parties.

Societal inequalities may play a role in why people feel the way they do, but I would hypothesise that it has more to do with the how the respondent feels that it affects him/her personally than with inequality in general. Americans, for example, tend to be much more optimistic about their prospects than Europeans, even though actual social mobility is similar in both places.

But neither liberals nor conservatives (in the American senses of those words) are likely to directly consider inequality when asked about their personal happiness. Conservatives won't rationalise it because they won't think about it; and unless they are highly ideological (such as being a university academic) `liberals' won't think about it either. But their lack of control and optimism will affect their answer.

Source

I am always surprised that the Left/Right happiness gap is not greater. Pervasive dissatisfaction with the world about one is the defining characteristic of Leftism. It is what Leftism is. That the gap is not greater probably shows that most people are not very political.

The academic explanation given above by Jost & Co. is absurd. They show that by removing ideology from the equation, the gap is less. So if you take most of the Leftishness out of Leftism, the gap is less. Big deal! True-by-definition or artifactual findings are of course exceptionally uninteresting but parading such findings as empirical fact is an old dodge of the intellectually second-rate. It's not the first example of extraordinarily poor scholarship from John Jost, of course. The relevant journal abstract is presented below: -- JR


Why Are Conservatives Happier Than Liberals?

By Jaime L. Napier and John T. Jost

In this research, we drew on system-justification theory and the notion that conservative ideology serves a palliative function to explain why conservatives are happier than liberals. Specifically, in three studies using nationally representative data from the United States and nine additional countries, we found that right-wing (vs. left-wing) orientation is indeed associated with greater subjective well-being and that the relation between political orientation and subjective well-being is mediated by the rationalization of inequality. In our third study, we found that increasing economic inequality (as measured by the Gini index) from 1974 to 2004 has exacerbated the happiness gap between liberals and conservatives, apparently because conservatives (more than liberals) possess an ideological buffer against the negative hedonic effects of economic inequality.

Source

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ELSEWHERE

NYT sinking: "New York Times Co.'s second-quarter earnings fell 82 percent from a year ago, when it saw a one-time gain from the sale of a unit, but print advertising continued to shrink and pulled down operating income, the publisher said Wednesday. Net income dropped to $21.1 million, or 15 cents per share, from $118.4 million, or 82 cents per share, a year ago. In the second quarter of 2007, the company got a 66-cents-per-share boost from selling its broadcast media group but also took a 14-cent hit from other one-time items.

Leftist general Flubs Surge Facts: "On MSNBC this morning, former Gen. Wesley Clark made some inaccurate statements about the application of the "surge" in Anbar province. "Actually, the surge was about Baghdad and it was not about Anbar province," he said. "They didn't bring more troops out to Anbar." Actually, two Marine battalions were added to Anbar as part of the surge. But Clark's more glaring error is his contention that the "surge" amounted to nothing more than the deployment of more troops to Iraq. The "surge" strategy consisted not only of sending additional troop but also waging a counterinsurgency throughout Iraq. Yet Clark grants more credit to the Saudis for buying off the Anbaris than the American troops for fighting a counterinsurgency."

I Just Felt a Tingle in my Elbow...: "It didn't happen when Barack Obama referred to his campaign's '57-state strategy'; it didn't happen when Sen. Obama referred to being president for the "next eight or ten years"; it didn't happen when Obama referred to Israel as "Israel's best friend;" but right there, when Obama today said he was a member of the US Senate Banking Committee -- when he's not -- it was right there when I felt a little tingle in my funny bone. [A satirical reference to the "tingle in my leg" felt by a media Obama worshipper]

More AP lies: "Condit, a former Republican congressman from California's Central Valley, has denied any involvement in or knowledge of Levy's May 2001 disappearance at age 24, or her death. However, he acknowledged to investigators that they had an intimate relationship." [Condit is a Democrat]

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

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

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

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Thursday, July 24, 2008

Paralipomena: Living and learning

I mentioned a while back that I have a blog called "Paralipomena" (Greek for "Things left out") where I put up articles that interest me but which do not have an obvious or immediate home on any of my other blogs. I have never posted regularly to it and I started it primarily as an aide memoire to myself -- but I thought that I might as well mention it in case there are a few others who have similar interests to mine.

Topics covered range from food to flying saucers. Some of the articles are political and some reflect cultural and historical interests that I have. There's more to life than politics! If there weren't such a lot of nonsense going on in public life, I would be devoting myself to cultural interests. My principal contribution to the education of my son, for instance, has been to ensure that he has a good grounding in English poetry! But instead of pursuing my cultural interests, I feel that have to do my best to expose the pretensions of psychopaths like Obama and the Pelosi Democrats! Poetry is heaps more pleasant.

Recently, however, none of the posts on Paralipomena have been coming up. If you tried to log onto the blog you got an empty file. I wrote several times to the owners of the blogging service concerned seeking a fix but was ignored. I eventually got a bit peeved at that, therefore, and decided to transfer operations to a blogspot site. Good old blogspot! It too has its oddities but I know its foibles and how to deal with them by now.

So my new blogspot site for "Paralipomena" is now up. I have transferred all my more recent posts to it. Rather perversely, however, I found out at the last moment what the problem with the original site was. I was doing a bit of fiddling around with the various options on the site when I found that the template I had been using had been deleted! No wonder the blog came up as an empty file! So if you have any blog that uses Wordpress software and your blog comes up as a blank, try an alternative template! I have now chosen a different template and the old blog is perfectly accessible again. I am going to stick with the blogspot site for now, however. I expect fewer nasty surprises there.

I will add Paralipomena (2) to the buttons at the foot of each day's posts here so that people can easily check what is there once or twice a week if that interests them.

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Easy-money policies created this problem

The announcements by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac really say nothing new. The ultimate backing of the federal government has always been implicit in the AAA credit rating of these agencies' obligations. What's new is that these gentlemen felt that it needed to be said at all.

By opening the government's (taxpayers') checkbook, investors in both debt and equity investments in Fannie and Freddie have been assured that a collapse will not be allowed. Perhaps that will soothe the markets and ultimately stabilize housing prices at some level.

Dangers abound when, as The Economist magazine puts it, "profits are privatized and risks are socialized." Let us not forget it was the Fed's easy-money policies and longstanding bipartisan efforts of politicians to subsidize home buying that helped create this bubble in the first place.

In addition to mortgage-interest deductions, taxpayers also get a property deduction on their income taxes. Fannie and Freddie were able to access cheap capital because of the implicit faith and credit of the U.S. government. When you subsidize anything, you are likely to get too much of it. We got a housing bubble.

We are now witnessing massive wealth destruction as the bubble bursts. The dollar is down sharply and is poised to fall further as our central bank offers a flood of liquidity while other central banks show restraint. This is fueling inflation. The median home price is down nationally 16.5 percent from its peak so far, the second-largest drop in history.

A bailout carries negative consequences. An open-ended commitment from taxpayers will be needed since private, profit-motivated capitalists won't be interested in investing. Huge federal budget deficits will be incurred not to fund public works or provide government services but to fill a big hole. The inflationary pressures that come with running a loose fiscal policy cannot, at this time, be offset by tight monetary policy.

