MORE FROM BROOKES NEWS

The US economy: jobs and recovery The real question should be: "Is the recovery sustainable?" If by sustainable one means that there will not be another recession then the answer is no. Only a strict metallic monetary system can cure the boom-bust cycle.
Kerry's rise and media censorship The free pass that the media is giving Kerry once again highlights the extent to which they have combined into an Orwellian Ministry of Truth that rewrites history to advance the interests of the Party. However, the net is coming to the rescue.
Ann Coulter is kidnapped by terrorists, and President Bush calls on Bunny Champers to save her and the world Bunny does it again - in more ways than one. First he dates Ann Coulter, and then he has to save her, and the world, from terrorists.
What has gay marriage to do with Beijing and national security? Beijing rooted for a Gore victory. Come November it, like Pyongyang and Tehran, will be rooting for a Kerry victory, a man for whom the Beijing has only contempt. So what has gay marriage to do with it?
An Atheist Defends Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ The Passion of the Christ is a powerful telling of the story of the Temptation and the Crucifixion of Jesus, and is in no way anti-Semitic. It is intense in its violence toward the hero, but that only makes his own triumph against hatred and evil all the more compelling.

Details here

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ELSEWHERE

I have always thought that the fanatical Leftism of the universities will be self-defeating in the end. This is a comment from a conservative student at the very Leftist Smith College: "Most interestingly though, I have met people who came to Smith being a liberal or Democrat and now say that they are more conservative or nearly Republican because of the way-left politics that some people have. I was pretty amazed by that." I think youthful rebelliousness will defeat the Leftist ideologues. (Link via PrestoPundit).

"Reparations". A very incorrect reader writes: "People should be careful what they ask for. I think that blacks could all eventually get their big check only to find that it will be seen as an end to any need for affirmative action etc. Or, since we grabbed the blacks out of Africa, maybe the payments will be available only to those who wish to return to Africa and renounce their U.S. citizenship: A cheap but fair way of deporting all the drones while keeping those who realize what they've got here."

There is an article in the NYT about Christian homeschoolers and the Patrick Henry College to which many homeschooled kids go for tertiary education. Leftists of course hate it when any kids escape the Leftist brainwashing that is normal in mainstream schools so the article does its best to make the homeschoolers look sinister. But the sentence that struck me was: "I would definitely like to be active in the government of our country and stuff," Mr. Olmstead, 19, said as he sat in a Christian coffeehouse near the campus, looking up from a copy of Plato's "Republic." So a student at a Christian college was reading one of the great works of PRE-Christian Greek literature. No prejudice against "dead white males" there. No wonder the graduates of the college do so well. They get a REAL education -- one that draws on all the strengths of the great culture that made us what we are. Even the very words from the past can be powerful. One of JFK's most famous sayings was: "Ask not what your country can do for you; Ask what you can do for your country". Dreadful Right-wing garbage by modern Leftist standards I guess. But JFK stole the words from Pericles, the great Athenian statesman of around 450 BC.

A Jewish Francophile has her eyes opened: "Will the pacifist and pacified French stand up and defend their nation? Or will we have to leave? That is what it boils down to. Things have gone from shouting "death to the Jews" to firebombing schools and synagogues, to persecution, attacks, even murder. We have Muslim rage in schools, hospitals, and courtrooms. Police headquarters are attacked, hospital personnel beaten, judges threatened. The Republic is under siege, and what are the French doing about it? They are trashing America. This, it seems, is their new Maginot line: the sneer of hatred. Hand in hand with the government and the intellectual classes, the French media are channeling the national dismay over lost grandeur into contempt for America."

"Anti-Americanism is the prevailing disease of intellectuals today.... any accusation that comes to hand is used without scruple by the Old World intelligentsia. Anti-Americanism is factually absurd, contradictory, racist, crude, childish, self-defeating and, at bottom, nonsensical. It is based on the powerful but irrational impulse of envy-- an envy of American wealth, power, success and determination. It is an envy made all the more poisonous because of a fearful European conviction that America's strength is rising while Europe's is falling."

Dave Huber fisks some Leftist criticisms of THAT movie from Jon Voigt and others.

THAT movie is not alone in being attacked because it replays the central story of Christianity. The great German classical music composer J.S. Bach (1685 - 1750 A.D.) is now being attacked as antisemitic too! I have been a devotee of Bach since I was 13 but it was news to me! (Link via Armavirumque).

This review from a "spiritual" site says of THAT movie "The entire film seemed like the dying gasp of an old ultra-religious paradigm". Dying gasp? Not likely. I have even heard of very skeptical people being drawn to Chistianity by the film. And you should see the size of the congregations in fundamentalist churches!

I have just posted here the latest observations from Chris Brand -- including the news that propensity to marry is genetically inherited!

Interesting that the leader of New Zealand's major conservative party has attacked affirmative action. And he's getting a lot of support for it too. Maybe New Zealanders are more down-to-earth than Americans. The problems posed by New Zealand's Maoris are pretty similar to America's problems with blacks.

Carnival of the Vanities is up again with its usual big range of reading.

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The Left have always wanted more spent on welfare and made "Fascism" a swear-word. President Bush deposed a brutal Fascist dictator and sponsored a big expansion of welfare. But instead of being admired by the Left, he is hated with a passion. What does that tell you about the Left? It tells you that they have no principles at all: That everything they have ever claimed to stand for is fake.

Three more examples of Leftist dishonesty: They blame the 9/11 attacks on "poverty" in the Islamic world. Yet most of the attackers were Saudis and Saudi Arabia is one of the world's richest countries! They also say that they oppose racism yet support "affirmative action" -- which judges people by the colour of their skin! They say that they care about "the poor" but how often do you hear them calling for the one thing that would bring about a worldwide economic boom in poor countries -- the USA and the EU abandoning their agricultural protectionism? Leftists obviously care more about conservative farmers than they do about the poor!

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