A number of my students complain that they do not have any talent for mathematics, which they take as a reason for enjoying failure. But, here is a comment from a leading mathematician, Professor Tao, I think originally from Australia, who rejects the talent thesis, and argues for hard work:
  https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one-have-to-be-a-genius-to-do-maths/

“Does one have to be a genius to do mathematics? The answer is an emphatic NO. In order to make good and useful contributions to mathematics, one does need to work hard, learn one’s field well, learn other fields and tools, ask questions, talk to other mathematicians, and think about the “big picture”. And yes, a reasonable amount of intelligence, patience, and maturity is also required. But one does not need some sort of magic “genius gene” that spontaneously generates ex nihilo deep insights, unexpected solutions to problems, or other supernatural abilities. The popular image of the lone (and possibly slightly mad) genius – who ignores the literature and other conventional wisdom and manages by some inexplicable inspiration (enhanced, perhaps, with a liberal dash of suffering) to come up with a breathtakingly original solution to a problem that confounded all the experts – is a charming and romantic image, but also a wildly inaccurate one, at least in the world of modern mathematics. We do have spectacular, deep and remarkable results and insights in this subject, of course, but they are the hard-won and cumulative achievement of years, decades, or even centuries of steady work and progress of many good and great mathematicians; the advance from one stage of understanding to the next can be highly non-trivial, and sometimes rather unexpected, but still builds upon the foundation of earlier work rather than starting totally anew. (This is for instance the case with Wiles‘ work on Fermat’s last theorem, or Perelman‘s work on the Poincaré conjecture.)

     Are you a lesbian yet? No? well, you are being oppressed extensively by the patriarchy, you know that invention of feminist academics, that serves as fodder for all of their papers and books, which gives them cosy well-paying jobs at tax payer’s expense.
  https://www.naturalnews.com/2019-08-27-nbc-news-attacking-heterosexuality-the-very-basis-of-human-life.html
  https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2019/08/23/nbc-news-heterosexuality-is-just-not-working/
  https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/miley-cyrus-split-liam-hemsworth-isn-t-just-celebrity-fodder-ncna1042931

“Women are increasingly opting out of heterosexuality because it is “the bedrock of their global oppression,” NBC News asserted in a bizarre opinion piece this week. “Men need heterosexuality to maintain their societal dominance over women,” writes Marcie Bianco for the NBC News website. “Women, on the other hand, are increasingly realizing not only that they don’t need heterosexuality, but that it also is often the bedrock of their global oppression.” Ms. Bianco lumps together a series of recent news stories, “from Jeffrey Epstein to the Dayton and El Paso mass shooters, to Miley Cyrus’s separation and Julianne Hough’s declaration that she’s ‘not straight,’” which, she says, “together have laid bare the strictures of an American patriarchy on the edge of a nervous breakdown.” “As the status quo, heterosexuality is just not working,” she concludes, before explaining just how evil men are and how women are learning to live without them. “As a snapshot of 2019 America, these stories present a startling picture: Men continue to coerce, harass, rape and kill girls and women — and go to extreme lengths to avoid responsibility for their actions,” she states. “On the other side of the issue, girls and women are challenging heterosexuality, and even absconding from it altogether.” “Patriarchy is at its most potent when oppression doesn’t feel like oppression, or when it is packaged in terms of biology, religion, or basic social needs like security comfort, acceptance and success,” Ms. Bianco declares. “Heterosexuality offers women all these things as selling points to their consensual subjection,” she concludes, in a painful piece of contorted logic that reveals far more about the writer than it does about society and its institutions. “Historically, women have been conditioned to believe that heterosexuality is natural or innate, just as they have been conditioned to believe that their main purpose is to make babies — and if they fail to do so, they are condemned as not ‘real,’ or as bad, women,” she pronounces.”

