Selective Justice is Injustice – I suppose I could have done without the fatuous lefty-baiting Talmudic relativist shtick, but Paul Grubach’s letter to Amnesty International on behalf of imprisoned Holocaust historian/revisionist/skeptic/denier Germar Rudolf remains a well-reasoned defense of intellectual freedom. I’ve mentioned it before, but you can read about Rudolf’s truly appalling extradition and imprisonment here. You can read the book that got him in trouble here. And here is an essay by Rudolf that I found interesting.
Duesberg’s Bulldog – Speaking of insalubrious skepticism, I was not so surprised to discover that Celia Farber is still keeping the faith. Lo a decade ago, you may recall that Farber’s dispatches for SPIN magazine — remember SPIN? — played an important role in popularizing the once-intriguing notion that HIV does not cause AIDS. I remember thinking there may have been something to it, too, until I read Steven Harris’s devastating takedown, "The AIDS Heresies," in Skeptic magazine. Alas, with the thudding reception attending the long-delayed publication of leading HIV skeptic Peter Duesberg‘s magnum opus,Inventing the AIDS Virus, it seemed that Farber’s reputation as a maverick journalist with a story would recede into the the collective static where Tim McVeigh’s mugshots are filed alongside those lurid McMartin preschool headlines. But maybe not. Judging from the intemperate response to Farber’s recent Harper’s article, "Out of Control," and the marginal buzz surrounding the publication of her new book, Serious Adverse Events: An Uncensored History of AIDS, it looks as though the AIDS heretics may be poised for another round. The smart money says they’re wrong, but what do I know?