Thanks to R Berkeley for this link to a Pravda article by Stojgniev O’Donnell.  Not unnaturally, the author’s standpoint is in some ways Russia-centric.  But the opening paragraph certainly caught my attention.  Here are a few highlights:-

Russian Christians now admit that the concept of human rights and liberties as advocated by America and the West has no application in contemporary Russia . That country is drowning in vices directly linked to the West’s concept of inherent rights and liberties: abortion; homosexuality; dissolution of traditional marriage; pornography; slavery, prostitution, and exploitation of the oppressed, etc. The Russian Orthodox now understand that such American “values” are, in fact, vices which harm every human society as a collective. Such American “rights” have not brought happiness. They represent the deviance of the cult of the individual. From my Third World perspective, I am amazed that some Americans continue to argue that America’s virtue is that it protects such “rights” (=vices).

... We are now witnessing the demise of America. For decades, America successfully marketed its “values” throughout the world (accompanied often by hefty cash subsidies for corrupt, subservient regimes). The aims of the American ideology were no less ambitious than those of Soviet communism, and the Americans were victorious over the Soviets, for a couple of years anyway.

... America is dying. I assure those Americans who still feel secure about a regular pay check, their job perks, vacations, company cars and cell phones, annual bonuses, benefits, government entitlements, U.S. dollar-based investments and accounts, etc etc., that their lifestyle is crumbling. There is no longer any right or logic in America’s prosperity.

... The American Middle Class has outlived its period of historical relevance and soon will be replaced, by Hispanics, India’s Indians, and Chinese. Those groups have no qualms about bearing and rearing children.

It is the twenty-first century. America is rat-infested history. America will fall, overrun by fatwah-inspired Muslims; wild, dispossessed, self-identified Apache or Aztec guerillas; looting, reparations-deluded African-Americans; indignant Eskimos; flaming cross-dressers and advocates of every sort of politically correct nonsense. History doesn’t last forever, and anyway, America had a couple of good centuries before it turned to cr*p.

This video animation constructed from Mordechai Vanunu’s famous sixty photographs is worth a look while pondering Iranian ambitions.

Thanks to Troy for the link.

Since I am not a Christian nor a liberal nor a Ugandan immigrant nor sound asleep it is difficult for me to assess the utility of today’s sermonising by Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York.  He is, alas, the second most powerful figure in the Anglican Church, and living proof of the Communion’s exciting, go-ahead committment to ... vibrancy, of course.  So when he adumbrates upon the nature of my Englishness and cautions me to vote for a mainstream political mugger in Thursday’s local authority election, should I obediently sit up and take notice.  Does anyone, in fact, obediently sit up and take notice?

Well, according to BBC News this is what he said:-

Referring to parties like the British National Party, Dr John Sentamu said they espoused the “politics of fear”.

Dr Sentamu, who was born in Uganda, described Britain as “a country of immigrants” and ... told BBC Radio Four’s Sunday programme: “This country has been one of the most welcoming, most accommodating.

I want to suggest if it lost that because people simply say ‘we’re going to put a barbed wire around a number of things in order for us to feel safe’, that is not actual security, that’s fear - and any politics which plays on people’s fears in the long run, give it a bit of time, it will fail”.

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What makes us free? According to liberals it is our liberation from whatever might impede individual choice.

But this is a definition which takes us in odd directions. Take, for instance, the views of Jessica Brinton, who recently wrote an article on the young women of Tokyo (“Maid in Japan”, Herald Sun, not online).

The article was intended as “a snapshot of a culture where radical fashion, sexual bravura and cultural weirdness are finally beginning to liberate its women.”

So what is the evidence that young Tokyo women are being liberated? First, there is a changing attitude to work,

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What gives us a sense of wellbeing? The results of some Australian research might surprise you.

A study was released last October which compared the wellbeing of Australians according to the electorate they live in. 23,000 Australians were interviewed for the survey which was a joint project of Deakin University and Australian Unity, a large insurance company.

In which electorates did people report the highest level of wellbeing? The decisive factor was not money. In fact, the electorate with the lowest taxable income, Wide Bay in Queensland, scored the highest level of personal wellbeing.

