The Enemy Of Your Enemy Is Not Necessarily Your Friend

Something caught my eye while reading Ariane Sherine's most recent drivellings that appears worthy of comment.

She wrote that she's "definitely going to finish the series of blog posts on The Atheist's Guide to Christmas, but probably closer to Christmas now - apologies (blogger's note - this didn't happen). However, in more exciting news, Richard Dawkins, Derren Brown, Simon Le Bon, Ben Goldacre, Charlie Brooker, Simon Singh and many more of the book's contributors have signed an original Atheist Bus Campaign bus poster, which is now being auctioned for charity on eBay".

Presumably that's the same Simon Singh whose libel battle with the British Chiropractic Association has become something of a cause celebre in respect of the English courts' unmandated expansion of the libel laws into the field of scientific enquiry. One wishes Mr. Singh well with that battle; but in the really big battles, he seems to stand foursquare with the assorted conjurers, faded New Romantics, loudmouthed media people, 'comediennes' and, er, academics who have provided Ariane's Blossoming Career - sorry, the Atheist Bus Campaign - with its intellectual heft.

Such intolerance really gets one's back up, so to speak.