A failed study of academic ideology

A study published late last year by sociologists John F. Zipp and Rudy Fenwick under the heading "Is the Academy a Liberal Hegemony? The Political Orientations and Educational Values of Professors" has got a fair bit of attention. It is a rather desperate attempt to deny the obvious -- that American university and college teachers are overwhelmingly Leftist.

They concede that party identification runs 7 to 1 in favour of Democrats among professors but argue that this does not adequately reflect ideology. Conservatives would certainly agree with that -- seeing professors as much more extreme Leftists than most Democrat voters are. That is the WRONG conclusion, however, according to the zippy one. He and his friend in fact argue that a lot of those academic Democrats are really centrists!

The study has been thoroughly shot down on a number of grounds by others (e.g. here and here) but I thought I should have a look at it nonetheless. I spent 20 years or so trying to measure people's political attitudes as precisely as possible and have over 100 academic journal articles in print reporting on the results of that. So the research concerned really is in my line of country. I thought I might be able to see defects that others have missed.

And I sure did! The attitude surveys from which they derived their data had only a 50% response rate! For many purposes that may not matter. That is actually a fairly good response rate compared to attitude surveys and opinion polls in general. But there is ONE occasion where a low response rate does matter a great deal. And that is the sort of occasion we have in the present case: Where one's sample includes a large number of political extremists. I tried for many years to get Communists and Nazis to complete my attitude surveys. I used every trick in the book to persuade them to do the task -- including getting recommendations of the task from their own authorities. But the comrades just would NOT do the task. They obviously felt -- probably rightly --that the results could be used to "get at" them in some way. And, as we all know, academe is now the only place where Marxism still has a strong following. I taught in a Sociology Department at a major university myself for many years so I can vouch for the popularity of Marx in such places. And what is true of Marxists as far as paranoia is concerned is probably also true of the fruitier versions of Leftism that also infest academe.

So Zipp and friend based their research on data from which the real Leftists were self-excluded! No wonder they found that the Leftists they did have were rather moderate! Rather hilarious, really.

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Let the healing begin?

Disgraced former prosecutor Mike Nifong acknowledged Thursday there is "no credible evidence" that three Duke lacrosse players committed any of the crimes he accused them of more than a year ago, offering for the first time a complete and unqualified apology. "We all need to heal," Nifong said. "It is my hope we can start this process today." Source.

MK – I saw this story last week, incase some leftie catamite decides to be a smartass about it, but forgot to blog about it. Hope you all are feeling warm and fuzzy folks, because now that reputations have been tarnished, millions gouged out of innocents and lives ruined, good ol’ Nifong wants to ‘heal’. That’s right, he wants to ‘heal’ and would like this ‘healing’ to start posthaste folks. Well I hope the victims consider this very briefly and tell him, sorry Nifong, but we’re all outta healin’ today, but we do have cans though, a years supply, of whupass just for you.

Get stuffed

Pace University student Stanislav Shmulevich is facing "hate crime" charges for putting a copy of the koran into a toilet bowl.
Daubing swastikas on the restroom walls and damaging a menorah at the same university isn't a hate crime.
Neither is displaying a crucifix immersed in urine a hate crime. Or burning the flag.
But muslims and their sensibilities are somehow special......
Can you spell "dhimmitude"?
The good news is that there's a huge groundswell of support for this guy, including lawyers prepared to defend him.
We have to draw a line somewhere and this is as good a place as any. More to follow.
Update: more here: and here:

oi! lefty apologists:

Haneef knew of bomb plot, says minister

July 31, 2007 05:45pm

Article from: NEWS.com.au

MOHAMED Haneef was told "nothing has been found out about you yet" and advised to leave the country on a seemingly false pretence by his brother in an internet conversation on the weekend of the foiled terrorist attacks in Glasgow and London.

The internet chatroom conversation between the Gold Coast doctor and his brother in India showed he had an awareness of the terrorist plot, Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews said today.

Mr Andrews revealed details of the online conversation to back his decision to cancel the doctor's working visa which he said led him to have concerns about Dr Haneef.

Some accused are more equal than others

FORMER NSW state Labor MP Steven Chaytor has had his assault conviction quashed in the NSW District Court. Mr Chaytor, 30, was convicted in January for kicking his former lover, Fee Fen Njoo, during a fight at their Sydney home last December. Judge Ashford also quashed an 18-month apprehended violence order against Mr Chaytor.

He was expelled from the Australian Labor Party (ALP), with NSW Premier Morris Iemma at the time declaring he would not sit in parliament with someone who hit a woman. A spokesman for Mr Iemma said today the Premier would comment on the latest turn. He said any reinstatement of the former MP to the ALP remained a matter for the party. Source.

MK – That’s lefties for you, if the guy was a Muslim Doctor or something, it’s innocent, wrongfully accused, witch-hunt, HoWARd & his regime, wait till a bomb explodes, gulags and what not. But if you don’t quite fit their minority profile or can’t be used to bash up John Howard, do go looking for help from lefties. Chaytor fits the picture of the hated whitey and his former lover is a woman and of non-white background, sorry, you’re all outta luck Steven. Chaytor is lucky she had not since become a lesbian; the lefties would probably have reversed their opposition to capital punishment just for him.

Back when Chaytor was first charged and facing trial Mr Iemma was full of comment, couldn’t keep his mouth shut, screw all that innocent until proven guilty, wouldn’t sit next to a fellow who beat women and all that. Well now that that Chaytor has been cleared, we can’t reach Premier Iemma, no comment, not his problem, must be out looking for the cat that got his tongue.

Why Brits still emigrate to Australia

Australian financial journalist Noel Whittaker says salaries may be much higher in the UK but the cost of living is way above that in Australia. Although it is wildly at variance with the exchange rate, his suggestion that purchasing power parity is reached by equating one Australian dollar to one British pound is in line with what I have observed too

I have just returned from a fact-finding trip to Britain. Let me assure you, from a financial point of view at least, that this is the lucky country. Now I know that Aussies look longingly at the salaries paid in Britain and imagine themselves living handsomely on 50,000 pounds a year, which is equivalent to $116,000 here, but you have to understand that prices there have the same nominal value as in Australia. A main course in a restaurant may be 30 pounds in Britain and $30 in Australia, so the cost of living is more than double ours. Believe me, it's a shock to the system to put 40 litres of petrol in your rental car and discover that the cost is 40 quid or $A88.

But that's not the end of it. There is a VAT (value added tax) of 17.5 per cent on most things you buy, and many restaurants add a 15 per cent compulsory service charge as well. It makes our GST of 10 per cent look cheap.

I discussed wealth-creation strategies with a director of a British firm that specialises in financial planning for high-net-worth people. He was green with envy at our superannuation system, and told me that most of his work revolved around estate planning because Britain had high death duties [Australia has none]. This is a rapidly growing market because property prices have been rising dramatically and more and more families are facing death duties as the family home is not exempt.

We discussed borrowing for investment, which is one of the best strategies to create wealth in Australia because the interest is tax deductible, and income from both property and shares carries great tax concessions. I was amazed to discover that investment borrowing is rarely used in Britain because there are no concessions whatsoever. If you borrow to invest, you pay tax at your top marginal rate on the income from that investment, yet you get no deduction for the interest. Therefore, you may be losing up to 40 per cent of the income in tax while being forced to pay the interest from after-tax dollars.

