AUSTRALIA DAY TODAY

Australia day is a national holiday. It commemorates the arrival in Australia of the first white settlers on 26 Jan., 1788. So I guess it is terribly politically incorrect these days. There is minimal criticism of it, however. My many relatives on my mother's side have for many years been celebrating it with a get-together over a BBQ. It is normally the one time of the year that we see one-another so it is nice to have that opportunity to keep in touch. There are usually about 20 of us. The children who were brought along by their parents many years ago still come -- now bringing their own children with them. And that of course is a great delight to us all.

My Burns Night last night was a great (if lowkey) success. The cockaleekie soup, haggis, tatties, neeps and clootie dumpling were all first class. Pipe music was played, the haggis was properly addressed and favourite Burns poems were read. We were all a bit too old to hit the Scotch whisky too heavily, though.

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ELSEWHERE

LOL. My passing mention of a certain poisonous Leftist site yesterday produced the predictable vituperative response. Pure abuse. Nothing to reply to there at all. But I think we can safely take it that their admission "And, Yes, It Is Hatred That Warms Our Heart" is a sincere one. I discuss the central role of hate in Leftist psychology at some length here.

Interesting thought from a reader: "Do you think some Dems and Libs are upset with Bush because they know he is doing what Clinton should have done? Clinton could have gone down as one of the greatest had he toppled the Taliban and Al Qaeda, but he is in danger of being forgotten, stuck between the Cold War and the War on Terror. IMO he screwed Gore (thank GOD). If he had attacked the Taliban, I think Gore would have walked in the Oval office. That event would have dispelled the notion that the Dems are weak on security. But Clinton's lack of action added to that notion. I think a small bit of what we are seeing is the Dems angry at what could have been".

Kay S. Hymowitz argues that America really is becoming two countries, one rich and one poor-but it's not because of any economic or racial injustice. It's because children born and raised in married, two-parent families are on average much more likely to succeed than children brought up by divorced or never-married mothers. Cultural renewal, not social services, is what's needed to promote prosperity for all-the American version of equality.

See here some details of discussions with the Pope on the difficulties of reconciling Islam and democracy. Two reports are available discussing the Pope's views on the issue. One view is seen as pessimistic and another optimistic. The pessimistic view is that reconciliation is nearly impossible and would require changes in Islam never seen before. The optimistic view is essentially the same.

Did the socialist and pro-Mussolini FDR save capitalism? You don't need to make any kind of fancy free market economic argument to disprove this nonsensical Leftist claim. David T. Beito uses simple historical reasoning, the calendar and a quick look at the election returns to torpedo this myth.

Prince of Wales helps to enhance Wal-Mart's image: "The world's biggest retail corporation, which is under fire from environmentalists, trade unions and community leaders, has enlisted an unlikely champion to try to improve its image. Lee Scott, the chief executive of Wal-Mart, which owns Asda, the second-biggest retailer in Britain, had a two-hour meeting with the Prince of Wales at Clarence House".

Iraq war not a big burden on the huge American economy: "Critics of the war in Iraq often complain about the "escalating cost of the war." Listening to them, you'd never know that the war is one of the least expensive in American history. Robert Whaples, professor of economics at Wake Forest University, has measured the cost of each major American war up through the first Gulf War. We took these costs and compared them to the cost of the Iraq war and found that the Iraq experience has consumed a smaller percentage of GDP (just 2 percent of one year's wealth creation) than every other American war except the first Gulf War (which measured just 1 percent of GDP).

I like it!: "Activists who want U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter to pay a personal price for ruling New London, Conn., could seize private property for a development project rallied Sunday in Souter's small hometown, arguing the town should take Souter's home to build a hotel.... He said the five Supreme Court justices who sided with the Connecticut city on the eminent domain controversy "shot a hole in the Constitution." He said opponents should organize nationwide and vote officials out of office if they push similar projects. Doug Schwartz, of New London, Conn., urged the crowd on. He said eminent domain problems have plagued the city for decades. Clements said he and volunteers gathered 188 signatures Saturday in support of having the town take Souter's home so the property could be turned into a hotel -- the "Hotel Lost Liberty"."

Why am I not weeping? "A civil-registered Dassault Falcon 20E VIP business jet operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF) crashed on 9 January killing the crew and much of the senior leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Ground Forces"

Marc Morano, the journalist who blew the whistle on the fake "war hero" status of John Murtha, has got a lot of flak over his story. He has however had a chance to defend himself on CNN. Transcript here

Mike Jericho has a BIG post on bias at the BBC. I won't even try to excerpt it but it mainly concerns their pro-Muslim stance. Mike has obviously put a lot of work into it so I think it is worth a read.

The latest issue of Ovi Magazine is out with lots to browse through.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

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" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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