Magic Statistics

According to a British dermatologist, Karl Marx suffered from a painful skin condition that is known to cause psychological problems.  Is that why he appears to be scratching himself in this picture?

Sam Shuster, professor of dermatology at the University of East Anglia, believes the revolutionary thinker had hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) in which the apocrine sweat glands – found mainly in the armpits and groin – become blocked and inflamed.

"In addition to reducing his ability to work, which contributed to his depressing poverty, hidradenitis greatly reduced his self-esteem," said Dr. Shuster, who published his findings in the British Journal of Dermatology.

"This explains his self-loathing and alienation, a response reflected by the alienation Marx developed in his writing."
. . .
"The bourgeoisie will remember my carbuncles until their dying day," Marx told Friedrich Engels in a letter from 1867.

One of Marx’s foundational beliefs was that ideas arise from material conditions.  Doesn’t that mean that hidradenitis suppurativa contributed to 100 million deaths during the 20th century?

Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your boils.

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• Stalin turns up the heat, Ukrainians pay power bills
• Crime pays

The latest Environics poll on Canadian attitudes toward abortion finds that a substantial majority of Canadians favour legal constraints on elective abortions.  Two-thirds of women and 57% of men support legal protection of unborn children.

More than one-third (34%) of women support legal protection from conception onward, 21% after three months of pregnancy and 12% say babies should be protected after six months. Overall, 62% of Canadians supported legal protection at some point before birth.
. . .
The poll also asked about legislation that would make it a separate crime to kill or injure a fetus during a violent attack on a pregnant woman. Seventy-five percent of women and 72% of men said they would support a fetal protection law.

Canada is unique among Western democracies in having no legal limits on abortion, beyond those applicable to any medical procedure.  This poll is further evidence that Canadians oppose our government’s no-policy policy on abortion.

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A select committee of the British House of Commons has proposed making abortions easier to obtain.  Two members of the committee have issued a scathing dissenting report, recommending tightened restrictions on abortion and alleging that "ideological and financial interests have apparently shaped” the majority report.

An official report by the Science and Technology committee, released this morning, said it had found no scientific justification for pro-life campaigners' calls to lower the 24-week limit for abortions.

In addition, in what would represent the biggest ever relaxation in the 40-year-old rules, the committee said that the requirement for two doctors to sign forms before an abortion should be removed to stop delays for women seeking the procedure.

However, in an indication of the disagreement within the committee over today's report, two of the panel’s Tory MPs published a minority report calling for the laws to be tightened, including Dr Bob Spink, who described the inquiry as "shameful".

The minority report, submitted by Nadine Dorries and seconded by Dr Spink, charges that the official report is founded on biased and scientifically unsupportable cherry-picking of evidence.  Here are some snippets.

3. Some witnesses who have been given prominence in the Committee Report included very few, if any, scientific references in their written submissions . . .

4. Some key witnesses who would have given a contrary view to the RCOG [Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists] consensus, especially on upper limits, were either ignored or not invited to submit evidence (see especially Professor Stuart Campbell and Dr KJ Anand). It was also unfortunate that there was no serious engagement with a wider range of non-directional specialist counsellors with experience of both pre and post abortion counselling.

5. The committee’s expert advisors were not neutral but brought to the committee vested interests and minds made up on some of the key issues (such as upper limits).
. . .
10. The committee has given too much space in its report to evidence on both sides that has not yet been published in peer-reviewed journals. These ‘findings’ should be removed from the report and should not be used to inform Parliament . . .

In Ms Dorries’s view, the committee report is “a veiled attack upon women and women's rights, but even worse . . . a direct attack on unborn infants.”

The Telegraph notes allegations that the report was railroaded through the committee with insufficient debate and that Commons Speaker Michael Martin stonewalled MPs’ requests for more information on committee proceedings.  As well, in a suspicious and uncommon manoeuvre, the report was released at midnight after MPs had left on a week’s holiday.

h/t for Nadine Dorries website: Peter Ould at An Exercise in the Fundamentals of Orthodoxy

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Just as we suspected!  British Prime Minster Gordon Brown (at right) has insisted that the Lisbon Treaty is not the same as the rejected EU constitution, and therefore a ratification referendum is not called for.

Now, however, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who presided over the convention that drafted the treaty, has cut Mr Brown off at the knees.

The EU's new treaty is the same as the rejected constitution - only the format has been changed to avoid referendums, says Valery Giscard d'Estaing, architect of the constitution.
. . .
"Looking at the content, the result is that the institutional proposals of the constitutional treaty … are found complete in the Lisbon Treaty, only in a different order and inserted in former treaties," Mr Giscard d'Estaing said.

Mr Giscard also says the more complicated layout was a deliberate ploy to avoid referendums.