Housing affordability is a hot topic in Britain, just like in Australia, and some building societies have even gone to the extent of lending far more man the value of the house. One newspaper gave the example of a couple with no deposit who were buying their first home for 152.000 pounds, the average home price. and who were able to qualify for a loan of 190,000 pounds to enable them to consolidate their other debts and get a foothold in the housing market. This means that they will have a negative equity in their home for many years and will be reliant on capital gain to get back to square one. This is a high-risk situation and, to make matters worse, the Bank of England lifted interest rates to 5.75 per cent earlier this month, putting further pressure on home-owners' budgets and increasing the prospect of a fall in home prices.

We had a break in Spain on the way home and the conditions are no different there. In Spain, VAT is 16 per cent and our tour guide in Valencia was bemoaning the fact that home prices had risen so much that she had been forced to take out a 40-year mortgage just to buy a unit [condo].

The above article appeared in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on July 29, 2007

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

HILLARY'S YOUTHFUL LETTERS

The NYT has some (no doubt carefully selected) excerpts from letters written by Hillary during her college years. The excerpts below give some idea of the pathologies that drive her: Inauthenticity, misanthropy and narcissism

"Since Xmas vacation, I've gone through three and a half metamorphoses and am beginning to feel as though there is a smorgasbord of personalities spread before me," Ms. Rodham wrote to Mr. Peavoy in April 1967. "So far, I've used alienated academic, involved pseudo-hippie, educational and social reformer and one-half of withdrawn simplicity." ....

"Can you be a misanthrope and still love or enjoy some individuals?" Ms. Rodham wrote in an April 1967 letter....

Her letters at times betray a kind of innocent narcissism over "my lost youth," as she described it in a letter shortly after her 19th birthday. She wrote of being a little girl and believing that she was the only person in the universe. She had a sense that if she turned around quickly, "everyone else would disappear. "I'd play out in the patch of sunlight that broke the density of the elms in front of our house and pretend there were heavenly movie cameras watching my every move," she says. She yearns for all the excitement and discoveries of life without losing "the little girl in the sunlight."

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Iraq Soccer Team Wins Asia Cup


Remember the bad old days when Uday Hussein used to run the team. Well good on them for winning and a big thank you to a lot of heroes who made this happen.

Pictures from FOXNews, NewsBlaze and Michael Yon.

Good on ya Judge A.T. Frank

A 73-year-old man has been ordered to clean a veterans memorial with a toothbrush for taking part in a scam to solicit scrap yards for metal, saying it was to be used to build a memorial for soldiers in the Iraq war. Philip Kolinski and another man were arrested after scrap yards reported the men soliciting metal donations for a sculpture. Detectives said the men sold the metal and kept the money. "You certainly should be ashamed," Saginaw County District Court Judge A.T. Frank said as he sentenced Kolinski to clean the veterans memorial in front of Governmental Center on Aug. 7. "You will have a toothbrush and bucket with a placard saying you stole from veterans," Frank said. Source.

Islamic Rage Boy is Hate Speech?



Shakeel Bhat above is now widely referred to as "Islamic rage boy" because of his constant angry demonstrating in favour of various Muslim causes. Given the unrestrained denunciations of Christians, Israel and America that are Mr Bhat's almost-daily output, you might think that the heading on this post refers to Mr Bhat. Sadly, it does not. It refers to a drawing of Mr Bhat that you can see on various conservative websites:

"A spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Ibrahim Hooper, is unconvinced. Mr Hooper says: "I find the term Islamic Rage Boy offensive, as would anyone who applied the term to their own faith. It's an Islamophobic product by Muslim-bashers on internet hate sites."

He compares the cartoon to the anti-semitic imagery of 1930s Nazi Germany. "The cartoon is part of an overall growth of anti-Muslim rhetoric in this country. Someone is trying to link Islam with violence and anger and profiting from it."

Source

Mr Hooper must have recently arrived from Mars. The "Someone" who is trying to "link Islam with violence and anger" is any number of Muslim demonstrators and terrorists. And the antisemitic imagery of today comes not from Germany but from Muslim cartoonists. See below for an example:



GM's Corner has more of such cartoons. So, on the one hand we have quite accurate depictions of Mr Bhat and on the other we have grossly distorted depictions of Jews. But it is the accurate depiction that is hate! I wonder when Mr Hooper will denounce his Middle-Eastern co-religionists as Nazis?


(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

BEAUTIFUL!

"93-YEAR-OLD, BEATEN BLOODY, TAKES .38 CALIBER JUSTICE

July 28th, 2007 by Aurora

A 93-year-old man, Willie Lee Hill, had a gun in the right place at the right time. He was at home when a 24-year-old thug, Douglas B. Williams Jr., 24, of El Dorado, broke into his house to rob him. Williams took a coke can and beat the old man unconscious (at least 50 times) so he could go about his robbery unimpeded.

Unfortunately for the young thug, Hill came to while he was still in the house. Covered in blood, Hill got his .38-caliber handgun ..."
from Aurora over at Midnight Sun
go read the rest--it'll give you the same big grin I'm wearing right now.

Why Does the Left hate Israel?

A small excerpt (a summary) below from a very large and thorough article by Richard Baehr here. I think the reasons given below all have some point but the main reason is basic: Leftists hate success in others and Israel is in many ways a great success story. Leftists always claim that they want to lift up the poor and downtrodden. But their real motive can be inferred from what they do whenever they can: They never do much good for the poor but they do attack the rich and successful. "By their fruits shall ye known them", as a wise Jew once said

1. It is an easy way to express one's hatred for America.

2. Israel is viewed as an outpost of colonialism , and an active practitioner of it.

3. Israel is a western nation, and hence can be judged by the left. Israel is not protected by cultural relativism, as the Arabs are.

4. Leftist Christian churches can escape any lingering guilt about the Holocaust, by turning Israel into a villain. Some leftist churches hate Israel because they think this will help protect their members in the holy land- in other words they feel threatened.

5. Ferocious Muslim hatred of Israel and the Jews reinforces the natural cowardice of many on the left who go along with the Muslims to stay out of their line of fire.

6. Jewish leftists are prominent in the anti-Israel movement. This opens the floodgates for everybody else.

7. Israel is attacked because the secular left is appalled by the influence of religious settlers and their biblical connections to the land of Israel, and by the support for Israel by evangelical Christians, and Christian Zionists.

