Sleepy Old Bear Diaries

Off to Paris on the 1645 to Halifax, then to Dorval, then Paris. If everything goes like clockwork. One false step and I get to buy myself a room at the Dorval Hilton, like two years ago.

I won’t have a lot of time for blogging, but if there is something you would like to see here, send it along to sleepyoldbear@eastlink.ca

The Loony Left need not apply.

Bernard-Henri Lévy, better known to those in the know as BHL, has become a laughing stock of modern inteleckshoouls everywhere with the publication of his much anticipated book on philosopher Immanuel Kant.

Oh, there’s sharp criticism in Lévy’s new Kantallope, there’s bomb thrown name calling, and nose-up-turning galore. Kant, according to Lévy, is a “raving lunatic” and a “fake.” And to prove his case Lévy uses the anti-Kanti words of the famous 20th-century philosopher Jean-Baptiste Botul — known as the father of the philosophical school of Botulism.

Here.

One other thought … I haven’t seen the book, but I want to see it to check whether Lévy is himself is in on the joke …

UPDATE:  apparently not. Go here.

Reminds one of the post-modern spoof by Soboul (sp ?).

An enduring love affair with futility.

Here.

Are we living in a hologram? Is this Star Trek: NG ?

Here.

Premier of Nfld-Labrador avails himself of Canada’s upper-tier medical care system.

He’s going south … to America !!

Two-tier medical care for the rich, powerful, famous.

The rest of you with this complaint?

Stop whining and die, dammit.

Here.

The Monbiot Fatwa

Armed with a “bounty fund” of over £9000, George Monbiot has been urging Guardian readers to effect a citizen’s arrest of Tony Blair, ostensibly for committing “an illegal act of mass murder” and “crimes against peace.” (Mercifully, this bounty doesn’t extend to parliament or a sizeable part of the British electorate.) Monbiot’s campaign website includes the former prime minister’s public schedule and a charmingly ambiguous assurance:

The fund will remain open for as long as Mr Blair lives, or until he is officially prosecuted.

The proposal met with much whooping and hooting among Guardian readers, with more than a few enthusiastic endorsements:

I would actually like Blair’s blood on my hands.

Here. Thanks to Kate.

The Guardian of what? Leftist lunacy, perhaps.

Update: Well, sometimes the Guardian takes off the blinkers …

And for a brief shining moment I thought Monbiot had figured it out … and then he gave it away again at the end. Yep … that’s it … deniers are in the pay of Big Oil. Looking for demons behind all the bushes ….

… corrupting everything they touch?

You have to love this guy for his chutzpa.

He is the climate change chief whose research body produced a report warning that the glaciers in the Himalayas might melt by 2035 and earned a Nobel Prize for his work – so you might expect Dr Rajendra Pachauri to be doing everything he can to reduce his own carbon footprint.

But as controversy continued to simmer last week over the bogus ‘Glaciergate’ claims in a report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – which he heads – Dr Pachauri showed no apparent inclination to cut global warming in his own back yard.

On Friday, for the one-mile journey from home to his Delhi office, Dr Pachauri could have walked, or cycled, or used the eco-friendly electric car provided for him, known in the UK as G-Wiz.

Reminds one the Algorythym.

And while you are at it, check out this headline:

The United Nations’ expert panel on climate change based claims about ice disappearing from the world’s mountain tops on a student’s dissertation and an article in a mountaineering magazine.

Here. Thanks to Kathy Shaidle. And this, thanks to Instapundit.

And the hits just keep on coming.

AGW … time to give it up, folks. Admit that you have been deluded. It’s time to show some critical thinking.

Potty Patch.

Judas ‘Scariot Blues.

and James Schall on Higher Ed.

Apart from the top item, thanks to the usual suspects.

Dr. Paul McHugh

“There is a received opinion about homosexual behavior, most of it is wrong. There is the notion that one is gay by nature, an innate tendency like being left handed and any attempt to hinder is tantamount to racism. This opinion is unproven and quite unsettled in psychology, biology and sociological studies. In many ways data tends to refute this,” said Dr. Paul McHugh Professor of Psychiatry at John Hopkins University. “Scientific research has not established any genetic causation for homosexual orientation, he told the Mere Anglican conference.

“Genes seem to be the ultimate source. If 50% of identical twins, one of whom is homosexual, somehow proves this genetic influence is simply not true. The data indicates some genetic influences are in play, but Genetic identity does not bring uniformity such as eye color. Many other behaviors including crime, over eating can incline but not compel us. Genes are one of the many influences. For psychiatrists like me, the genetic biological concept as biologically compelled are built in.”

McHugh said there is no such thing as the vacated self. “There are emerging homosexual preferences in adolescence around the lack of parental influences, usually the father. The truth is advocacy and sexual politics play a stronger role than the psychological role. Today politics and social opinion are playing more of a role in determining behavior.”

The psychiatrist also stated that Kinsey’s findings are not sound social science. “Kinsey was a secular Elmer Gantry. He was a fervent missionary for this new movement. Kinsey chose samples of convenience. Kinsey was an ideological bully. He said that 50% of men were adulterous and 25% of women were adulterous and 10% male homosexuality. These figures are a fiction.”

McHugh said the AIDS epidemic roused the nation. “It broke down the resistance people had. The “Sex in America” report in 1994 controverts most of Kinsey’s report. The truth is 85% of people have one partner in a given year. This is why AIDs did not sweep the nation. Homosexuals represent only 2% – 4% of people. Homosexuality is not a built in biologically based trait.”

Social Cluster Research

McHugh spoke about the emerging science of the social cluster. “I am unpersuaded that homosexuality is built in. We should not allow gay and lesbian clubs, it creates social clustering. We become the groups we self identify with. A slim person among heavy people will sooner or later gain weight. Biological, psychological and social studies seem to bear that out. This is not about intolerance but incompatibility. The tragedy is that we are seeing the triumph of feelings over reason in the university.

“I don’t think we will find a gay gene or crime gene. I am sure it is not going to boil down to a gay gene.

“I’m a Roman Catholic married to an Anglican woman and I see the church in a death spiral over sexuality issues. We are facing a new enterprise which proposes a permissive world – a pandemonium of permissiveness and hedonism that neglects the meaning of human beings. We need to teach the meaning of the psychological and social domains in which we live.

“What does science really teach us about or sexual natures? Desire and love are not the same. Differentiating is important. Despite Freud I loved my mother, I did not desire her. Desire is a way to love. The love experience and commitment of the love experience is a great challenge.

“Marriage is not simple the joining of two people in a sexual relationship. It is also about kinship. We need to teach other… to remoralize ourselves. We need a message of coherent lives to face the permissive world we are in so we can stand against pornography, homosexuality and divorce.”

Asked if the gay community is ready to be open to this idea of their biological orientation and nature, McHugh said, “homosexuals are in deep conflict with science today and the question is will knowledge enhance their dignity or is it an enterprise that will ultimately lead to their reduction.”

Americans, he said, have become such victims of the “politics of deviance” that objective scholarship is brushed aside in favor of what is deemed to be politically correct.

Here.