A commenter at Archbishop Cranmer’s blog points to a related news item: During last week’s EU summit in Lisbon, over 200,000 people marched in the streets in protest against the EU treaty.  For some strange reason, the event was not picked up by Europe’s major news media.  Go figure!

h/t: Archbishop Cranmer

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On 31 October 1517, Martin Luther (at right) nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church, setting in train events that would later be known as the Protestant Reformation.  Luther’s great hymn, "Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott", written sometime between 1527-1529, played an influential part in furthering the cause of the Reformation.

The best-known English translation is entitled “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”, by Frederick H. Hedge.  Another translation, rarely heard in North America, is Thomas Carlyle’s “A Safe Stronghold Our God Is Still”.

A safe stronghold our God is still,
A trusty shield and weapon;
He’ll help us clear from all the ill
That hath us now o’ertaken.
The ancient prince of hell
Hath risen with purpose fell;
Strong mail of craft and power
He weareth in this hour;
On earth is not his fellow.

With force of arms we nothing can,
Full soon were we down-ridden;
But for us fights the proper Man,
Whom God Himself hath bidden.
Ask ye, who is this same?
Christ Jesus is His Name,
The Lord Sabaoth’s Son;
He, and no other one,
Shall conquer in the battle.

And were this world all devils o’er,
And watching to devour us,
We lay it not to heart so sore;
Not they can overpower us.
And let the prince of ill
Look grim as e’er he will,
He harms us not a whit;
For why? — his doom is writ;
A word shall quickly slay him.

God’s Word, for all their craft and force,
One moment will not linger,
But, spite of hell, shall have its course;
’Tis written by His finger.
And though they take our life,
Goods, honour, children, wife,
Yet is their profit small;
These things shall vanish all:
The City of God remaineth!

For more Reformation Day goodness, check out John K’s Reformation Day meditation.  Also, Rebecca, Yukon blogger and friend, has a post on Jan Hus, The Bohemian Morning Star.

Who can forget the poignant pictures of birds, beaches, and sea life covered with oil in Prince William Sound following the Exxon Valdez oil spill?  (Photo of rescued cormorant at right.)  The tanker hit a reef on 24 March 1989 and discharged 11 million gallons of oil, causing one of the worst ecological disasters in history.

Captain Joseph Hazelwood had left his third mate at the wheel and was in his stateroom when the ship ran aground.

In 1994, an Anchorage jury assessed the former Exxon Corporation (now Exxon Mobil) $5 billion in punitive damages.  That award was reduced to $2.5 billion last year by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals.  The company appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, which this week agreed to hear the appeal.

The company has long argued that it invested significant amounts of time, money and effort to address what happened to the environment, wildlife and Alaska residents after the oil spill. Exxon doesn't believe that any further punishment is warranted, said spokesman Tony Cudmore.

For Exxon, "this case has never been about compensating people for actual damages," Cudmore said. "The company voluntarily compensated most plaintiffs within a year of the spill, and has spent over $3.5 billion, including compensatory payments, cleanup payments, settlements and fines."

Over 30,000 commercial fishermen and other Alaska residents are plaintiffs in the case. They are bitterly disappointed that final resolution will once again be delayed, along with their long-hoped-for payouts.

The outcome may turn on an 1818 precedent involving a vessel called Amiable Nancy.

The court will be addressing one of the most basic issues of maritime law: whether a ship owner can be punished for the actions of its agents at sea.

Current case law, dating back to an 1818 case, says that ship owners can't be punished for the actions of their crew unless they "directed," "countenanced" or "participated" in them.

Exxon officials say they will argue that ship-owners are not liable for the actions of a captain who contravened company policies and practices.

More on the Amiable Nancy case here.

I remember the Exxon Valdez disaster well, for it occurred a relatively short distance from Whitehorse less than six months after we moved here.  It received blanket coverage in the media for weeks on end.  Everyone here was sickened by the damage.

Lawrence O’Neil has been sworn in as a justice of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia and leftists have hit the roof.  During his term as a Progressive Conservative MP (1984-88), Mr O’Neil made some controversial statements about abortion in the House of Commons.

On April 28, 1987, the legal aid lawyer told the House of Commons: "Unborn children across this country are being suctioned from the womb by women who want to put an end to their pregnancy. Those children are being dismembered."

The official Hansard transcripts of proceedings also quote O’Neil as saying on July 27, 1988: "It appears that there is widespread acceptance of the notion that a mother should have the right to control her body. There is no such right."

In 1985, O’Neil moved to introduce a bill to amend the Criminal Code to require that every unborn child be represented by legal counsel at therapeutic abortion committees across the country.

You’ll never guess what adjective pro-abortion activists apply to characterise Mr O’Neil’s views.

