LEFTIST NOSTALGIA

Eric Hobshawm on Gorbachev in the LRB (hat-tip BELGRAVIA DISPATCH):

"All the same, if I were a Russian I would also think of him as the man who brought ruin to his country."

Yeah, sure... and the Iraqis were better off under Saddam!

WHAT IS IT ABOUT LEFTISTS THAT MAKES THEM SO NOSTALGIC FOR ANTI-AMERICAN TYRANTS!? (I think the answer is in the question!)

ALSO: This Hobshawm quote is ANOTHER example of Leftist double standards/moving goalposts.

When it comes to Gitmo Leftists say: "Human rights are everything; (it matters not that the detainees get better food/health than at home; they need lawyers!" BUT when it comes to the liberation of Iraq and Afghanistan, Leftists say: "It matters not that Afghanis and Iraqis are 'free' - 'freedom' is a meaningless thing without safe schools and streets and guaranteed healthcare."

What's MOST PATHETIC is that the Left're only fooling themselves!

Bush: Baathist totalitarianism :: Reagan : Soviet totalitarianism.

Hobshawm : socialist tyrants :: Sidney Blumenthal : Clinton.

I'll know the GWOT will be over when oldtime Lefties like Hobshawm and Left-wing groups like Amnesty International stop attacking Bush and start attacking socialist tyrants like Mugabe and Kim and Chavez and Fidel and Putin and China.

A SONG FOR HARRY REID - in honor of the 5 most recently confirmed federal judges

Do you know a Harry Reid fan? That's a Leftie who thinks that - when it comes to federal judgeships - the minority party (in one body of Congress) should have a veto over the majority party and the president. Well, invite him or her over to your computer and click HERE. Then gloat. Before they storm off, just say this: ELECTIONS MATTER!

BUSH AND BLAIR AGREE ON AFRICAN DEBT RELIEF

According to the NTIMES, Bush and Blair have agreed in principle to massive multi-billion dollar debt relief for more than a dozen impoverished nations.

The plan would free 18 countries, most of which are in Africa, from any obligation to repay the estimated $16.7 billion they owe the international lenders, said the official, who requested anonymity because a formal announcement of the agreement had not been made. The debts will be written off by the lenders in an effort to allow the debtor countries to start fresh, get their books in order and eventually be able to borrow again for economic development, health, education and social programs, rather than simply to repay existing loans.

I WONDER HOW THE LEFT, AND THE MSM THEY DOMINATE, WILL SPIN THIS INTO AN ANTI-BUSH/ANTI-GOP TIRADE? Maybe they'll claim that the approach that Bush favors amounts to nothing more than handing out tax relief to the banks that hold the debt? Here's why I suspect this approach (from the NYTIMES article):

"One approach, favored by Britain, was for the rich nations to take over responsibility for repaying the debts. The second method, favored by the United States, was for the loans to be written off entirely by the lenders."

Stay tuned...

WILL BOLIVIA TAKE THE "CALLE" TO SERFDOM?

One of the forces driving Bolivia to oust their president and nearly bring on civil war is NATIONALIZATION. It's one of the most important issues according to CNN: "Nationalization of Bolivia's oil industry, which protesters believe would better distribute wealth. Privatization and plans to export gas have sparked fears that only wealthy Bolivians and corporations would benefit." YUP: the Bolivian left wants to nationalize their mining industry. And REDISTRIBUTE WEALTH.

Contrary to what Left-wing ideologues & demogogues will tell you, nationalization and redistribution have ALWAYS failed to increase abundance, and have NEVER FAILED TO INCREASE POVERTY. NEED PROOF? Just look at South Korea (versus North Korea), India (post-Rao) China (post-Deng Xiao Ping) Poland & the Czech Republic and the rest of Eastern Europe (post-USSR) and even the post-Thatcher UK; they ALL PROVE that nationalization sucks and private enterprise WORKS. Or look at it in reverse: Mugabe and Chavez are RUINING their nation's economies (by instituting socialism) - as Castro ruined his.

Left-wing politicians get away with their demogoguery only because the Left-wing dominated media and schools have brainwashed enough of the public. The internet can change that: by exposing the media and the academy - and the Leftist garbage they regurgitate - to proper scrutiny.

