Thursday, December 29, 2011

Conspiracy Theory 2 - Feminism

You probably hadn't realized this, but the feminist agenda only met with success in the last century when it was promoted by men. That's because men wanted to trick women into doing more work and feminism was a useful tool for that purpose. At this stage in economic history it is fairly clear that the capacity for economic output in the West far exceeds any definition of need -- that's why men perpetrated the Great Recession during which women barely lost any jobs but lots of men got to stop working. It's brilliant.

It is historical fact that female employment really took off in the West during and after World War II when the feminist movement was actually at a nadir. However, once the stated feminist goal of equal employment become something of a reality, men a) split feminism into warring camps with internal battles, b) distracted feminists with political-correctness debates, and c) made many politically active women in the West feel bad by highlighting other groups that have it even worse, e.g. non-whites, homosexuals, the poor, and the colonized. This prevented women from getting any real power while maximizing their contribution to GDP.

Nowadays, women get to work full-time AND do the majority of childcare and housework in the evenings. Somehow women have been expected to be equal contributors in the workplace for 50-plus years but "stay-at-home Dads" are still a news story. And even though women do work full-time, they still somehow manage to get paid less. Hurray for feminism!


Monday, December 26, 2011

Bad King Wenceslas Fires Back

Screw all y'all! I'm the king! That means God already decided what I do is right. I don't need to go hither, thither, and yon handing out alms to peasants like that schmuck Good King Wenceslas. I don't want to hear about that self-absorbed twerp anymore!

In case you hadn't realized by now, peasants are supposed to starve to death; that's why they're peasants and I am king. If God didn't want those losers to die of famine then he wouldn't have had me raze their crops for my super-sized lawn-bowling field. The sooner they freeze to death, the sooner God will be able to focus on blessing my St. Stephen's Day feasting. I worked hard ordering my guards to whip my servants so that the goose and duck could be fully fatted and I better not have to listen to any more hagiography about that wannabe-boy-scout Good King Wenceslas while I am indulging my royal appetite. No one likes a fawning fan-boy at their dinner table.

No one likes a goody-goody-two-shoes either, so Good King Wenceslas can shut his engorged cake-hole then use it to kiss my ass. What a show-off! We get it already! You want to be a saint! Stop pretending that you spotting some low-life serf struggling across your estate was an inspiring coincidence. Of course there was some pathetic planter trudging along there, I'VE BEEN EXILING THOSE MONGRELS FROM THE SAINT AGNES FOUNTAIN AREA SINCE FIRST SNOWFALL! (I want to convert that fountain into a wading pool for my pheasants and Saint Agnes was a total hag anyway.) You were probably waiting with your slack-jawed page since daybreak for a one-toothed serf to make his way by your window.

And for Christ's sake, stop trying to make yourself look like Jesus, you self-aggrandizing weiner-hole! The beard and the white robes were already over-the-top. Now you are walking in front of people to make their path slightly less arduous? Could you be any more transparent?

Maybe next time you want to go rescue some dime-a-dozen farmer from the cold you shouldn't bring a pint-sized page with you when the snow is 2-feet deep. Why do you even keep those midgets around? Use my test: if a page or squire can't break a peasant's forearm with one blow of their club then they shouldn't be on your secondary barn staff, let alone in the divine presence of a king.

I would tell you to get off your high horse, but you aren't smart enough to have one. Never thought of that, did ya? Riding a big horse through the deep snow? Or a pack mule to carry all your alms and other crap? You're not impressing anyone with your masochistic bravado. I mean, no one in the village is saying, "Hey did you hear about Good King Wenceslas? He made some holes in the snow with his fat feet. What a hero!"

Sod off.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

... about an Oxford comma

Every time I am writing and I have to decide whether or not I want to use an Oxford comma, I always get this song stuck in my head:


Once that song is in my head I am reminded that Vampire Weekend exists and I consider whether I want to listen to some of their music. It's like free, very effective marketing for the band. Of course, if I didn't like Vampire Weekend then I would probably be annoyed with them and I wouldn't even consider listening to their music, but if I didn't like Vampire Weekend then the issue would be moot because I wouldn't want to listen to them whether I was reminded of their existence or not. (Also, I would be lame for not liking such a good band -- an Un-Coolguy Thrawn, if you will.)

