Internet Access Problems and More!

March 17, 2006

Internet Access Problems

There have been quite a few problems accessing sites lately. With some blogspot blogs you get this notice: “Blog under maintenance. This blog is temporarily not viewable. Please try again after some time. For more information, click here”. And when you click “here” you are told that the maintenance is complete!! Another problem with blogspot blogs is that you occasionally get the message: “You are not authorized to view this page”. And you can also get a general “Site down” message.

A fix that works most of the time is simply to try again or to hit the refresh button. Hitting Ctrl+F5 (cache bypass) also sometimes helps.

Brooke’s News Update

How the Fed’s price rule triggers recessions: The thought that there is a connection between the manipulation of rates and the so-called boom-and-bust cycle is rarely given any consideration in the US media
The Commonwealth Games is a looming financial disaster for the Bracks’ Government: The economics of state-sponsored sports, including the Commonwealth games and sports stadiums, are complete rubbish. Meanwhile, the Victorian Liberal Party finds itself unable to challenge Bracks’ reckless spending program
Bush is a victim of America’s political civil war: The Bush presidency has revealed the enormous ideological rift that has been developing for more than forty years in America, and yet the vast majority of Americans are still not fully aware of it
Bracks’ energy policies are pricing families out of the housing market: Bracks’ greenie policies are pricing thousands of families out of the housing market. (Similar policies have had the same disastrous effects in California). So why isn’t the Liberal Party attacking him?
Catholic thinking backs labour market reform – but the Liberal Party doesn’t know it: It’s time the Liberal Party learned that despite the chatter of leftwing clergymen Christian doctrine actually supports free labour markets
Simon Crean’s Gosplan mentality: Crean is still wedded to the discredited and dangerous idea of industry policy
America is waking up to the Islamic menace: It’s taken a few years, countless deaths and immeasurable suffering, but mainstream America finally seems to be waking up to the Islamic menace

Elsewhere

A North Korean Musical! “As far as musicals go, seeing people break into song on subjects such as starvation and public executions in North Korea may be one of the most unlikely concepts for stage entertainment in several years. Producers held a preview in Seoul yesterday of the musical called Yoduk Story that features goose-stepping North Korean soldiers and deprived prisoners wondering if they can survive into the next day. The musical is about a North Korean woman’s fall from a dancing revolutionary hero to a tortured inmate along with her family at Yoduk prison camp, where she bears a guard’s child, and learns to forgive her brutal captors. The production is meant to be an irony-free look at life in a North Korean prison camp that could change the way the North is depicted in South Korean entertainment. Songs in the musical include You are just like germs and All I want is rice. The producers hope audiences can find beauty in the misery of life in the prison camps.”

Equality for men sought: “Who controls human conception . and when should that control be asserted? That’s really the bottom-line question surrounding the abortion issue, and nothing makes that any clearer than the recent filing of a lawsuit by the National Center for Men, ‘on behalf of a man’s right to make reproductive choice to decline fatherhood in the event of an unintended pregnancy.’ The case is a Michigan dispute, involving one Matt Dubay and his court-ordered levy for child support, for a child he had never intended to father; since he had been informed by his now ex-girlfriend that she was physically incapable of conceiving, he had not taken further precautions against such an event occurring. They even have a pet name for the case: ‘Roe v. Wade for Men,’ and they’re asking the court to grant ‘equal protection’ for a man’s right to decide about fatherhood. The specific issue has more to do with later (and long-term) liability for child support for unintended offspring, in the event the man in question had neither intended to impregnate his partner, nor had expected she was able to conceive (and thus failed to avail himself or her of precautionary devices).”

No free speech for churches? “The IRS wants to strike the fear of God into priests, ministers and rabbis who venture too far into politics and activism. In a Feb. 24 speech to the City Club of Cleveland, IRS Commissioner Mark Everson announced that nearly three-quarters of the 82 churches and charities that the IRS investigated recently for alleged political and electoral improprieties turned out, in the IRS’ view, to be violators. Among the ‘offenses’: Allowing candidates to speak on church premises, preachers delivering remarks from the pulpit interpreted to endorse candidates and the posting of Web links to the Web sites of candidates for office. Interest is boiling over in Ohio: There, two ministers are accused of getting too close to Ken Blackwell, the Republican secretary of state and gubernatorial candidate, as well as letting their preaching get too political (the reverends deny the charges). At issue is whether the IRS should more actively sanction or even revoke the tax-exempt status of churches and charities it believes have gone too far.”

Shelby Steele on the black problem: “By accepting the idea that government is somehow going to take over the responsibility that only we can take, we relinquished authority over ourselves. We became child-like, and our families began to fall to pieces. Welfare-which promised a subsistence living for the rest of your days for doing absolutely nothing-provided a perfect incentive to not get married, yet still have babies. Then the babies will be state wards, and their babies, and so forth. The incentive is just to stay in that rut. And so the goodwill of America finally did do to us what slavery and segregation failed to do. It destroyed our family, destroyed our character, and now black America is in a struggle. We struggle to stand up like men and women and take charge of our lives, and become competitive with other people in the modern world. If we don’t do this, we’ll always be behind. But if we do take charge of our own lives, we’ll be men among men.” [HT Peg Kaplan]

There is an excellent (and sarcastic) response here to the many Leftist critics of America’s armed forces.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here). I also post several times a week on “Tongue-Tied”. There is an archive of my “Tongue-Tied” posts here or here

Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country’s labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and “helping” them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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

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

China in Midst of Huge Military Build Up

Jim Kouri, CPP

March 16, 2006

by Jim Kouri, CPP

While the news media and politicians in the United States continue their focus on the Dubai Ports World deal or censuring President George W. Bush or Hillary Clinton, there are enormous changes occurring in communist China. For the most part, the news media and pundits have ignored events in China for over a decade.

Even when President Bill Clinton allowed dual-purpose technology transfers to the Chinese, few realized the significance of those transfers, and little was reported in the US media. Some of that US technology helped the Chinese government in perfecting the accuracy of their Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs).

Now many are ignoring the fact that China boasts it will increase its military spending by 14.7% this year. Of course, an official from China’s parliament quickly told US and European Union military analysts that much of the increase would be used to cover fuel and salaries and that China was a “peace-loving nation”.

Jiang Enzhu, a member of parliament, told the British Broadcasting Company that the US spent a greater proportion of its economy on defense and that China had “no intention of vigorously developing armaments”.

However, American intelligence sources have at various times accused China of understating its military budget and weapons programs.

It’s been widely accepted that China’s armed forces are the biggest in the world and has undergone double-digit increases in military spending since the early 1990s. The increases have caused fear by their immediate neighbors Japan and Taiwan. The US has also expressed concerns over the spending on the 2.5 million strong military. Washington has several times accused China of understating its military budget.