MORE LEFTIST "GOAL-POST MOVING"

Since the Iraqis have gained their freedom & democracy the Left decries their bad infrastructure and the lack of schools and troubled healthcare system & exploding oil-pipelines - AS IF MATERIAL SECURITY WAS EVERYTHING.

When enemy-combatant/neojihadis are imprisoned in Gitmo - and get 3 square meals and clean beds and clean clothes and healthcare and dental-care, the Left decries their lack of legal representation & due process - AS IF LIBERTY & HUMAN RIGHTS WAS EVERYTHING.

No matter what W does (liberates 50 million people from totalitarian tyranny), or why (9/11), the Left complains. That the complaints are inconsistent matters not to the Left. The Left isn't bothered by REALITY; when reality interferes with their ideology, they just move the goal posts! Goal-post moving exposes their true motives (BDS), and the utter emptiness of their ideology. The fact is: Leftism has nothing else to offer anymore.

MORE HERE.

DUMPING INCOME TAX FOR NATIONAL SALES TAX MOOTS MOST ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION WOES

One of the reasons illegal immigration is bad is that most of the illegals don't pay taxes even though they use services - like roads; utilities; schools; and hospitals. They drain the public coffers and effectively cause tax rates (to citizens who do pay taxes) to be higher than they might otherwise be.

If instead of a "progressive" federal income tax we had a national sales tax (of let's say... 15%) then ALL illegals would have to pay taxes - they could not evade them. (WHAT IS MORE: this would effectively REDUCE the "take-home-pay" of the illegals and reduce the incentive they have to accept lower pay, and it would pressure employers who exploit illegals to pay them more; this in turn would put pressure on employers to raises wages for everyone.) To lessen the burden on poor citizens the federal government could send a refund to poor people amounting to 100% of their national sales tax; for instance a person earning $25,000 could get a refund of $3750.

Since illegals could NOT file for a refund, they be FORCED to contribute money back to the nation they currently give only their sweat to; (they send money OUT of the country - effectively "taxing" themselves to the benefit of other nations, notably Mexico: illegal immmigrants sending dollars back there are the SECOND leading source of income for Mexico (after petroleum).

Realistically, for a national sales tax to generate enough revenue for the federal budget it would either have to be about 20% on retail sales, or we'd have to tax more things than just retail. A 5% tax on EVERY TRANSACTION would generate enough - but taxing wholesale sales and stock purchases (as opposed to a tax merely on gains/profits) might be impossible to achieve. It's more likely that Congress passes tax reform bill which combines a low, flat income tax and a low, flat retail sales tax. This would only alleviate the illegal immigrant free-ride, noty eliminate it.

MORE ON TAX REFORM HERE - AT OTB; AND ALSO AT FAIRTAX.ORG.

DEAN IS A LOSER

For all his vaunted grassroots/internet fundraising, Dean finished 4th in Iowa and quickly became the laughingstock of the media: AARRRRRRHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

So now I'm supposed to be surprised that Dean is self-destructing and taking the Democrats with him?!

Dean was ALWAYS a loose cannon and a loser. The fact that the Dems selected him to head their party PROVES they're a party of extremists and wackos and losers and complainers WHO ARE NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME - ESPECIALLY DURING WARTIME! When they ditch him and pick a Robert Strauss-type, then and only then MIGHT they have a chance at reversing their downward spiral.

UPDATE: Click HERE (Lily and Vince) for a list of DEAN'S STUPID COMMENTS - and a catchy remix of Dean's infamous scream; (hat-tip OTB).

KYOTO : REVERSING GLOBAL WARMING :: EU CONSTITUTION : UNITING EUROPE

KYOTO exempts China and the Third World from any emissions limits, instead forcing all the reductiuons in so-called "greenhouse gases" from developed nations. This is why the US SENATE passed a resolution in 1998 - called THE BYRD-HAGEL RESOLUTION and supported by Kerry and 94 other Senators (YUP: it passed 95-0!) - which effectively killed any chance that the USA woud ever become a signatory to KYOTO.