     Same sex marriage Australia is exceeding the wildest expectations of the elites, showing the world that gender, like everything else, with the one exception of white racism, the greatest evil in the multiverse, is a full-on social construction:
  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7400895/Victoria-fifth-state-allow-transgender-adults-children-change-birth-certificates.html?ico=pushly-notifcation-small

“Victoria has become the fifth state to allow transgender and gender diverse people to change their sex on their birth certificate. The birth certificate bill passed 26-14 in the Victorian Upper House on Tuesday night, meaning it will officially become law once it receives the royal assent. Under the new laws, transgender people will have the freedom to have their legal documents reflect the sex they identify with socially even prior to undergoing gender reassignment surgery. Children will also be able to self-nominate to change their gender or select a non-binary descriptor of their choice with permission from their parents. A statement from a psychologist or doctor will also need to accompany the submission for a minor, The Age reported. 'Interstate and international evidence shows that whilst not a large number of people take up the these options it's simply is an option that's there to people,' Equality Minister Martin Foley told 3AWon Wednesday. 'It’s the choice to make sure that identity documents reflect the reality of the life that people live.' Victoria joins Tasmania, Northern Territory, South Australia and the ACT in passing the laws. In April Tasmania was the first state to make the inclusion on birth certificates. Gender diversity activists took to social media to celebrate the success, which marks a significant win in the fight for transgender equality in Australia.”

     That is a good question, surely worth throwing a few lavish taxpayer’s funded research grants at:
  https://www.amren.com/commentary/2019/08/why-dont-we-murder-more-white-people/

“San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) is a large museum next to the Moscone Convention Center downtown. This non-profit is funded by the City of San Francisco, the National Endowment for the Arts, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the James Irvine Foundation. From July 23 to August 25, YBCA screened Jonathan Garcia’s movie Why Don’t We Murder More White People? It was on an endless loop and each cycle lasted 11 minutes and 17 seconds, and is now on Youtube. Mr. Garcia produced this video as a year-long YBCA fellow, for which he got a stipend and an honorarium. YBCA identifies him as: “Community Engagement & Inclusion Associate, Chief-of-Staff of the SOCIAL CLUB, author.” Most of the video is of non-whites complaining about whites. They say such things as:

     A sweet old lady does not want her world to change, and all hell breaks loose:
  https://www.apnews.com/97dbf997b5124586b67e2d6f83eeebc4?utm_source=amerika.org

“A city council candidate in Michigan who said last week that she wants to keep her community white “as much as possible” withdrew from the council race on Monday. Jean Cramer stopped by Marysville City Hall to say she was leaving the race and later, at the request of city officials, put her withdrawal in writing in a one-sentence letter that did not give a reason for why she dropped out, the Times Herald in Port Huron reported. Her name will remain on the Nov. 5 election ballot. Cramer, 67, created a furor after a moderator at an election forum Thursday asked her and the other candidates if the city should do more to attract foreign-born residents. Cramer replied: “Keep Marysville a white community as much as possible.” She added: “White. Seriously. In other words, no foreign-born, no foreign people.” Her comments troubled other candidates at the forum. “Just checking the calendar here and making sure it’s still 2019,” Mike Deising said. The Times Herald later asked Cramer if she wanted to clarify her remarks. Cramer said she did not believe people of different races should get married. “Husband and wife need to be the same race. Same thing with kids,” Cramer said. “That’s how it’s been from the beginning of, how can I say, when God created the heaven and the earth.” She said she did not believe her comments were racist. Cramer doubled down on her statements Friday during a follow-up interview with the Times Herald outside her Marysville home. “As far as I know, as long as we’ve been here, Marysville has been a white community, a white city,” she said. Cramer’s comments prompted Mayor Dan Damman and others to ask her to withdraw from the council race in the city about 55 miles (88 kilometers) northeast of Detroit. More than 90% of Marysville’s 9,700-person population is white. “After the initial shock of what she said really sank in and (given) the deep-seated viewpoints that she has, I don’t believe that she is fit to serve as an elected official in Marysville or anywhere else,” Damman said Friday. Cramer was one of five candidates running for three council seats in November. City Manager Randy Fernandez said that Cramer’s name will remain on the Nov. 5 city election ballot despite her withdrawal. He said city officials consulted with the state and it was determined that she would have had to leave the race by the April 26 withdrawal date for her name to be removed.”

