Transparency International recently released its 2006 report, with its Corruption Perceptions Index, available for your perusal here .

According to the folks at Transparency, the least corrupt countries in the world this year were Finland, Iceland and New Zealand, each with a score of 9.6 (out of 10). At the bottom of the list was Haiti, with a score of 1.8. (Every country in the world was not on the list though).

Mexico came in at #70, with a score of 3.3, and tied with Brazil, China, Egypt, Ghana, India, Peru, Saudi Arabia and Senegal.
The U.S.A. was at #20 with a score of 7.3, and tied with Belgium and Chile.

Two years ago Alan Keyes, the conservative radio talk show host, was imported from Maryland by the nearly defunct Illinois Republican Party  to carry their banner in the race for the U.S. Senate seat that would be vacated by the retiring Peter Fitzgerald after only six years..  They did this because they had absolutely no faith in any of their own homegrown challengers, particularly the "immigrant-bashing" Jim Oberweis.

The leadership of the state GOP figured it could ill afford to be associated with someone brash enough to insist that our immigration laws be enforced. Not that it really matters, but one wonders what the state’s GOP gurus are thinking now upon learning that Keyes, who is no stranger to controversy, again finds himself under the federal government’s microscope for playing fast and loose with certain financial reporting procedures, "Minuteman consulting charity fined," The Washington Times, Dec. 5, 2006

The Declaration Foundation, a tax-exempt charity created by conservative activist Alan Keyes, who has vigorously supported the Minuteman movement, was fined $6,500 in August and prohibited by the Pennsylvania Bureau of Charitable Organizations from soliciting donations until it becomes "properly registered."

The Aug. 18 "agreement and order," signed by Declaration Foundation Executive Director Mary Parker Lewis, a top Minuteman adviser, acknowledged that the charity made false statements in seeking to solicit donations, failed to properly administer money it had collected, and withheld documents sought as part of an "investigative subpoena."

According to the bureau, the Declaration Foundation failed over a four-year period to submit audited financial statements, gave false information when it said it did not share revenue with other nonprofit or tax-exempt groups, and misstated the truth when it said none of its officers or employees was tied to any vendor providing services or goods.

The bureau said the Declaration Foundation improperly shared revenue with the Declaration Alliance, another tax-exempt charity founded by Mr. Keyes, which also has been active in overseeing the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC).

The Declaration Foundation is at the center of an intricate weave of conservative organizations founded by Mr. Keyes or tied to longtime Keyes associates now working with MCDC. They have served as mentors for Mr. (Chris)Simcox and provided consulting and financial services for the group's fundraising and media activities.

But this little run-in with Uncle Sam is just the latest chapter in Keye's flamboyant history:

Mr. Keyes and his supporters have been tagged in the past on suspected violations involving contributions, including a December 2002 finding by the Federal Election Commission that said his 2000 presidential campaign owed the government more than $220,000 for questionable contributions, nonqualified expenses, improperly handled checks and other ineligible expenses.

Illinoisans surely caught a break when Keye's went down in flames before Barack Obama's well-oiled Democratic machine.  On the other hand, had he won, Keyes may just have fit right in with the kind of politics so commonplace these days in the Land of Lincoln.

Malcolm Gladwell asserts a viewpoint that I think is pretty common among the media elite today:

Defining A Racist

… I propose three criteria:

1. Content. What is said clearly makes a difference. I think, for example, that hate speech is more hateful the more specific it is. To call someone a [n*****] is not as a bad as arguing that black people have lower intelligence than whites. To make a targetted [sic] claim is worse than calling a name.

Let me propose two criteria. You are more likely to get smeared as a “racist,” the more your statement is:

1. True.
2. Important.

As you know, the white-black intelligence gap has been studied to death over the last several generations. Legitimate questions remain about whether it’s changing in size, and how big a role, if any, genetics plays in it. But there is no scientific question whatsoever about its existence.

The most comprehensive investigation of the size of the white-black IQ gap was carried out by Philip L. Roth of Clemson and colleagues in a 2001 article, “Ethnic Group Differences in Cognitive Ability in Employment and Educational Settings: A Meta-Analysis,” in the academic journal Personnel Psychology. They looked at 105 different studies covering 6,246,729 individuals and found an overall average difference between whites and blacks of 16.5 IQ points, or 1.1 standard deviations. The 95 percent confidence interval runs merely from 1.06 to 1.15 standard deviations (in other words, there is strong agreement among the 105 studies).

As for its importance, the white-black IQ gap is highly relevant to a broad range of social issues, such as education, voting, and much else that you aren’t supposed to think about.

There is a lot of hate in this world, and, increasingly, much of that hate is getting directed at people who tell the truth.

I generally maintain an attitude of tolerant amusement toward immigration enthusiasts, but I have to confess my secret belief is that many of then are BONE-HEADEDLY STUPID, where they aren’t actually evil. A case in point: the Oroville [CA] Mercury-Register’s Michele R. Marcucci. In her December 4 smear of Vietnamese For Fair Immigration group because its director’s husband is white [Immigration group may not be what they seem], Marcucci charges that the husband had published, under a Vietnamese pseudonym, on VDARE.COM - “which recently ran an article on the ‘the black-white IQ gap’.”

That’s it - that’s all. Just writing for us is evidence of guilt. It doesn’t matter that the black-white gap is one of the best-attested phenomena in American social science. Or that we were actually reporting a scholarly debate on whether it is decreasing. You can’t mention this stuff at all in the Mainstream Media - or even in the mouthpieces of the Beltway Right. If it were up to the MSM and the Establishment, political correctness would be absolute.

Last word to VfFI’s director LeQuan Hoang: “If you disagree with somebody’s point of view, they say you’re racist.”

Congratulate Michele R. Marcucci (510) 208-6434.