KYOTO is a flawed treaty which does NOT properly address nor would it necessarily reverse "global warming." What is more, there is NO CONCLUSIVE PROOF that "global warming" is man-made - or even really global. In other words KYOTO is a bad treaty which was written to correct a problem which might NOT be needing any correction.

Which is why it's a lot like the EU Constitution - (which is also technically a treaty). The EU Constitution is a treaty which was written poorly and which was intended to correct problems which might not even REALLY exist.

When a terminal illness is MISDIAGNOSED and treated with the wrong medicine, and the medicine is made so poorly that it's poisonous, well then the illness ain't gonna go away and the patient is gonna die. The environazis and the pan-European socialists are - figuratively speaking - each peddling faulty diagnoses and bad medicine.

The voters of France and Holland - like 95 Senators in 1998 - GOT IT! The French and Dutch understood that the EU Constitution Treaty was bad, and rejected it - just as 95 Senators knew that KYOTO sucked.

WHAT'S AHEAD? Well, only after the EU gets rid of its socialists (who are, BTW, also environazis) can they realistically take up writing a new constitution - and DITCH KYOTO and write a new treaty to reduce air pollution by EVERY nation.

UPDATE: WELCOME BASIL'S BLOG READERS! If you aren't one yet - you should be at least three times a day: Basil goes good with meals!

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF THE LEFT'S "IS/AS CONFLATION"

Powerline - and others, notably DISSECTING LEFT and this blog - have noted that the Left seems to continually use analogies and metaphors instead of deductive reasoning and rational arguments. I have described this as the "IS/AS Conflation" because it is typically most obvious when someone treats an analogical comparison ("that man sings like a bird") as if it had an ontological verity (that man who sings like a bird is a bird. OR: "The USSR had secretive prisons known as gulags; Gitmo is LIKE a secretive prison; therefore Gitmo IS a gulag." FOR ANOTHER EXAMPLE CLICK HERE.).

A.N. Whitehead called this logical error "The Fallacy of the Misplaced Concreteness."

Part of the Left's predilection for mistaking the "poetic" for the "real" is the result of the fact that Leftists are leading practitioners of (victims of?) post-modernism - which is not only anti-West and anti-bourgoise, but anti-reason.

TODAY - (literally and figuratively!) - gives us another salient example of this common error. Here is the item - hat-tip THE AMERICAN THINKER -

NBC's Katie Couric treated UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who is mired in a scandal Couric only lightly touched, as a wise sage, empathetically ending her taped interview with him, which aired on Tuesday's Today: "You literally have the weight of the world on your shoulders." He agreed: "I do, but not everybody understands that." [UMPH added!]

Of course, Couric was TOTALLY WRONG to describe Annan as LITERALLY having the weight of the world on his shoulders; she would have been correct to say that he FIGURATIVELY had the weight of the world on his shoulders. (Annan literally had ONLY the weight of his shirt and suit-jacket on his shoulders.)

As WARREN BELL wrote over at NRO:

KATIE COURIC IS LITERALLY DUMB AS A POST [Warren Bell]

Did she really say "literally have the weight the world on your shoulders"? Because if that were true, Kofi Annan would literally be crushed instantaneously into a pancake of infinite thinness. We're sticklers on a few points of usage in the Bell household, and the constant misuse of "literally" is public enemy number one. That a journalist of Ms. Couric's stature (smirk!) would say "literally" when she means its exact opposite -- "figuratively" -- makes my blood boil.But not literally, because then my boiling blood would come shooting out of my eyes and ears and get on the dog, with whom I arose at 5 AM today.

I am contending that by mispeaking - and doing it so badly - Couric exposes more than her grammatical mediocrity; she exposes her inner Leftist. She mispoke because the distinction between literal truth and figurative approximation is one that her Leftist-biased mind can no longer distinguish.

I have long argued that people who have a psychological diathesis for conflating "is" with "as" are more prone to being suckered by post-modernist mumbo-jumbo and swept up by Leftist ideology - and it best explains why Leftism persists even though it has utterly failed everywhere and everytime it has ever been tried. It persists because people who are illogical find it satisfying. Which - if it's true - points us toward the ultimate cure for Leftism: mandatory LOGIC CLASSES in every high school.