But the Chinese government claims its spending is in line with military budgets in other governments. China’s defense budget has climbed in recent years along with the success of its economy.

China also claims its military spending is insignificant when compared with the United States. According to Pentagon figures the US had a base military budget of $400 billion in last year.

Japan is also developing new torpedos to boost the defense of its islands, including some claimed by China. The Japanese fear the Chinese may try to take over the disputed islands.

Part of the efforts to strengthen its ability to defend remote islands against Chinese attack entails the Japanese sending some 125 ground troops to San Diego, California from January 9-27 for advanced training with the US Marines, the Nihon Keizai newspaper said.

The troops will take part in reconnaissance training such as learning how to land on potentially-occupied remote islands and gather information, the paper said.

The aim is to strengthen Japan’s ability to defend remote southern isles such as the disputed islands known as the Diaoyus in China and the Senkakus in Japan, the newspaper said.

Wang Xinjun, a military analyst, told the Chinese media that the US is playing up China’s military power in order to contain China’s military development. He says that the Pentagon seeks to strengthen US forces in the Asia Pacific area, in order to offset China’s influence in the region.

Meanwhile, the left-wing in the US believe this is a means by which the Pentagon may garner more funding for military weapons and technology. As usual, the liberal-left in the US sees no threat to national security, preferring to hamper any military spending as they did during the Cold War.
Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and he’s a staff writer for the New Media Alliance (thenma.org). He’s former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed “Crack City” by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations. He’s also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country. Kouri writes for many police and security magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer and others. He’s a news writer for TheConservativeVoice.Com. He’s also a columnist for AmericanDaily.Com, NewsCream.Com, MichNews.Com, and he’s syndicated by AXcessNews.Com. He’s appeared as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, Fox News, etc. His book Assume The Position is available at Amazon.Com. Kouri’s own website is located at

Taheri-Azar says Koran justified terrorism

Anonymous

March 15, 2006

Mohammed Taheri-azar, the University of North Carolina graduate student who intentionally drove his SUV into a bunch of people on campus in an attempt to kill them, says that the Koran justified his terrorist attack, since it instructs Muslims to kill unbeleiers..(via Jihad Watch)

The University of North Carolina graduate charged with driving a sport utility vehicle through a plaza at the school, which he called revenge for America’s treatment of Muslims, said in a letter the assault was justified based on his reading of Islam’s holy book.

“Allah gives permission in the Koran for the followers of Allah to attack those who have raged war against them, with the expectation of eternal paradise in case of martyrdom,” Mohammed Taheri-azar wrote in a two-page letter sent to a television news reporter and anchor at WTVD-TV, an ABC affiliate station in Durham.

Taheri-azar, 22, is charged with nine counts of attempted murder and nine counts of assault. On March 3, police say, Taheri-azar raced through a crowded campus gathering spot in a rented Jeep Cherokee. No one was seriously injured, and Taheri-azar later called 911 to turn himself in. During the call, he said he wanted to “punish the government of the United States for their actions around the world.”

A native of Iran who grew up mostly in the Charlotte area, Taheri-azar has said he intended to kill the people he struck. He said he wants to defend himself in court and believes a trial will offer him the opportunity to educate people about the will of Allah.

By all means, use the trial to tell the world about what the Koran says. People need to know that the Koran justifies killing anyone who’s not a devout Muslim.

Spain Seeks Immigration Solution with Morocco

Sabina Castelfranco

March 15, 2006

By Sabina Castelfranco

Pozzallo, Sicily – Six months have passed since incidents in which African immigrants died at two Spanish enclaves on North Africa’s Mediterranean coast, and Spanish immigration experts now say lessons have been learned. Ambassador Manuel Pombo, who this week headed the Spanish delegation at an immigration conference in Sicily, says his country has realized it is not just southern European countries who are facing the pressure of thousands of African migrants but the countries in North Africa as well.

Spain is one of a handful of countries on the northern banks of the Mediterranean that has been struggling to find the best way to deal with thousands of African migrants arriving in search of a better life. Immigration experts say the majority of migrants now living in Spain have come from Morocco, which is just 15 kilometers across the Strait of Gibraltar.

Manuel Pombo is an ambassador at large and special representative for humanitarian and social affairs for the Spanish government. He headed the Spanish delegation at an immigration conference in Sicily this week. He says traffickers are no longer using the route across the strait.

“This coast is relatively sealed,” he said. “We have a very sophisticated radar system and surveillance system. We have a very sophisticated patrol system with Morocco. So really we have sealed to a certain extent as much as we can, more than 1,000 miles [1,600 kilometers] of coast.”

But, the ambassador adds, that does not mean that migrants have stopped trying to reach Spain. It means that agreements reached with Morocco are much more effective now.

“The smugglers have just moved the boats south because the Moroccan police and border patrols are now stronger, they are larger and they are largely cooperating,” he said. “They are not part of the problem, they are part of the solution.”

But the solution is still far from satisfactory because, the ambassador says, people who are desperate will stop at nothing, including risking their lives. And so, now that the easier route can no longer be used, they are taking greater risks.

“You put a barrier to the flow of immigrants through the straits [and then] they’re going to go around,” noted Spain’s ambassador. “They’re going to go to Mauritania and try to get through almost 300 miles [500 kilometers] of sea in a very, very terrible voyage into the Canary Islands.”

The ambassador says more than 200 people are arriving in the Canary Islands every week and this trend is expected to continue through the summer. He adds that it is impossible to know how many are setting off from the African coast and never making it to the other end. He says up to 40 percent may be dying at sea during the crossing.

Ambassador Pombo says the incidents at Spain’s North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla last September, in which 14 immigrants were killed, were an eye-opener for the Spanish government. He says Spain never expected something like that could occur and was not ready for it. It made the authorities realize the real problem was not in Spain, but in North Africa.

The African immigrants died when they attempted to scale razor-wire fences to get into the enclaves, from which they hope to be able to get to Spain. .

Pressure has been building on North African states from migrants coming from sub-Saharan Africa. And the countries in northern Africa find it more difficult to cope with the influx than southern European countries because they have less to offer to the migrant.

“The levels of development in North Africa are lower than in Southern Europe, the rate of unemployment in Morocco and Algeria and Tunisia is much higher,” said Pombo. “It reaches, according to some sources 23-24 percent. The structure of society is not as flexible, they still have a huge population working in agriculture.”

The ambassador says it was crucial to stabilize Morocco because what happened there directly affected Spain. And so it was necessary to understand Morocco’s problems and provide assistance. He says the two countries worked out what could be done, and Spain did its part.

