DESERTED BEACHES -- AND PAPAL ENCYCLICALS

I may be wrong but I have the strong impression that the ideal image of a tropical beach that most people have in mind is an image of a deserted beach. "Getting away from it all" largely means freedom from having to deal with other people all the time. Yet, as far as I can see, that does not happen with most tourist destinations. The crowds follow you. Yet in Australia's far North you can find plenty of long, wide, white, tree-lined, sandy beaches with hardly a soul on them for most of the time. That was certainly true yesterday when I looked in at Cowley beach, Kurrimine and Mission beach. And the smaller beaches in between them are normally absolutely deserted. The dream CAN become reality. Australia certainly makes a laugh out of the Greenie idea that earth is "overcrowded".

My vacation reading has been pretty weird. I have just read (well, most of it) the Papal encyclical Centesimus Annus by John Paul II (1991). Have you ever heard of any other atheist who reads Papal encyclicals on his vacations? There was for me one surprising bit in Centesimus Annus. The Pope supports Sabbath observance: "In this regard, one may ask whether existing laws and the practice of industrialized societies effectively ensure in our own day the exercise of this basic right to Sunday rest". I wonder why we never hear of that?

Like the famous encyclical it commemorates (Rerum novarum), however, Centesimus Annus is a thoroughly conservative balancing act. It says Communism is no good but neither is unbridled capitalism. It says there is a right to private property but not an unrestriced right. It says the State should interfere to look after the poor but it should not interfere too much. As I point out elsewhere, conservatives have always undertaken that difficult balancing. Simplistic all-or-nothing theories and systems are only for the ideologues of the Left. Because Centesimus Annus is a balancing act, however, both Left and Right can find bits in it that they like. It does nothing to check the increasingly Leftist nature of the church hierarchy. The hierarchy can use it to defend any degree of Statism except outright Marxism as being for the good of anyone who is at a disadvantage in any way. So I would call Centesimus Annus an unsuccessful balancing act. It is too vague to be useful. At least Rerum novarum took on Marxism at a time when it was a growing threat. I cannot see that Centesimus Annus does anything similarly useful.

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FROM BROOKES NEWS

John Kerry gets his Vietnam comeuppance from Vietnam Veterans - and a reporter squeals Now that the truth is coming out about John Kerry's Vietnam war record his sycophantic media groupies are losing their grip
The mass media's love affair with the traitor Wilfred Burchett The mass media's favourable treatment of traitors like Wilfred Burchett helps explain its hatred of President Bush
Green economist wrong on globalization and free trade Free trade (aka globalization) always gets a bad press from greenies"
Keynes fails North Korea and Kim Jong-il Last year Kim Jong-il decided to take his cue from Maynard Keynes and attempted to inject some life into what is jokingly called the North Korean economy
The Japanese economy: A lesson for the US economy? Some commentators thought there was an ominous parallel between the US economy and the state of the Japanese economy in the late '80s
Oil: Where does it come from? How, one may ask, can coal arise in one place and petroleum in another?

Details here

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ELSEWHERE

Kerry caught in a lie: "I was startled to read the Aug. 10 issue of the editorial page of The Washington Times concerning the assertion attributed to Sen. John Kerry that he had spent Christmas 1968 aboard his swift boat some five miles inside Cambodia and had been shot at by our Vietnamese allies, as well as the Khmer Rouge.... concerning the assertion that Mr. Kerry was shot at by the Khmer Rouge during his Christmas 1968 visit to Cambodia, it should be noted that the Khmer Rouge didn't take the field until the Easter Offensive of 1972".

Kerry has of course now backtracked about what he originally claimed was a "searing memoy" of his time in Cambodia. Are we seeing early-onset Alzheimer's here? Will his memories of routines abuses conducted by American troops in Vietnam also now be withdrawn? But that would be too decent, I think.

GWB good on John Kerry's Iraq policy: "Now, almost two years after he voted for the war in Iraq, and almost 220 days after switching positions to declare himself the anti-war candidate, my opponent has found a new nuance," Bush said. "After months of questioning my motives and even my credibility, Sen. Kerry now agrees with me." Bush added sarcastically that Kerry still had time to change his position: "There are still 84 days left in the campaign.""

One hundred percenter has a John Kerry Christmas poem that is very much to the point.

Abortion horrifies me but I agree with this: "Britain granted its first license for human cloning yesterday, joining South Korea on the leading edge of stem-cell research, which is restricted by the Bush administration but which many scientists think might lead to new treatments for a range of diseases."

Eugene Rants is getting pretty enraged at some Leftist distortions about the elderly and about health care.

Diary of an anti-Chomsky-ite is worth a look if you have not seen it already. He posts fairly often.

Carnival of the Vanities is up again with informative links to a whole host of varied bologospherical reading.

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

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Leftists acclaim "diversity" yet say "All men are equal". Figure that one out.

Why can those who claim to understand the dangers of meddling with a complex ecosystem like the natural environment, not understand that government interference with a complex system like the economy is perilous too?

The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and people who will say anything to win applause

Comments? Email me here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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