UPDATE: WELCOME BETSY'S PAGE READERS! Please check out a few other posts while your here.

REAGAN

It's been on year since he crossed over. Check out a remembrance at JACKSON'S JUNCTION.

IRAQIS VERSUS PALESTINIANS

Between the Iraqis and the Palestinians, only one is demonstrating it has the will to succeed as a democracy: IRAQ.

1 - On January 31, the Iraqis went to the polls and voted under circumstances WAY WORSE than any now in Gaza and the West Bank. They DID NOT delay the election; Abbas just has - to some future date "UNKNOWN."

2 - The Iraqis are undertaking to DESTROY their neojihadist "insurgency" while Abbas merely talks to Hamas - quite INNEFECTIVELY at that.

Unless and until Abbas and the Palestinian "moderates" demostrate at least HALF the courage of the Iraqis - and actually confront their neojihadists THEY WILL HAVE NO STATE AND THERE WILL BE NO PEACE.

ABBAS DELAYS ELECTIONS

BBC:

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has announced that parliamentary elections set for 17 July will be postponed. In a public decree, he said he wanted to allow more time to resolve a dispute over changes to the election law. Mr Abbas said a new date would be set after talks with the Palestinian factions and law makers. The move has been condemned by militant group Hamas, which correspondents say had been poised to do well in its first run at a legislative poll. ... Mr Abbas did not set a new date for the election, but Palestinian officials have talked about a delay of several months. ... The postponement will please many in Mr Abbas' Fatah party because they want more time to prepare for the poll, the BBC's Barbara Plett reports from Jerusalem. The [FATAH] movement is in disarray and tarnished by a reputation for corruption and inefficiency, our correspondent says.

DELAYED BY DECREE! OF COURSE ELECTIONS ARE DELAYED BY DECREE, BY FIAT!

Peace will reign in the Middle East only AFTER "Arab democracy" is no longer an oxymoron! And because of George W. Bush, IRAQ will lead the way!

POWERLINE VERSUS SID VICIOUS. POWERLINE WINS BY A KNOCKOUT!

Check out this post over at POWERLINE on Clinton attack dog Sid Blumenthal and the anti-constitutional and elitist Democrat filibustering of judicial nominees. The post includes parts on an email exchange bewtween POWERLINE and Sid Vicious.

I have also had an email correspondance with Sid - I emailed him after reading an article by him in the Guardian. The exchange was about Vietnam; he denies that the SVG fell because of the Dems in Congress abandoned them by cutting off all financing, and saw no similarity between that abandonment and the one called for by The Left in Iraq - as when they say we should withdraw AT ONCE or by a date certain/announced.

The exchange proved to me - once again - that either the folks still on The Left are still living in the past, or they're living in DENIAL.

I KNOW: I was a member of the anti-war Left in the 1970's, but steadily drifited rightward after becuase of things like McGovern's HUMONGOUS loss and Kael's famous comment, and the obvious and undeniable victories of Reagan on ALL fronts (against the USSR, and on taxes & the economy).

W is governing like Reagan: unafraid of the political attacks from the Left - here and in Europe, while courageously pursuing policies to defeat our enemies, and to empower individuals, and to restrain the power of the state. In additon, W has also done more to protect Life than Reagan.

The Left liked to believe that Clinton stood as a rebuke of Reaganism, but in fact, in 1992 Clinton RAN as a healthy repsonse to Reaganism: he ran as a moderate/centrist Democrat - he was for middle class TAX CUTS and for the death penalty and for welfare reform. (How he governed is another matter!)

W's election - and re-election - proves that Reaganism is in fact the dominant meme and that Clinton was an aberration or a phony who did nearly nothing of lasting import in his 8 years at the helm.

When the Left is forced to confront the fact that W is a successful president (the W is winning the GWOT and that the economy is growing, and that Clinton's numerous foreign policy failures - in Serbia, Rwanda. North Korea, against al Qaeda [there was ZERO effective respnse to the 1993 WTC attack or to Somalia or to the USS Cole, etc.] - and that W has steadily enlarged the GOP) the Left reverts to vicious name-calling and obstructionism.

Which GUARANTEES their continued demise.Thank God.

