Experimental science

xkcd: Placebo Blocker:





I recall talking to a psychologist once about how people reacted to getting a diagnosis of a life-threatening disease.  So we thought perhaps we could do an experiment where we gave half the group a case of the flu, and the other half a life-threatening disease, and then we could evaluate which group behaved with more nobility and grace.  But this was in the days before ethics boards...

The Stupid is everywhere!

What a triumph!
The Australian minister of agriculture had kept his country safe from rabies now that Johnny Depp’s little dogs have left the country. They will soon be followed by Johnny Depp himself, and by every other film star and film production company on the planet.

Omar coming!

After 13 years, Omar Khadr is finally out of jail.

The Harper Con reaction to Omar Khadr's release on bail reminds me of The Wire:


I can laugh at the ridiculous over-reaction of the Harper Cons to the news of Omar Khadr's release, but this has been a shameful episode in Canadian history:

"We left a child -- a Canadian child -- in Guantanamo Bay to suffer torture… We, Canada, participated in this torture . . . Canadians should be deeply disturbed that the rights of a fellow citizen - even one whose family and name are unpopular - were so callously abused and ignored."

Alberta will have some fun now

So much for boring old Canadian elections, eh?
NDP wins stunning majority in Alberta election, Jim Prentice resigns
Now, of course, the NDP will have to figure out how they can possibly run the province -- 40 years of pent-up frustration, everybody wanting everything changed RIGHT NOW! and they're stuck with a civil service that has never worked for anyone except the Alberta Conservatives.
I'll bet they'll be having some fun now, huh.

Great line of the day

From Liberal finance critic Scott Brison, remarking on the Auditor-General report:

"A Liberal government will restore evidence-based decision-making and replace Harper's decision-based evidence-making," Brison said."

Decision-based evidence-making. Yes, that's exactly what the Harper Cons have been doing.
Also, I have to say I was amused by the auditor general recommending that the government "assess a tax measure's relevance and appropriateness" -- for the Harper Cons, the only relevance for each of their picayune tax credits is whether an ad agency can create an Economic Action Plan TV ad for it.

TS up & at 'em!

Tabitha Southey's column is priceless:

TS begins work – as TS has begun work at every job TS has ever had – that is, with one clear objective: Whatever else TS may actually accomplish today, TS will try not to do anything that might cause a massive public outcry leading to demands that the institution for which she has been labouring be dismantled.

So true

A commenter on Christie Blatchford's latest Duffy story says:

Duffy should have been put in charge of payments to veterans and thalidomide victims so efficient is he at getting the money out there.

Yes, at least then Duffy's greediness would have done somebody some good.
And earlier I predicted that the Duffy trial wouldn't blow back on Harper. I'm now optimistic that I was wrong. As more and more sleaze is revealed, more Canadians will ask the greater question -- what kind of judgement did Harper show in appointing this man to the Senate in the first place?
As Montreal Simon observed last week:

what's also now clear is that Duffy's lawyer is trying to join the two men at the hip. And while that may or may not save Duffy it will almost certainly damage Harper.

I'm thrilled that Hillary is running for President and she's going to win, too!

I think it is wonderful that Hillary Clinton is running again for president -- after her last experience, I had been concerned that she wouldn't try again. She came through Saskatoon a few weeks ago on a speaking tour and the auditorium was packed -- she was warm, intelligent, extremely knowledgeable, gutsy...what's not to like?
At Hullabaloo, Tom Sullivan writes:

The problem for the RNC is that, as with electing the first black president, voters might be eager to see the first woman become president and will want to take part in that historic election. Republican women included, especially given the all-male clown car that is the current Republican field.
No matter what punches conservatives have thrown at her for decades now, Hillary Clinton just will not go down. And that coldness Priebus wants to exploit could work in Clinton's favor. There is a bit of "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher to Hillary Clinton that might prove attractive to Republican women already inclined to vote for a women. Like Clinton or not, if there's one thing Republicans fear, respect, and vote for, it's strength.