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Liberals trying to silence FOX News

It’s my understanding that FOX News is but one of the many News channels on American cable TV, aren’t liberals supposed to be the self-appointed guardians of free speech, I say self-appointed, because the true guardians of free speech are over in Iraq and elsewhere, dodging bullets, RPGs and watching for IEDs and unbiased media vultures. If I’m not mistaken most of the other channels are infested by liberals, so why can’t Americans get their news from a Conservative-inclined channel. Sounds to me like those liberal parasites are rather sour that they can’t force everyone to visit their useless blogs and listen to their liberal mates lecturing the masses on the new direction to their Socialist hell.
Liberal activists are stepping up their campaign against Fox News Channel by pressuring advertisers not to patronize the network. MoveOn.org, the Campaign for America's Future and liberal blogs like DailyKos.com are asking thousands of supporters to monitor who is advertising on the network, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Once a database is gathered, an organized phone-calling campaign will begin, said Jim Gilliam, vice president of media strategy for Brave New Films, a company that has made anti-Fox videos. The groups have successfully pressured Democratic presidential candidates not to appear at any debate sponsored by Fox, and are also trying to get Home Depot Inc. to stop advertising there. Source.
Let those liberal morons think that they are something to be feared because they “pressured Democratic presidential candidates not to appear at any debate sponsored by Fox”, we all know it’s because the Democrats have no balls, to put it bluntly. Let’s hope when the liberal stooges start making calls, whining about how some free speech is more equal than other free speech, that the good folks at Home Depot Inc. tell em to get stuffed. In all honesty my knowledge of Home Depot is quite limited, but from what I can see on their website, they sell tools, hardware, building supplies, flooring etc, you know, things that involve work and you have to pay money to get them. We all know most liberals are welfare queens, substance abusers, always-angling-for-a-free-ride, criminals and other such losers, so I really don't think a couple of liberals boycotting them will matter, in fact, their incidents of shoplifting and pilfering should drop if liberals stay away.

Last word on the Haneef case from me

Actually I haven’t really said anything from the start, but never mind. In my view, some leftie fruitcakes need to take a long cold shower. Ok, a few backsides need to get kicked, for making stuff up, maybe the odd apology, for making stuff up, but that’s about it. The Howard-haters obviously want him sacked and the anti-terror laws scrapped, not going to happen, so buy some lemons and get over it. From my understanding the immigration minister acted according to advice given by the Australian Federal Police (AFP), well what else did we want him to do? Say the AFP calls the immigration minister and tells him, listen we think xyz is busy plotting death and terror. The immigration minister can hardly be expected to tell them to piss off and launch his own investigation to verify their story, before acting on the advice.

As for the anti-terror laws, another cold shower is needed, the guy was arrested, held and the whole thing went up in flames when it came before the court. The way some people are carrying on is like Dr. Haneef spent 55 years, being beaten everyday in jail or was almost shot by a firing squad if not for their boring placards and petitions. We have to look at this incident as not in some sort of vacuum, Muslim Doctors were caught just weeks ago in the UK plotting to murder and maim as many people as they could. Haneef is a Doctor and a Muslim, he is also the cousin to one of them; he is not some native of the Amazon jungle who was selling cookies and native artworks in Australia when he got caught up in all this.

It is regrettable the he could not see his new born baby and had to spend a week or two in custody, but that’s just tough, it’s not like he got his legs and fingers broken, he can still go home now and carry on with his life. Ultimately we need to put all this into perspective, there are many fathers, mothers, sons, daughters and other relatives who will never go home from New York, Bali, London, Yemen, Madrid, Beslan etc. If the odd person gets a bit inconvenienced by all this, then tough, suck it up, move on and lay the blame where it actually belongs, not just at those who are doing their best to protect us.

Bottom of the Barrel Movie Reviews: Cannibal Holocaust

WARNING: The following post contains screenshots of tribal punishments and male and female nudity. If you are offended by such images, scroll down quickly past them and do not read the article, look at the screenshots, or watch the film they are taken from. If you ignore this warning and are offended (despite the clear nature of said warning), and still want to bitch, please direct any complaints and questions to that brick wall over there. Thank you.

This is the one. In exploitation cinema, this is the King. Many films claim to be “The most controversial film of the week, month, year, decade, generation etc” but only this film deserves the title of “The most controversial film ever made”.

Why do I say that? Well let me ask you this:

Do you know of another movie that has the actors killing various animals on film (and not in your nature documentary kind of way) resulting in animal cruelty charges for the director? (Note that none of these scenes have been captured for this review)

Do you know of another movie that has actual footage of real life executions in it (and more than likely not after a fair trial)?

Do you know of another movie where the footage looked so real that many people over the years believed they had found an authentic snuff film? (Particularly since the cast could not be found when the film was released)

Do you know of another movie where the director, as well as facing the aforementioned animal cruelty charges, was also brought up on charges for having the cast killed – and initially lost the case?

I thought not.

But it is not just the gore and violence that make this film stand out. If it were, this would be nothing more than your standard Italian splatter exploitation film, (albeit a meaner, nastier one than most). This film has a very distinct theme running not only through the “movie” that was filmed, but also the whole set up and aftermath of it. And that is something wholly unseen in exploitation cinema.

But we shall come to that soon enough. First let’s discuss the movie. I was fortunate enough to get my hands on Grindhouse’s 2 Disc Deluxe Collector's Edition and it kicks off with the following message:

The following motion picture contains intense scenes of extreme violence and cruelty.

As distributors of this we film, we wish to state with absolute sincerity that by no means do we condone the artistic decisions employed by the makers of this film. However, as firm believers in the constitutional right of free speech, we do not believe in censorship.

To quote Thomas Jefferson, “It behoves every man who values the liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others.”

Therefore, we are presenting CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST for the very first time in its uncut, uncensored original form, with all sequences photographed by the filmmakers, however offensive and repugnant, presented fully intact.

What you will see will definitely shock and offend you. Nonetheless, it should be viewed as a disturbing historical document of a bygone era of extreme irresponsibility which no longer exists, and hopefully, will never exist again.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
– George Santayana

The basic premise is that a team of documentary filmmakers who went into the Amazon to find the last cannibal tribes disappeared. The film begins with a second expedition being organised to go and discover what became of them and to retrieve any footage they might have recorded. The second half of the film is where the lost footage is shown as editors and TV station executives prepare the footage for broadcast.

Now you may be thinking that this sounds familiar and it does since The Blair Witch Project pretty much (poorly) ripped off the whole “lost footage movie-within-a-movie” concept with a witch instead of cannibals. And I don’t recall seeing any interviews with the BW crew acknowledging the “inspiration” they “borrowed” from Cannibal Holocaust, so they can consider themselves busted, just like I busted JK Rowling and her “borrowing” of “inspiration” from the movie Troll. (And FYI, I had someone from the US Department of Justice email me saying she noticed the similarities and popped online to see if anyone else had noticed it – but I digress)

So Professor Monroe heads off on the trail of the documentary crew, meets the cannibals and wins them over, bartering for the return of the film crew’s footage, along the way encounter a ritual punishment for adultery, cannibals tenderising meat and cutting up bodies.






But it is in the second half of the film, where the TV studio is editing the lost footage that the movie really gets interesting. Now as I said earlier, while you may be thinking that all there is, is more violence, gore, and exploitation, you would be wrong. There is much more going on in this film there are some very choice commentary on the media and its manipulation of the truth.

The studio execs plan to air the footage such as it is to allow the people to decide on its merits. But for the special, they want Professor Monroe to host it and to film interviews with the relatives of the documentary film makers to splice in between the lost footage, I guess to get an idea of what they were really like

Unfortunately we know what the documentary film makers were really like since the footage recovered shows what a bunch of sadistic arseholes they were.

Doing things like shooting a native in the leg in order to make it easier to track one tribe back to their village. And then when they get there, terrorising the natives and burning their village to show the savagery of an attack by one of the cannibal tribes and how life in the jungle "really" is. Oh and raping a member from one of the cannibal tribes…

This was them making a documentary, but obviously reality wasn’t real enough for them – sound like a big fat, leftwing piece of shit who creates his own false version of reality in his "documentaries", staging events and making things up?

