EUROPEAN DREAMS

A Jeremy Rifkin has just written a rather hilarious book called "The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream". It is amusingly demolished here.

And also here. Excerpt: "Professional worrier Jeremy Rifkin's pronouncements always remind me of the characterization by one-time Speaker of the House of Representatives Thomas B. Reed of his political opponents, 'They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.' Rifkin's assertion that Americans' consumption of beef causes domestic violence were absurd. So were his claims that biotechnology threatens 'a form of annihilation every bit as deadly as nuclear holocaust,' and that a small-scale field trial of a gene-spliced soil bacterium could change weather patterns and disrupt air-traffic control. He's at it again in a completely different realm in a new book, 'The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream' ..."

There is an article here by that learned dunce, Niall Ferguson (He thinks America should become an empire!) which argues that recent Anglo/American co-operation (e.g. Reagan/Thatcher and Blair/Bush) is somehow an aberration that must soon end. He says that Britain has more in common with Europe. He notes that, like Europeans, Brits are much less religious than Americans are -- but that seems to be his only substantial point. Really important facts, like the abhorrence most Britons have of the EU, he overlooks. And on the cultural affinities that will continue to bind Britons and Americans, I can do no better than to refer readers to the Anglosphere Primer. There is a more extensive demolition of Ferguson's surprisingly ill-informed article here and other criticisms by Mark Steyn here.

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

ELSEWHERE

Tom Galvin puts lots of good political pictures up on his blog -- though he is mainly concerned with the Presidential debate at the moment (like most political bloggers). He has two good pictures of union goons harassing little 3-year old Sophia Parlock. Leftists will use any violence they think they can get away with. I mention that in today's postings on EDUCATION WATCH too. Stalin and Pol Pot were no aberrations. They were just normal Leftists who managed to get unrestrained power. "By their fruits shall ye know them" (Matthew 7:20) and their deeds constantly reveal how much hate there is in Leftists.

There is a whole series here of photographs taken at various Leftist "protests" (really exhibitions) in the San Francisco area in recent times. My favourite is this series, which is prefaced by the remark: "People not from the San Francisco Bay Area often think that, when locals say such-and-such person or group is "Communist," they're being metaphorical, or McCarthyites. Far from it. Overt Communists and Marxists are commonplace around the Bay Area, especially at rallies like this". And this series probably shows best how exhibitionism is the underlying theme of Leftist demonstrating. "Look at me" is what it is all about.

Bush to support lifetime savings accounts: "President George W. Bush is expected to push for new tax-free savings accounts during the upcoming presidential race by promoting a bill by a fellow Texas Republican, Representative Sam Johnson. Under the Lifetime Savings Accounts Act of 2004, H.R. 4078, Americans would be able to contribute up to $5,000 a year to two types of savings accounts and withdraw money at any time without penalty."

Lights out on regulators: "If there's any lesson that policy makers should have learned from the electricity blackouts throughout California in 2002 and then on the East Coast earlier this year, it is that the wrong sort of electric power deregulation can cause soaring prices and leave consumers literally in the dark. In California, homeowners and businesses had to ration their electricity use, dim the lights, and turn off their air conditioners. A basic service we as Americans take for granted -- cheap and uninterrupted access to electric power for light, heat, running computers, poweringhair dryers and dishwashers, and accessing the internet -- was suddenly scarce."

Jefferson would be disappointed: "Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction." --Thomas Jefferson

The Leftist's anti-motto: "Remember that if the opportunities for great deeds should never come, the opportunities for good deeds are renewed day by day. The thing for us to long for is the goodness, not the glory." --F.W. Faber

Australia's most Leftist State government, led by Steve Bracks, wants phone-tapping powers (surprise!). Max Teichman comments: "Bracks is determined to give his Ombudsman such sweeping powers. I have little doubt George Brouwer is a man of integrity, but he could be replaced tomorrow and another government could use such powers as it saw fit. But as to this government's fitness; quite seriously, who would wish to entrust them with such powers? Amazingly, our civil libertarians who dined out on the evils of phone tapping for years, maintain a total, complicit silence. Like our feminists when the Afghan girl led her team in the Olympic parade. The first one ever. Not interested. Having screeched with the best of them about the US body bags certain to come out of Afghanistan, our feminists seem to have lost all interest when they didn't appear. Sod Afghanistan.

New search engine: The little-known United States company is taking aim at Google and other industry leaders such as Yahoo! with a new search engine called Clusty.com, due to begin this week after four years of fine-tuning. The search engine's name refers to the clustering technology that Vivisimo has refined to sort search results into different categories related to the initial search request. The technology aims to simplify online search by breaking down results into related categories instead of bunching them in a single listing that can span tens of thousands of links scattered across hundreds of Web pages... Vivisimo, a Pittsburgh company, has already has attracted a cult following". I tried it using the search-term "johnray". I liked the Google results best.

I have just put up on SOCIALIZED MEDICINE an article by a medical specialist reader who explains that the high costs of medical treatment in the USA are to a significant extent non-medical. A large part of what you pay goes to comply with purely bureaucratic requirements of the government and to line the pockets of trial lawyers.

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

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They have put up a man whose policies seem to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though they have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and big egos 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.

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