IRRELEVANT AND ANTI-DEMOCRATIC: Chirac and Schroeder Ignore the People

BBC: "French President Jacques Chirac flies to Berlin later today to dine with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. The two leaders, who are due to discuss the future of the EU Constitution, have already called for the ratification process to continue across Europe."

Jacques and Gerhard have the support of ONLY 1-in-5 of their fellow countrymen - but they don't seem to care. Why should they? Elitists never do! Eltiists think they know better. Which is why the EU constitution has failed: it enshrines elitism and this makes the voters of Europe feel less empowered. IOW: the voters of France and Holland GOT IT RIGHT; voters - like free-markets pricing things - usually do.

After Chirac and Schroeder are thrown out of office their respective nations can begin the process of reform AT HOME. IMHO: Only after that job is done can Europe successfully federalize under a continental constitution.

POP QUIZ: WHICH "ISM" IS GOOD AND WHICH "ISM" IS EVIL?

Israelis develop and deploy a NON-LETHAL WEAPON to use against violent Arabs.

Neojihadists use terrorism and suicide-bombers to commit mass murder and genocide - kiling mostly other Muslims.

So tell me... which "ism" - Zionism or Neojihadism - is good and which is evil?

CAN SCIENCE MAKE ABORTION OBSOLETE?

CAN SCIENCE MAKE ABORTION OBSOLETE? CAN SCIENCE FIND A WAY TO ALLOW WOMEN TO TERMINATE UNWANTED PREGNANCIES WITHOUT TERMINATING THE BABY/FETUS/EMBRYO?

IF SCIENCE COULD MAKE ABORTION A VESTIGIAL OPERATION, IT WOULD SAVE LIVES, ("POTENTIAL LIVES" FOR YOU PRO-CHOICE FOLKS), AND "TAKE OFF THE TABLE" - ONCE AND FOR ALL TIME - THIS BITTER AND DIVISIVE ISSUE, AND IT WOULD LIBERATE OUR BODY POLITIC OF THIS ANNOYING SORE THAT DOESN'T SEEM TO EVER HEAL. (CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW MUCH MORE SIMPLE JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS WOULD BE ONCE FREED FROM THIS CONTROVERSY!?)

HOW MIGHT SCIENCE DO THIS?

EASY. IT'S ALREADY IS DOING IT. IT'S CALLED EMBRYONIC ADOPTION.

A FEW EEKS AGO, BUSH APPEARED WITH 21 CHILDREN WHO WERE ONCE FROZEN EMBRYOS IN "LIMBO" BUT WHO WERE ADOPTED BY PARENTS WHO WANTED A CHILD BUT COULD NOT CONCEIVE ONE OF THEIR OWN. ONE CHILD HAD BEEN AN EMBRYO FROZENS FOR OVER A DECADE! HE AND THE OTHER 21 CHILDREN WERE ONCE FROZEN EMBRYOS WHICH WERE "MADE" IN FERTUILITY CLINICS.

TO EXTEND THIS BIOMEDICAL PROCEDURE IN A WAY WHICH WOULD MAKE ABOPRTION OBSOLETE, ALL SCIENCE MUST DISCOVER IS: (1) HOW TO REMOVE AND FREEZE AND EMBRYOS FROM THE WOMB OF A WOMAN WHO IS PREGNANT (BUT WHO DOESN'T WANT TO CARRY THE CHILD TO TERM); AND (2) HOW LATE IN A PREGNANCY THIS EXTRACTION AND FREEZING CAN SAFELY BE DONE.

THEN, LEFT-WING AND RIGHT-WING AND RED-STATERS AND BLUE-STATERS MIGHT UNITE AND TOGETHER TRANSFORM ABORTION CLINICS INTO EXTRACTION/FREEZING/ADOPTION CENTERS.

THIS WOULD TRANSFORM A DIVISIVE ISSUE INTO A WIN-WIN-WIN: ONE WOMAN ENDS AN UN-WANTED PREGNANCY (WITHOUT TERMINATING THE FETUS); ANOTHER WOMAN WHO OTHERWISE COULDN'T GET PREGNANT GETS PREGNANT; AND A BABY THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN ABORTED IS BORN.