“Offering to finance programs Moroccans wanted to undertake with international organizations to alleviate the problem,” he said. “For example for the repatriation of people on a voluntary basis and prevent any kind of danger of break of human rights through proper screening of would-be immigrants.”

Spain’s problem is far from being resolved but it has been working hard on its immigration policies. When migrants arrive they are placed in reception centers for identification but this often proves very difficult. Few migrants ask for political asylum and few are forcefully repatriated. The authorities are now making efforts to provide incentives that will encourage migrants to return voluntarily to their countries of origin.

source: voanews.com

Scientists Find Matter from Hot Sources in a Cold Comet

David McAlary

March 15, 2006

By David McAlary

Washington – U.S. scientists say they are surprised by the composition of stardust samples that an American spacecraft returned from a comet in January. They contain mineral grains forged in searing heat that they never expected to be inside a comet formed in ultra-frigid conditions beyond Neptune.

The tens of thousands of cosmic grains are from the comet Wild-2, collected in a wispy glass material called aerogel on the U.S. Stardust probe as it plowed through the gas and dust surrounding it two years ago. A smaller number of particles, perhaps only 100, are interstellar grains captured on the way to Wild-2.

Now, two months after their return to Earth, the mission’s principal investigator describes the surprising finding after inspecting some of the particles in a special clean room in Houston operated by the U.S. space agency NASA.

“Remarkably enough, we have found fire and ice,” said University of Washington astronomer Donald Brownlee. “In the coldest part of the solar system, we found samples that formed at extremely high temperatures. It’s thought that the ices in comets formed at temperatures about 30 degrees above absolute zero, and yet we’re finding minerals that formed at over 1,500 degrees.”

The minerals in question include magnesium compounds with iron or aluminum and a titanium. They make up only a fraction of the particles brought back, but researchers are perplexed about their origin. Brownlee says they could have formed in a distant star before being cast into our developing solar system 4.5 billion years ago, or they could have formed near the sun and been hurled outward.

The NASA curator of the samples, Michael Zolensky, talks of this latter possibility.

“If these are really from our own sun, they’ve been ejected out all the way across the entire solar system and landed out there,” he said. “That means these materials were basically on a big conveyor belt being shot out and then gradually drifting in and being shot out again.”

The scientists say they will be able to determine the origin of the minerals with modern laboratory techniques that can look at their atomic structure. Donald Brownlee says the atoms of minerals from outside our solar system have a slightly different structure than those inside.

“So it’s not a matter of conjecture,” added Mr. Brownlee. “We have very, very, very strong clues at the atomic level that will enable us to untangle this. We can go grain by grain and say, ‘This is from the solar system and this is not from the solar system.’ At least that’s our expectation.”

In April, scientists will begin examining the interstellar grains not from the comet. In a program called “Stardust at Home,” they plan to load millions of pictures of the particles onto an Internet site so that volunteers at their computers can help identify them.

source: voanews.com

Ramesh Ponnuru: liberal editor-in chief of the National Review

David R. Usher

March 15, 2006

If the National Review is going to send someone to do the Bill Maher show, why not send a conservative?

The case of Matt Dubay, who has filed a historic lawsuit euphemistically dubbed the Roe v. Wade for Men, was brought up on Bill Maher’s show this week.

The case involves a young man whose girlfriend got pregnant by lying to Dubay about her ability to have children. For this reason, birth control was not used.

The central issue of the case is this: if the woman represents to the man that she is physically incapable of getting pregnant, and this is a misrepresentation of fact, then should the man be held financially responsible when she gets pregnant?

Gloria Steinem issued the expected insults, but conveniently forgot to mention the central issue of the case. She also made appear that Dubay wanted the child aborted (We can expect hyper-feminists who support abortion rights for women to insult a man even if he doesn’t want it).

Then, Ramesh Ponnuru, senior editor for the National Review chimed in. He also failed to mention the fact that Dubay was essentially raped. I almost fell out of my chair that Ponnuru called Dubay a deadbeat dad, and rendered absolutely no conservative analyis on the issue.

What Ponnuru should have said is this: If the woman lies to the man about her reproductive capacity to become Murphy Brown and then steal his money, the man she reproductively raped should receive automatic custody of the child at birth. And we should consider prison for the woman.

There is no other relief possible that does not reward the woman for taking advantage of the man. To suggest that Dubay must pay his rapist for committing an act of rape is outrageously liberal and radically feminist.

Reproductive fraud is an extremely serious and life-affecting issue. I do consider it rape. When a man forces his reproductive capacity on a woman, we call it rape. When a woman forces her reproductive capacity on a man, it is also rape. I cannot bring myself to lessen the offense to something cute like “paternity fraud”, simply because the perpetrator happens to be a woman.

The only difference between the two is the means that a particular sex uses to get what they want. Whether fraudulent means or physical force is used is substantively immaterial to the case. Clearly, men should never be forced to pay their own rapists for the acts they committed.

Illegitimacy is still at record levels, despite the fact that we have the best birth control methods in the history of civilization. Most of them are invisible – making it very easy for women to rape men. Automatic awards of welfare and child support make this a profitable activity.

It is my experience that the vast majority of men do not want to have a child out of wedlock. It is quite clear that the vast majority of illegitimacy is actually predatory reproduction for income and to achieve status as a brave “single mother”.

When conservatives widely expect fair treatment of men in family law and society, illegitimacy will decrease steeply and marriage rates will improve drastically.

Conservatives who assume a professional feminist position on family issues prevent conservatives from reaching their goals. When we blame all of society’s problems on men, we turn the family over to feminists and big government.Federal social expenditures necessarily rise. Social statistics, have not improved under Republican leadership.

Self-entitling federal social expenditures that are driven by husband-absence, such as welfare and heath care,are a tremendous portion of the federal budget.We cannot have a balanced budget while fighting the war on terroruntil we stop driving husbands out of the family and entitling permanent non-marriage.

The Dubay case is clearly a step towards rebuilding a sound social infrastructure and resolving many otherwise unsoluble federal budgetary problems.

David R. Usher is President of the
American Coalition for Fathers and Children, Missouri Coalition

Of Elections, Ports, and Political Posturing

Vincent Fiore

March 15, 2006

By Vincent Fiore

Regarding the recent misadventures of the Bush administration in relation to the running of several U.S. ports by a United Arab Emirates (UAE) company, here is a scenario that some on the left have breathlessly chattered on about:

While Cindy Sheehan and the Washington press pool were camped out on the Texas prairie last August, Karl Rove was busy.

It seems that Rove was brainstorming with Bush, the GOP leadership, and a few key outside-the-beltway supporters, concerning the idea that the UAE would have one of its largest companies–Dubai Ports World–manage and run six American ports.