And yet here was the TV studio going to show this "documentary" when it is clear to all, it is no such thing.

During the editing process, a comment is made during the editing about the sections of film with no sound "I've added in some stock music to spice things up"

Hang on. Why are they spicing anything up if this is supposed to be a documentary?

There is much of this throughout the entire latter half – both with the documentary makers themselves, and with the studio execs still wanting to show it, given that it is the most sensational documentary to come along in years. But still not sensational enough obviously.

To me a classic moment was when the documentary crew comes across a body impaled on a stake.



One of runs up with a smile on his saying something like "Oh this is awesome"

but is then reminded "Watch it, I’m shooting":


"Oh good lord - it's unbelievable. It’s horrible"

So not only do we have the obvious manipulation by the documentary makers themselves, but also by the studio. Fair enough but then we also have director Ruggero Deodato doing the exact same thing.

Remember that he made the cast sign a contract that they would disappear for a year after filming was complete – meaning no other TV or movie work, no interviews, nothing. On top of that was the decision to shoot the documentary footage section on 16mm and to do it “as is” with scenes under and over-lit, lens flares, scratches etc

So here he is, promoting a film that people are trying to say is real, while he is saying it isn't despite doing everything in his power to make people believe it is real. Could it be that he is using the media's own techniques against them? Using them to gain more publicity for his movie taking them to task for using such techniques?

And this was 20 years ago, yet it holds up even better now. Remember all those dickheads out there watching Big Brother (and that alone means they should be put to death for the betterment of society) and trying to tell you it is “reality” despite every contestant being screened and interviewed and selected for maximum conflict with the others?

Well one of the TV executives expresses a similar sentiment in that nobody really knows anything about these tribes so what does it matter if the documentary is sensationalised?

And all this in a movie where he is taking scathing shots at media manipulation in presenting things as "real" when they are anything but…

As I said, those kinds of themes are just not something you see in ordinary exploitation cinema. And certainly not something you’d expect from a film with this level of gut wrenching violence.

And make no mistake, this is not a film for the fainthearted. Aside from the animal cruelty (a turtle, a snake, a monkey, a pig, a spider, and a muskrat are all killed on camera) the general violence is also pretty damn gritty. Particularly when that surreal, ethereal orchestral score (which you hear right at the start of the film) kicks in, in direct contrast to the carnage on screen, it really adds extra to the punch.

And when you sort of know what you are in for, hearing that very atypical music at the start does put you on edge. And again, from the excellent retrospective making of documentary, that was a deliberate decision.

The gore itself is excellent. Some bits look obviously false today, but for the most part, it is well done in the fact that is not over the top as you might expect. No big gushes or intestines being flung everywhere and being filmed through the trees on a handheld camera, it looks more like something being filmed by people who didn’t want it known they were filming, such as this wonderful treatment for rapists...


The dvd is excellent – a remastered print and soundtrack, a great making of documentary, some interesting interviews and a commentary track, (not to mention the movie itself) make this a must own for all serious horror and gore fans. And there is even an option to watch the film without the animal violence scenes.

As stated, Cannibal Holocaust is the undisputed King of exploitation cinema and you cannot call yourself a true gorehound or horrorphile if you have not experienced it...

Oh yeah, and about the law suits – Deodato was cleared of any charge relating to the murder of the cast when he got them to appear on an Italian TV station to prove they had not in fact been slaughtered and eaten by cannibals. For the animal cruelty charges, despite all the animals killed being eaten by the locals on location, the issue was that they were still killed on camera for which he received a four month suspended sentence.

And I was debating mentioning this as I keep hoping that it is just some sick joke, but reports are that Cannibal Holocaust is being remade. Just let that sink in. Go back and read this review. It was not the footage that was shot that made this film what it is. It is the controversy around it and the techniques used in and for it that generated that controversy.

To the worthless fuckhead who sucks on the dicks of dead animals who approved the remake: YOU CANNOT REMAKE THIS FILM!

We know the cast isn't going to be killed by the cannibals. We know it is not going to have any footage of real life executions. We know that it is not going to have any real animals getting killed, and we know it is going to be edited and rated and released to a wide audience in cinemas. So basically there is no fucking point to the endeavour, apart from cannibalizing a film about cannibals.

And in an a somewhat more ironic way, I hope everyone involved in remaking Cannibal Holocaust is actually brutally murdered and eaten by cannibals....

Asymmetrical war? Let's even it out

Trying to appease terrorists or look for common ground - a prerequisite for opening a dialogue - is irrational. Nothing can be done to change their steadfast conviction. Indoctrinated by family, state, mosque, media, school, university, and millions of fundamentalist spokesmen that form the base structure of their societies, there is nothing that can make these people change their position that it is better to kill or die than to live.

Throughout the Islamic world, there is a blinding indoctrination that calls for conversion or submission to Islam or the destruction of the infidels. Diplomacy cannot manage this situation. The only option is war, but not a war of surgical strikes that pretend to remove the cancer without touching or damaging the other organs. The cancer is in all the organs, and they all need to be attacked. The terrorists' objectives are civilians, so the western response must also include their civilians. The Islamists will change their defiant attitude only when the West is willing to destroy the populations that sustain, protect, and applaud terrorism, and to defend itself using the same methods that were used to attack it.

Bertrand Russell said, "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubt." If the war is asymmetrical, then it is an issue of restoring its symmetry. The foremost reason for this imbalance is because the west is weak-willed. In addition to a feigned sensitivity for humankind (motivated more by political collusion than by tenderness towards its fellow man), the west fears a large-scale fire that might reduce the supply of oil. The Islamists declared war against everyone, including our elderly, women and children. The west must act the same way if it wants to put an end to the massacre. The Islamists take advantage of the humanitarian sensibilities of the "infidel" and use their civilians as human shields, but when they see that their ruse has no effect, they will tremble in fear and return to their caves.

With each passing day, the hatred of the west grows, especially towards the United States. This hatred - fruits of leftist propaganda and the sensationalist press - is opportunistic, anti-democratic and suicidal; it uses euphemisms to describe the Islamic fascists who try to justify their actions as if there were something justifiable in the murder of anyone who does not share their religion. Terrorism is never acceptable because by definition, its targets are civilians. If in more than thirty years, Arab governments have not demonstrated any interest in stopping the terrorists, it is because they are part of the plan. The jihadis who attempted to carry out the most recent thwarted attacks in London were doctors; their reason was because Salmon Rushdie had been knighted. The murderers occupy all social strata.

If the west wants to return to normalcy and establish peace on Earth, it needs to finish off Saudi Arabia, the ideological mentor and financial backer of radical Islam; Iran, the promotor of Nazism and nuclear destruction; Pakistan, if Musharraf is toppled; and that leaves others like Syria, Libya, and the insignificant Hugo Chavez, who loves to participate in conflict and looks for more relations with the Islamists to gain political and military support.

Approximately every 50 years, history teaches that psychiatrically disturbed individuals achieve high levels of power, form alliances, and look to make themselves masters of the world. Nuclear proliferation has made their motives a global cause for concern. As a result of technological advances, arms and armies are more powerful, and military conflicts result in more death and destruction. Around 50 million people died in World War Two. The current world war that we face will certainly bring much more victims. Only when the Islamists are attacked by a west committed to bombing its cities, destroying its refineries and demolishing their multi-million-dollar sources of income, and obligating them to spend the coming decades reconstructing their countries and economies, will the world live in peace for another half century

Source

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Because it's Friday........

