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.

Previous related posts:

• 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.

Previous related posts:

• Anti-abortion judge sworn in; liberals apoplectic
• Abortion lobby group pressures Canadian doctors
• Canada’s policy on abortion is not to have a policy
• Impossible for Canada to be more extreme on abortion

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

Previous related posts:

• Gordon Brown could be Britain’s Paul Martin
• EU Constitution to rise from the grave?

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.