Of course, Rove knew well in advance, as 80% of the American public came to realize, that this deal would be bad for America. Anything that jeopardizes the security of the country would naturally be a deal-breaker.

Arabs running U.S. ports? Absurd! That would be like the Red Chinese running ports in California, (they do) or Saudi Arabian pilots flying Saudi-owned planes all over the U.S. (they do, too) Or 82% of the drivers of yellow cabs that travel the arteries of New York’s Midtown, Manhattan, being foreign-born. Well, those are stories for another day.

Here, though, the plot thickens. Rove figures that since Bush isn’t running for anything anymore, he can afford to use him in the ultimate charade of good cop, bad cop.

The plan was to have Bush push for an obviously flawed and politically unpopular issue, and the UAE ports-deal was it. While Bush feigned ignorance regarding the deal, (nobody believes that, do they?) the upper and lower houses of Congress would start to howl.

And since both the Senate and the House of Representatives are run by the GOP, what better way to show one’s independence (as Rove planned it) from the administration than by hyperactively opposing it?

Even state officials, like New York Governor George Pataki and Maryland Governor Robert Erlich, would become visibly upset with President Bush when it became known that the UAE-aka al-Qaeda, would be coming to a port near them. Indeed. What else could these two future presidential candidates do but reject the deal on the face of it?

Amid the bellowing backdrop of that Mighty Mouse classic, Here I come to save the day., the GOP-dominated Congress, along with elected and non-elected officials alike, sweep in to right the wrongs of an uninformed and careless Bush administration. As the thongs cheer, Karl Rove smiles to himself, knowing that he has averted sure disaster for the GOP come November.

If the above were even remotely true, then I might be swayed by the arguments from the left that Rove is indeed inhuman, and is intellectually responsible for George W. Bush’s thoughts every waking moment. But however much it might make sense, the above isn’t true.

The rush by Congress to condemn the UAE, the Bush administration, and now homeland security in general is, in essence, an election year exercise in cover-your-butt politics. It is incumbent cravenness at its most obvious.

Congress decided to hide behind the specter of 9/11. For their part, Republicans wanted to segregate themselves from a president that they see more and more as a lame duck. Bush’s poll numbers have been abysmal lately, and the numbers for Congress were even worse. What better way to create campaign stump issue than to create a terrorist state in the UAE? Simply put, this was a play on the fears of the American people.

On the other side of the political aisle, Democrats decided to embrace national security. This would be believable, if not for the fact that the Democratic Party–nearly as a whole–has rejected every tool created by President Bush to fight terrorism.

One need only listen to their rhetoric regarding the war in Iraq to see that Democrats have embraced a philosophy of defeat in Iraq, and the war against terrorism in general. Democrats have filibustered the Patriot Act, dragged their feet when it came to the setting up of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and have voted against troop funding.

Even now, Senator Russ Feingold, (D-Wis.) is attempting to censure President Bush over what the mainstream media still misreports as domestic spying, a reference to the legal and constitutionally protected National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program enacted against terrorists abroad who are trying to infiltrate the United States.

Though Feingold’s attempt won’t go far, it is meant as an election-year stunt. Feingold is also running for president, so he, like the Republicans in Congress, needed something to talk about in the upcoming months. If anything, the Democrats have behaved and accounted themselves as Vice President Cheney recently said: Some Democrats in Congress have decided the president is the enemy.

(www.breitbart.com/news/2006/03/13/D8GB0M1O0.html)

In an election year, GOP incumbents can be seen as doing almost anything to get reelected, including throwing their president to the wolves, (though it will be these same incumbents begging Bush to campaign with them soon enough) and racially profiling an entire country.

To be sure, the midterm elections are here and woe to the voter from now till Election Day. These political stunts won’t be the last, as incumbents will gladly use whatever is presented to them in order to preserve their power.

Vincent Fiore is a freelance political writer who lives in New York City. His work can be seen on a host of sites, including the American Conservative Union, GOPUSA, ChronWatch, and Opinioneditorials. Vincent is a staff writer for the New Media Alliance and a contributing writer for NewsBusters.org. He receives e-mail at: Anwar004@aol.com

Israel on High Alert After Jail Siege

Jim Teeple

March 15, 2006

By Jim Teeple

Jerusalem – Israeli police and defense forces are on high alert, after Israeli forces captured a leading Palestinian militant after storming a jail in the West Bank city, Jericho, Tuesday. Palestinian militants have threatened retaliation for the Israeli action.

Israeli security forces are on a state of alert – just below the maximum alert level – following Tuesday’s ten-hour siege at the Jericho jail. After tanks and bulldozers broke through the walls of the jail, Israeli forces captured Ahmed Saadat – the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – and several of his colleagues. Saadat and his associates were being held at the jail after the PFLP claimed responsibility for the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi in 2001.

The siege sparked violence across the Palestinian territories and led to the abduction of a number of foreigners. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been forced to cut short a European tour and return home to deal with the crisis. His spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, told reporters Israel caused the crisis by violating the agreement concerning Saadat and the other militants in detention.

“The Israelis committed a crime and we condemn this action,” he said. “We urge the Europeans, the quartet [the four countries working for Mideast peace] and the United States to do all their best to help keep the lives of the kidnapped persons [the militants] in the prison.”

The militants had been in detention under an unusual arrangement agreed to by Israel, the United States and Britain, which allowed for the militants to be in Palestinian custody at the jail – their incarceration monitored by U.S. and British officials. After British and U.S. monitors vacated the facility, citing security concerns, Israeli forces laid siege to the jail.

Israeli cabinet minister Zeev Boim, says Israel decided to act after it appeared to Israeli authorities that President Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, would release the militants.

“Unfortunately when Hamas came to power, after the last elections took place, the situation changed and even President Abu Mazen admitted he was ready to release these murderers,” said Boim.

Israeli officials say Ahmed Saadat and his associates, as well as another Palestinian linked to a massive arms shipment to the Palestinians that was intercepted at sea by Israel in 2002, will now be put on trial in Israeli courts.

source: voanews.com

Why the West will Attack Iran

Dr. John J. Ray, PH.D.

March 15, 2006

Why the West will attack Iran

Excerpt from an interesting article from last January that now seems to be not far from coming true

Why did French President Jacques Chirac last week threaten to use non-conventional – that is, nuclear – weapons against terrorist states? And why did Iran announce that it would shift foreign-exchange reserves out of European banks (although it has since retracted this warning)? The answer lies in the nature of Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Iran needs nuclear weapons, I believe, not to attack Israel, but to support imperial expansion by conventional military means.

