Nation Shmation

Well my computer has officially died. Sigh. And with it has gone 2 years of saved emails. You know the type: love letters and breakup letters with girlfriends, email battles with various trolls, fan mail... sigh... fan mail. All gone.

On the plus side, I caught the latest BBC production of the Sharpe series, starring Sean Bean: Sharpe's Challenge, which takes place years after Sharpe has helped to defeat Napoleon at Waterloo, and is being sent post-retirement to India to do some stuff. Not up to its regular quality, but it's good to see the character back. The big down side was seeing Mrs Salman Rushdie --Padma Lakshmi-- in an acting role. Yes, she's hot. But she can't act her way out of a burlap sack. Not that that would be....um... possible....

We begin with a, um, post from Tandoori Beaver Tails.

We continue with this story from JJ, about an Indian man with deep abiding affection for Saddam Hussein.

You know the "Left Behind" series? It started out as a book and a movie and is about what happens to non-evangelical Christians at the time of the Apocalypse. (Summary: accept Jesus or be screwed). EK Hornbeck alerts me to the latest in the series' evolution: a video game. Check out the Wired review here.

EK also sends us this bit about Canadian "hacktivists" developing software that allows citizens to get past the New censors trying to block your online content. They are being hailed by the anti-Communist types (rightly so, in my opinion) for the product's ability to circumvent the controlling machinations of regimes like China. However, I don't think they've thought it through sufficiently. It seems to me that such a product will more readily find a domestic home, since US and Canadian governments are trying everyday to tighten controls over our browsing; more to the point, the product would be best used by employees sick of the info-control asserted by the corporate masters.

So what do y'all think of this Quebec being declared a nation thing? Well, "The French" are a unique society within Canada, somewhat deserving of special attention with respect to their history. The problem, obviously, is that this thing was rushed through Parliament without much thought as to what it means. Who is "Quebecois"? Does it only refer to French-speaking white people resident in Quebec, and who can trace their families back to the original settlers? What does this all mean in practice?

This strikes me as a very weak political ploy by the Cons to pre-empt the Liberals doing a similar thing. It's also an irresponsible move since it burdens the next government ('cause it ain't gonna be a Conservative one) with having to deal with pretty much a guaranteed revived Quebec separatist movement.

I await your arrows and barbs.

Iggy To The Fore

Well my computer is mostly fixed, but I still have some nubs to fix. You don't care about that, so I'll shut up now.

We are days away from the Liberal party's leadership convention. I would sorely love to attend, but alas do not expect an invitation anytime soon. My prediction remains that Michael Ignatieff will prevail, though it may require a third ballot to pull it off. The question then is whether Bob Rae's ego will allow him to remain in the party as anything but leader.

(Sorry, American and international readers, but I do need to talk about Canadian issues now and then, you know.)

Assuming Ignatieff wins, here's what I see going down in coming months. Expect a vote of non-confidence in Parliament by February, with an election called immediately afterward. Rumour persists that the Liberals are preparing to position themselves on a single issue: climate change. This may backfire on them, but I think if played correctly, this can be a strong approach. Meanwhile, the Conservatives will continue to be perceived as the party of ideology and the Western provinces; they will lose Quebec, despite transparent attempts in recent days to court Quebec separatists with talk of recognition of nationhood. As a result, I predict a bare Liberal majority victory in the next election, mostly at the expense of NDP seats. And once again, I predict the election of the first ever Green Party MP.

I reserve the right to modify this prediction in coming months.

Meanwhile there's a new attraction in Jesusland: a Creationist amusement park!

Courtesy of Shaila M, we have this link that shows a supposedly genuine letter from a British diplomat, circa 1943. Definitely worth reading.

Until next time, I leave you with.... air hockey!

Why Write It When Someone Else Already Has?