     My hatred, an unbalance pathological rage against runaway technology continues. What has made me really cranky today, is not merely running out of meds, but this: AI has now made writers redundant. In my case, that would not have been too hard, since a bunch of monkeys fed on rotten bananas, which reminds me of the bullpen here, could do better, but it hurts anyway. Read on and wonder if I am a real person, or just a bot in the matrix:
  https://www.technocracy.news/newspeak-ai-totally-fake-news-could-destroy-internet/

“An artificial intelligence system that generates realistic stories, poems and articles has been updated, with some claiming it is now almost as good as a human writer. The text generator, built by research firm OpenAI, was originally considered “too dangerous” to make public because of the potential for abuse. But now a new, more powerful version of the system – that could be used to create fake news or abusive spam on social media – has been released. The BBC, along with some AI experts, decided to try it out. The model, called GPT-2, was trained on a dataset of eight million web pages, and is able to adapt to the style and content of the initial text given to it. It can finish a Shakespeare poem as well as write articles and epithets. At the time, the firm said: “Due to our concerns about malicious applications of the technology, we are not releasing the trained model. As an experiment in responsible disclosure, we are instead releasing a much smaller model for researchers to experiment with.” As a result, the released version had far fewer parameters – phrases and sentences – than used during training. This month, OpenAI decided to expand the parameters, offering a much broader database of training data. Tech news site The Next Web said of the update: “This one works almost good enough to use as a general artificial intelligence for text generation – almost.”

     Just to be different, here is someone else saying the stuff we all say, but which no one listens to:
  http://www.usa.forzanuova.info/2019/08/19/white-people-and-their-achievements-are-marked-for-destruction/?utm_source=amerika.org

“The Western presstitutes and politicians have demonized Putin, Maduro, Iran, and Trump to the same extent as the patriotic propagandistic Western court historians have demonized Adolf Hitler. But no one is as demonized as white people, and the curious thing is that it is self-demonization—whites demonizing whites. One can understand why former British and French colonies from Africa through the Middle East to India, and Washington’s former colony in the Philippines and its Latin American puppet states would look with disfavor on white faces and use harsh language. But why do the New York Times, CNN, NPR, and white professors throughout the university system, school boards, white politicians, such as France’s Macron and the European Community’s Jean-Claude Juncker and Germany’s Merkel and a wide assortment of British and Scandinavian politicians demonize white people? In Scandinavia a blond woman who reports her rape by the latest wave of third world “migrants” invited into the country by the crazed Scandinavian politicians is dismissed as a racist. Scandinavian people have told me that it is becoming difficult to report any crime by migrants as the report borders on being a hate crime.

     This article deals with Canada, which is a similar “swamp” to Australia, so it should be relevant:
  https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/setting-the-record-straight-on-the-benefits-and-heavy-costs-of-immigration-to-canada

“In a recent campaign speech, Maxime Bernier, leader of the People’s Party of Canada, cited the results of one of our studies, which showed that recent immigrants are imposing a heavy fiscal burden on Canadians. He used this information to justify his plan to reduce future levels of immigration. The CBC had journalist Jonathon Gatehouse do a “fact check” of Bernier’s claim about the fiscal burden. In a publication sponsored by the CBC, he concludes that this claim is “false.” Since this verdict implies that our study also reached false conclusions, we feel compelled to do our own fact check of the analysis produced by Gatehouse. The author makes much of the well-known fact that immigrants have a positive effect on aggregate national income (GDP), which says nothing about the fiscal burden. He also fails to note that recent immigrants have lowered Canada’s per capita income since, according to official statistics, they have lower average incomes than other Canadians. He also cites a number of published studies and data he considers relevant. They involve well-known facts and again tell us nothing about the fiscal burden. For example, he notes that the gap in the unemployment rate between recent immigrants and native-born Canadian males has narrowed, but neglects to mention that this always happens when an economic boom creates increased demand for labour and leads to the hiring of previously unemployable workers.

     In the “we told you so department,” here is an article saying that he adoption of neo-liberal economic policies have destroyed the West, and china has capitalised upon this, which was the only sensible thing to do when your main competition cannot resist committing suicide. Here is Paul Craig Roberts summing it all up:
  https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-24/what-globalism-did-was-transfer-us-economy-china-pcr

“The main problem with the US economy is that globalism has been deconstructing it. The offshoring of US jobs has reduced US manufacturing and industrial capability and associated innovation, research, development, supply chains, consumer purchasing power, and tax base of state and local governments. Corporations have increased short-term profits at the expense of these long-term costs. In effect, the US economy is being moved out of the First World into the Third World. Tariffs are not a solution. The Trump administration says that the tariffs are paid by China, but unless Apple, Nike, Levi, and all of the offshoring companies got an exemption from the tariffs, the tariffs fall on the offshored production of US firms that are sold to US consumers. The tariffs will either reduce the profits of the US firms or be paid by US purchasers of the products in higher prices. The tariffs will hurt China only by reducing Chinese employment in the production of US goods for US markets. The financial media is full of dire predictions of the consequences of a US/China “trade war.” There is no trade war. A trade war is when countries try to protect their industries by placing tariff barriers on the import of cheaper products from foreign countries. But half or more of the imports from China are imports from US companies. Trump’s tariffs, or a large part of them, fall on US corporations or US consumers.