Liberal MP and justice critic Marlene Jennings was cited calling O'Neil's pending judgeship "scary," adding that: "Mr. O'Neil's appointment by the Conservatives frightens me as a woman, and I think it should frighten the overwhelming majority of women in Canada. It's an affront and an attack on our equality rights."

Lawrence O’Neil: bogeyman.

Halifax Daily News columnist Charles Moore points out that it is in fact Ms Jennings who is out of touch with Canadians.

The most recent major poll on the topic I found - of 2,024 respondents surveyed by Environics in late 2005 - found six Canadians in 10 affirming that human life should be protected before birth, fully 30 per cent saying from conception on, another 19 per cent after three months of pregnancy, and 11 per cent after six months - while only one-third of Canadians thought human life should receive legal protection only from the moment of birth.

Especially interesting was that support for protection from conception on was higher among women (34 per cent) than men (24 per cent).

Canada has an over-abundance of judges from the wacko left side of the political spectrum.  Why should the views of socially conservative Canadians be denied representation on the bench?

h/t: e-mail from the See of Pisiquid

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Twenty-five years ago today, on 30 October 1982, the beautiful young woman and the goofy-looking nerd in this photo got hitched were joined in holy matrimony at St John’s United Church, Vancouver.

The small wedding with family and a few friends followed a whirlwind romance. We married only a few months after first setting eyes on each other because we knew that God meant us to be husband and wife.  The whole story is posted here.

Thanks be to our wise, loving, and gracious heavenly Father for marriage, one of the greatest of his many gifts.

As an addendum to my recent post refuting Michael Moore’s rose-coloured view of socialised medicine in the UK, check out this recent news from Britain.

Record numbers go abroad for health

Record numbers of Britons are flying abroad for medical treatment to escape NHS waiting lists and the rising threat of hospital superbugs.

Thousands of "health tourists" are going as far as India, Malaysia and South Africa for major operations – such is their despair over the quality of health services.

The first survey of Britons opting for treatment overseas shows that fears of hospital infections and frustration with NHS waiting lists are fuelling the increasing trend.

More than 70,000 Britons will have treatment abroad this year – a figure that is forecast to rise to almost 200,000 by the end of the decade.

NHS meltdown?

h/t: Wesley J Smith at Secondhand Smoke

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This outrageous story is another shocking example of how fastidious and legalistic adherence to Islamic moral dogma imposes needless pain and suffering on women and children.

Doctor Philippe Becx from Bree, Belgium, was called to the hospital in the middle of the night because a woman had to undergo an emergeny [sic] caesarean section.

However, her husband blocked the door and demanded a female anesthetist. The latter was unavailable.

After a two-hour discussion proved fruitless, an imam was summoned. The imam permitted the doctor to apply an epidural injection, but only if the woman was fully covered with only a small area of skin showing.

OK, hold it right there.  If it’s an emergency, how can the doctor and the husband flap their gums in the hallway for two hours?  I put that question to my own personal operating room nurse, the StatWife, who explained that the adjective “emergency” with reference to a c-section can mean two different things.

There’s the “foetal distress” emergency, in which the unborn baby is at risk of imminent, serious damage to life or well-being and must be removed from the womb ASAP.

The other type of emergency c-section is necessitated by “failure to progress”, in which the mother has been in prolonged labour but the baby is not moving down the birth channel.  The obstetrician/gynecologist decides a c-section is called for because the birth process is not progressing.  This is urgent but usually not an immediate life-and-death crisis.

So, Dr Becx and the husband have time to engage in two hours of foolish argument only if the c-section is due to failure to progress.  But note this: Throughout the two hours during which the husband prevents the doctor from doing his job, his wife is still in labour—and not progressing.  The woman has no anaesthetic on board because the anaesthetist hasn’t even reached her bedside yet.  That bonehead subjected his wife to two hours of utterly pointless labour!

I have another question: What were the gynecologist and nurses doing during those two hours?  Did no one jump in to tell that jerk to take a hike?

Here’s the surgical protocol worked out with the "help" of the imam.

During the surgery itself, performed by a female gynecologist, the anesthetist was to remain in the hallway. Through a door that was slightly ajar, he shouted instructions to a nurse who was monitoring the anesthesia.

According the hospital’s directors, the doctor acted with ‘admirable understanding.’ He would have been in his right to have the man removed by police.

If that’s true, then the anaesthetist shoulders part of the blame for the mother’s two extra hours of labour.  "Admirable"?  Not in my book.  Doctor: the husband is not your patient, and your real patients are suffering. Get on with it.

Fortunately, neither mother nor child suffered lasting damage.

After it was all over, Dr Becx filed complaints with a judge.  The husband has been charged with endangering the lives of his wife and child.

By the by, the original story in a Belgian newspaper is written in what appears to me to be Dutch.  I consulted two independent English translations, and they agree on all the particulars.

Previous related post: Women forced to leave seminar on Islamic medical ethics