Yes indeed.
And cue the "she's not perfect so she's crap" critiques

I smell an election in the air

I have been saying for months that the Harper Cons are going to call a snap election this spring.
Of course, what do I know about it really.
But I believe all the signs are there -- First, the Harper Cons have all their nominations made and retirements announced.
Second, the federal budget still sounds OK but the Canadian economy is going into freefall and Joe Oliver won't be able to stop it as long as he keeps listening to the deficit scolds.

Martin called on Joe Oliver to kick start a fiscal stimulus program.
"Fiscal policy and monetary policy have to work hand in hand, they cannot contradict each other," Martin said. "If the governor of the central bank is talking about the need for monetary stimulus, he also understands there has to be changes made in the [fiscal policy] and those changes have to be investments."
The former PM and Liberal finance minister argues the government should be investing in infrastructure for cities, education and what he calls "discovery research" instead of focusing so steadily on balancing the books.
"We have cut back substantially on the number of scientists out there working on issues that could be generating the industries of tomorrow."
Oliver has promised to deliver a balanced budget this year, but Martin does not believe that strategy in the long run will create jobs and growth. "If you don't invest in the future," Martin said, "you will be running perpetual deficits."

Third, the most recent Harper "law and order" agenda hasn't been turfed out yet by the courts.
Fourth, even though the Duffy trial is coming up, the "cold Camembert and broken crackers" remark will continue to convince Canadians that Senators are just a bunch of entitled, out of touch wastrels and nobody will be listening to Duffy's complaints.
And fifth, our new "mission" in Syria hasn't killed any Canadian soldiers yet.
By fall, who knows.  So I think Harper will go sooner rather than later.

This was a little more than "abrupt"

A minor quibble in the larger scheme of things, but I found it offensive that Air Canada would try to "spin" the Halifax crash as merely a "hard landing".
The plane came in too low and slow, touched ground behind the runway, hit a landing guidance tower that sheered off the landing gear and the nose, bounced onto the runway, then skidded through the snow losing engines and breaking the wing. If it hadn't been for the snow, the plan might well have caught on fire.
And the RCMP apparently heard about it when one of the passengers called 911.

I think in any other universe that "hard landing" would be considered a crash. #Halifax #halifaxairport

— Peggy Blair (@peggy_blair) March 29, 2015

The country protests C51

Thousands of Canadians marched against C51 today, including here in Saskatoon





And across the country:

Vancouver


St. Johns


Toronto


Calgary


Nelson, B.C.


Montreal


Toronto


Victoria


Ottawa

Guess what day it is today?

I always thought it was very clever of my mother to have me and my twin sister on International Women's Day, too.

Leonard Nimoy

I don't know where this is, but isn't it great?
It was posted on the #LeonardNimoy thread at Twitter, where William Shatner is doing a tribute.

Saw this a few minutes ago. I involuntarily gasped and had a hard time holding it together. #LeonardNimoy pic.twitter.com/3XYy69gkGg

— Neil Shurley (@ThatNeilGuy) March 1, 2015

Nestor does it again!

Daniel Nestor and Rohan Bopanna have won the Dubai doubles championship in straight sets, 6-4 and 6-1

Canada is always proud of you, Daniel!

Responsibility

So yesterday I got into an argument about who was responsible for the tragedy of two children dying while adults squabbled:

While the house burned early Tuesday, the truck sat in the snow outside the home of the band’s mechanic. The volunteer fire department in nearby Loon Lake didn’t respond, because service to the reserve was cut weeks earlier over unpaid bills.

The discussion was about who had the greater responsibility for the deaths, the band which didn't pay its bills or train its own firefighters, or the Loon Lake volunteer fire department who went back to sleep when called out to the fire.
I don't know the answer. But I do know that somebody has to be the adult here -- maybe the provincial government rural municipality department, maybe the FSIN, somebody -- to step up when relationships between bands and nearby towns deteriorate.

“The bottom line is: Two children died and the adults have to sort it out,” Bob Pringle, Saskatchewan’s children’s advocate, said in an interview Thursday. “It clearly has to stop and it’s not going to stop unless we do something differently.”

But doesn't it always seems that somebody has to die before we are willing to do things differently?