     Cardinal George Pell has lost his appeal before the Victorian Court of Appeal, by a 2-1 decision. What is interesting about this, at least to people in the law, is that the dissenting judgment was given by the brilliant jurist, Justice Mark Weinberg, who delivered a truly massive 204 page critique of the prosecution case against Pell, documenting numerous weaknesses, inconsistencies and implausibility’s in the witness evidence. The general feeling among some lawyers is that Weinberg’s judgment will set the scene for a High Court of Australia challenge, the case being along the lines of the canonical case of M v The Queen (1994) 181 CLR 487, where the High Court quashed a conviction because it was “unsafe.”

     It will be fascinating to see how the High Court responses to the Pell case, especially given that the High Court has overturned a number of recent decisions by the Victorian Court of Appeal.
  https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/legal-affairs/legal-experts-add-weight-to-opinion-of-dissenting-judge/news-story/fee51836e3d5ef9d9dcccd31e78dbe06
  http://netk.net.au/Australia/M.asp
  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-21/george-pell-appeal-judgment-summary-transcript/11434304

     No, it is not a joke … well …sometimes I am not sure nowadays what to believe, but here goes:
  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7381313/Maori-group-makes-claim-valuable-piece-land-Australia.html?ico=pushly-notifcation-small
  https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/maori-group-lays-claim-to-land-in-western-sydney/ar-AAG7oJa?li=AAgfYrC&ocid=mailsignout

“A group of Maori people are calling for valuable land in Sydney's west to be handed over to them, claiming they were gifted the area by Aboriginal people more than 200 years ago. The Rangihou people say their king was handed the land in Parramatta by leaders of the Burramattagal Clan back in 1811 after they were first invited over from New Zealand. The 45-hectare parcel of land lies in an eastern section of central Parramatta. It includes parkland, James Ruse Reserve, Robin Thomas Reserve, Rangihou Reserve and a section of the Parramatta River. 'We are Ngati Rangihou Corrangie Hapu and we are here to reclaim Rangihou land,' the group's leader Lady Crown told 9 News. 'We want acknowledgement and recognition. We want the history books corrected, and compensation for damages of the land. 'We have the first laws in time, so our laws stand above any other law in the land.' The Rangihou people attempted to seize some of the land in March by changing the locks on the Waratah Soccer Club. They also charged people to use the car park of their makeshift set-up, before being evicted after four days.”

     This story caught my eye, and I think our older readers may get a laugh out of it, perhaps:
  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7381237/Five-elderly-men-85-year-old-woman-arrested-having-public-sex-Connecticut-park.html?ico=pushly-notifcation-small

“Six senior citizens have been arrested after they were caught having sex in a Connecticut woodland. Police busted the elderly residents getting hot and heavy at Grace Richardson Conservation area in Fairfield last week, during a police crackdown on public hookups in the area. The CT Post identified the frisky locals as Daniel Dobbins, 67; Otto D. Williams, 62; Charles L. Ardito, 75; John Linartz, 62; Richard Butler, 82 and his wife Joyce Butler, 85. All six of the elderly citizens - five men and one woman - were arrested and charged with breach of peace. All six of those arrested been released and will appear in court at a later date. Authorities decided to increase surveillance on the Grace Richardson Conservation following complaints about 'lewd and sexual activity' taking place in the vicinity earlier this month."

     Here is an update on the Epstein saga, with fresh documents showing that the guy who does the horrible politely, sorry, politically, correct show The Simpson’s, got his disgusting feet massaged by a young girl, that Epstein really was a paedophilic rapist, raping two 12-year old’s that he has especially flown in for the depredation, and that some people we might be surprised to see on the list are there. No doubt this is all running out of steam, as our people are so used to abuse that they will be seeking new levels of degradation and ethno-masochism next week. Gasp, I feel ill and tired. I must be getting old. That was enough misery for one day! Time for a few stiff drinks, as Epstein might say, if he was not dead. (If he is dead?)
  https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2019/08/21/accuser-says-she-massaged-simpsons-creator-matt-groening-in-epsteins-private-jet/
  https://nypost.com/2019/08/19/jeffrey-epstein-was-sent-three-12-year-old-french-girls-as-birthday-gift/
  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7385511/Prince-Andrew-seen-Epsteins-apartment-getting-foot-massage-young-Russian-woman.html?ico=pushly-notifcation-small