"But, alas, 'law and order conservatives' have been
brainwashed for decades that civil liberties are
unnecessary interferences with the ability of police
to protect us from criminals. Americans have forgotten
that we need protection from government more than we
need protection from criminals. Once we cut down civil
liberty so that police may better pursue criminals and
terrorists, where do we stand when government turns on
us?..... Mark my words, the future of civil liberty in
the US depends on the impeachment and conviction of
Bush, Cheney, and Gonzales."
-Paul Craig Roberts

Michael Richards Hasn't Been Funny in 15 Years

My main computer is still down and out. I had to ship it back to the factory this morning. Sniff. I'll be okay.... eventually. Sniff.

In the mean time, I make do on one of my cheap-ass backup computers, which is how I'm able to blog right now. Can't do any high powered surfing or working, or have multiple windows open, so it limits my ability to syphon news for you in real time. In other words, I'm going to have to post shorter, leaner bloggisms until my baby comes back from the shop.

Have you all heard Michael Richards's racial tirade on a comedy show? Here's a clip of the disturbing incident, courtesy of Youtube:



I sense a trend here, of the mainstreaming of racism in Western society. Mel Gibson's recent anti-semitic comments and the near-brilliant para-racism of the
Borat movie are further indicators of this trend. More to the point, the push by the far Right to make blatant anti- non-white comments and theories mainstream and acceptable has succeeded in making the type of tirade seen in the Richards clip almost acceptable, or at least unsurprising.

Speaking of which, is anyone surprised that the comments on the Western Standard Blogs have, to this point, been overwhelmingly in support of Richards's perspective?

I leave you with the following pictorial evidence that --gasp!-- Saddam has escaped:

Ack

I have forsaken ye, my droogies! Time constraints, plus a mysteriously non-functioning computer, have conspired to keep me from this precious space. But I shall be back in good time, I assure ye.

In the mean time, I will share a bit of news. Very soon, I'll be contributing content to MicroSoft Canada's Small Business Website, as one of a handful of entrepreneurs. Hey, launching a new business venture requires all the PR a fellow can snag, right?

Along those lines, I'll be giving a talk at the Rotman Business School at the University of Toronto sometime in the near future. Wait for an official announcement in this space, as well as the imminent launch of the new corporate website of the new business entity birthed by my business partner and I.

Till then.... back to the grind!

Tired Brown Wat

I continue to neglect my precious blog. It's not intentional, I assure you. See, after several days of battling viruses, my computer died this morning. Sniff. By the grace of Apollo and Indra, deities of data backup, I had miraculously backed up all my data just a couple of days ago, so I'm not too upset. Nevertheless, dealing with this hardware setback has occupied much of time, since the bloody thing is the core of my business.

So until I find a free moment to say something useful, here are some links:

Shaila sends us The Diwali Song from the TV show, The Office.

The same source sends us this fun article on US politicians' predilection for writing bad, sexual prose.

Meanwhile, D-Mack sends us this about the war in Iraq. The graphic is especially telling.

EK Hornbeck points us toward a groundbreaking movie: Tired Black Man. Speaking of movies, I saw the Borat film. I haven't laughed so hard in years. Sure it's offensive, but no more so than the invasion of a country that hasn't attacked you. Here's the thing about the Borat movie that many 30% of the audience doesn't get: it's about a doofus who leaves a backward village of idiots only to find a bigger village filled with bigger, more dangerous idiots.

I leave you with one last thing from Shaila: see your name in Russian!

My Bad

A whole week of no posts. Sigh. Starting your own business is more time consuming than you think! Also, I'd planned on writing part 2 of my Lancet post, then decided to write it in op-ed format, then.... oh never mind. Let's just say some other things have got in the way.

So for those concerned that I fell off a cliff, here's a place holder post...

We begin with the link you've all been waiting for, the Mother of all Daily Perv Links.

We move on to this article by Pat Buchanan in 2003, which now seems prescient in retrospect.

From EK Hornbeck comes this long-awaited mea culpa by uberhawk Richard Perle.

Hornbeck also sends us this unsurprising story about US Baptists spreading the disgusting lie that "Muslims are here to take over our country." Who's fomenting a war of civilizations again?