A bailout should come with strings attached. Going forward, leverage at Fannie and Freddie should be regulated to a much lower level than in the past so as not to contribute to future bubbles. If the loan portfolio or guarantee pools need to grow, the agencies should be required to raise additional equity capital. More stringent credit standards would help assure investors that those who are buying houses can truly afford to own them.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

British prisons full of drugs: ""An estimated $200m worth of drugs are being traded in prisons each year, an ex-prison service worker has said.Former National Offender Management Service drug treatment head Huseyin Djemil said the Prison Service had no idea of the size of the drugs market. He told BBC Radio 4's The Investigation the service needed to 'get smarter' if it wanted to reduce drugs in prisons. The government said the number of prisoners testing positive for drugs had fallen from 25% to 9% since 1997. Mr Djemil estimated a worst case scenario of 20kg of drugs, mostly heroin, being smuggled into jails each week."

The TSA mess again: "After having begun a series of investigative stories criticizing the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in May 2008, CNN reporter Drew Griffin reports being placed with more than a million other names on TSA's swollen terrorism watch list. Although TSA insists Griffin's name is not on the list and pooh-poohs any possibility of retaliation for Griffin's negative reporting, the reporter has been hassled by various airlines on 11 flights since May. The airlines insist that Griffin's name is on the list. Congress has asked TSA to look into the tribulations of this prominent passenger. In a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, probably responding to the controversy over Griffin, Leonard Boyle, the director of the Terrorist Screening Center, defended the watch list, claiming that because terrorists have multiple aliases, the names on the list boiled down to only about 400,000 actual people. If there are 400,000 terrorists lying in wait to attack the United States, we are all in trouble."

The Leave Us Alone Coalition is alive and well: "Born in 1956 and raised in Massachusetts, Grover Norquist is the unofficial head of what he calls the "Leave Us Alone Coalition," a loose affiliation of people and groups dedicated to, as the subtitle of his new book Leave Us Alone puts it, "getting the government's hands off our money, our guns, our lives." The coalition, Norquist writes, "will triumph in the long unending struggle to define America. But there will be bad election years, disappointing candidates, bad breaks, and undeserved luck on both sides. There will be wars and recessions. There is nothing inevitable about our moving toward the city on a hill Ronald Reagan spoke of: a nation of individual liberty and economic prosperity that shares its vision of the good life through example, not empire."

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

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

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

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Wednesday, July 23, 2008

What the Old News Media Risks From Its Bias

Somewhere during this campaign the old news media reached the tipping point and their bias meter slid into the red zone. Have their owners considered the possible unintended consequences of this? Somewhere, perhaps with the now famous Saturday Night Live skit that lampooned the softball questions asked of Senator Obama during the primary debates, the old news media was outed as unequivocally favoring Obama. Since then, their bias has become even more prevalent and obvious. Today, they make no attempt to hide it, and the public is noticing. On Monday, July 21, 2008, Rasmussen Reports stated that,
The belief that reporters are trying to help Barack Obama win the fall campaign has grown by five percentage points over the past month. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey found that 49% of voters believe most reporters will try to help Obama with their coverage, up from 44% a month ago.

Americans are not stupid, and most believe in fairness. We're watching this bias unfold, and we won't forget it. Here's just one example of what bias looks like. The July 21 cover of USA Today features an above-the-fold, color photo of Senator Obama with Afghan President Karzai. Page 2 features three black & white photos. One of Senator McCain and Rudy Giuliani at a baseball game. Beneath that photo but above-the-fold is a photo of Obama greeting U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Then, below that Obama photo is yet another one of Obama with Senators Chuck Hagel and Jack Reid, along with Gen. James Lovelace in Kuwait last Friday. In the first two pages of the paper - three Obama photos and one of McCain. About the only way McCain will be able to match Obama's media coverage is if he robs a convenience store, gets caught, and does a public perp walk.

Meanwhile, Drudge reports that, after printing an op-ed piece that Obama submitted, the New York Times editors threw one submitted by McCain back at him saying that it needed to "mirror" Obama's. (And all this time many of us were thinking elections should be competitive events.) You know that the bias has become undeniable when an Associated Press television reporter writes a piece entitled "Is media playing fair in campaign coverage." Now there's a rhetorical question!

So what's the risk to the old news media? What are the long-term unintended consequences from its obvious bias? If Obama is elected, those news outlets most openly biased toward his candidacy will inherit partial responsibility for his performance as POTUS. Their ad revenues and Nielsen ratings could initially bump-up after January. But, if things turn ugly for an Obama administration due to circumstances within or outside their control, the old news media will be looking for someplace to hide. And there will be no such place, because Americans have memories.

Source

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Another win for flat tax

I recently interviewed the instigator of the world's lowest flat tax, Svetla Kostidinova, director of the Institute for Market Economics located in Sofia, Bulgaria. Ms. Kostidinova insists that the most amazing part of her story is that the Bulgarian government is still overtly socialist. Nonetheless, she and her colleagues managed to persuade politicians that replacing the existing tax system with a 10% flat tax would increase revenues and give the government extra money to finance social programs and unfunded pensions. If only Nancy Pelosi were as amenable to economic logic and the lessons of the real world.

Ms. Kostidinova, who speaks English with a thick Eastern European accent, tells me: "The situation was getting desperate in Bulgaria. We were losing our population and our best workers. They were leaving for Western Europe to find jobs and the No.1 form of foreign capital came from remittances." All that began to change when the corporate tax was cut to 10% in 2007 and the personal income tax to 10% in January of this year. "We told the politicians that it was symbolically important for Bulgaria to have the lowest flat tax. We were surrounded by flat tax countries, we wanted to be the nation most friendly to capital and business."

Result: A country that ten years ago had a 12% unemployment rate now has a 6% jobless rate. Instead of people leaving Bulgaria to find jobs, "now it is the reverse. Western Europeans now come to Bulgaria for jobs. We're gaining population now," she says.

Bulgaria is one of 24 nations, most of them in Eastern Europe, that have adopted the flat tax. A unique feature of the Bulgarian system is an absence of exemptions -- everyone pays the 10% tax regardless of income. Because the rate is so low, Ms. Kostidinova says, the plan's promoters figured that everyone could afford to pay. But don't lefties insist that the rich should pay more? "Of course, many do, and they want to raise the rates, but most understand that the flat tax gives us more jobs and more revenues."

If avowed socialist politicians in East Europe are open to new ideas about how to make their tax systems more growth-oriented, why aren't Republicans or Democrats in Washington? Says Richard Rahn, former chief economist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and now an economic consultant in Eastern Europe: "These countries understand that the flat tax is the key to their prosperity -- even the former communists." Only stultified political tactics -- certainly not clear thinking -- explains why somebody like Barack Obama could be running on a platform of making America's tax rates among the highest in the world when other nations are proving the competitive advantages of flatter tax systems.

Source

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American liberalism, 2008

In 2008 we find ourselves grappling with an ideological flesh-eating parasite in modern liberalism. It champions determination, drive, resourcefulness, grit and plain old-fashioned ballz - only in promulgating itself, and for no other purpose. In that singular endeavor of self-reproduction, it never wanes, fumbles or retreats. Holding high the banner of itself, it shows all the "patriotism" for which it shows theatrical horror elsewhere, including the resolve to seek out, interrogate and punish the desultory and apathetic.

It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.