     It looks like the gender agenda really begins in the womb nowadays, that is, if there are any births at all:
  https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9767115/outrage-six-year-olds-sent-home-with-graphic-safer-sex-instructions-aussie-school/

“SIX-year-old kids were sent home with extremely graphic “safer sex” instructions – including advice on lubricants – by an Australian school. Education bosses have apologised to horrified parents after young pupils received letters alluding to genital warts, syphilis, and even vaginal, anal and oral sex, after a viral skin infection outbreak. An outraged dad of a year one student at Ipswich West State School, west of Brisbane, told news.com.au that he and his wife were "absolutely mortified" to read the "safer sex" tips in the note sent home last Friday. Youngsters were handed information about an outbreak of molluscum contagiosum, a generally harmless condition that commonly affects children, at the school. The viral infection affects the skin – appearing as small clusters of spots – and is most often found in the armpit, behind the knees or on the groin, according to the NHS. It can be transmitted between children during contact sports, or by sharing personal items like towels. And, the infection can be spread between adults during sex – as pointed out in the Queensland Health fact sheet, sent home with pupils alongside the Ipswich school’s letter warning of the outbreak. It says that “lesions around the genitals can transmit the virus through sexual contact”.”

     If one is a rational scientific thinker, then the possibility of being wrong must be addressed. Here at this beloved site, we oppose the mainstream on climate change, global warming, you know that nonsense and hot air. But what if we are wrong, someone in an email recently asked? Is the UN and globalists right, and  should we  pack our bags and give up, living a life of drinking soy milk, instead of hard liquor? Hardly. Here is some literature discussing this hypothetical. The basic line of response is that the best way of dealing with any environmental problem is locally, not globally, because globally the problem is just too big to solve. Thus, if there is a need to reduce waste, then fine, let us overhaul the financial system, which because of its debt structure leads to the need for endless growth, much of which does not serve genuine human interests. In other words, environmentalism could be reinterpreted from the Right, and it would make more sense too.

     But don’t panic! Nobody here is saying anything positive about environmentalism, only in the logically possible scenario that we IF were wrong, the argument is far from over.
  https://www.amren.com/news/2019/08/when-the-far-right-believes-in-climate-change/
  http://honisoit.com/2019/08/when-the-far-right-believes-in-climate-change/

You just have to love the Italians, so much guts, passion and manliness, so much pizza, putting the Northern Europeans to shame. Look at their government … oh, it just collapsed:
  https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/08/20/italian-pm-attacks-salvini-and-resigns-as-govt-collapses/

“Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has resigned, forcing the collapse of the populist coalition between the Five Star Movement and Matteo Salvini’s Populist-right Lega (League). The Italian PM was set to face a vote of no confidence brought by Salvini’s party after the Five Star Movement overwhelmingly opposed a recent vote on the Italian-French TAV train tunnel project. On the floor of the Italian senate, Mr Conte blasted Salvini, accusing the Interior Minister of “political opportunism,” according to a report from Italian newspaper Il Giornale.”

     It is hard to tell whether this is true or not for the same-sex voting majority in Australia, as the only surveys we get rammed down out throats are how in a non-representative sample of allegedly 1,000 people, who say that multiculturalism was even better than sliced bread, provided the bread was not white bread, but something, eh, multicultural.
  https://thehill.com/homenews/news/458741-poll-70-percent-angry-at-political-establishment

“The majority of Americans said they are angry at the political establishment, which they say benefits the well-connected class, according to a new poll. Seventy percent of Americans said they feel angry because the political system seems to only be working for insiders with money and power, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday. The poll found 43 percent of Americans said the statement described them “very well” and 27 percent said it described them “somewhat.” It is statistically equivalent to the number of Americans who felt the same way four years ago, ahead of President Trump’s 2016 election, based on the poll. However, the feeling shifted from Republicans to Democrats. Twenty-nine percent of Republicans said feeling anger at the political establishment described them “very well,” which is a ten point decrease from 2015, based on the poll. But, 54 percent of Democrats now resonate “very well” with the sentiment, which is a ten point uptick from 2015. The most significant increases were also seen among women under 50, up 10 points to 48 percent, African Americans, up five points to 46 percent, and Hispanics, up 11 points to 49 percent. Despite saying they’re angry at the political establishment, 69 percent of Americans said they are satisfied with their overall financial situation today, according to the poll. But 56 percent also said they feel “anxious and uncertain” over the economy. The poll surveyed 1,000 adults between Aug. 10 and 14, with more than half reached by cell phone. There is a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.”