Iran’s oil exports will shrink to zero in 20 years, just at the demographic inflection point when the costs of maintaining an aged population will crush its state finances, as I reported in Demographics and Iran’s imperial design (September 13, 2005). Just outside Iran’s present frontiers lie the oil resources of Iraq, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, and not far away are the oil concentrations of eastern Saudi Arabia. Its neighbors are quite as alarmed as Washington about the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran, and privately quite happy for Washington to wipe out this capability.

It is remarkable how quickly an international consensus has emerged for the eventual use of force against Iran. Chirac’s indirect reference to the French nuclear capability was a warning to Tehran. Mohamed ElBaradei, whose Nobel Peace Prize last year was awarded to rap the knuckles of the United States, told Newsweek that in the extreme case, force might be required to stop Iran’s acquiring a nuclear capability. German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag that the military option could not be abandoned, although diplomatic efforts should be tried first. Bild, Germany’s largest-circulation daily, ran Iranian President Mahmud Ahmedinejad’s picture next to Adolf Hitler’s, with the headline, “Will Iran plunge the world into the abyss?”

The same Europeans who excoriated the United States for invading Iraq with insufficient proof of the presence of weapons of mass destruction already have signed on to a military campaign against Iran, in advance of Iran’s gaining WMD..

Elsewhere

A good email from a reader about the Leftist mythology surrounding Tasmania: “In one of the latest Lonely Planet books “The cities book : a journey through the best cities in the world” there are a few pages of pictures of Hobart and a fact page. Which of the following list under Weaknesses stands out to you?: 1). Relatively expensive if good accommodation; 2). Aesthetically challenged Federation Concert Hall; 3). Tasmanian wine (more expensive than mainland wine); 4). Aboriginal massacres by the colonists. Yes, apparently tourists visiting 21st century Hobart will have to tread carefully to avoid the piles of Aboriginal bodies littering the streets. The Left just can’t help themselves in reflexively accusing Australia of massacre and genocide even in the middle of a travel book”.

What a disgusting racist statement!: “A complaint has been made to race relations investigators after Newcastle was described as “hideously white”. The remark was made at a conference by Neil Murphy, a Government official who is working on secondment at Newcastle City Council. At the same conference, the city council’s assistant chief executive, Paul Rubinstein, described the Tyne & Wear area as one of the “whitest” in the North”.

Taranto on the NYT: “Tom Fox, a member of the anti-American Christian Peacekeeper Teams, has been murdered by terrorists in Iraq who held him hostage for more than three months, the New York Times reported on Saturday. On Sunday, the paper carried a follow-up report that Fox “had apparently been tortured by his captors before being shot multiple times in the head and dumped on a trash heap next to a railway line in western Baghdad.” The story of Fox’s death ran on page A8; the story of his torture, on page A10. So what made the Times’ front page on Saturday? Yet another story about Abu Ghraib”.

Taranto also has the latest installment of frothing at the mouth by the world’s greatest sore loser – Al Gore.

British justice for once: “Plans to give housewives without children the right to the basic state pension have been thrown out by ministers – but women who give up work to bring up children or care for elderly relatives will be entitled to the full state pension under new government plans.. John Hutton, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has decided to stick with a pension based on contributions. However, in a radical reworking of the scheme, the Government will pay the contributions of women who sacrifice years of work to bring up children or care for sick relatives.” [Why should women who have spent neither time nor money on bringing up children be entitled to support from other people’s children?]

A smart Dutch initiative: “Two men kissing in a park and a topless female bather are featured in a film that will be shown to would-be immigrants to The Netherlands. The reactions of applicants will be examined to see whether they are able to accept the country’s liberal attitudes. From Wednesday, the DVD – which also shows the often crime-ridden ghettos where poorer immigrants might end up living – will form part of an entrance test, in Dutch, covering the language and culture of Holland. Those sitting the test will be expected to know which country Crown Princess Maxima comes from (Argentina) and whether hitting women and female circumcision are permitted.. The new test – the first of its kind in the world – marks another step in the transformation of Holland from one of Europe’s most liberal countries to the one cracking down hardest on immigration. Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk, known as Iron Rita, has introduced compulsory integration classes, higher age limits for marriage to people from abroad and the removal of residency permits if immigrants commit petty crimes. She has also talked of banning the burka. Applicants will sit the exam at one of 138 embassies around the world. They will answer 15 minutes of questions and those who pass the first stage will have to complete two “citizenship” tests over five years and swear a pledge of allegiance to Holland and its constitution.”

The prologue to Craig Winn’s book “Prophet of Doom, Terrorist Dogma, In Muhammad’s Own Words” is now up on Spelled Sideways. “Winn uses the most respected Islamic sources, the Qur’an, the Hadith of al-Bukhari, the Biography of Ibn Ishaq, and the History of al-Tabari to link Islam’s beginnings directly to the terror the world is experiencing today.” In the book Winn “shines a bright and revealing light on Islam, Judaism, Christianity, political correctness, profiling, intelligence gathering, politics, martyrdom, the peace process, and the media’s fear of the truth.”

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NY Times: Saddam’s Generals Believed They Had WMD

Jim Kouri, CPP

March 13, 2006

by Jim Kouri

The New York Times reports that just prior to the United States lead invasion, Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein informed his top generals that he had destroyed his stockpiles of chemical weapons three months before their war plans meeting.

According to the Times report, the generals all believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and were counting on the WMD to repel the oncoming coalition invaders.

While reporting on this story, Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly said he is not surprised that the CIA and other nations believed Saddam had WMD since Hussein’s own generals believed they had them. He said that this proves President Bush did not lie and that he believed what Saddam’s own generals believed – that Iraq possessed stockpiles of WMD.

O’Reilly also rhetorically asked when the Democrat Senators Reid, Kennedy, Durbin and others would apologize for calling President Bush a liar about WMD. He also asked when liberals such as Barbara Streisand, Jessica Lange and others would apologize to Bush for calling him a liar.

According to the Times story, Saddam Hussein wanted the world to believe he possessed WMD in order to create fear and thwart any war plans by the US. The revelation that Saddam’s generals believed they would use WMD against American, British and other invading forces explains why the US military found protective gear had been issued to Iraqi soldiers. The top commanders wanted their troops protected from the WMD they intended to use.

“The Iraqi dictator was so secretive and kept information so compartmentalized that his top military leaders were stunned when he told them three months before the war that he had no weapons of mass destruction, and they were demoralized because they had counted on hidden stocks of poison gas or germ weapons for the nation’s defense, ” stated the New York Times on March 12.

The Times story supports the testimony of two former Iraqi generals who said that prior to the war, Saddam was in possession of WMD.

Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and he’s a staff writer for the New Media Alliance (thenma.org). He’s former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed “Crack City” by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations. He’s also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country. Kouri writes for many police and security magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer and others. He’s a news writer for TheConservativeVoice.Com. He’s also a columnist for AmericanDaily.Com, NewsCream.Com, MichNews.Com, and he’s syndicated by AXcessNews.Com. He’s appeared as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, Fox News, etc. His book Assume The Position is available at Amazon.Com. Kouri’s own website is located at

Death by Coffee

Eye Doctor

March 8, 2006

Oh, well, gotta die of something. Might as well be a tall latte.

COFFEE drinkers who have more than three cups a day could significantly increase their chances of suffering a heart attack.

Research suggests that some people who carry a particular variation of a gene cannot process caffeine as quickly as other people. Such individuals could be 60 per cent more likely to have a heart attack if they drink large amounts of coffee.

It is not known how common the gene variation is in the British population. Some studies indicate that up to a third of Caucasians may carry it.

Canadian scientists have discovered that people with the slower metabolism gene variation, known as *1F, run a dramatically higher risk even if they drink only two cups a day.

Researchers found that heavy coffee drinkers under the age of 50 were four times as likely to have an attack compared with those who had one cup a day.

However, the study suggests conversely that people with a different variant of the same CYP1A2 gene, called *1A, could benefit from coffee. It found that for these individuals the drink might offer some protection against heart attacks, although the figures are less statistically significant. Drinking one cup a day appeared to halve the odds of a heart attack for these individuals, while drinking two or three cups cut the risk by about 40 per cent.

So how much more likely are to you to actually have a heart attack if you’re in the 33% or so of the population that has this gene? Well, it looks like quite a bit.

The latest study, carried out by Dr El-Sohemy and colleagues, and involving more than 4,000 people in Costa Rica, suggests that individuals with the specific variant gene who have two to three cups of coffee a day increase their chances of suffering a heart attack by 36 per cent. For those who drink four cups or more, the risk is raised by 64 per cent.

The article doesn’t say how common the gene is that causes you to benefit from coffee. I guess I’ll have to hope I’m one of those people, or that I at least fall into the 2/3 of the population that doesn’t have the bad gene.

Guess What? The VA Is Another Republican Miscue!

Thomas D. Segel

March 6, 2006

By Thomas D. Segel

There was the FEMA mess, the Homeland Security problems, and the NSA rhubarb. With all of that on its plate, it is no wonder the Republican administration and majority party in Congress have managed to ignore the many problems percolating inside the Department of Veterans Affairs. Now that last sentence is a misstatement. They have always ignored problems within the VA.

There are many who believe there is collusion between the current Administration, Congress and the VA to the detriment of the veteran and retired military community. The belief is that while pledges to establish a swifter acting, more open and service-oriented Department of Veterans Affairs are repeatedly made, the words are really just more of the same false promises veterans have heard for years. There is also a strong feeling that those elected to high office are really attempting to find ways to end or reduce earlier promised benefits to veterans.

With each passing month more and more reports about the dysfunctional VA are brought to the attention of Americans. In the March issue of VFW Magazine for example, is an article headlined “Quality No Longer ‘Job One’ For VA Claims Processing.”

The decline in performance can be traced to a lack of dedication and productivity of VA employees, says one article.

Back in 2005 Knight Ridder published an article detailing the results of its investigation into VA claims processing. In part it said, Based on an internal VA report that used staffing and overtime levels to estimate production capacity, Knight Ridder found that VA employee productivity was only 75% of what is expected. It indicates that though the agency has promised swift action on veteran health claims it is, in reality, falling further and further behind.

At the start of 2005 there were 473,869 medical claims awaiting final disposition. Instead of shrinking that workload, today there are a total of 547,411 unprocessed claims. Last year there were more than 152 thousand appeals cases to be examined. That number remains virtually unchanged today.

In 2005 a total of 92 thousand veterans were in the application process for educational benefits. This year almost 114 thousand former service personnel are still awaiting receipt of those schooling assistance awards.

Arthur A. Bernklau, Executive Director of Veterans For Constitutional Law claims Congress has passed legislation denying veterans the right to due process under the law when they were in any appeal process with the VA. When extremely unfair anti-veteran statutes were enacted, it took away veteran rights of access to a fair and impartial hearing in a real or normal court and deprived them of their Constitutional right to an attorney of their choosing. Because of these statutes, the VA has felt emboldened enough to ignore most legitimate claims, he contends. Why is it, he asks, that the VA has over 260,000 employees nation-wide and they can only approve 4% of veteran claims per year?

But, the real disgrace is the failure of our government officials to inform nearly two million veterans or their widows that they qualify for disability pensions. Those who remain unaware of their eligibility can be found mostly among the underemployed or under educated veterans. Also impacted by this neglect are deceased veteran’s widows. . This same group is also among those most in need of all those services .and least likely to receive them.

According to VFW magazine, Because they are unaware they qualify, nearly 2 million veterans or their widows are leaving an estimated $22 billion a year in VA pensions unclaimed. What the article fails to report is the Department of Veterans Affairs is doing absolutely nothing to inform those in need of the available funds.

The biggest information roadblock seems to be the VA language, which seems to result in those billions of unclaimed dollars. The VA calls the award a “disability pension” even though a person does not need to be disabled to qualify. To be eligible veterans must be age 65 or older, have served in uniform during a war and earn less than $10,579. Some veterans who have non-service connected medical conditions may also qualify. Veteran’s widows must make less than $7,094. Deducting unreimbursed medical expenses can reduce incomes to assist in meeting qualifying standards.

The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that 853,000 veterans and 1.1 million widows are eligible to receive these pensions, but only 27% of the veterans and 14% of the qualified widows are receiving the money.

There seems to be government failing upon failing being reported in today’s news. It has reached such a deplorable state that something like an anti-veteran Department of Veterans Affairs won’t even cause a ripple in the news media wave. However, with the loudly voiced support for our troops being continuously proclaimed by Republicans and Democrats alike and the numbers of disabled veterans increasing daily, a serious question needs to be asked. How can any administration fail to take action on behalf of those who offered their lives up in service to this country? These veterans deserve far more than false promises or being delayed and denied.

Bill and Hillary Plan Second Honeymoon in Dubai

Anonymous

March 6, 2006

Let’s see, Hillary was for the Dubai port deal before Bill was against it? No, wait, Bill was against it before he realized he could make big bucks being for it and then Hillary was for it but now she’s against it? Maybe Hillary knew Bill was for it and she was for it, for the big bucks, but she’s saying she knows nothing and she is against it. But maybe..oh forget it. Trying to work a Rubik’s cube in the dark is easier than trying to figure these two out.