So what did count? The report highlighted three factors which, according to political orthodoxy, ought not to matter.

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One of Steve Sailer’s best kept secrets is how he comes up with his standard-setting political science models such as the marriage stability for white women is the primary driver of Republican victories, explaining an incredible 83% of the variance in the Red State/Blue State voting patterns.  When I plugged his data for white female marriage stability and electoral outcomes into the Laboratory of the States database, and ran it against the rest of the hundreds of variables, it still came out as the best predictor of Republican victories.  Due to data-dredging effects, even if some of my variables had beaten his, it wouldn’t have meant they were better—nor that his model was wrong.  I threw everything but the kitchen sink at his model to beat it looking for any variables to best it.  But they didn’t.  Just amazing.  How did he do it?  He didn’t say.  But now he has let loose a clue:  He has been getting fed insights by a guy calling himself Inductivist and a brief survey of his blog entries reveals the “Inductivist” may have what it takes to come up with models as powerful as Sailer has been promoting via his blog.  (If Sailer himself came up with the white female marriage stability model of conservative voting then my apologies but the Inductivist blog doesn’t need something quite that impressive to be a secret weapon for Sailer.)

When the French Revolution broke out in 1789 it was greeted with enthusiasm by the young intellectuals of Europe.

The English poet William Wordsworth was no exception. He wrote verses in support of the Revolution, including these significant lines,

Once Man entirely free, alone and wild,
Was bless’d as free, for he was Nature’s child.
He, all superior but his God disdained,
Walk’d none restraining, and by none restrained,
Confessed no law but what his reason taught,
Did all he wish’d, and wish’d but what he ought.

In these lines Wordsworth is claiming that man is naturally free in the liberal sense of having no impediments to his individual will and reason. The individual man is superior to everyone else but God; he needs no restraints and recognises no laws except those accepted by his own reason; he follows his own will in all things (but always chooses to do the right thing).

A few decades later another famous young English poet, Shelley, was still holding firm to the same political ideal. In his work Prometheus Unbound (1820), Shelley advanced his ideal of a “new man” who would “make the earth one brotherhood”. This new man would be,

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“Violent sex attack on prostitute” yelled the hotlink copy on BBC News’ front page.  Attuned to Mattra’s Tawana redux I clicked and up came the story.

A prostitute was picked up and driven to an area of Preston where she was raped and violently assaulted, police in Lancashire have said.

The attacker picked up the woman early last Sunday morning in a red light area and took her to Queen Street in Avenham where he attacked her.

OK, so now for the big question ... whodunnit?

The man is described as being aged about 30, about 6ft tall, of medium build with a tanned complexion.

Tanned complexion?  What does that mean, for pete’s sake.  Has he just come back from holiday?  Or ... ah, could it be a tortuous, new bit of Pee-Cee, and the doubtless brown-skinned police spokeman, Det Insp Justin Srivastava, just couldn’t bring himself to finger one of his own folks?  If so, that would be a pretty pathetic way of going on, even for Lancashire Police (first item on their website: The Diversity Strategy Launch).

But then I read this:-

Det Insp Justin Srivastava said: “This was a particularly nasty attack on a street worker and I would appeal to any member of the street working community who has any information to come forward as soon as possible.

“I would also like to reassure the public that these types of incidents are very rare.

“However, street workers in particular need to remain vigilant and take sensible precautions, if possible, by working in pairs.”

Now, we have been lumbered with the euphemistic “sex workers” for some time, although its use is restricted to politicians, broadcasters and the Inland Revenue, as well as some of the prostitutes themselves.  Most of the latter, though, are probably better acquainted with being called a “working girl” or, more specifically, a “slag”, “tart”, “whore” or, indeed, “bag bride”.

But street worker?  Which moronic Home Office word-Marxist circulated the offending Guidance to all police forces this time?

No matter, Lancashire Police and their vibrant new spokesman, Detective Inspector Shrivel ... Starve ... their vibrant new spokesman, anyway, are proving to be bang on the cutting edge of modern policing for confident, safer, and secure neighbourhoods, where people know that the police and partners understand the issues that matter most to them.  Blah, blah.

Joke: What do you get with street workers working in pairs?  Your bins emptied.