On 22 December the Maxim Institute emailed its last Real Issues for the year. There was one interesting omission- Bruce Logan, the former Director of the Institute, has been expunged from the records. Down in Opawa, the discredited plagiarist in question must be feeling rather blue right now. For its final edition, his ungrateful proteges have recapped the content on their webpage. Hooray, the Institute has a new booklet on educational policy out, while writing a submission against a "hate speech" ban that was never on the government agenda anyway, and getting a croney 'award' from a fellow centre-right think tank. From this, you'd never know that the Institute failed to halt the passage of the Relationship (Statutory References) Act in February 2005, insure that the centre-right won the general election as wished, prevent the first reading and select committee stage of Sue Bradford's anti-beating bill, and fail to get the Marriage (Gender Clarification) Amendment Bill off the starters block three weeks ago. Oh, and their Director resigned after Paul Litterick revealed widespread plagiarism in his own work. One might be forgiven for being reminded of Winston Smith's job at the Times in Orwell's 1984, in which Smith edited 'unpersons' out of the latest revision of Party history within archival records. Trouble is, there's still Evidence, whose Summer 2005/6 edition is out soon. Or is it? And then there are all of Logan's old monographs for the Institute, and fifteen back issues of Evidence itself. One question. If Logan is now an unperson at the Maxim Institute, then does that make the Institute akin to the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's classic? Recommended Reading: http://www.maxim.org.nz Craig Young - 29th December 2005