From the same source comes this frightening profile of Israel's fastest rising political star, Avigdor Lieberman, a man who once threatened to bus thousands of Palestinians to the Dead Sea and drown them there.

Lastly, AG sends us this snippet of, um, wisdom from a Craigslist post. (Her commentary was, "This one almost made me pee my pants, but then I realized my vagina has been cut off so that would be very painful"):

"I have been away for a bit and I have noticed postings about Chinese, Eastern and Indians being rich. I agree they work hard: buy a house with four other families, live in it, and then buy more. Good system. I love the cuisine, music, crazy shit they get up too but I hate that so many want to bring their intolerance, violence, insane religious views (yes, we should allow the cutting off of a women’s vagina). We speak English and French. Which is cool. Why don’t you want to talk to us in the language of the country you chose was better than the one you left? Exams in Irdu? Canada is slim in the icon field. We have the Mounties and hockey. Please do not wear your turbine in the Musical Parade."

I leave you with some video snippets from my trip to Trinidad earlier in May. Gotta go clean my turbine for the musical parade...

Lancet? Damn Near Killed It!

This Lancet controversy has got me all hot and bothered. So let's try and go over all the relevant bits, shall we? First, let's recap what happened. In 2004, the Lancet published an estimate of Iraq war dead that was widely criticized for weak methodology. Then, this year, many of the same authors re-jigged their methodology and went at it whole hog, coming up with an estimate of about 650,000 dead, with a 95% confidence interval between 393,000 and 943,000. This means that if the experiment were repeated a gazillion times, 95% of the time, the result would be between those two bounds; but the most likely estimate, according to their data, is the midpoint of 650,000.

The pro-war set immediately poo-pooed this finding as being too high. This, in and of itself, is interesting because it begs the question, "what number isn't too high?" When asked, President Bush immediately dismissed the study, insisting it had been "discredited". This was news to the scientific community. The study has not been discredited. Instead, some vocal pollsters and economists and at least one statistician have come forward to criticize its methodology, while an army of epidemiologists have supported it. This is a good and fair thing. Debate is good. Methodology should always be criticized.

Then the conservative echo chamber began doing their thing. On various sites, I've seen some brazen assertions that the Lancet "is not a respected journal" and that it is "siding with the Jihadis". This is not a good and fair thing. The Lancet is, in the words of Wikipedia, "one of the oldest and most respected peer-reviewed medical journals in the world." It is among the greatest science publications ever formulated, up there with Nature, BMJ and The New England Journal of Medicine. The finest health scientists in the world are published in its pages, and I don't know a single health researcher whose chest wouldn't puff with pride if his study got published in the Lancet.

I sometimes forget that not everyone out there is privy to the methods of the science world. Let me offer a primer....

First, I offer my biases. I am and have always been decidedly opposed to the invasion of Iraq, for reasons that I would hope are patently obvious to most thinking people. I hold a PhD in Epidemiology and Biostatistics; though I would never claim to even begin to understand the magic of statistics, for professional reasons I must claim to be an expert on the methodologies of population health science. While I have designed, implemented and analysed population health surveys, I have never been involved in anything as ambitious as the Lancet Iraq study. However, as a member of the greater global scientific community, I and my colleagues have often been called upon to contribute (paid) methodological reviews for studies submitted to the Lancet and other journals. To be clear, I was not a reviewer on this study, nor do I personally know anyone involved in the study or in its review.

When a study is submitted to a journal, the editors send it off to 2-4 reviewers in the community. Such reviewers are chosen for their availability, seniority and their expertise with respect to the topic at hand. Reviewers declare any conflicts of interest or inherent biases, then, if allowed to proceed, present the journal with a verdict: accept with no changes, accept with minimal revisions, accept with major revisions, or reject outright. This is the hallowed peer-review process that ensures that the editors' biases do not taint the quality of the study.