All the energy and heat of an erupting volcano; All the single-minded determination of any wild, starving predator; All the stamina of water wearing away on a rock; The power of a tidal wave.

All these forces of nature reserved for simple reproduction of the idea. And only for that, for the idea is nihilism. We are not good, we don't belong where we are, and nothing is worth anything, for we are undeserving of whatever it is.

What peaceful people they'd be if they were consistent about this. Because then they'd say "well, we should get out of this war because it's just too dang painful and hard, but if there's other folks who disagree about that and they outvote me, that's quite alright. What's the use of arguing. Heck, I'm not too sure I should have an opinion about it anyway."

Quite the difference between that hypothetical product of consistency, and what we see them do every day and every week, no? Wouldn't it be nice if they worked up one-tenth as much anger toward radical terrorists as what they have in reserve for conservatives, "neocons," and other ideological opponents?

Source

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ELSEWHERE

I am still looking for a co-blogger for EDUCATION WATCH. Mike Pechar helps out occasionally but it is such a big field that the existing blog just scratches the surface.

European Union abolishes the British acre: "The acre, one of Britain's historic imperial measurements, is to be banned from use under a new European directive. The measurement, which will officially be replaced by the hectare, will no longer be allowed when land is being registered. After being agreed last week, the new ruling will come into force in January 2010. The Tories are angry that unlike some other EU countries, who sent Cabinet-level ministers to the meeting on 15 July, the Government only sent Jonathan Shaw, a junior minister at the Department for Environment Farming and Rural Affairs, to represent Britain's interests. Mark Francois, the Shadow Europe Minister said: "It is this kind of pointless interference into the nooks and crannies of our national life that frustrates people about the EU. Whether we use hectares or acres should be a matter for Britain to decide, not the EU."

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

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

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

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Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Poll finds that blacks are still resentful

They are constantly told by the Left that their lesser success is due to "racism" so why wouldn't they be?

The results of the poll, conducted against the backdrop of a campaign in which race has been a constant if not always overt issue, suggested that Mr. Obama's candidacy, while generating high levels of enthusiasm among black voters, is not seen by them as evidence of significant improvement in race relations.

After years of growing political polarization, much of the divide in American politics is partisan. But Americans' perceptions of the fall presidential election between Mr. Obama, Democrat of Illinois, and Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, also underlined the racial discord that the poll found. More than 80 percent of black voters said they had a favorable opinion of Mr. Obama; about 30 percent of white voters said they had a favorable opinion of him.

Nearly 60 percent of black respondents said race relations were generally bad, compared with 34 percent of whites. Four in 10 blacks say that there has been no progress in recent years in eliminating racial discrimination; fewer than 2 in 10 whites say the same thing. And about one-quarter of white respondents said they thought that too much had been made of racial barriers facing black people, while one-half of black respondents said not enough had been made of racial impediments faced by blacks.

The survey suggests that even as the nation crosses a racial threshold when it comes to politics - Mr. Obama, a Democrat, is the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas - many of the racial patterns in society remain unchanged in recent years. Indeed, the poll showed markedly little change in the racial components of people's daily lives since 2000, when The Times examined race relations in an extensive series of articles called "How Race Is Lived in America."

As it was eight years ago, few Americans have regular contact with people of other races, and few say their own workplaces or their own neighborhoods are integrated. In this latest poll, over 40 percent of blacks said they believed they had been stopped by the police because of their race, the same figure as eight years ago; 7 percent of whites said the same thing.

Nearly 70 percent of blacks said they had encountered a specific instance of discrimination based on their race, compared with 62 percent in 2000; 26 percent of whites said they had been the victim of racial discrimination. (Over 50 percent of Hispanics said they had been the victim of racial discrimination.) And when asked whether blacks or whites had a better chance of getting ahead in today's society, 64 percent of black respondents said that whites did. That figure was slightly higher even than the 57 percent of blacks who said so in a 2000 poll by The Times. And the number of blacks who described racial conditions as generally bad in this survey was almost identical to poll responses in 2000 and 1990...

White perceptions, by contrast, improved markedly from 1990 to 2000, but have remained steady since. This month's poll found that 55 percent of whites said race relations were good, almost double the figure for blacks.

Source

Dick McDonald comments on the above:

The NYT poll shows that blacks believe they are still discriminated against - whites feel differently. A sharp divide in perceptions would lead one to believe that both sides will be barking up the wrong tree (can you visualize that - barking up the wrong tree?) in November.

Seriously this entire poll would show different results if Republicans would just get off their mindless mantra that "trickle down" has been enough - that blacks can go to school, work hard and experience the American Dream. What a joke. Republicans know that entitlements cream 15.3% off the top of the wages of the poor and middle-class and with inflation and the controlled rise in prices those folks will never see the American Dream. It is tragic there is no Republican "Obama".

Some day American blacks and under-class whites will wake up to the fact that socialism doesn't work. Entitlements just entitle them to perpetual poverty. However, they are never going to find out until the "Republican Obama" explains it to them. The Democrats can never elevate the underclass because they would lose their entire voting base. So it is up to Republicans to deliver the American Dream.

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ELSEWHERE

See here for an example of the antisemitism Obama's supporters are putting up on his website -- and which his site adminstrators allow up until they are called out.

Obama Wants To Be President For 10 Years : "Add this latest Obama gaffe to the growing list: "The objective of this trip was to have substantive discussions with people like President Karzai or Prime Minister Maliki or President Sarkozy or others who I expect to be dealing with over the next eight to 10 years." Obama's already planning his inaugural address for 2013. Humility is not one of Obama's strengths."

California slowly being wrecked: "A symbol of California's car culture is now picking up and moving a big chunk of its operations out of state. Earlier this week, the California State Automobile Association, an affiliate of the national AAA, announced it is closing all three of its call centers in the state at a loss of 900 jobs. Spokeswoman Cynthia Harris was quite blunt about the reason: "It costs more to do business in California than other states." Her group will now will be answering calls from California motorists from new centers in lower-cost Arizona and Oklahoma. Few entities in California are better known than the California State Automobile Association, which for decades has provided the car-happy state with auto insurance, towing services and travel planning. Its departure is one more sign that California's current tax and regulatory climate is driving jobs away."

SD: Ruling gives doctors a script : ""In a victory for antiabortion forces, doctors in South Dakota are now required to tell a woman seeking an abortion that the procedure `will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique living human being.' The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit last week lifted a preliminary injunction that prevented the language from taking effect. A spokesman for Planned Parenthood, which runs the state's only abortion clinic, said doctors will begin reciting the script to patients as early as this week."

OK, We Tried. The Iranians Aren't Interested In Negotiations: "Lots of hand-wringing on the right over the dispatch of a State department senior official, William Burns, to meet with senior Iranian officials in Geneva. Seems like a necessary "last chance" offer to me, and Iran has apparently rejected it"

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

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

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

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

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

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Monday, July 21, 2008

Choices

Life is made up of choices and once we make those choices we have to live with them. In 1992, this country made a choice to elect a draft-dodger to the office of President rather than re-elect a real American hero of WWII, George H.W.Bush. A hero who was shot down in combat not once but twice.

As a result of this choice this country endured for the next eight years a President who disgraced the office with lewd and lascivious acts with a young intern in the Oval Office. Think about this choice another man made. If Jimmy (the dope) Carter had not pardoned all the draft dodgers, we would never have had to endure Bill (the cigar) Clinton.