And because it's a very fine poem and Flecker deserves more recognition and I'm tired of politics right now. :-)

The Old Ships
I have seen old ships like swans asleep
Beyond the village which men call Tyre,
With leaden age o'ercargoed, dipping deep
For Famagusta and the hidden sun
That rings black Cyprus with a lake of fire;
And all those ships were certainly so old
Who knows how oft with squat and noisy gun,
Questing brown slaves or Syrian oranges,
The pirate Genoese
Hell-raked them till they rolled
Blood, water, fruit and corpses up the hold.
But now through friendly seas they softly run,
Painted the mid-sea blue or shore-sea green,
Still patterned with the vine and grapes in gold.

But I have seen,
Pointing her shapely shadows from the dawn
And image tumbed on a rose-swept bay,
A drowsy ship of some yet older day;
And, wonder's breath indrawn,
Thought I - who knows - who knows - but in that same
(Fished up beyond Ææa, patched up new
- Stern painted brighter blue -)
That talkative, bald-headed seaman came
(Twelve patient comrades sweating at the oar)
From Troy's doom-crimson shore,
And with great lies about his wooden horse
Set the crew laughing, and forgot his course.

It was so old a ship - who knows, who knows?
- And yet so beautiful, I watched in vain
To see the mast burst open with a rose,
And the whole deck put on its leaves again.

-- James Elroy Flecker

Woohoo!!

Two days after surviving an Israeli attempt on his life, a senior Islamic Jihad commander was killed in Gaza City on Thursday - along with two other terrorists - in an IAF strike on his car. Security officials said Islamic Jihad leader Omar Khatib, 32, was behind Islamic Jihad's foiled kidnap attempt near the Kissufim crossing on June 9, when three terrorists driving a jeep with TV-reporter markings infiltrated into Israel. Khatib, the officials said, was also responsible for dozens of Kassam rocket and mortar attacks on the western Negev.

Earlier Thursday, the IAF killed a Hamas member who was trying to fire an rocket-propelled-grenade at a Golani infantry force operating inside the Gaza Strip, north of the Sufa crossing and east of Khan Yunis. The troops discovered several weapon caches and clashed with a number of gunmen, wounding five. In one incident, troops targeted a pair of terrorists about to fire Kassam rockets in northern Gaza. The two were wounded, Hamas said. Source.

MK - And because I know this will cause much tut-tuting, if not wailing, amongst those leftie fruitcakes that just keep hanging around here.

Breaking News - Bracks throws in the towel

Victorian Premier Steve Bracks has resigned, just heard a bit of his speech, apparently Victoria is a better place, 400 thousand new jobs created, Victorians are better off, blah, blah. Just waiting to hear someone say he's out of touch, since John Howard says about the same thing, but his enemies keep carping that he is out of touch.

So long and good luck in the future Mr. Bracks. Any thoughts from our Victorian readers on Steve Bracks legacy, apart from the fruitcakes (you know who you are) that turn up here from Vic.

To the Gun Grabbers


More at Fortress Australia Outpost
Latest on the Lancet agitprop about Iraqi deaths

What fun! Courtesy of Michelle Malkin, there is a scholarly paper here by a statistical mathematician which finds that the "600,000 Iraqi deaths" paper published in 2004 in Lancet is internally inconsistent. Using the paper's own figures, the statistician shows that the authors cannot conclude anything from their "research".

The original paper was so out of line with normal survey methodology that those of us who are experienced in survey research pointed that out long ago but it is interesting to see the same point absolutely demonstrated. It is another example of Lancet prostituting their medical reputation to make political points. They obviously did not do a proper peer review on the paper before they accepted it and that may well be because they were so out of their field that they did not know how to do a proper review of a survey research paper. They should stick to medicine.

It may be noted that the authors of the paper refuse to release their raw data -- a most unusual thing for scientists to do. It suggests that the "research" was a fraud from beginning to end -- rather like the Mann "hockeystick" finding in climate science -- a finding that the IPCC no longer mentions!

Something Michelle seems to have overlooked, however, is that there seems to have been an attempt by Lancet to redact what they originally published. The paper Michelle cites is a version that says only 100,000 Iraqis died. Whereas the original paper said that 654,965 Iraqis died. Is this an admission? Does even Lancet now concede that they goofed? The plot thickens!

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Good dog – Thank you and RIP

A black Labrador who became a national canine hero after burrowing through white-hot, smoking debris in search of survivors at the World Trade Center site died Wednesday after a battle with cancer. Owner Mary Flood had Jake put to sleep Wednesday after a last stroll through the fields and a dip in the creek near their home in Oakley, Utah. Flood had adopted Jake as a 10-month-old disabled puppy — abandoned on a street with a broken leg and a dislocated hip.

"But against all odds he became a world-class rescue dog," said Flood, a member of Utah Task Force 1, one of eight federal search-and-rescue teams that desperately looked for human remains at ground zero. Anguished New Yorkers honored the dogs. On the evening of his team's arrival, Jake walked into a fancy Manhattan restaurant wearing his search-and-rescue vest and was promptly treated to a free steak dinner under a table. "He was a great morale booster wherever he went," says Flood. "He believed that his cup was always full, never half-full. He was always ready to work, eager to play — and a master at helping himself to any unattended food items." Source.

Happy Birthday!!

Prime Minister Howard is 68 today and he's spending his day working, in East Timor. He'll be enjoying a barbecue with Aussie troops deployed there, before returning in the evening. May he continue to lead us into the future and remain PM of Australia for his next few birthdays at least, for he's a jolly good fellow....

To his haters -

I'll be back.

A general’s impression - I hope he is right

General Jack Keane: Well I think it’s going better than we had expected, particularly as it pertains to the security operation. The success that the security operation is achieving is, in my judgment, very definable. What I have done is, in my first visit in February since the operation began, I went into neighborhoods in Baghdad and then returned 90 days later to make a comparison. And I will do the same in August. And remember, flashback to ’06. What happened is the al Qaeda and Sunni insurgents provoked a predictable response from the Shia militia by the Samarra mosque bombing and the assassination plots killing Shias. There was an overpowering response from the Shia militia into the Sunni neighborhoods where hundreds and then thousands of Sunnis and Shia were killed as the result of that. The city was in flames. No schools were operating, no government services were being provided. Marketplaces were shut down and people were shut into their homes, afraid to go out on the street. And this lasted through most of ‘06 and it was at its height in the summer.

Despite two military operations that the United States led, Together Forward One and Together Forward Two, we were not able to stop the level of violence. And then a counter offensive began in earnest in February and finally culminated with all forces in play in June. And what you see is a stark contrast to ‘06 in those neighborhoods. Because all the schools are open. The markets are teaming with people. Some operating at full capacity; some not quite there because of the level of violence in their neighborhood and some of the construction that was being done, but nonetheless a steady improvement. Government services are being administrated in the neighborhoods and again some of that is uneven because of the nature of the government of itself, but nonetheless there is an attempt to provide essential services to the population where in ‘06 there were none. And so those atmospherics are real, and I have spoken to hundreds of Iraqis in those neighborhoods and almost to a person they believe the security situation is improving. They want Americans to stay with the Iraqis to help protect them, and in the neighborhoods where the violence took place in ’06. They almost tremble at the thought of that ‘06 violence. You can hear it in their voices when they talk about what that meant to them and their children.