MAKE THAT WIN-WIN-WIN-WIN - BECAUSE THE PUBLIC WINS, TOO.

"THE FELT CONNECTION:" WAS WATERGATE AN FBI COUP?

This morning on IMUS (I watched it on replay on MSNBC-TV), Bob Woodward said that Deep Throat's/Felt's FIRST TIP to him - EVER - was that Spiro T. Agnew was on the take before he was Veep.

There can be ONLY ONE REASON for this action by Felt:

he - and anybody allied with him - knew that to get the DEMOCRAT CONTROLLED CONGRESS to move on IMPEACHMENT AGAINST NIXON that Agnew would FIRST have to be shelved, because NO DEMOCRAT WOULD MOVE AGAINST NIXON IF IT MEANT THAT AGNEW WOULD ASCEND TO THE WHITE HOUSE.

I always felt that the Agnew resignation was a preamble to a move against Nixon - THIS ADMISSION BY WOODWARD PROVES MY INSTINCTS WERE CORRECT! And I suspected this - at the time - even though I was a very politically engaged anti-Nixon anti-war Leftist teenager in 1973.

[ASIDE: Now, I see that Nixon accomplished many MANY HUGELY IMPORTANT and beneficial things for the nation and the world - (detente, China, ending the draft, ending the Vietnam War, starting the EPA & passing the Clean Air/Clean Water Act), and that he also boldy tried some things that turned out badly (like Wage and price Controls) - and was one of our most importyant presidents. In fact, I think Nixon did more IMPORTANT GOOD THINGS in his 5 years (things we are still benefitting from) than Clinton did in 8!]

The now undeniable FELT/FBI CONNECTION to the outting of the Watergate Scandal may just be the tip of the iceberg.

HERE'S ANOTHER POSSIBLE MYSTERIOUS CONNECTION: Woodward - a proven dissembler who on many occassions denied that Felt was Deep Throat - now claims that he and Felt met by accident on a plane and that as a result of this chance-meeting, Felt became his "mentor." At the time they met, Woodward was in NAVY INTELLIGENCE - some have even suggested he was an undercover operator for the CIA. WHAT'S MY POINT!? Well, perhaps Woodward's story about how he met Felt is just more dissembling and the connection between Woodward and Felt and the FBI was DEEPER, PROFESSIONAL, and perhaps more sinister?

I think the "Felt Connection" fails to answer every question about Watergate - and I think that it evens raises a few more. IOW: the full story has yet to come out.

WHY THE E.U. IS "D.O.A."

There are TWO countervaling tendencies in the EU: (1) DEVOLUTION, as nations devolve more power to more local governments, and as more nations come into existence (prinicipally in Eastern Europe, but also in the UK and Spain and Italy and Belgium); (2) FEDERALIZATION, as the continient tries to unify across the traditional nation-state boundaries (which in Europe are more defined, distinctive and divergent than almost anywhere else).

One of these trends tends to give people a sense of greater control. The other tends to give people a sense of loss of control. SO... of course a majority of people will reject the trend which they think reduces the control they have over their government and their lives.

For the EU to succeed as a federation - and to do that they MUST pass a constitution - the EU leaders must come up with a TRANSPARENTLY DEMOCRATIC EU FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, and one with TRANSPARENT TAXES AND BUDGETS. Only a transparently democratic, responsive, and transparently fair (on the tax & spend side) federal government will make a majority of Europeans unafraid of adding another layer of bureaucracy to their lives.

If they fail to REFORM their nation states - FIRST - and then to reform the EU bureacracy, then they will NEVER have a true "Continental Congress" (pun intended) and they will never have a continental federation.

I'm an optimist. I believe they will eventually succeed - circa 2015.

SUV'S KILLED OFF THE MAMMOTHS... not!

According to this news item from the BBC, climate change - and not hunting - led to the extinction of the mammoth, and other huge beasts at the end of the Pleistocene epoch.

Since there were NO SUV'S around then - or factories or coal-burning power generating plants or captalists or Republicans - I wonder who the Leftists blame for that change in global climate?

Will Leftist environazis ever admit that periodic global climate change is NATURAL!?

I doubt it; I think Leftists will go extinct first - may the day come soon!

