NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY

I see that Keith Burgess-Jackson has a post on the notion of national sovereignty and says most of what needs to be said about it. The people who have been raising the issue in recent years have been Leftists -- using the doctrine that national sovereignty must be respected regardless of "internal" matters in a pathetic attempt to defend Saddam Hussein and criticize GWB. There is a doctrine of that sort in international law but its origin is amusing:

It originated in 1648 after Europe became exhausted by Catholic vs. Protestant wars as the "Peace of Westphalia" and was a (partially successful) way of preventing more wars by accepting the status quo as final -- i.e. accepting as final those boundaries between kingdoms that existed at that time regardless of the religion of the ruler (which it was accepted his subjects were obliged to follow). Napoleon however eventually came along and thoroughly upset the status quo so the whole thing had to be done all over again by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. And the Congress of Vienna was chaired and run by the representative of the Austrian Kaiser, the highly-reactionary Prince Metternich (who was himself a Westphalian, curiously enough). So the Congress of Vienna must be one of history's best examples of a concerted and successful attempt to defend and preserve a major and long-lasting status quo. And the doctrine underlying THOSE arrangements is what Leftists now proclaim as sacred! It shows how easily their "principles" can go into reverse-gear (as they also did over eugenics).

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FROM BROOKES NEWS

Theresa Heinz Kerry: You pay taxes, I don't Theresa Heinz Kerry likes taxes so much she thinks the little people should pay more
Joe Wilson tried to set up President Bush Joe Wilson used his Niger-uranium assignment to try and damage the President Bush
Taiwan - why China will not invade Some American commentators have been warning of a Chinese attack on Taiwan. Why they are wrong
The ALP, intelligence and hypocrisy The ALP cannot be trusted with the defence of Australia and the management of our relationships with our allies

Details here

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ELSEWHERE

Freeh of the FBI sums it up: "while changes and improvements are always in order, the blame for the 9/11 attack rests solely on the terrorists who did it. This central truth has often been ignored by the endless talking heads and sound-bite analysis with which we have been saturated in the last two years."

Another comment on Michael Moore: "But what to make of this latest two-hour tantrum, which doesn't merely ooze innuendo and misrepresentation, but is long, boring and puerile too?.. F9/11, alas, is a recrudescence of the lamest '60s paranoia. You thought, perhaps, that the war on terror had something to do with Islamism? Neo-conservatism? Israel? The UN? The Kurds? Think again: it's the military-industrial complex, I tells ya. Most of the film's more febrile assertions disintegrate on any contact with evidence".

There is to be a big Muslim rally in London today in which Islamists declare that theirs is the one true religion and seek converts. See here. A few quotes from their announcement: "The speakers will also set out to present Islam as the only real future for Britain and indeed the World... As for the Sikhs, acknowledge, that as a man-made system your belief is really just a hotpot of different religions and opinions "jumbled together".... The Hindu tradition of worshipping idols was (and still is) seen as a major act of ignorance". Not much tolerance or compromise there. There is another version of the announcement here in which the Islamists attack homosexuality. Apparently British homosexuals have at last decided that they really should oppose people who want to stone them to death. Not before time.

There is another good collection of quotes here from Democrats who proclaimed the danger from Iraq before the US intervention there -- quotes ranging from Bill Clinton to John Kerry and including Sandy Berger. Snopes has verified that the quotes are accurate but says they are "out of context". Snopes does normally grasp at any straw to find fault with anything favourable to conservatives. They will end up discrediting themselves that way.

Citizenship rationality: "A proposed anti-illegal immigration measure not only leads overwhelmingly in a new statewide poll, but Arizonans across party lines and demographic groups favor it. Seventy-four percent of the 387 registered voters interviewed last week, said they would support the measure, Protect Arizona Now. Only 16 percent opposed it and 10 percent were undecided. The initiative, likely to make the Nov. 2 ballot, would affect many Arizona citizens in addition to undocumented immigrants. It would require proof of citizenship for anyone registering to vote and identification for those who vote in person. When registering to vote, Arizonans currently fill out forms affirming that they are U.S. citizens and Arizona residents."

Frank Devine has an interesting insider's story of the rise and fall of "Readers Digest"

My post on the Libertarian party got a fair bit of response. Here is a cartoon I was directed to that that sums up a lot.

Australia's national daily newspaper has just published a big selection of its past political cartoons. I reproduce the two that I like best here or here.

The Policeman's blog is a very amusing site. At least one British cop has a sense of humour. His North Korean tiepin had me laughing. But it is British humour so I am not sure how much of it Americans would get.

For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH and POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH. Mirror sites here and here

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Puzzle 1: Leftists always say that human nature is fundamentally good and that people can be trusted. So why do they say that whilst at the same time wanting to regulate everybody to death and take as many decisions and choices out of the hands of the individual as they possibly can? Easy: They say that about human nature because, if it is true, then THEY are good at heart and can be trusted -- and, given their destructive deeds, they need all the propaganda help they can get in that regard.

Puzzle 2: Why do "postmodern" Leftists make the strange claim that everything ever written has to be interpreted in terms of how it serves power? Easy: Because everything THEY say is directed towards getting themselves power

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