Gen. Keane: I think Baghdad will be stable except for an occasional car bomb by the al Qaeda. Anbar province will be stable. Diyala province will be stable and many of the provinces around Baghdad will be almost as stable. And I see us, from a security perspective, having made some very significant gains, particularly in comparison from ‘06 and from a political perspective, I absolutely see the change that is taking place from the grassroots level in the Sunni and Shia wanting change. I see that having more and more impact on this government and it may be the most successful thing that is happening in this country because the people themselves want the change. They are fed up with the violence. They want their government to start moving toward a form of reconciliation and I think that will push this government in that direction. I truly believe that in a year or so, for sure, we will have taken some very practical steps along the lines of reconciliation with the Sunnis in terms of some of the benchmarks, but even some other things that are equally substantive to them. Whole Interview with retired three-star Army general John M. Keane.

OFFICIAL WISDOM: GETTING IT EXACTLY WRONG

There is no end to official policies that are eventually seen as getting it exactly wrong -- though this recent one is rather tragic -- and when normal cyclic global cooling comes, official acceptance of the warmist scare will be seen to be yet another such folly -- much like that other famous Greenie false prophecy: Paul Ehrlich's "population bomb".

But I think there is always room for another example of official folly so let me mention one that has taken place in my home town of Brisbane.

In the old days, lots of people in Brisbane had rainwater tanks for domestic use, as the town water was rather "hard". Eventually, however, the town water improved and the tanks fell out of favour. But there were still a lot of them around. The local council eventually took notice of this and concluded that the old tanks were a health hazard. So it sent inspectors around telling people to pull down their old tanks on pain of prosecution. My neighbour over the road was one of those threatened and he did pull his tank down.

Now, however, Greenie opposition to dam building has ensured that Brisbane has a water shortage. So what is the council doing? Offering people $1,000 grants to install rainwater tanks! My bemused neigbour has signed up and reinstalled a rainwater tank roughly where his old tank used to be.

Betting that official wisdom is in fact official folly is probably the best bet in all circumstances. It is only official meddling in people's daily lives that caused the Brisbane rainwater tank fiasco. But the meddlers will always think that they know best. Don't believe them. It is almost certain that they will do more harm than good.

My FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC blog reports almost daily examples of know-alls who are getting it wrong. The whole concept of a "healthy" diet is fundamentally flawed, for instance. Who these days has not absorbed the message that a low-fat diet is healthier? The supermarkets are full of low-fat foods and the great sin of McDonalds is that their food is "high in fat". Yet a huge recent U.S. study of 50,000 people costing $400 million and lasting 8 years found absolutely no effect on health of a low-fat diet. Don't believe me? You can find the links to the actual journal articles reporting the findings in the right-hand column of my FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC blog.

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Fear trumps integrity among Leftists

They barely know what integrity is

There is a phenomena of the self hating Jew, an individual who denies his or her own identity, culture and faith, and seeks to identify and support those who make no secret of their own pathological agendas, directed against Jews. The pathology of the self hating Jew is not new. Jews were attracted to communism and socialism, because someone said, "We are all equal. You are a comrade." For the first time, Jews believed they were to be `free.' After centuries of relentless oppression the idea was intoxicating.

After the horrors of the Second World War were made clear, there were a whole sub culture of Jews, even the children of Holocaust survivors that migrated to the self hating brigades. Why? Because those Jews believed that if they could be unlike the Jews (and more like their oppressors), then no one would come for them. They would be safe and secure. Surely the oppressors would see there were `good Jews' too, noted just evil and hated Jews.

The same is true today of leftists (Jews included) who believe that siding with the racist, bigoted and dysfunctional oppressors might save them from the destiny of those their new friends promise. They are the Kapos of this generation, willing to sacrifice their own so as to save themselves. Prewar German Jews could at least hope against hope that there would be no Holocaust. Leftists of today cannot argue ignorance.

Leftists today hate freedom and democracy because those ideas have created the environment for success. Assistant Village Idiot recently noted in a comment that Arabs don't hate us because we have succeeded, but rather, because they have failed. The same is true for the leftists- their burning hatred of democracy stems from their failure to create a single instance of a functioning society that isn't a least a generation behind our own. Not even the redistribution of wealth can make up for the values and freedom that create an environment that allows for the creation of wealth.

More here. There is a sarcastic comment on the cowardice of the Left here. In case any sneering Leftist reads this, I might mention that I myself not only joined the army voluntarily in the Vietnam era and reached the rank of Sergeant but I also volunteered for a posting in Vietnam. For those who want to see the evidence, there is a pic of me in battledress here and my certificate of discharge (not that a Leftist would know what that is) is here

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

BBC staff are sent on courses to learn they shouldn't lie

"BBC bosses have been accused of wasting licence-fee money on teaching their staff not to lie.

The decision to send 16,500 employees on an "integrity" course in the wake of the fake TV shows scandal was condemned by MPs."


and still there are people who regard the BBC as a source of truth in reporting!


Justice for Banaz Mahmod?

Three family members of honour killing victim Banaz Mahmod have been jailed for life at the Old Bailey today. The 20-year-old's father, Mahmod Mahmod, 54, was among the three men sentenced, and will have to serve a minimum term of 20 years. His brother Ari, 51, will serve a minimum of 23 years.

A third killer Mohamad Hama, 30, was told he would spend at least 17 years in prison. Hama and three other men who have left the country killed her during two hours of torture at her home. She was raped and subjected to degrading sex acts before succumbing to an agonising death. She was garrotted for five minutes but took half an hour to die as Hama stamped on her neck to "let her soul out". Source. Via Conservative Beach Girl.

MK – After she was killed she was buried in a suitcase under a patio. I don’t know why they bother calling it life, when they’ll be out in 20 years or thereabouts. Should really have been electrocuted for a minimum of 5 minutes, the longer it takes for them to die the better really and a well publicized burial in a pig sty, oh and get the UK government to fund this pig sty so that there is never a shortage of pigs to continuously desecrate their graves, that should send the appropriate message. But I suppose we don't have the stomach for that sort of thing. May Banaz rest in peace.

Marxist assholes 1, children's futures, nil.....

TEACHERS have inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Iemma Government demands by blocking student report cards.

The NSW Teachers' Union has won a three-year battle to stop a "one-size-fits-all" report that would have ranked children in the classroom based on their performance.

Public school teachers are now gloating that not one of them has been disciplined over the refusal to prepare the reports requested by Premier Morris Iemma.
News.com

there's more than one way to kill a culture...

Remembrance Day parade scrapped for first time in 60 years over 'health and safety' fears

It is a quintessential part of being British: that in towns and cities up and down the country people march to commemorate the war dead on Remembrance Sunday.

But the parades that take place the length and breadth of the land could soon be a thing of the past thanks to the latest ruling from health and safety officials.