This election year we have a similar choice between a Viet Nam war hero, a man of character, John McCain and a man with a gift of gab and (in my opinion) with little or no character , Barack Hussein Obama.

In Obama's recent speech on patriotism he said (to paraphrase), "I don't question John McCain's patriotism or his service in the military but I won't stand by while my patriotism is questioned.

Well, standby, because I certainly have some questions. It's hard for me to believe the polls show Obama in a small lead over McCain. Should Barack Hussein Obama be elected, who will be his first guest to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom?

Will it be William Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn, Co-founders of the Weather Underground terrorist organization that declared war on the U.S. Government in 1970? The same William Ayers who bombed the Pentagon and is quoted saying, while stomping the American Flag, "Guilty as sin, free as a bird. It's a great country". Or will he pardon Tony Rezko and give him the honor?

I guess the Reverend Wright is not even considered because he is no longer Obama's mentor, like a grandfather, and long time friend. Right, Barack Hussein Obama threw him under the bus when he became a political weight around his neck.

It's difficult to believe these possibilities exist today, but they do. They exist only because of the left-wing extremists that control the movie and television industries, the mainstream news media and our educational system that has been successful in brainwashing and indoctrinating the last two generations with their liberal philosophy

Source

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Forgotten Iraqi Christians

Below are excerpts from an article by a minister in the present Australian government. The previous government had similar concerns

"Even casual observers of the international situation would be aware of the conflict between Sunni and Shiite communities in Iraq. But what has achieved less prominence in the national and international media is the fate of other Iraqi minorities: Assyrians, Chaldeans and Mandaeans.

Mandaeans, followers of John the Baptist, have non-violence as one of the tenets of their religion. Any form of violence, even in self-defence, is forbidden. They have thus been particularly vulnerable to attack. The much more numerous Assyrians and Chaldeans have also suffered significantly. This group are descendants of the ancient Assyrian empire, but no longer have a nation state to call their own. They predominantly live in Iraq's north and are Christians.

It is hard to pinpoint the numbers of these minorities in Iraq. However, credible estimates put Assyrians and Chaldeans as 4 per cent of the population of Iraq, while they have constituted 40 per cent of the refugees leaving Iraq. Jordan and Syria have 2 million Iraqi refugees living within their borders, and they are not allowed to work. They live, by and large, in squalor, and they often rely on their children to bring in a little income. Thousands of children are being turned to crime to support their family.

It is estimated that there were 1.5 million Assyrians and Chaldeans in Iraq before the war; 600,000 are left, at most. Two thousand Assyrians and Chaldeans are still leaving Iraq every day. Churches have been bombed, priests and bishops kidnapped and murdered. Hundreds of thousands of Assyrian and Chaldean refugees live in desperate circumstances in Syria and Jordan. It is simply too dangerous for them to return.

There are of course, many millions of people from different groups around the world who face diabolical human rights and humanitarian catastrophes, all of whom deserve greater attention. However, in all the public debate about Iraq over recent years the Assyrian and Chaldean minorities have received scant attention from both governments and the media. Their plight is one of the untold stories of the narrative of post-Saddam Iraq. Their situation as minorities in Iraq has substantially worsened since the war.

As others have pointed out, the exodus of refugees from Iraq has been greater than that after the Vietnam War. But because the exodus has occurred quietly and to other Middle Eastern countries, as opposed to by boat, the crisis has become largely invisible. There is no monopoly of suffering in Iraq. But the suffering of these minorities has received scant international attention.

Of course, as a relatively small country on the other side of the world we are limited in what we can do to help. However, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Stephen Smith, has recently met two delegations of Assyrians and Chaldeans to discuss what more can be done, and he raised the issue with the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq on his visit last month.

More here

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A report from a German blog says that if an orangutan steals, then Muslims in Indonesia cut off the poor creature's hand. And it's not an unusual practice. A reader comments: "A ghastly, vile religion. And what will our pacifist, peacenik animal rights activists say now? Will such people be among the factions of the Left finally to have a spine and stand up to this loathsome religion? No, I gather not. (In an updating of Niem”ller's famous statement: "first they came....then they came for the orangutangs..."). What particularly makes this hideous is that it underscores just why animals can't possibly have "rights" - and you can assert this all the while being a great lover of animals, as I am - because there's no way, as any idiot can see, that a poor orangutan can possibly "learn" from such a punishment. Rights are inexorably connected with the bearer of those rights having a "free will" and capable of at least knowing why something is right or wrong. So it's actually _more_ ghastly to mistreat a creature that cannot possibly be morally culpable. The only animal in the universe capable of moral evil is a human being."

A rare burst of sanity from the EU: "It's official: European diktats on the size and shape of fruit and vegetables are bananas. Even the European Commission now wants them scrapped to avoid wasting good food in times of global shortage. The commission, in a step backed by the UK, will this week attempt to reform strict rules governing standards on such matters as the colour of leeks, the bendiness of cucumbers and the shape of carrots. In a vote in Brussels, Britain, Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Germany will support moves to reform the marketing standards amid fears that they are making the world food crisis worse. The standards are so strict that thousands of tonnes of fruit and vegetables are discarded each year because they are not beautiful or big enough. Farmers throw away mountains of cherries, onions, peas, plums and spinach among other fruit and vegetables. Last month a market trader in Bristol was prevented by inspectors from selling a batch of kiwi fruits because they were 1mm smaller than the rules allowed. Tim Down lost $2,000 in sales and was not allowed to give away the 5,000 fruit because they breached the rules."

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

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

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

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Sunday, July 20, 2008

Senator McCain, This Is Your Issue

FactCheck.org:
Obama released a national ad saying he has "fast-track alternatives" to imported oil. On closer examination, those turn out to be his proposal to spend $150 billion over the coming decade on energy research. Ten years doesn't sound all that "fast" to us, and there's no guarantee that the research will result in less oil being imported.

Want a real fast-track alternative? How about the California oil that could be produced within one year that Larry Kudlow and the American Thinker discussed?
A Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst said in a report there is a lot of offshore crude that can be produced relatively quickly. The problem: It is located off California, where politicians have built careers opposing new drilling.
The Minerals Management Service said that of the estimated 18 billion barrels of oil in off-limits coastal areas, almost 10 billion are off the coast of California.

"California could actually start producing new oil within a year if the moratorium were lifted," the Sanford C. Bernstein report said, because the oil is under shallow water, has been explored and drilling platforms have been there since before the moratoria.

Are you paying attention, Senator McCain? Start beating the drum on this. There's 10 billion barrels out there. The drilling platforms are still in place. As Sundries Shack notes, if we accessed just one tenth of that, this supply alone could keep the entire country running for seven weeks. The Congressional moratorium on offshore drilling expires September 30. Lead the fight on this, Senator McCain. This is victory, right here. Make Obama choose between his environmental base and Americans struggling with $4 a gallon gas. One side or the other will be livid with him.