WHAT'S NEXT FOR EUROPE

The rejection of the EU constitution by the French electorate means that the EUssr is kaput - Thank God!

This is an important detour OFF the road to serfdom, and perhaps the first step on the road to reform.

And the much needed and long overdue reforms will now occur exactly where they must: on the national front, not on the continental front. After the nations of Old Europe reform then they can restart the federalization process again; IOW, the socialistic welfare states of Europe must reform FIRST, BEFORE any transnational/federal EU can be brought into existence.

This may happen sooner than you think: Germany and France will elect Reaganesque/Thatcherite PM's who will dismantle their nation's welfare states - Germany will elect Merkel this fall, and France will elect Sarkozy in a couple of years.

After France and Germany REFORM - and become more Anglo-American in their policies - their economies will rebound and their people will not be so frightened by pan-European federalism. The a EU constitution would likely succeed.

Ironically, the reform policies which Reagan and Thatcher enacted, (which worked so well, and still work so well) - policies which are derided by the anti-Americans of Old Europe as crass Anglo-Americanism - were actually developed by a European - HAYEK! Perhaps if they were "sold" that way, the Old Europeans might follow them more enthusiastically!

BOOMING HOUSE MARKET: IS IT "THE AMERICAN DREAM" OR A BUBBLE?

Left-wing pessimist KRUGMAN pens ANOTHER negative column about the "housing bubble." It seems to Krugman that too many Americnas are buying and selling too many homes at too much profit. I guess he'd like to see prices drop or sales slow or fewer people able to afford a home. Maybe he'd like a "REAL ESTATE PRICE CONTROL BOARD" to regulate the sale of homes?

Seriously: I am old enough to remember a time when THE AMERICAN DREAM - the dream of of owning your own home - was embraced by Democrats, even Liberal ones! Now - as that dream comes true for more and MORE Americans (and as a result, there are more buyers than sellers, and prices are going up) - Lefties like Krugman seem to be wishing it collapses merely to show that Bush is a bad person.

Well, all the BIG BUBBLES we've suffered from recently: the "New Economy"/NASDAQ/Telecoms/Fannie Mae etc bubbles - and ALL THE BIG CORPORATE MALFEASANCE SCANDALS (ENRON/TYCO/Arthur Andersen, AND the "Fake Calfornia Energy Crisis" took place on Clinton's watch; they were BUBBA'S BUBBLES. And the foul mess that resulted (because BUBBA and Rubin allowed it to go on in the CORRUPT financial industry and the CORRUPTED markets) is being CLEANED UP ON BUSH'S WATCH!

Krugman, the Democrats and the Left have let BDS - and their adherence to a completely discredited ideology: socialism - destroy their objectivity. One should no more give any credence to what Krugman writes than to Chomsky or al Jazeera (or Dan Rather or Jayson Blair or Newsweek!).

BBC: BRIT DOCTORS TO PROPOSE "KNIFE CONTROL"

After a spate of knife attacks in Great Britain, I wrote about "KNIFE CONTROL" on 2/9/05.

I suggested this SARCASTICALLY in order to demonstrate the IDIOCY of GUN CONTROL; gun control can NEVER reduce violent crime because guns are (like all weapons) merely tools that cannot be blamed for what humans do with them, and because if a person wants to harm you - or themselves - they will find an available tool to do it.

Well, reality once again proves that socialists (statists who believe in using the power of the State to achieve what's in THEIR MIND "utopianist" social aims) know NO BOUNDS when it comes to their elitist goals (and it's why their ideology ALWAYS amounts to nothing more than an inexorable march toward tyranny). According to the BBC, doctors in Great Britain will soon be proposing that the government limit the sale of knives!

Sheesh. What do these Lefties think, that they can ban all sharp implements - and even "sticks and stones" - and that violence will cease!? This is the same illogic that led the Left to favor unilateral disarmament of the USA during the Cold War. It is bad-thinking and bad policy and must be fought.

If doctors in Great Britain wanted to seriously reduce violent crime in Great Britain they'd support mandatory carry law!

(PS: DRUDGE AND KJ OF NRO BOTH LINK TO THIS BBC ARTICLE.)