ELSEWHERE

A broad-ranging article by the editor of The Lancet (Britain's premier medical journal) argues that scientists these days are far from impartial -- that the conclusions they draw depend very much on what is personally gainful for them: "Opinions are rented out to the highest bidder". My only disagreeement with him is over his apparent view that it could be different. Scientists are people and I have been pointing out for decades that self-interested garbage is common in the academic journals of my own field. The sooner everybody realizes that the better. The only defence against scientific deception and misrepresentation has always been replication -- seeing if other researchers (preferably those with different viewpoints) get the same results. And any conclusions that are the subject of widespread disageement among scientists -- such as the "global warming" theory -- should be disregarded until it is totally clear what the data shows.

Our nice "tolerant" Hollywood "liberals" are out to get Mel Gibson over THAT film. "You won't ever work again in this town, buddy" seems to be the message. But I guess, like Liberace, Gibson is crying all the way to the bank.

Fidel Castro opposes even necessary use of mirrors because they are 'bourgeois'. That sure would upset the Hollywood types who think he is a hero!

Britain's biggest labor union -- its union for government employees -- is sponsoring a "Unite against Fascism" movement which calls for "zero tolerance against the "politics of hate" peddled by the British National Party". The BNP is an anti-immigration party that has recently had some electoral success in working-class areas of Britain and our good Leftist unionists obviously want to shut them up. A feisty comment from a British reader: "It is probably significant that "Unite Against Fascism" makes not the slightest attempt to specify quite what it means by fascism and racism. My experience of would-be-progressive groups is that they routinely use those words as sloppy slandering stereotypes against anyone who challenges their own narrow dogmas. Yet if racism is defined as discrimination by skin colour, and fascism is defined as oppressing and suppressing of alternative viewpoints, then these "antiracists"/"antifascists" are as racist/fascist as anyone. What could be more fascist than a union which expels people merely for opposing some highly controversial political policies? The BNP will continue to grow and grow because their opponents, however well-meaning, will continue to rely on cheap name-calling, authoritarian bullying, self-deluded bias, untruthfulness, censorship and hypocrisy. One does have to wonder whether that's because they haven't actually got anything more substantial to offer"

Shouldn't feminists be outraged by this?. A reader emailed me: "Did you see the new US Government construction standards? All new construction requires 2 women's toilets to one for men. They cite "anatomical differences" - so much for "equality"".

Wow! The Salvation Army is a religious organization. Scandal! "Current and former Salvation Army employees sued the organization ... alleging the government-funded group preached religious and sexual intolerance to its staff. ... The charitable organization required employees to pledge to preach the Gospel, to identify their church affiliation and to authorize their religious leaders to reveal private information to the Salvation Army, according to the lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union's New York chapter."

An overview of the scandal of so-called recovered memory syndrome and its associated witch hunts. "Attention to the chimerical task of divining a patient's early traumas is attention subtracted from sensible help in the here and now. The reason why psychotherapists ought to familiarize themselves with actual knowledge about the workings of memory, and why their professional societies should stop waffling and promulgating misinformation about it, is not that good science guarantees good therapy; it is simply that pseudoscience inevitably leads to harm." Unfortunately the authors have failed to explore the obvious connection between this abuse and the emergence on the left of a desire to transform the welfare state into a therapeutic state ...ever in search of new classes of "victims" to "empower". This new political culture provided fertile ground for this abuse to take root. (See Paul Gottfried, Thomas Szasz and "Spiked" on the therapeutic state )

The reality "Government for the people, by the people? What a load of crap. How about government by the government for the benefit of the government. And it's all paid for by the people. We pay through the nose to be persecuted by people we are supposed to trust.

No presumption of innocence under feminist-influenced law: "[W]hen the government accuses you of fathering a child, no matter how flimsy the evidence, you are one month away from having your life wrecked. Federal law gives a man just 30 days to file a written challenge; if he doesn't, he is presumed guilty. And once that steamroller of justice starts rolling, dozens of statutory lubricants help make it extremely difficult, and prohibitively expensive, to stop -- even, in most cases, if there's conclusive DNA proof that the man is not the child's father."

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The Left have always wanted more spent on welfare and made "Fascism" a swear-word. President Bush deposed a brutal Fascist dictator and sponsored a big expansion of welfare. But instead of being admired by the Left, he is hated with a passion. What does that tell you about the Left? It tells you that they have no principles at all: That everything they have ever claimed to stand for is fake.

Two more examples of Leftist dishonesty: They blame the 9/11 attacks on "poverty" in the Islamic world. Yet most of the attackers were Saudis and Saudi Arabia is one of the world's richest countries! They also say that they oppose racism yet support "affirmative action" -- which judges people by the colour of their skin

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