Source

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Brookes News Update

Bernanke's Keynesianitis could sink the US economy: What Bernanke's critics fail to see is that a policy of price stability is bound to create an inflationary trend that must eventually result in recession. In a progressing economy - one in which the ratio of capital to labour is rising - there would be a secular fall in prices as technology applied through investment reduced unit costs
'Fair Pay' Commission votes for higher unemployment: The unions and their media allies' defence of minimum wage rates neatly illustrate their intellectual bankruptcy. (Needless to say, this also goes for the Fair Pay Commission). Their arguments rest on the implicit assumption that unions, or governments, can raise and guarantee living standards. As Jeremy Bentham once said: 'nonsense on stilts'
President Bush exonerated of "misleading statements" leading to Iraq war: For years the Democrats and political activists masquerading as journalists have sneered at allegations that Hussein bought uranium, calling them 'Bush lies'. Now that about 600 tons of yellow cake has been discovered in Iraq
and sold to Canada the Democrats and their media supporters have gone silent on the issue
Obama: Radical in Liberal Clothing: Despite Obama's recent attempts at moderation he retains positions on several significant issues indistinguishable from those of extreme Dennis Kucinich. Most of those positions are opposed not only by overwhelming majorities of all Americans, but in several cases, majorities of Democrats as well
Obama's presidential bid: What's wrong with that?: Obama's campaign slogan is 'change': but he has already changed everything about the electoral ways and customs of the American people, and he has changed it so much for the worse that many decades will be necessary to repair the damage, if indeed that is possible
Tehran: Terrorism's World Capital: Teheran has been conducting a proxy war against America. The inspiration for this war is Iran's jihadist goal of imposing Islamic totalitarianism globally. Iran is a leading sponsor of jihadists and the self-identified role model for exporting its Islamic revolution to other countries. It is the sworn enemy of the West. We should take seriously its call to bring 'Death to America!' - because it has already done so

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The Cost and Future Scarcity of Electricity: "CNN's Situation Room just carried a report that electricity costs in Maryland and D.C. have soared 46% in the past two years, and that "experts" predict widespread shortages of electricity across the country in just three years. Given the ability to build new nuclear power, plants there is no shortage more easily remedied than that of electricity. But building the nuclear plants requires political will and legislation clearing the regulatory hurdles out of the way. Let's be clear: This is another Democrat-made shortage, and like the Congress-induced bans on producing oil that have led to the soaring price of gas, if you want more energy pain on the electricity front, just vote for Obama and his colleagues on the Hill."

Healthy funding for McCain: "Republican Sen. John McCain is ahead of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama by $23 million. Obama's money-making skills are phenomenal but they come at the expense of his own party's fundraising. In a year where everything seems to be coming up Democratic, the party is having difficulty raising money for its convention and for its national party. While Obama raised a record $52 million in June to McCain's $22 million, Obama and the DNC ended June with $72 million in the bank, AP reported. McCain and the RNC ended the month with $95 million in the bank."

Media Bias? What Media Bias? All 3 Network Anchors To Follow Obama Trip. That's 3 More Than Followed McCain: "Say what you want about the death of broadcast news, it's still a powerful forum. The fact that all three network anchors are going to be with Obama at some point during his upcoming trip to Iraq, the Mideast and Europe is going to generate coverage for Obama. Coverage that was lacking when McCain traveled abroad. Even the NY Times notices the disparity."

British Ministry of defence still losing files and data: "This year, 22 portable memory sticks containing classified information had been either stolen or lost, the MoD said. More than 700 MoD laptops have gone missing or been stolen in the last four years. The disclosure sparked claims that the Government has not learned from previous Whitehall information-handling blunders. . Earlier this year, an independent review of the MoD's information security systems warned that a "Facebook generation" of young officials had not learned the disciplines of the Cold War and were often careless with sensitive data. In a written parliamentary answer, the MoD said that 131 of the department's portable USB memory sticks had been taken or misplaced since 2004. Twenty six of the small storage devices have been lost this year. Three of those held information classified as "secret." Another 19 carried "restricted" data. The MoD also said that between 2004 and 2007, a total of 658 laptops were stolen, and another 89 were lost. Only 32 have been recovered."

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

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

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

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

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Saturday, July 19, 2008

Study finds genetic link to violence, delinquency

The conclusions of the report below have much precedent but are of course unpopular. For some reason that escapes me, the idea of genetic influences on behaviour seems to threaten lots of people, despite the vast evidence for it. Leftists certainly seem to need to believe that only social influences can affect behaviour.

Somewhat to my surprise on the present occasion I note that a libertarian writer seems very hostile to the study too. But libertarians often do seem to have little role for genetics in their thinking. The main hole in this libertarian writer's thinking is that he seems unable to accept that genes and environment usually have to interact to produce a given result. That he has difficulty with what is a universally accepted idea among geneticists just suggests to my mind that his hostility has overcome his reason.

Nonetheless there are real criticisms that could be made of the study. Looking at Table 2 in the original research report, it would appear that there were only 11 boys in the MAOA2R group and it was only that group which had strikingly high rates of delinquency. That is a pretty slender sample size upon which to base any generalizations. Taken in conjunction with previous research (which the authors cite) the conclusions of the study are, however, reasonable. It is rare for a single study to be decisive by itself
Three genes may play a strong role in determining why some young men raised in rough neighborhoods or deprived families become violent criminals, while others do not, U.S. researchers reported on Monday. One gene called MAOA that played an especially strong role has been shown in other studies to affect antisocial behavior -- and it was disturbingly common, the team at the University of North Carolina reported.

People with a particular variation of the MAOA gene called 2R were very prone to criminal and delinquent behavior, said sociology professor Guang Guo, who led the study. "I don't want to say it is a crime gene, but 1 percent of people have it and scored very high in violence and delinquency," Guo said in a telephone interview.

His team, which studied only boys, used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a U.S. nationally representative sample of about 20,000 adolescents in grades 7 to 12. The young men in the study are interviewed in person regularly, and some give blood samples.

Guo's team constructed a "serious delinquency scale" based on some of the questions the youngsters answered. "Nonviolent delinquency includes stealing amounts larger or smaller than $50, breaking and entering, and selling drugs," they wrote in the August issue of the American Sociological Review. "Violent delinquency includes serious physical fighting that resulted in injuries needing medical treatment, use of weapons to get something from someone, involvement in physical fighting between groups, shooting or stabbing someone, deliberately damaging property, and pulling a knife or gun on someone."

GENES PLUS ENVIRONMENT

They found specific variations in three genes -- the monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene, the dopamine transporter 1 (DAT1) gene and the dopamine D2 receptor (DRD2) gene -- were associated with bad behavior, but only when the boys suffered some other stress, such as family issues, low popularity and failing school.

MAOA regulates several message-carrying chemicals called neurotransmitters that are important in aggression, emotion and cognition such as serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine.

The links were very specific. The effect of repeating a grade depended on whether a boy had a certain mutation in MAOA called a 2 repeat, they found. And a certain mutation in DRD2 seemed to set off a young man if he did not have regular meals with his family. "But if people with the same gene have a parent who has regular meals with them, then the risk is gone," Guo said. "Having a family meal is probably a proxy for parental involvement," he added. "It suggests that parenting is very important." He said vulnerable children might benefit from having surrogates of some sort if their parents are unavailable.

"These results, which are among the first that link molecular genetic variants to delinquency, significantly expand our understanding of delinquent and violent behavior, and they highlight the need to simultaneously consider their social and genetic origins," the researchers said.

Guo said it was far too early to explore whether drugs might be developed to protect a young man. He also was unsure if criminals might use a "genetic defense" in court. "In some courts (the judge might) think they maybe will commit the same crime again and again, and this would make the court less willing to let them out," he said.