I think musicians would be smart to write more catchy songs about peculiar nouns that have distinct names so that whenever the noun pops into your head, the catchy song quickly follows and you end up thinking about the musician's oeuvre. That's the ultimate goal of most marketing and branding anyway, isn't it? That you'll instinctively associate them with other things and turn your mind to their products? In that sense, musicians really have an inside track on marketing because half of what makes a good advertisement is the music to start with.

For example, The New Pornographers should write a song about macadamia nut cookies. Well, not actually "about" macadamia nut cookies, but a song titled "Macadamia Nut Cookies" that uses that phrase as a chorus lyric with an appealing, easy-to-sing/hum vocal melody. That way, the next time I am at Subway waiting for the sandwich barista to wrap up my sub and my eyes being to ogle the oatmeal raisin, chocolate chip, double chocolate, M&M, and (of course) macadamia nut cookie selection, The New Pornographers will pop into my head and I will ponder whether I want to buy more of their music, even if only for a fleeting second before the request for cash or credit snaps me back to reality.*

It's sort of like how Seinfeld used candies with silly names that stand out like "Jujyfruits" and "Junior Mints" to make the show a little bit more interesting and quotable, but more fiendishly capitalistic.

*: Whoops, there goes gravity.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Bad Timing

It's well established that all decisions made by the Harper Government© must go through the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), so I have to assume the following conversation happened yesterday between the PMO and the Office of the Minister of the Environment (OME):

OME: Hey PMO, it's unseasonably warm right now with temperatures going up to 9°C in the middle of December, and we just got back from a high-profile UN conference on the importance of mitigating climate change where we recognized that the collapse of the Kyoto protocol could destabilize markets. What should we do next?


OME: Who should we get to announce it?

PMO: THE GUY WHO DOESN'T KNOW WHAT OZONE IS!*

OME: Won't that piss people off?

PMO: NO BECAUSE ANNOUNCEMENT WE SPEND $600 MILLION TO ALIGN ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY WITH AMERICA AND REDEFINE "CLEAN AIR".**

OME: But Canadians hate it when we copy the United States.

PMO: TOO BAD! WE ALREADY CO-OPERATE WITH AMERICA ON TRADE & SECURITY DEAL.

OME: Why are you yelling at us?

PMO; BLAARGH! PMO MUST GO! KITTENS TO PET!

Keep in mind, last time we tried to get on the Security Council we lost to lowly Portugal, a country so messed up that is begging Angola (of all places) for help and trying to save money by skimping on local anaesthetic.

*: Seriously though, who appoints an Environment Minister who doesn't know what ozone is. That's like appointing a Science Minister who doesn't believe in evolution

**: As long as we are spending $600 million to define "clean air", maybe we can spend another $10 million to get Peter Kent to define "ozone".

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Sabres After-Action Report - 11/12 Season - Game 29

Sometimes injuries can be fun because you get to see the future of your team and some grizzled veterans called up, but once you dig down in the barrel as far as Colin Stuart the injuries aren’t fun anymore.

Nobody wants to see ...

... this much of ...

... Paul Szczechura.

For someone from Brantford with a 'z' in their last name, Paul Szczechura sure isn't Wayne Gretzky.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Canadian Federalism: A Giant Clusterfuck - Chapter 1

Disputes between the provinces and the federal government

Why not go bigger and make Canada a homogenous political unit or break it up into autonomous provinces?

Think about how much hot air blows between Ottawa and the provincial capitals as they fight to scapegoat the other. They fight over economic responsibility (e.g. when the question is whose policies caused a recession or who gets to take credit when employment goes down). They fight over budgetary failures (e.g. when the province blames downloading for ballooning expenses).

These disputes can lead to further disputes about who is responsible for fixing the problem which (if you accept that in a representative democracy the legislature is a stand-in for the people themselves) basically means that the Canadian people are fighting with themselves. Federalism can lead to a collective action problem because neither the province nor the federal government wants to be the first one to provide stimulus spending and absorb most of that cost, simply for political reasons.