New guidelines are being introduced by police and councils which could spell an end to the tradition - by making the parades too expensive to hold.
Daily Mail UK
Strange, how those old guys in the picture managed to survive without the nannying busybodies, isn't it?
There's nothing wrong with a "health and safety" official that a length of hemp rope and nearest convenient tree branch wouldn't fix.

A fairytale?

Jo and Steph are a lesbian couple. Thirteen months ago, Steph gave birth to baby Elijah. Three months later, her partner, Jo, had little Martha in the same hospital. The babies are indeed genetic siblings. Both were conceived with the help of a syringe and a "donation" of sperm from the same man. The father? A drag queen the women met in a nightclub, whose recompense for getting them both pregnant was a cheap flight to Gran Canaria. Just to confuse matters, "Daddy" sometimes pushes the buggy, too. Ryan Egeley, a 23-year-old gay man, never wanted to be a hands-on father, but he did rather fancy the idea of being able to flit in and out of his children's lives when it pleased him. This set-up suits him perfectly. On top of all this, Elijah and Martha actually have another sibling. Three-year-old Jonah is the product of one of Jo's previous heterosexual relationships (his father is no longer on the scene). He calls Jo "Mummy" and Steph "Mama". "We had children together and we fell in love - it's just that we did things in reverse order to most people," explains Steph.

"We have a strong relationship. We adore each other and we adore our children. We are so very lucky." Of course, it will be an awfully long time, however, before any child in this household is old enough to understand what has gone on. But, for Jo, this does not matter. The important thing is that she is a mother. The two women have no plans to enter into a civil partnership - not that that would offer much more security - and seem worryingly blasÈ about the issue. "It doesn't matter. All that matters is that our children have lots of people who love them, and all we want is the very best for them," says Jo. "Nothing is for ever. I'm not going to sit here and say that Steph and I will still be together in ten years because no one can ever say these things. She remains convinced that her children are luckier than most. But what of the story about how they came into this world. Is that really one any child needs to hear? "We will tell them," say Jo. "I think we'll make it sound like a fairytale, because really, it is." Source. Emphasis, mine. It's a long and disturbing read.

MK - Yep off we go tumbling merrily, merrily down that slope, no worries we sing, you can stop whenever you want to. Unfortunately for the children, they’re coming along for the ride, whether they want to or not and they’ll keep tumbling on even after the 'adults' decide to stop.

PSYCHOPATHS: THE U.S. ARMY OR U.S. LEFTIST POLITICIANS?

There are a couple of blog posts here and here which give details of a recent Leftist attempt -- mainly on Daily Kos -- to smear the U.S. Army as psychopathic killers.

The article concerned relies entirely on anecdote and therefore has no scholarly worth whatever. It picks out a set of criminals and says: SEE! All these served in the army. So the army creates criminals. You can of course prove anything that way. One could equally pick out a set of former army men who undertook charity work and say: SEE! All these served in the army. So the army creates angels.

The one substantial point the article has is that the incidence of soldiers who actually fire their weapons in battle has improved over the years. The author says that this is because the army has found ways to make men into machines. Military people would be rather surprised by that. The problem is a well known one and it was long ago noted that the problem was largely one of aiming. Men who were using automatic weapons fired much more frequently -- as such weapons can be effective even without much aiming. So one response has been to make available to the men more weapons capable of automatic fire. But more training in use of weapons is of course also effective. Many of the non-firers of the two world wars were conscripts with very little training. Additionally, the rate of fire will depend on the battlefield situation and the use of men as cannonfodder has declined over the last century. Men are now more likely to be put in situations where they can be individually effective.

And the idea that the U.S. army wants its men to be killer robots is truly laughable. It would be more accurate to say that the onerous ROE under which U.S. soldiers now operate make them the most restrained and cautious soldiers in all of military history. The army takes great pains to ensure that their soldiers DON'T fire unless absolutely necessary.

So the article is the sort of ignorance of the military that one expects from today's Left. But another sort of ignorance it displays is ignorance about psychopathy. As someone who has contributed a couple of research papers on psychopathy to the academic journals (See here and here), I may be in a better position than most to offer a quick summary of what is involved. The basic point is that psychopaths are born not made. The condition is highly hereditary and emerges from early childhood on. Any attempt to MAKE a person a psychopath is more likely to traumatize them deeply than anything else.

And one place where true psychopaths are likely to be found is in Leftist politics -- from Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Pol Pol on. They are the ones who have no compunction about slaughtering other people en masse. And the basic underlying feature of psychopathy -- lack of any moral anchors -- is in fact glorified by Leftists as "postmodernism". Where have you heard "There is no such thing as right and wrong" before? And amoral men are very successful even in democratic Leftist politics -- with Bill Clinton being the standout example. But John Kerry and Barack Obama also have clear psychopathic characteristics. I go into the diagnosis of all three men in some detail here

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Can you hear the crickets

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has vowed to expel foreigners who publicly criticise him or his government. "No foreigner can come here to attack us. Anyone who does must be removed from this country," he said during his weekly TV and radio programme. Mr Chavez also ordered officials to monitor statements made by international figures in Venezuela. Source. Via The Midnight Sun.

MK – I look forward to the protesting outside in the streets, the squeals from all the leftists about free speech and all that. After all if a Bush or Howard were to do such things, we’d never hear the end of it.

The Utopia that is Cuba

She used to be a teacher on 3000 pesos ($135) a year. "I now earn 10 to 15 times more," but has to pay 50% tax.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"There were no doctors, no schools, no electricity...The revolution changed my life completely." Today Sebastian is a transport worker and rents rooms to tourists. But he has to pay $540 a month in tax, guests or not.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She rears pigs in her backyard in Bayamo, 750km east of Havana, selling them for $30-$40. Bicycles are Bayamo’s main means of transport. Odalis has just received permission to charge cyclists to look after their bicycles for 1 peso ($0.05) a time. She earns about $15 a week, an average monthly salary for a state employee. Source.

Win some, lose some.

The other day when we heard that Ford was going to cut 600 jobs at their Geelong plant, by axing the locally made engine currently doing service in their Falcon (and other) range. At the time, I heard on the radio that John Howard was being blamed for this.
Ford says the decision to begin producing the Focus in Australia from 2011 will create another 300 jobs at its Broadmeadows and Geelong plants. Source.
Well now that Ford has decided to build the Focus locally, creating 300 jobs, will we be thanking John Howard for this. It’s all nice and convenient to blame Howard for everything under the sun going wrong, but if we insist on doing this, how about giving some credit as well? In other news.
Test results from President Bush's colonoscopy have shown no cancer in the small growths removed from President Bush's colon, the White House announced Monday. "The president is in good health," said Snow, who has himself battled with colon cancer. "There is no reason for alarm." Source.
We all know how peace loving and tolerant leftists wish President Bush could be sent to a better worse place, so I thought I should send a few taunts their way. Sorry lefties your prayers to nothing have not been answered. President Bush is doing just fine, fit as a fiddle, will serve out the remaining years of his presidential term and you’ll just have to keeping whining and carping as always. Sucks to be you.

An Open Letter



Matthew Carter (above), a binman from Burnley has been banned from wearing a St George's Cross bandana by Pendle Council, who stated it could be offensive and racist.

This is an open letter to all those would approve of this action.





Dear Sir or Madam


I despise you.

I despise your petty, vindictive rules and your tedious way of life.

