Two weeks ago, Mr Jan Zahradil, a trained Czech researcher in chemistry who has studied water technologies, was elected the new boss of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group, a right-wing faction of the European Parliament comprising 55 deputies including the British Tories.After the Velvet Revolution, he became a politician and has been an adviser to Dr Václav Klaus, aside from other jobs. He's been a member of the European Parliament for years. A few weeks ago, Zahradil added your humble correspondent among the Facebook friends and I agreed. ;-)
Zahradil wants to improve the image of the ECRG: he's a completely problem-free, serious man with no links whatsoever to things such as xenophobia (which was sometimes linked to a few other members of the group). Moreover, the emotional reactions of our Polish cousins in the group will be replaced by an utterly cool rational approach to issues represented by the Czechs and Zahradil in person.
Most importantly, he is a big friend of science. Also, he's been a skeptic not only when it comes to climate doomsday scenarios (Zahradil has been intensely promoting The Great Global Warming Swindle, among other things); he's been active in the Sisyfos - the Czech counterpart of CSICOP - too. You may want to read his text "Blind Faith Syndrome" at the bottom of this page. Zahradil claims that irrational beliefs in the paranormal phenomena have been an inseparable feature of the mankind from the beginning - and he finds a similarity between Marxism with its "pride of reason" and the U.S. religious right which also prefers an oversimplified linear thinking over individual analyses of somewhat unpredictable events in the real world.