Even so, sometimes studies of poor quality slip through the cracks. This is due to insufficiently astute reviewers, distracted reviewers or indeed reviewers with biases they have either not declared or not examined. Sometimes a reviewer is blinded by the exciting topic of the study, and fails to see the methodological flaws. In such cases, the scientific community will criticize the study once it has been published. So an informal post-hoc peer-review process catches these outliers.

Assuming that the Iraq study is indeed of poor quality (a big assumption), this is in no way evidence of a bias on the part of the Lancet. Every population health study has flaws, every single one. Not a one could withstand the global, aggressive scrutiny this study is undergoing. To suggest that its publication is indicative that the Lancet is "siding with Jihadis" is ignorant slander of the worst kind.

The fact remains that the science of public health necessarily abuts topics that are close to the hearts of those on the Left: anti-poverty, gender rights, human rights, etc. The Lancet and its brethren also publish studies that are traditionally Rightist, such as those about health benefits associated with private sector reforms and investments. The Lancet is not necessarily completely apolitical, as it has in the past taken stands against both homeopathy and the arms industry, each time based upon the evidence presented and parsed within its own pages. How this can be construed as "siding with Jihadis" is beyond me.

A given health science study has five components: its context, methdology, data collection, analysis and interpretation. The soft aspects are the context and interpretation, which are reflected in the eventual paper as the Introduction and Discussion. The technical components are the methodology and analysis, and these are the bits that any criticism must tackle. The "black box" component is the data collection phase. We can only assume that the researchers collected data in the way they said they would in the methodology section. If they failed to do so, then this is not science.

With that in mind, I will discuss the actual Lancet study in my next blog post....

Flicked

The great migration to Web 2.0 continues, as I transfer my enormous database of photos onto Flickr.com. So far the following galleries have been made available:

Guatemala 2003
Guyana 2004
Halifax 2004
Newfoundland 2004
Raj/Kali Wedding 2004/5
Bhanu Persaud Memorial 2004
Wong Suburban Brunch 2004
Diane/Jonathan Wedding 2004/5
Ying/Craig Wedding 2004
Asian Heritage Month: Radha Jetty 2005
CANUSACLEN Meeting 2005
The Gates in NYC 2005
Vancouver 2006
Wong Suburban Brunch 2006
Ottawa House Party 2005
Our World On The Mend Art Show 2005
Vimal/Seema Wedding 2004
Alvin/Anita Wedding 2005
NSS Reunion 2005
Sitar Class 2005
Asian Heritage Month: Lit Fest 2005
A Year In Ottawa 2005
CofE 2005/6
Ottawa House Party 2006
SAJA 2006

Stay tuned for more updates!

CSIH Rocks

Congratulations to the Canadian Society for International Health (CSIH), whose Public Health Strengthening Project in Guyana I consult on. CSIH was awarded a Canadian Award for International Cooperation, a major recognition of the excellent work CSIH has been doing in Guyana for the past 5 years. It really is astonishing how much they/we accomplished in this short time, everything from setting up new labs, training a new generation of technicians and care-givers, writing comprehensive treatment manuals for HIV and TB, re-working entire programmes at the University of Guyana, and building a brand new electronic health information system from the ground up. In the photo, from right to left, are Professor Wat, Project Director Roumyana Benedict, Microbiologist Dr Karam Ramotar and the Guyanese High Commissioner to Canada.

Ed Wong sends us this very important web page.

And Darth Vadum sends us something for which I've been waiting for some time: a convincing study that has found that Internet porn reduces incidents of sexual assault! Isaac Asimov predicted this decades ago, and now the evidence is finally rolling in. See, kids? Porn is good!

Speaking of images, I have followed the lead of Andrew Currie and have subscribed to Flickr.com, a Yahoo!-owned photo sharing service. Slowly, I'm transferring all my photos there. You can follow my progress by clicking here. I've already uploaded pics from my recent trip to Vancouver and from recent parties.

I have a lot more to say about the Lancet kafuffle. But I hav no time today. Maybe later tonight. Stay tuned!