Friday, December 9, 2011

Canadian Death Panels

You don't have anything if you're dead, which is why health-care spending is so fundamental. You can buy all the luxury cars you want but if your pacemaker goes on the fritz because you didn't replace the batteries then you won't be the owner of those luxury cars for much longer.

Despite the primacy of health-care spending, there are still limits on the amount of money available for health-care in all societies. Given finite resources, rationing must take place. In Britain, they have the "National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence," a public body that judges whether medicine is cost-effective. Here in Ontario, we have death panels the Committee to Evaluate Drugs (CED)*.

And this is the system they have in the States.
The CED is comprised of cancer experts, so it is basically an appeal to expert authority. In the Ministry of Health's own words, their decisions are "based on the best scientific evidence." (As opposed to the other committees the government came up with that use mediocre and below-average scientific evidence.)

So the question is, "Is it appropriate to rely on science to decide who gets the cancer drugs they need and who doesn't?" I would answer, "Yes!"

Not every appeal to authority can be justified so let's analyze the CED through a critical lens by asking the following five questions:

1) Relevant? -> Is the authority cited in fact an authority in the area under discussion?
2) Reasonable? -> Is this the kind of question that can now be settled by expert opinion?
3) Accurate? -> Has the authority been cited correctly?
4) Reliable? -> Can the authority be trusted to tell the truth?
5) Why? -> Why is an appeal to authority being made at all?

1) Yes, the CED is an actual authority in the area of cancer care because it has cancer care experts on it.
2) Yes, there is enough consensus and respect for the CVs of cancer experts that questions about cancer care can be settled using their opinions. Other countries faced with similar issues have their own committees that came to the same expert opinions.
3) We can safely assume that the cancer care experts are capable of citing themselves and other cancer experts correctly.
4) We can trust cancer experts because they have no ulterior motive to lie.
5) An appeal to authority is being made because someone needs to make an objective decision in a tricky, emotion-fueled area of public policy.

An appeal to expert authority can be faulty logic but it isn't always. According to my "Understanding Arguments" book, reliance on experts is inevitable in a world where issues are complicated and the issue of limited health-care dollars is a particularly prickly one. Even the best authorities cannot guarantee no errors so we cannot say the CED is a perfect solution, but someone or something needs to make a decision on what form rationing will take and science-based experts are supposed to be the most objective and rational . Unfortunately, that objectivity and rationality will always be uninspiring next to vivid emotional appeals made on behalf of a single, sympathetic human being.

***

One weird thing, though, about the CED is that the Ministry boasts it "includes cancer experts". That's good, but who else is on there? Why have non-experts on the committee at all?

Maybe the non-cancer experts on the panel are financial and statistical folks that input cost info along with what the cancer experts are telling them their public policy formulas to give the oncology the necessary context to make what is essentially a fiscal decision. Those extra steps are inescapable because of the fiscal nature of the root question being asked. However, when multiple fields of authority are being blended together, it raises a couple problems.

First, it is problematic because you have more fields that each have their own margins of error and confidence intervals, and each time you add another piece of information that is probabilistic in nature you must multiply those margins of error together. Second, interdisciplinary decisions are problematic because you are effectively creating a new, hybrid field so you lose the specialist's claim to authority.

Another weird thing about the CED is that the experts do not actually make decisions, they only make recommendations. Saying, "The ministry will ... make funding decisions on drug products based on the advice of experts," is not quite the same as saying that the experts will make the decisions. That type of setup is ideal for the politicians because it means they can wield the ultimate power if they want to but they have political cover the rest of the time as long as they go with what the experts recommend. Politicians don't want to be stuck deciding who lives and who dies, so being able to hand the problem off to technocrats certainly suits their interests.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

An idea is the most resilient parasite

Good King Wencelas came to God
Riding on a pony

Stuck a feather in Christ's cap
And gave him macaroni

Glow Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh Oh-oh-oh-oh-orrria
In Excel's a day-o