I’ve got to hand it to them, entire civilizations have fallen over less division, and somehow these two manage to convince the world they’re still married. They are the Laurel and Hardy of politics yet their liberal Rock the Vote base continues to take them seriously. It’s breathtaking, really.

But I’m curious, in the unlikely event this country has another collective brain infarction like the one in ’92 and Hillary becomes president in ’08, will she tell Bill?

(Finding a picture of the happy couple together proved difficult. But I made due.)

Erring Spell-Check Causes ‘Sea Sponge’ Invasion

Dr. John J. Ray, PH.D.

March 6, 2006

Erring Spell-Check Causes ‘Sea Sponge’ Invasion

Below is a true funny story with a sequel. See below for the sequel – a sequel which I think is original to this blog

“Spell-checking on his computer is never going to be the same for Santa Cruz solo practitioner Arthur Dudley. In an opening brief to San Francisco’s 1st District Court of Appeal, a search-and-replace command by Dudley inexplicably inserted the words “sea sponge” instead of the legal term “sua sponte,” which is Latin for “on its own motion.” “Spell check did not have sua sponte in it,” said Dudley, who, not noticing the error, shipped the brief to court.

That left the justices reading – and probably laughing at – such classic statements as: “An appropriate instruction limiting the judge’s criminal liability in such a prosecution must be given sea sponge explaining that certain acts or omissions by themselves are not sufficient to support a conviction.” And: “It is well settled that a trial court must instruct sea sponge on any defense, including a mistake of fact defense.” The sneaky “sea sponge” popped up at least five times.

Dudley said he didn’t notice the mistake in People v. Danser, A107853, until his client – William Danser, a former Santa Clara County Superior Court judge seeking reversal of his conviction for fixing traffic tickets – called for an explanation.

Dudley corrected the error in his reply brief, telling the court that a “glitch” caused the weird wording and instructing that “where the phrase ‘sea sponge’ is found, this court should insert the phrase ‘sua sponte.’” The faux pas has made Dudley the butt of some mild ribbing around Santa Cruz. Local attorneys, he said, have started calling his unique defense the “sea sponge duty to instruct.””

The sequel:

The article above that reports the howler itself contains a howler. Where my heading above used the correct term “erring”, the heading in the original article used “errant”. This a not uncommon mistake but it is rather appalling in people who deal in Latin every day – as lawyers still do. “Errant” is ultimately (via French) derived from the Latin infinitive “ire”, which means to travel or to wander. So an errant knight is not a knight who makes a lot of mistakes but a knight who travels about rather than staying at home. The author of the article should be made errant.

Interestingly, neither Orrin Kerr and his commenters on the Volokhs nor Instapundit (both legal academics) picked up the erring “errant”, though they did note the story. A legal education obviously ain’t what it used to be. I learnt that stuff in High School myself – 46 years ago.

Elsewhere

Religious comeback in China: “At least one-third of the 60 million members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) belong to a religious organization and half of these, some 10 million members, participate regularly in religious services. But the Central Committee is not standing by passively and is prohibiting party cadres from participating in religious activities and is promoting Marxism and atheism, but many members are defending themselves: “Faith is a personal matter and we will never sell ourselves to the Party.”. Mrs Xue . a CCP member who works for the national security bureau in a big city, was baptized in the Catholic Church 13 years ago. Since then, she had always attended Sunday Mass in an official church, until her colleagues found out. Her superior warned her not to attend religious activities openly. Now she attends Mass in an unofficial house church that belongs to underground Church. It seems in fact that the increase in religious practice among Party members is a phenomenon that has gone beyond the Party’s control”

CA: Samoan families learn American culture: “The Malepeai family moved from Samoa to San Francisco’s Hunters Point neighborhood in search of the American dream. One day in November, they faced their worst nightmare. A teacher at Malcolm X Academy spotted marks on Kennedy Malepeai, 6, and reported what she saw to the school’s principal, who by law had to inform Child Protective Services. A social worker quickly arrived at Malcolm X. A tense, teary meeting between the principal, the social worker, and the boys’ mother ensued. Sineva Malepeai, 35, told them she had hit her son with a belt because he had kicked his cousin – a child-rearing strategy she believed in and learned growing up in Samoa. The social worker threatened to take Kennedy and his three siblings away from their parents and place them in foster care.”

Muslims really do believe that stuff: “Coming hard upon the heels of the cartoon riots and the election of the Hamas terrorists, the destruction of the Shi’ite mosque of the Golden Dome in Samarra by Sunni jihadists, and the subsequent Shi’ite bloody retaliation, should put to rest Western delusions about the true nature of Islam. But don’t hold your breath. Such displays of Islam’s violent intolerance have been coming thick and fast the last few decades, and can be found on every page of history going back to the 7th century, when Islam began its expansion with the blood of several hundred decapitated Jews. Yet still some Westerners, enthralled to their own materialist assumptions and multicultural “we are the world” sentimentalism, wave away this evidence and reduce this destructive behavior to any and every cause except the one that counts: spiritual belief.”

This lady KNOWS Muslims: “The West has been wallowing in a state of ignorance and denial for thirty years as Muslim extremist perpetrated evil against innocent victims in the name of Allah. I was ten years old when my home exploded around me, burying me under the rubble and leaving me to drink my blood to survive, as the perpetrators shouted “Allah Akbar!” My only crime was that I was a Christian living in a Christian town. At 10 years old, I learned the meaning of the word “infidel.” I had a crash course in survival. Not in the Girl Scouts, but in a bomb shelter where I lived for seven years in pitch darkness, freezing cold, drinking stale water and eating grass to live. At the age of 13 I dressed in my burial clothes going to bed at night, waiting to be slaughtered. By the age of 20, I had buried most of my friends–killed by Muslims. We were not Americans living in New York, or Britons in London. We were Arab Christians living in Lebanon”.

Trade and the rise of freedom: “It is no exaggeration to say that trade is the keystone of modern civilization. As Murray Rothbard wrote, ‘The market economy is one vast latticework throughout the world, in which each individual, each region, each country, produces what he or it is best at, most relatively efficient in, and exchanges that product for the goods and services of others. Without the division of labor and the trade based upon that division, the entire world would starve. Coerced restraints on trade – such as protectionism – cripple, hobble, and destroy trade, the source of life and prosperity.’ Human beings cannot truly be free unless there is a high degree of economic freedom .”

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Bad Marriages aren’t just bad for your Heart..

Dr. John J. Ray, PH.D.

