TUESDAY ROUNDUP

Once again I give links to what I think are the best posts for the week on my various blogs:

Dissecting Leftism has a defence of Wal-Mart

Political Correctness Watch notes that black homophobia is now being blamed on whites

Greenie Watch notes that the Greenies seem to have decided that DDT is OK after all

MarxWords notes that Engels claimed that Germany had a right to conquer other lands because it was more "civilized"

Scripture blog shows why John 1:3 undermines the Trinity doctrine

Gun Watch shows how GWB is helping gun owners

Socialized Medicine shows that drug companies do actually help the poor of the world

Leftists as Elitists looks at some of the disgusting ideas of Peter Singer

Education Watch says that even Europe offers more educational choice than the USA

On Majority Rights I question the idea that climate has much influence on what we are.

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

THE U.N.

Inquiry's Senator Coleman speaks: "While many questions concerning oil-for-food remain unanswered, one conclusion has become abundantly clear: Kofi Annan should resign. The decision to call for his resignation does not come easily, but I have arrived at this conclusion because the most extensive fraud in the history of the UN occurred on his watch. Annan was at the helm of the UN for all but a few days of the oil-for-food program, and he must, therefore, be held accountable for the UN's utter failure to detect or stop Hussein's abuses. The consequences of the UN's ineptitude cannot be overstated: Hussein was empowered to withstand the sanctions regime, remain in power, and even rebuild his military."

Diplomad on the U.N. in Indonesia: "What else is the UN up to, you ask? Oh the usual that you would expect from an organization with a dozen or so well-funded agencies supposedly devoted to emergency humanitarian relief . . . no, no, not feed people or provide them medical care, what do you think the UN is, the US military or something? What is wrong with you readers? Has The Diplomad taught you nothing? The correct response is put out a press release in New York claiming to be doing all sorts of things that others, e.g., US and Australia, are doing"

It's time to evict the UN: "People such as John Kerry are always eager to get the U.N.'s good housekeeping seal of approval before America makes a foreign policy decision. Or at least Kerry and company do when there's a Republican in the White House. I don't seem to recall it's having been quite so imperative when Clinton and Lewinsky were holding down the Oval Office. Be that as it may, what nation in its right mind would surrender even a scintilla of its sovereignty to a group as loathsome as the member states of the U.N.?"

To hell with the U.N.: "I don't have any objection to the United Nations' technocratic functions. As a practical matter, if it makes sense to have a central clearinghouse to organize the building of water treatment plants in the Third World, OK, fine. Most of us agree that helping victims of natural disasters, inoculating children, feeding the starving and so forth are good things -- just as we all agree it's a good thing for our garbage to be collected. But it is a huge intellectual leap to go from saying garbage should be collected to saying that the government should collect it. Similarly, you need to demonstrate that the United Nations' noble efforts cannot be carried out by someone else."

Spear Shaker has some rather sarcastic comments about France and the U.N. More and more elaborate ways of doing nothing seems to be the French genius. "Spear Shaker" doesn't seem to be a bad sort of guy for a Californian: He reads Australian newspapers and regularly ridicules both global warming and Jacques Chirac. An excellent start!

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

ELSEWHERE

Orcinus strikes back. Dear me! The shallowness of Leftist thinking does give me lots of laughs at times. A little while ago, I did a demolition job on the naive pontifications of a Leftist tyro named Orcinus. It was such a good squash of poor old Orcinus that Instapundit linked to it and made the comment about me that you see towards the top of the Green column to the left of this page. Orcinus has apparently been seething about that ever since. I commented two days ago that Leftist ideologue Steve Kangas was "brain-dead". Orcinus posted yesterday what he seems to think is a "Gotcha" about that -- noting that Kangas in fact died a few years ago -- the whole of him, not just his brain! (I noted that fact yesterday myself). So Orcinus makes the highly original claim that I should have googled Kangas to check out whether he was alive or not before I criticized him! I at first thought that was a pretty hilarious requirement for Orcinus to have come up with all by his little self but on second thoughts I rather like it. Hey guys! Get the word out: If anybody is sprouting Leftist fruitcakery, he is probably DEAD! Let me say again, however, that I am sorry to hear of the sad way Kangas died.

More fun! Ron Bailey has a sarcastic article about a recent conference of political psychologists which paraded claims that Right-wing people are "authoritarian" and hence mentally diseased. Their basis for the claim was an old one, however: The work of Robert Altemeyer, who has produced a questionnaire (the "RWA scale") that supposedly measures this dreadful right-wing disease of "authoritarianism". But, guess what? Altemeyer himself reports (p. 239 of his 1988 book "Enemies of Freedom") that Leftists are just as likely as Rightists to get high scores on his scale! So what makes his RWA scale a measure of ANYTHING Rightist is a profound mystery. How can it be Rightist if Leftists score high on it? So even if what he studies is pathological, it is not particularly Right-wing! But Leftists never let evidence bother them, of course. There are heaps of cases of Leftist "scientists" ignoring their own evidence, in fact -- e.g. here. Bailey also refers to some even more antique claims of Rightist psychopathology that I have debunked many times. See here

Norberg comments on Swedish television: "When the TV4 reporter in Thailand criticised bad relief efforts, he complained that the rescue teams went up and down the streets, shouting out information and instructions - in Thai. "Of course that doesn't help Swedes", he complained. What? They speak Thai in Thailand? The arrogance! The insolence!"

Ralph Peters: "The Saudi Arabian government and individual Saudis have spent billions of dollars spreading Wahhabi extremism and fostering hatred. No expense is spared to vilify Israel or the West. But when it comes to easing the misery of their fellow Muslims, the world-champ hypocrites in Riyadh just ain't interested. As of last week, the Saudis had pledged a pitiful $20 million to the tsunami-relief effort. That's a Saudi prince's bar-and-bordello budget for a weekend in Paris. Even the devout Muslims of Indonesia's devastated Aceh province don't qualify for Saudi charity. The images of peerless suffering aren't enough to open any Arab wallets, for that matter".

There are some MOST disturbing cases of American injustice reported here. And at least some are from from impeccably conservative sources like Phyllis Schlafly and Cato. It makes me glad I live in Australia. I don't agree with most of the opinions expressed in the article but the facts it reports would worry anyone. And Jeff Jacoby's post on American adoption laws is very troubling too.

My latest posting on MarxWords shows that Engels advocated co-operation with other Leftists to achieve State control of industry, communications and education as steps towards Communism. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at John 8:58.

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

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

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the 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.

Leftists 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.

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.

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