     If things were not tough enough for our battling farmers, now they have to deal with anarcho-tyranny, not immediately in the form of Camp of the Saints invasions, but by Big government claiming rainwater as soon as it hits the ground:
  https://cairnsnews.org/2018/07/29/qld-govt-says-it-owns-rainfall-once-it-hits-the-ground-on-your-property/?fbclid=IwAR0nLC_jMJP9hs484hFa_JPGNRtidU3D6pIquRPz8AWeaH27gNcYdWJSfjk

“Lakeland farmers have been told they no longer own the water after rainfall hits the ground on their properties. Desperate for irrigation water to keep their banana crops alive the State Government delivered a mortal blow preventing farmers from building any more dams over 50 megalitres capacity without applying for an expensive licence. Mareeba-based Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy officer Patrick Huber broke the devastating news at a meeting of Lakeland farmers recently. Mr Huber stressed that water caught in domestic rainwater tanks was safe from government hands but any other water belonged to the State. Releasing the Draft Water Plan for Cape York Peninsula he said overland flow had to be protected and the department would soon require land owners with existing dams, large or small, to supply dam measurements and capacities to the department. Within 12 months of receiving the information the DNR would then issue a licence for the water and install meters on all private dams to get an idea of water usage.

     If the people do not fight against tyranny, should they cry when it is decided by the Dark Lords of the Universe that they be eaten? The normalising process is beginning:
  https://www.newsweek.com/cannibalism-animal-kingdom-ultimate-taboo-humans-1455287?utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=NewsweekTwitter&utm_medium=Social

“For humans though, cannibalism is the ultimate taboo. In fact, our aversion to cannibalism is so strong that consent and ethics count for little. In one of our own experiments, participants were asked to consider the hypothetical case of a man who gave permission to his friend to eat parts of him once he died of natural causes. Participants read that this occurred in a culture that permitted the act, that the act was meant to honour the deceased, and that the flesh was cooked so that there was no chance of disease. Despite this careful description, about half of the participants still insisted that the act was invariably wrong. The tragic anecdote above illuminates why humans are the exception to the animal cannibal rule. Our capacity to represent the personalities of the living and the departed is unparalleled. This deep connection between personhood and flesh can mean that careful reasoning in certain situations over the merits of cannibalism is overridden by our feelings of repulsion and disgust. So why our disgust for human flesh but not that of other animals? Philosopher William Irvine has us imagine a ranch that raises plump babies for human consumption, much like we fatten and slaughter cattle for beef. Irvine suggests that the same arguments we apply to justify the killing of cows also apply to babies. For example, they wouldn't protest, and they're not capable of rational thought.

     There is a very good article at the New York Times detailing the politics behind how the blame for ill health was shifted from sugar to fat. But now the truth is slowly starting to seep out. It is worth quoting from the article since for some magic reason I never hit the pay wall, so I am like a kid in a lolly shop … oops, wrong metaphor:
  https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-shifted-blame-to-fat.html

“The sugar industry paid scientists in the 1960s to play down the link between sugar and heart disease and promote saturated fat as the culprit instead, newly released historical documents show. The internal sugar industry documents, recently discovered by a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, and published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, suggest that five decades of research into the role of nutrition and heart disease, including many of today’s dietary recommendations, may have been largely shaped by the sugar industry. “They were able to derail the discussion about sugar for decades,” said Stanton Glantz, a professor of medicine at U.C.S.F. and an author of the JAMA Internal Medicine paper. The documents show that a trade group called the Sugar Research Foundation, known today as the Sugar Association, paid three Harvard scientists the equivalent of about $50,000 in today’s dollars to publish a 1967 review of research on sugar, fat and heart disease. The studies used in the review were handpicked by the sugar group, and the article, which was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, minimized the link between sugar and heart health and cast aspersions on the role of saturated fat.”