Gosplan, or the former Soviet State Planning Committee, was the essence of central planning. As the committee responsible for the USSR’s spectacularly unsuccessful Five Year Plans, it was the very epitome of why expert committees should never be allowed near the controls of industry, science, agriculture, health, education, the military, police and everything else that goes to make a modern state. The Soviet Union collapsed because it was bankrupt, and it was bankrupt because distant, unresponsive committees simply drew lines on maps or posted targets for industry without having the first clue how the targets would be met, or even whether it was in the national interests that they should be met. For example, it was a matter of pride that the USSR should have a supersonic airliner before the west; accordingly, the Tupolev 144 flew in December 1968, a few months before the Concorde.

However, the TU-144 was a lemon. It squeaked and rattled, it cost a fortune to operate and, after one of them fell from the sky at the Paris Air Show in 1973, it was quietly withdrawn and scrapped. The whole of the investment was wasted: “In a command economy, the commanders are invariably self-righteous fools who are kept in the dark while the commanded spend their time and energy finding ways not to do what they are commanded to do.” The DSM-V committee is Gosplan in modern guise.

For those who don’t know, the Einfeld case was a long-running saga in Australia which ended a few months ago when Einfeld’s last appeal to the NSW Supreme Court was dismissed on all counts by all judges. Einfeld was himself a judge of the High Court of Australia, equivalent to the US Supreme Court. In 2006, he was booked speeding in his car. However, he swore in evidence that he had not been driving the car as he had lent it to an overseas visitor. Some time later, a journalist realised the “visitor” had died about a year before the incident. Again, Einfeld swore in evidence that he had not been driving but the noose was tightening. In March 2009, he pleaded guilty to charges of perjury etc. and sentenced to two years imprisonment. In fact, the original charge carried a fine of $77, which wouldn’t have paid ten minutes of his barrister’s time when it came to court. 

Just by chance, I saw his second denial on TV. It was a polished performance. He appeared genuine but clearly, it was a sham. He was an accomplished and experienced liar, a naughty person, in other words. So what? 

Large Hadron Collider, Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (CERN), Geneva.

Built in a tunnel 27km circumference, this is the world’s largest single machine. It operates in 96 tonnes of liquid helium at a temperature of 1.9K (20K colder than outer space); it takes 10,000t of liquid nitrogen at 87K to cool it to the point where the He can safely be injected. The vacuum in the collider tubes is 10^-13 of atmospheric pressure, i.e. far less than on the surface of the moon. It cost about $11.2billion (including repairs) over about thirty years, employs 8,000 scientific staff including 2,500 doctoral students, as well as technical and support staff (including canteen workers, cleaners, journalists, drivers, travel coordinators, even medical staff). The goal of the LHC is to answer questions regarding the nature of matter and the origin of the universe.

I reproduce for your interest an item from the latest bulletin of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists: 

“Australasian Society for Bipolar Disorder Scholarship  
The Australasian Society for Bipolar (ASBD) and AstraZeneca have launched the inaugural ASBD/AstraZeneca Scholarship to provide salary support for an investigator studying (or proposing studying) any aspect of bipolar disorder within Australasia for up to three years. Suitably qualified individuals looking to build a career in the area of bipolar disorder research are invited to apply for the 2011 scholarship. Applications close 30 September 2010.

Link: www.bipolardisorders.com.au or phone +61 3 9417 5468”

Is this the same AstraZeneca which has just agreed to pay US$198million to settle claims that its top-selling drug, quetiapine, now widely used in bipolar disorder, caused obesity and diabetes? This is in addition to paying the US Dept. of Justice US$520million to settle a case that it illegally marketed quetiapine for non-approved uses: 

http://www.newsinferno.com/archives/22888 

Well, it’s nice to know they have a conscience. 

Any student of science has to be familiar with the stunning hoax perpetrated by the physicist Alan Sokal on the world of phenomenology and post-modernism. It started in 1994, when biologist, Paul R Gross and mathematician Norman Levitt (died 2009) published “Higher Superstition,” a polemic against the nonsensical anti-scientific attitudes of left wing academics. Encouraged by this, Sokal spent several months writing a spectacular piece of absurdity which was duly published in the influential journal “Social Text.” Hardly had it been released than he revealed how he had taken the editors of the journal for a ride. Immediately, the academic equivalent of all hell broke loose and reverberations continue to this day. 

Every serious student of every subject taught in higher centres, every politician and most high school students, should be familiar with this remarkable incident. The best place to start is Gross and Levitt’s “Higher Superstition: the academic left and its quarrels with science” ISBN 08018 47664. 

Humanizing Madness and Humanizing Psychiatry should be available on Kindle shortly.