TUESDAY ROUNDUP

A brief version of my roundup again today

On Dissecting Leftism I argue that Christians are more tolerant than secularists

On Political Correctness Watch I note evidence that boys at school are hopelessly incorrect despite all the Leftist brainwashing they get

On Greenie Watch I note a scientific report that suggests that we need MORE air pollution to fight global warming

On Education Watch I note that economists have discovered that parenting style has little influence on how well a kid achieves but how intelligent the parent is matters greatly.

On Socialized Medicine I note cases of bureaucratic murder in Britains National Health system

On Gun Watch I note that Alaska is making life easier for gun owners

On Leftists as Elitists I reproduce some obnoxious comments from an atheist elitist

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ELSEWHERE

Blair depends on Scottish and Welsh votes: "The Conservatives won England in the general election, in votes but not in seats. Both the Conservatives and Labour gained more than eight million English votes, but the Conservatives finished more than 50,000 ahead. This trend is worrying for Labour. In 1997 they had a majority in England over the Conservatives of more than 3.5 million votes. In only two elections the whole of that lead has melted away. If the trend is not reversed, the Conservatives will have their own large lead in English votes at the next election. This time, the first-past-the-post system has worked in Labour�s favour, against the Conservatives and against the Lib Dems. In 2005, although they were behind in votes, Labour led in seats by 286 to 193. But there will be comprehensive boundary changes in the course of this Parliament; Labour will not again enjoy such an excessive advantage"

Islamic terrorism draws on European and American thinking: "We know that not every political movement has created a terrorist splinter group, or served as an excuse for terrorism. Actually, terrorism has been the favourite method of extreme socialists only - both of the (left-wing) international, and the (right-wing) national varieties. Since the Jacobins of the French revolution held a "Reign of Terror" in 1794, the international socialists (communists) and national socialists (fascists) have shared a common tendency to use terrorism. Modern terrorism was born within a year, 1967-1968. International socialists (communists) started the fashion all over the world simultaneously, which should make us suspicious about the common roots. National socialists followed suit, turning Marxists of Muslim origin into Islamists of Marxist origin".

David Brooks on "Global governance" nonsense: "The people who talk about global governance begin with the same premises as the world government types: the belief that a world of separate nations, living by the law of the jungle, will inevitably be a violent world. Instead, these people believe, some supranational authority should be set up to settle international disputes by rule of law. They know we're not close to a global version of the European superstate. So they are content to champion creeping institutions like the International Criminal Court. They treat U.N. General Assembly resolutions as an emerging body of international law. They seek to foment a social atmosphere in which positions taken by multilateral organizations are deemed to have more "legitimacy" than positions taken by democratic nations.... We'll never accept it, first, because it is undemocratic. It is impossible to set up legitimate global authorities because there is no global democracy, no sense of common peoplehood and trust. So multilateral organizations can never look like legislatures, with open debate, up or down votes and the losers accepting majority decisions. Instead, they look like meetings of unelected elites, of technocrats who make decisions in secret and who rely upon intentionally impenetrable language, who settle differences through arcane fudges. Americans, like most peoples, will never surrender even a bit of their national democracy for the sake of multilateral technocracy".

Home-ownership should be a GOP priority: "The issue is the proposed transformation of the Federal National Mortgage Association and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, commonly known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Those Republicans who say that they wish to "reform" Fannie and Freddie put their party at risk, their own careers at risk, and the American Dream at risk. Yet amazingly, their effort to destroy the ownership-expanding function of Fannie and Freddie is gaining momentum. Their argument is that Fannie and Freddie, as private institutions with implicit public support, are interfering with the pure private free market in home mortgages, because they deliberately subsidize low- and moderate-income home buyers. Greenspan, Baker, and Shelby see such ownership-fostering as the devil's work of too much big government and also as a distortion of the housing market. Beyond those concerns -- to the politico-historical reality that home ownership is public good as well as a private good -- they simply cannot see. Some Republicans, happily, defended the pragmatic idea of widespread private ownership against the onslaught of ideologues. Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky, for example, declared, "We must make sure the institutions are financially sound, but we must also make sure that we do not do anything to jeopardize the American dream of homeownership." The American Dream: that's the key idea here".

You lose money when you save: "Today, a typical money market yield (I use the figure for Merrill Lynch Ready Assets Trust) is 2.13%: if you invest $1,000 at 2.13%, you will get $21.30 in interest over the course of a year. But you won't receive the full $21.30. You'll have to pay taxes on that amount. Currently, the marginal federal income tax rate is 35%, which reduces the yield to $13.85. But thanks to persistent inflation, the value of both the interest you earn and the money that you saved declines. Currently, the Consumer Price Index stands at 3.0%, which means that the $1,000 you invest at 2.13% will be $970 at the end of a year, and the $13.85 after-tax income you receive amounts to $13.43. So the $1,000 you saved, with the interest that it nominally earned, has purchasing power at the end of a year of $983.42. Your actual yield is -1.66%. That's right: you lose money when you save."

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

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"

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