Source. Another account of the study here

Reference: Guo, G.; Roettger, M.E.; & Cai, T. (2008) "The Integration of Genetic Propensities into Social-Control Models of Delinquency and Violence among Male Youths" American Sociological Review, Vol. 73, No. 4. (August), pp. 543-568.

My conclusion? Among whites, the percentage of people who are criminal enough to go to prison is quite small. Figures between 2% and 5% are usually quoted. So a genetic feature which predisposes to criminality might also be expected to be relatively rare -- as the MAOA2R combination is. Nobody is however saying that criminality is all due to one gene or set of genes or due to one cause or set of causes. Low average IQ is another striking feature of criminals and that alone is known to be polygenetic in origin.

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ELSEWHERE

The quotas that won't die: "Preferential contracting is a multibillion dollar business. According to a study by Justin Marion of the University of California at Santa Cruz, government contracting is estimated at almost 10 percent of gross domestic product and the practice of giving preferential treatment to disadvantaged business enterprise (DBE) contractors and subcontractors is widespread. In 2002, 6.75 percent of federal procurement dollars, for example, were awarded through the Small Business Administration to DBEs. And between 1983 and 1999, all Department of Transportation contracts required 10 percent `goals' - their term of art for set-asides - for minority- and women-owned firms. The original intent of the DBE programs was to spread work around to a variety of struggling minority business owners, lifting them from poverty to the ranks of the successful. But study after study has shown that a small number of firms, a monopoly of just one or two in some jurisdictions, gets the overwhelming share of the contract awards."

Leftism isn't progressive: "Marginal tax rates in excess of 50% aren't conducive to progress. Protectionism isn't conducive to progress. Not even if you call it `fair trade.' Price controls that reduce the returns to medical innovation aren't conducive to progress. Throwing more and more money at schools that have failed year after year to educate students adequately is not conducive to progress. Policies that discourage the accumulation of capital (e.g., income vs. consumption tax) are not conducive to progress. (Market) Liberalism is progressive. Leftism is not." (07/16/08)

Prisoner Exchange: "Israel's trauma over the release of one of the world's most contemptible murderers in exchange for the remains of the bodies of two abducted soldiers is heart-rending. And it should remind citizens of civilized nations of the most important arguments in favor of the death penalty for captured terrorists: Execution removes the incentive for further acts of terrorism intended to win their release."

British Leftists beginning to face up to the housing shortage: "Thousands of new homes are set to be built on the green belt over the next 20 years under Government plans to force local councils to allow development on previously protected land across the south east. Waste incinerators and landfill sites could also be constructed on green-belt land, parks and even areas of outstanding natural beauty, under the Government proposals released today. Ministers want almost 100 new homes to be built every day in the south east for the next 20 years and are preparing to over-rule local opposition by allowing towns to spread into the green belt. The Government is pushing ahead with the large house-building programme despite the global credit crisis leading to a slump in the house-building industry. Several of the country's biggest developers are facing difficulties and laying-off staff. Although house-building is likely to stall for the next few years, ministers hope that the industry will recover to deliver the ambitious long-term programme. Documents released today reveal that ministers have ordered that the green belts around Oxford, Guildford, Woking and other towns in the south east are reviewed."

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

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

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

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

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Friday, July 18, 2008

Dennis Prager: the defining characteristic of most people on the Left is naivete about evil

Christie's Auction House has sold John Lennon's handwritten lyrics to Give Peace A Chance for $833,654 dollars. Yes, it is hard to think of more stupidity in as few words, no matter what you said. If you said the Earth is flat, it would be less foolish than the lyrics to that line. First of all, as I have always felt, from the time that it was popular, is that is all they are saying. That is exactly right. They have nothing profound to say, give peace a chance. That's right. Well, you give peace a chance by using the military. That's why Ingrid Betancourt and thirteen others were liberated.

Just to let you know, and they have not revealed one third of what, and they say we're not telling. It's too humiliating, too degrading, too nightmarish. But just as one example, Ingrid Betancourt, remember this is a woman in her 40s who was running for president, by the way, on the left, a woman on the left running for president of Colombia. She went into areas where the FARC monsters had been strong to campaign, was kidnapped, and never let out. It is good to know, though, that she was a very big deal in Europe, who loved her. She was an attractive, intelligent woman who was married to a Frenchman, and so she was a French-Colombian, or a Colombian-French. And she had run for president, she was on the Green Party ticket, among other tickets. And she was just a cause celebre, a celebrated cause in Europe.

For whatever reason, that did not move the FARC monsters. It did not. The resolutions passed in Paris did not seem to move them. However, when the military showed up in a brilliant plan, brilliant, concocted over months with Americans and other help, that worked. That worked. People with weapons got her out. The military got her out. Now they got her out, by the way, without even killing anybody, which is wonderful. If the military can win without killing, I'm all for it...

I want to read to you some of the comments that she made when she got out. It was not treatment you can give to a living being. I won't even speak of the human being, Betancourt said. I wouldn't have given the treatment I had to an animal, perhaps not even to a plant. Pretty powerful, huh? When I say that they were chained, this is from CNN Carl Penhall. When I say they were chained by the neck for 24 hours a day, it wasn't just for a few days. It was for two and three years.

But here is the line that I most wanted to isolate from one of the reports. But the worst thing that happened to her, she said, was "realizing that mankind, that human beings can be so horrible to other human beings." Well, given that she was a woman of the moderate left, I mean, obviously not the far left like them, but on the left, I knew by definition she was naive about evil. That is the defining characteristic of almost everyone left of center, is naivete about evil. And that's why they caused so much trouble, even when many of them are very sweet people, as I'm sure she is. She was shocked that people cold be so cruel...

They think George Bush is evil. That's how sick, how sick the left mind is about real evil. It is. On the issue of good and evil, the leftist mind is perverse. Yeah, she just couldn't realize, she never realized that mankind, that human beings could be so horrible to other beings. Why not? Did she never read any history of the Communists in China? Of the Gulag Archipelago? Of the Holocaust? I just don't know. How did she not realize this? Well, part of the reason is that for people on the left, it has to happen to them to be real. Everything has to be personalized. Well, I never experienced it. That's why there's no wisdom on the left. You can't be wise if you don't learn from others.

More here

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McCain sees himself in Teddy Roosevelt mold

And he's right about that. TR was a patriot but he was also the founder of the "Progressive" party, a Greenie and an enemy of business

Senator John McCain, in a wide-ranging interview, called for a government that was frugal but more active than many conservatives might prefer. He said government should play an important role in areas like addressing climate change, regulating campaign finance and taking care of "those in America who cannot take care of themselves." "I count myself as a conservative Republican, yet I view it to a large degree in the Theodore Roosevelt mold," the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said, referring to Roosevelt's reputation for reform, environmentalism and tough foreign policy.

The views expressed by McCain in the 45-minute interview here Friday illustrate the challenge he faces as he tries to navigate the sensibilities of his party's conservative base and those of the moderate and independent voters he needs to defeat Senator Barack Obama, his Democratic rival.

His responses suggested that he was basically in sync with his party's conservative core but was not always willing to use the power of the U.S. government to impose those values. He also expressed a willingness to deploy government power and influence where free-market purists might hesitate to do so, and to consider unleashing military force for moral reasons.

