ELSEWHERE

This is a pretty nutty piece of academic research (by P.J. Watson, D.F. Ross & R.J. Morris writing in Personality & Individual Differences of July, 2003) but I thought I might translate it into plain English anyway: The authors thought that Borderline Personality Disorder (i.e. severe emotional instability) would correlate with support for the death penalty. (i.e. Death penalty advocates are fruitcakes, get it?). But what they found was the reverse. The wackos were AGAINST the death penalty. But the research itself was nutty because the people they surveyed were in fact college students -- among whom there were probably NO real Borderline personalities at all. A bit like the loons (Eckhardt & Newcombe) who studied militarism among a group of Quakers. Only Leftist academics could be that stupid. It would be fun if other bloggers linked to this post so that anyone who Googled BPD would see this little gem “deconstructed”.

"Spiked" has a fun article about the twistings and turnings of postmodern "Theorists". Even the word "Theory" is a misnomer for the Leftist mumbo jumbo concerned. Once upon a time you could at least follow what Leftists were talking about. It is a sign of their desperation for something different to say that you often no longer can these days.

I saw a "subscriber only" articles on the WSJ of 25th that sounded interesting: "Millions of women have stopped taking the daily menopause hormones over "new" studies warning about their dangers. But lost amid the headlines and the hysteria was something crucial: the facts" I found what was behind that scare here but note that “The difference is not statistically significant” -- meaning that the apparent adverse effect of the hormones was so small that it was probably a chance result. The voice of sanity on the matter is here. Scientific findings are so often abused by scaremongering journalists and political activists these days that you almost have to be a scientist yourself to sort out where the truth lies. Reading blogs probably helps, though.

Reason argues against the "bioethicists" who arrogantly claim to know what medical treatments should be allowed to people: "Who are 'we' to decide how other people should live? If people do not have liberty to make choices about their own bodies, what liberty do they have?"

Both the President of China and the President of the USA visited Australia last week -- something of a tribute to a nation of 20 million people. Andrew Bolt marvels that it was the head of the world’s freest country that attracted the Leftist protests, not the Communist tyrant. It does show you vividly what Leftists really value.

Arlene Peck has just visited Poland -- where so many Jews died -- and finds that Jews are just a tourist attraction there now. Arlene may not have realized it but antisemitism is still common among Poles -- even though there are now hardly any Jews left there to hate or blame.

Interested Participant notes an instance where a Greenie plan to close down a nuclear power station is likely to result in putting conventional power stations -- with their much greater pollution -- into poor neighbourhoods. So blacks and Latinos will get to breathe more pollution just to prop up wacky Greenie righteousness. But Greenies hate people anyway so that will be OK by them.

A good article on Lomborg here: "The fierce polemics against Professor Lomborg - who accepts the need for all of us to care for the environment - highlights the extent to which the environmental issue has been hijacked by people who are profoundly hostile to industrial development, and regard human beings as the enemies of the environment"

Jonah Goldberg on the French: “The aim is for America to fail and if that means Iraq becomes a bloody quagmire that destabilizes the region, well, maybe that's worth it. The notion that the French really care about the innocent people of Iraq is flatly absurd.”

I have just uploaded another chapter from my book, Conservatism as heresy. See Chapter 34 (“The power elite”) here or here. It explains why Leftists love conspiracy theories and may be the first time I pointed out in print that Hitler was a socialist. I show that the conspirators Hitler suspected (the Jews) work out to be much the same people that other Leftists suspect of conspiracy. The chapter was written 30 years ago for an Australian audience so most of the examples I give in support of my argument will be unfamiliar to most readers. But I am sure that it will be easy to fill in more current examples of the same sort of thing. The chapter also constitutes a short essay on the nature of political power.

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