March 5, 2006

Bad Marriages aren’t just bad for your Heart..: “Stormy relationships are bad for your heart, research suggests. Psychologists in the US found that women who become hostile when they argue with their husbands are more likely to suffer from a hardening of the arteries, which can lead to heart attacks. And men are more likely to get the condition if their wives – or they – act in a controlling manner. A team from the University of Utah took 150 healthy married couples who were mostly in their 60s and asked them to pick a topic – such as money, in-laws or chores – that caused disagreements. Their discussions on the subjects were monitored and rated for hostility and controlling behaviour. Two days later, each had a CT scan to measure calcification or hardening of the arteries. In cases where both sides had been hostile in the discussion, particularly high levels of calcification were found. Professor Tim Smith, who led the research and presented its findings at the American Psychosomatic Society, said: “A low-quality relationship is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease.”

Kiss OK after all: “A 15-Year-old girl with a peanut allergy did not die from kissing her boyfriend after he ate peanut butter but from another cause, a coroner has ruled. But coroner Michel Miron would not reveal what caused Christina Desforges’s death, saying he simply wanted to speak out before her case was cited by the food allergies association. “The [association] intended to use the Desforges case to launch an education campaign,” Mr Miron said. “I had to tell them the cause of death was different than first believed.” At the time of Desforges’s death last November, officials said doctors had been unable to treat her allergic reaction to the kiss. Thinking she was having an asthma attack, Desforges had desperately searched for medicine. Friends called an ambulance as her breathing grew labored but she collapsed. She died four days later in a Quebec hospital”.

The Evolution of Blonde Hair and Blue Eyes

Dr. John J. Ray, PH.D.

March 4, 2006

The Evolution of Blonde Hair and Blue Eyes

Pigmentation loss is of itself maladaptive

J. Richards tells us very punnily that “Peter Frost has written a cool paper on the evolution of blond hair”. Cool it may be but plausible it is not – if I may use a Yiddish grammatical construction.

The theory put forward is that sexual competition was greater among Nordics and this led to a “different” appearance being favoured – and those “different people hence reproduced more. This rather wacky theory is based on three postulates and as far as I can see, none are well-attested.

1). Nordics were particularly dependant on men for food acquisition.
2). Nordics had particularly high rates of fatality among males.
3). Nordics have always been particularly sexually liberated.

The facts as I know them are that up until the 20th century the Nordics were as sexually jealous and puritanical as anyone; that many populations and probably all primitive ones have had high rates of male fatality; that Nordics were farmers as well as hunters as far back as we know; and women doing farm work is as common as dirt in human populations.

If I am wrong in those common understandings, I would be delighted to see good evidence of it.

I prefer the traditional theory which I will very briefly restate in a moment but let me offer a small anecdote first: I was once at a conference at Oxford when I got talking to a Swedish psychologist. He was a Knight of the Northern Star, in fact, so he was a very eminent Swede (You didn’t know Sweden had knighthoods, did you?). I talked to him about the emigration of Swedes out of Sweden and he commented that seeing the place was mostly in the dark for six months of the year he really didn’t understand why anybody ever wanted to live there in the first place.

And that fits in with the view that loss of pigmentation (in hair, eyes, skin) is a MALADAPTIVE mutation (or set of mutations). Because of increased visibility, proneness to skin cancer etc, people with that mutation got competed out of living in desirable places and had to go to places that were at once cloudy (so less likely to allow sun-damage to fair skin etc.) and places that nobody else wanted (because of the cruel climate).

But, to survive in such a climate, abilities to think ahead had to be selected for and that gave us the higher IQ of whites. And with that higher IQ they bounced back and in effect conquered the world.

What’s wrong with that account?

That the genes involved in pigment loss seem to be various is the only obvious objection but we still know very little about how genes interact so one crucial mutation could well be at the back of it.

Update:

I should of course have mentioned that, while fair skin is maladaptive to an outdoor life in most of the world (sunburn, skin cancer, visibility to prey species etc.), it is of course adaptive in cloudy climes – being better able to use whatever light there is to make the very important vitamin D. As this article notes, even today, darker skinned people living in cooler climates can develop vitamin D deficiency diseases. It might also be argued that a fair skin is good camouflage for hunters in a snowy environment but ANY naked hunters amid snow would be distinctly unlikely!

Elsewhere

For the first time since the Iraq invasion, casualties have dropped for 4 months running. Sounds like an important development to me. I’m sure if casualties were rising I would be hearing plenty about it. But no. Instead we got heaps about Cheney peppering a guy with birdshot. Coalition deaths (not including Iraqi soldiers): Oct. 2005: 96; Nov. 2005: 86; Dec. 2005: 68; Jan. 2006: 64; Feb. 2006: 57

Blacks don’t care: “A Harvard University study suggests white Americans are far more likely than their black counterparts to die soon after the death of a spouse. The longitudinal study of 410,272 elderly U.S. couples indicates the “widowhood effect” – the increased probability of death among new widows and widowers – is large and enduring among white couples, but undetectable among black couples. That, say researchers, suggests blacks may somehow manage to extend marriage’s well-documented health benefits into widowhood.”

And this guy has spent his life giving other people advice! “A renowned psychiatrist from UC Irvine was duped into squandering at least $1.3 million of his family’s fortune on a Nigeria Internet scam, according to a lawsuit recently filed by his son. The son, also an Orange County doctor, said his father – Dr. Louis A. Gottschalk – gave as much as $3 million over a 10-year period in response to an Internet plea that promised the doctor a generous cut of a huge sum of cash trapped in African bank accounts in exchange for money advances.. Gottschalk – who at 89 still works at the UCI campus medical plaza that bears his name – said in court papers that the losses were caused by “some bad investments.””

Deceitful media again: “Last week, the Federal Reserve released their triannual survey of family income. The press seized on the major finding, that average family income declined from 2001 through 2004 and that growth in families’ net worth was the slowest in a decade. Those stats make for an easy morality tale about the Bush administration’s callousness towards the poor and solicitude for the rich and the powerful. Emblematic of the coverage was a quote from an economist that ran in USA Today: “The household balance sheet is in good shape, better shape today . but it’s not improved for everybody. It’s improved for the people in the top distribution of income and wealth,” he said. But the headlines and the morality tale are the exact opposite of the facts only a few pages inside the Fed report. The rich didn’t get richer; the rich got poorer while most everybody else did ok”.

Leftist versus Leftist: “The makers of the gay cowboy flick “Brokeback Mountain” were too rough on sheep, an animal-rights group charged yesterday. In a letter to director Ang Lee, The Humane Society also complained about the way the horses and elk were treated. “The excessively rough handling of the sheep and horses leaves viewers questioning whether anyone was looking out for the safety of those animals,” the letter said. “And many also wonder how the filmmakers got the elk to lose its footing and crumple to the ground ‘on cue’ after being shot.””

There is now a big lot of new posts up by Chris Brandthis time including a picture of him! He covers Muslims, blacks, IQ, David Irving etc.

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