In recent weeks, McCain has left many Republicans unsettled about his ideological bearings by toggling between reliably conservative issues, like support for gun owners' rights, and an emphasis on centrist messages, like his willingness to tackle global warming and to provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

McCain, who with his wife, Cindy, has an adopted daughter, said flatly that he opposed allowing gay couples to adopt. "I think that we've proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no, I don't believe in gay adoption," he said.

But he declined to take a specific position when asked whether only evolution should be taught in public schools. "It's up to the school boards," he said. "That's why we have local control over education." McCain has said he believes in evolution.

Many social conservatives strenuously oppose California's decision to allow same-sex marriage. But McCain, who also opposes same-sex marriage, has always said that the issue is up to the states, and in the interview he said he would stick to that position as president even if California chose to continue allowing gay marriage after putting the matter to a statewide vote in November. "I respect the right of the states to make those decisions," he said.

Asked whether he considered himself an evangelical Christian, McCain responded, "I consider myself a Christian." "I attend church," he said. "My faith has sustained me in very difficult times." Asked how often he attended, he responded: "Not as often as I should." He has recently been photographed going to church as his campaign has begun to make public the times he attends services.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Stalinist (crooked) statistics live on in Britain: "Ministers will defy public concern over gang violence by claiming today that crime is falling at a record rate. Even before the final figures for the British Crime Survey (BCS) were in, Whitehall officials had already begun drawing up plans to trumpet the reduction in offences, The Times has learnt. The survey, published today, will state that crime is falling in all 43 police forces in England and Wales and that the Government has exceeded its key target of cutting offences by more than 15 per cent since 2003. Its release comes at a time when the credibility of official statistics is being questioned. Senior police are worried about shortcomings in recording two major areas: knife and gun crime. Despite a recent series of stabbings, the survey will conclude that knife crime is stable. The researchers interview 47,000 people aged 16 and over about their experience of crime over the previous 12 months. They cannot capture the extent of knife crime because they do not interview under16s."

Pigs do Fly... AP Announces Iraq War Basically Over : "Spc. Grover Gebhart has spent nine months at a small post on a Sunni-Shiite fault line in western Baghdad. But the 21-year-old soldier on his first tour in Iraq feels he's missing the real war - in Afghanistan, where his brother is fighting the Taliban. With violence in Iraq at its lowest level in four years and the war in Afghanistan at a peak, the soldiers serving at patrol station Maverick say Gebhart's view is increasingly common, especially among younger soldiers looking to prove themselves in battle. "I've heard it a lot since I got here," said 2nd Lt. Karl Kuechenmeister, a 2007 West Point graduate who arrived in Iraq about a week ago."

US, Afghan Troops Repel Attack from Taliban Invaders With 8:1 Advantage: "What the media didn't bother reporting. They reported, accurately, that the attack resulted in the highest number of US casualties since a helicopter was downed and all 16 lives aboard lost. They lost interest in the story when the US won, in an engagement Jeff Emmanuel calls an Alamo with a better ending."

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

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

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

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

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Thursday, July 17, 2008

Memory and the Left

It's difficult to avoid exasperation over the left's absolute refusal to acknowledge the new realities of the Iraq war. The surge, the Anbar awakening, the collapse of the militias (particularly that belonging to everybody's favorite would-be caliph, Moqtada al-Sadr) -- it's as if none of it ever happened, as if one the most impressive turnabouts in modern military annals never took place.

The left, including its Democratic political wing and placeholders in the media, continue on with the same defeatist drone that we've heard since 2003, concentrating on lone (and mercifully rare) suicide bombers, emphasizing Coalition casualties, and highlighting the new government's difficulties. (Nowhere is this more true than in the case of Mr. B.H. Obama, a Democratic senator currently running for president. Reports last week hinted that Obama was about to climb down from his intention to abandon Iraq sixteen months after taking office. But he held tight, assuring reporters he had in no way abandoned his plan for peace in our time.)

There's no point in waiting for the nickel to drop at last. The American left has not missed the unfolding victory in Iraq, nor are they ignoring it. They have forgotten it. They have taken it in, analyzed it, weighed the results, and then flushed it from memory as completely and brutally as a Ministry of Truth goon from 1984.

The process of selective amnesia is an important and often overlooked aspect of the left-wing mentality. It's a direct inheritance from the communists, for whom the capacity to self-edit was often a matter of life and death. In Stalin's Soviet Union, honored heroes of the Revolution could suddenly turn into traitors to the Worker's Paradise and just as suddenly into nonentities on a day-to-day, if not an hour-to-hour basis. Among survivors, the capacity to manipulate memory was honed to a fine instinct. Mentioning the name of a nonperson could get you put on a list, if not shoved aboard the next cattle train headed for the Arctic. Soon, people would be forgetting about you.

More here

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Now THAT'S a suggestion I like!

From Taranto. And it would be in accordance with the law of Moses

The Israeli government is preparing a bizarre swap, in which it will release terrorists in exchange for the return of two kidnapped soldiers--but Jerusalem doesn't know whether the soldiers are alive or dead. The Jerusalem Post reports:
Expecting that the two men, abducted on the border by Hizbullah just over two years ago, could be returned to Israel in coffins at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, the army has made arrangements for their military funerals to be held on Thursday, one day after the planned prisoner swap with Hizbullah.

IDF sources said it was likely that the funerals would be held in Regev and Goldwasser's hometowns of Kiryat Motzkin and Nahariya. In contrast to the IDF, the International Red Cross plans to post a doctor on either side of the border to provide treatment if needed, its spokeswoman Yael Segev-Eitan told The Jerusalem Post.

If the Israelis were clever, they would return the terrorists dead, making it at worst an even trade.

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ELSEWHERE

NASA engineers design maverick moon rocket: "By day, the engineers work on NASA's new Ares moon rockets. By night, some go undercover to work on a competing design. These dissenting scientists and their backers insist they have created an alternative rocket that would be safer, cheaper and easier to build than the two Ares spacecraft that will replace the space shuttle. They call their project Jupiter, and like Ares, it's a brainchild of workers at the Marshall Space Flight Center and other NASA facilities."

Bolton demands US support for Israeli strike on Iran: "In a Wall Street Journal editorial, the leading voice of Washington's hawks warned that time is running out for efforts to stop the Islamic Republic's covert nuclear research programme. Recent tests of ballistic missiles capable of hitting Tel Aviv had demonstrated the external threat posed to the Jewish state by a nuclear-armed Tehran. While the Bush administration no longer appears interested in military action against Iran, there is no doubt about Israel's intentions. "We will be blamed for the strike anyway, and certainly feel whatever negative consequences result, so there is compelling logic to make it as successful as possible," Mr Bolton writes. "At a minimum, we should place no obstacles in Israel's path, and facilitate its efforts where we can."

The religion of peace? or hate?: "Tony Blair was today forced to scrap plans to visit Gaza in his new role as a Middle East peace envoy after an assassination plot warning. The former Prime Minister was warned he faced an attempt on his life after the Israeli security services received 'pinpoint information' of a threat to him. Blair's trip to Gaza was to have included meetings with local traders and UN officials - but not with leaders of Hamas - and comes after he called for a new police towards the region to aleviate the suffering of people there. A spokesman for Blair said it would have been irresponsible to visit in light of the terrorist threat, but added: "He looks forward to being able to go to Gaza again in the future and will of course in the meantime continue to work to improve the conditions for the people there."