I despise you for dreaming up and enforcing rules such as these. Rules that make people shake with anger and seek solace in the arms of truly unsavoury folk.

I despise you for making this man feel guilty about taking pride in his own country.

I despise you for presuming to tell me what I can and cannot do. How dare you tell me that I cannot smoke or drink myself to an early grave. Should i wish to dine at McDonalds or mainline Class A drugs of an evening, that is my look out not yours. I care little for you, why do you care for me? Is it my health that concerns you or is it really the power to order me around?

I despise you for the destruction you have caused to Australia's Aboriginal communities with your cradle-to-grave welfare and your paternalist condescension. But i despise you more for not having the guts to admit your appalling mistakes. And yet now you seek to impose this morally bankrupt creed on the rest of us.

I despise you for infantilising grown men, in particular the working class, the entire continent of Africa and our migrant communities. Kipling could not have been more proud of your adoption of his 'White Man's Burden' mantra. Try for once treating adults as adults and you might be surprised at the results.

I despise organisations such as Oxfam, Greenpeace and the WWF, unelected institutions that seek to impose their nannying, dogmatic beliefs wherever they go, that do little more than provide gap-year jobs for the sons and daughters of middle class bankers and lawyers.

I despise you for trashing the good names of words such as 'diversity', 'tolerance', 'respect', 'progress', 'charity' and 'community'. Words and concepts that have made this country such a magnet for others have now become little more than Orwellian IngSoc. '1984' was written as a warning not a fucking instruction manual.

I despise you for your dishonest corruption of the environment - the single greatest gift to mankind. You have lied about its imminent demise, you have arrogantly presumed mankind is is to blame and that nature revolves around man, you have sown the seeds of guilt and doubt and made people turn and inform on one another. All in the name of a science that is as unproven as your fascism.

I despise you for presuming to know best how I should raise my children. Well, I treat my children to junk food, I let them watch TV and I discipline them for stepping out of line.

I despise your attempts to censor my right to speak, all in the name of not giving offence. Well, you offend me deeply, you mealy-mouthed jumped up middle class prick.

I despise you for your attempts to destroy families and communities all in the name of 'progress' and 'change'. In business, they teach you not to try to fix what isn't broken, but you wouldn't know this, as the closest you have come to creating wealth is sucking the interest out of Daddy's Trust Fund.

I despise you for your double standards and hypocrisy; you viciously attack and ridicule some Gods and Prophets whilst choosing to ignore the nihilistic actions of others.

I despise you for sowing doubt in the fields of right and wrong. 'Thou shalt not kill' or ''do no harm to your neighbour' are universal morals, not cultural artefacts of a bygone era.

But most of all i despise you for carrying out these destructive, nihilistic actions in the name of progress, of the poor, of charity, of selflessness, of helping one's neighbour, of doing one's bit. No such moral reasons are in your thoughts. It is power that drives you, intereference that delights you and bossiness that appeals to you.

C.S.Lewis once remarked that 'of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies'. How prophetic these words seem today.

So let me tell you, you Fairtrade-coffee drinking, tofu-munching goody-two-shoes, the single biggest problem facing the planet is not Global Poverty or Environmental Annihilation, nor is it No Child Left Behind, but your arrogance to presume to interfere and poke your beak into every aspect of my life, and the viciously smug puritanism of your totalitarian creed.

Now just fuck off and leave me alone.

Pommy

Reprinted by kind permission of Pommygranate

Tampa, Schmampa

LABOR has demanded Prime Minister John Howard explain why he barred the Tampa from entering Australian waters six years ago, after he had received advice that such action was illegal.

Explain why? Simple, simpletons. Because Tampa was in international waters and the closest port of call was in f*cking Indonesia, which, according to international maritime law, is where it should have been headed, and for that very reason (because Indonesia was the closest port of call - check your maritime law, and see).

Fact is, Tampa was a victim to an act of Piracy on the High Seas, and why even one of the so-called ‘refugees’ who committed that crime is still in this country is an absolute wonder to me.

Yet another reason, in flashing lights, why the ALP cannot be trusted to run our country.

Of Terrorists and Things

Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Of course, I’m talking about our latest leftist cause celeb: Mohamed Haneef. A resident Muslim doctor, detained with a one way ticket to India and on his way out of Australia, after having been implicated (no matter how indirectly) in an attempted bombing in Britain.

So what are we to do?

We don’t know what he knows (or doesn’t know). What we do know is that he wanted to leave Aus’ – in a hurry. Maybe he read the names of his beloved pals in the MSM, and realised he needed to leave, pronto. I’ll grant that – no sweat. But maybe he knows more than he's letting on. That's not such a far stretch, either. . .

So here’s the scenario: we let him go, only to later discover that he was the lynchpin in a plot that cost a few thousand Australian lives. And here's the rub:

Lefty response (from experience): HoWARd’s to blame, because he shouldn’t have let this person go – HoWARd’s incompetent and should be tried for murder.

On the other hand, we don’t let him go, erring on the side of safety (and offending so-called leftist sensibilities, which only seem to extend to potential terror threats, because we all know that's a ruse orchestrated by evil HoWARd), given what we know of the scale of potential death stemming from certain Jihadist plots, and. . .

Lefty response (from experience): HoWARd’s to blame for trampling civil liberties and attempting to institute a fascist state of fear and repression.

Reality is, we have a Government erring on the side of public safety (thank God), and choosing the latter course. Meanwhile, we have a legal team (Hanneef’s) that should arguably be prosecuted for perverting the course of justice, in its attempt to, well, pervert the course of justice.

Haneef can wait. And when we're satisfied he is not a danger to us and ours (and doesn't know something that might save a few thousand lives), then he can go back home to India, with our blessing.

In the mean time, f*ck off.

A REAL climate denier: Prof Lockwood

Post below lifted from Prof. Brignell. See the original for links

Over a quarter of a century ago, your bending author was immensely proud to be offered a chair at the University of Southampton. Like much else in modern Britain, the honour now seems somewhat tarnished. Here is an apologia for that paper as a Letter in the Sunday Telegraph, which tells you more about the state of peer review than it does about anything else, and has a second paragraph that is a collectors' item:

No spinning here

I am one of the authors of the Royal Society global warming paper that you say is simple and fundamentally flawed (Comment, July 15). Simple? The idea was to present a straightforward demonstration, without recourse to complex climate models. Flawed? None of the three academic referees the paper was subjected to found any flaws.

Climate change is by far the greatest threat to everyone's standard of living. Unlike political parties, companies, media stars, works of art, consumer products and even social trends and national economies, a scientific reality is immune to spin.

(Prof) Mike Lockwood, Southampton University

I think I now get where the Lockwood paper fits in to our understanding of climate and there is no doubt that it is an absolute gift to climate atheists. What it said was of course all well-known already but the concession from a Greenie source that fluctuations in the output of the sun have driven climate change for all but the last 20 years really is invaluable. And the one fact that the paper documents so well -- that solar output is on the downturn -- is also hilarious, given its source. Surely even a crazed Greenie mind must see that reduced solar output will soon start COOLING the earth! This month's unprecedented cold weather throughout the Southern hemisphere might even be the first sign that the cooling is happening. And the fact that warming plateaued in 1998 is also a good sign that we are moving into a cooling phase. As is so often the case, the Greenies have got the danger exactly backwards -- JR


(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)