Another violent "peace" advocate: "Peace activist Carlos Hartmann, 41, of Michigan was seeking to punish the Netherlands for its support of the war in Iraq. So, Carlos ambushed a 22-year-old Dutch student with an ax after failing to find a soldier to kill. This week the peace activist was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the murder. He killed the student because he was Dutch and because Dutch troops were supporting America and President Bush in the War on Terror."

President has right to order military detentions : "President Bush has the legal power to order the indefinite military detentions of civilians captured in the United States, the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., ruled on Tuesday in a fractured 5-to-4 decision. The decision was a victory for the Bush administration, which had maintained that a 2001 Congressional authorization to use military force after the Sept. 11 attacks granted the president the power to detain people living in the United States. The court effectively reversed a divided three-judge panel of its own members, which ruled last year that the government lacked the power to detain civilians legally in the United States as enemy combatants."

US troops massing at Afghan Pakistan border : "US troops in Afghanistan massed close to the border yesterday for a possible attack on al-Qaeda and Taleban bases in the lawless North Waziristan tribal belt in Pakistan. Reports from the area said that hundreds of Nato troops were airlifted across the mountains from the village of Lowara Mandi, which has been an important base for cross-border attacks in Afghanistan. Heavy artillery and armoured vehicles were also being moved into position. The deployment followed a claim by the Afghan Government on Monday that the Pakistani Army and its spy agency had become "the world's biggest producers of terrorism and extremism".

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

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

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

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Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Democrats in the pockets of the lawyers again

Congress is taking up legislation this week that will wipe out arbitration provisions in hundreds of millions of consumer contracts -- for everything from credit-card agreements to cell phones to health-insurance policies, even a contract for the purchase of a kitchen sink. The bill is so sweeping that it wouldn't apply just to contracts consumers may sign in the future. It will cancel arbitration agreements agreed to in the past.

The Arbitration Fairness Act of 2007, sponsored in the Senate by Russ Feingold (D., Wis.) and in the House by Hank Johnson (D., Ga.), is scheduled to be marked up by a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee tomorrow and could be taken up by the full committee on Wednesday.

This legislation is a top priority of plaintiffs' lawyers, since arbitration keeps big-dollar disputes out of the courtroom. But it's a bad deal for consumers. The law will not make arbitration "fairer"; it will make it go away, because it is very difficult to get two sides of a dispute to agree to much of anything once a dispute has started. That inconvenient reality is one that some of our lawmakers are simply ignoring.....

More here

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DEMOCRATS, THE MILITARY, AND MCCAIN

Four years ago, Democrats couldn't laud military service -- especially that of their presidential standard-bearer -- highly enough. John Kerry's short stint in Vietnam was repeatedly invoked as evidence of his character and fitness for leadership. "If you have any question about what John Kerry's made of," his running mate John Edwards would say, "just spend three minutes with the men who served with him 30 years ago." At the Democratic National Convention in Boston, photographs of Kerry's Navy days abounded -- Kerry posing with his officer class, Kerry on the Mekong Delta, Kerry receiving a medal. One of the convention's speakers was a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who praised Kerry's "bravery and great distinction" as a naval officer, describing him as someone who "knows from experience a commander's responsibility to his troops."....

Given that effusive show of respect for military experience in 2004, you would think no Democrat this year could even contemplate disparaging John McCain's far more extensive military career. The presumptive Republican nominee, after all, spent 22 years as a naval aviator; flew 23 combat missions over North Vietnam; earned numerous combat decorations, including the Silver Star and Legion of Merit; and demonstrated courage and self-sacrifice during 5« years as a prisoner of war in Hanoi. And yet in recent months, one Democrat after another has gone out of his way to diminish or criticize McCain's war record. ...

Much attention was focused on retired General Wesley Clark's comments that McCain "hasn't held executive responsibility" and that "riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down" is no qualification for the Oval Office. Far more obnoxious was the claim by an informal Obama adviser, Rand Beers, that McCain's national security experience is "sadly limited" because he was a POW. "He was in isolation essentially for many of those years and did not experience the turmoil" of the antiwar movement," said Beers, "or the challenges" faced by those who went ashore in Vietnam.

More here

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The Democrats are now the party of the rich

Democratic Party was born. This new party has four critical constituencies: the post-industrial new class, African-Americans, young "net-roots" activists, and, finally, the elites of the information age. The Democrats will be running against a far weaker Republican Party than they did in the 1990s. For Senator Obama, the biggest danger comes not from the right but from his own base, whose predilections may over time limit his appeal and stunt the party's gains.

Like all classes, the new post-industrial constituency and its leaders have their own agenda. They may not be above pandering to the traditional working and middle class, but they do not have their same priorities. Fundamentally, the Obamaized Democratic Party is less about bread-and-butter issues-trade, energy prices, and competitiveness-than that of the Clintons.

Throughout the primaries, Senator Obama did best with voters, outside of African-Americans, who were themselves doing relatively well. Generally speaking, the wealthier the constituency, the better he did. Also, since the new class for the most part has little connection to the military, they are less likely to be overly concerned with national security issues (something Senator Clinton, in particular, worked hard to develop credibility on).

In contrast, Obama Democrats tend to be energized either by an antiwar message or by cultural issues-abortion, affirmative action, gay rights. Perhaps more critical for many of these voters, and interests, may be the environmental issue. Although this has not been a major topic in the primaries, the key Obama constituency among educated young voters tends to be the most fervent on issues such as global warming.

How to deal with the environment may be a critical area of conflict between the interests of the traditional middle class and the postindustrial new class. By its very nature, people working in the key institutions of the information economy-software firms, entertainment, Wall Street-are not unduly harmed by attempts to regulate reduction of carbon emissions.

In contrast, workers in transportation, wholesaling, and manufacturing sit on the carbon front lines. Radical steps to curb carbon emissions, particularly if not imposed on major competitors like India, China, and Brazil, will hurt miners in Montana, oil workers in Texas, factory workers in Michigan, and dockworkers in California far more than university professors, San Francisco graphic artists, and New York investment bankers. What's more, most middle- and working-class voters cannot afford to buy indulgences in the form of "offsets," such as purchasing parcels of rain forests. Indeed, in some ways, the current approach on carbon emissions parallels how liberals in the 1960s shifted the burden of achieving long-overdue racial integration by imposing busing or affirmative action plans on primarily working- and middle-class Americans.....

More here

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ELSEWHERE

A German in Baghdad: "The most remarkable aspect about the German economics minister's trip to Baghdad Saturday was how unremarkable it was. The "surprise visit" by Michael Glos to Iraq, which only last year was deemed irrevocably lost, hardly made the front pages even in his own country. "The security situation has improved," Mr. Glos said, "and democracy is progressing." This good news is no thanks to Germany, which under former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder fiercely opposed the war that toppled Saddam Hussein. Angela Merkel did away with her predecessor's anti-American rhetoric, improving relations with both Washington and Baghdad. But her government's support for Iraq's fledgling democracy didn't go much beyond the humanitarian aid and training of police forces already in place under Mr. Schroeder."

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

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

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

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

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

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