World Economic Forum

Wow, so there it is again, the great and the greatest mingling happily in Davos. Luxury hotels, private jets, prime ministers and presidents abound, the usual gaggle of academics to provide light entertainment, and then there is non-stop fawning coverage even on my beloved BBC World Service. And yet, honestly, I cannot recall that this meeting was ever anything other than a show of the great and those badly wanting to be seen to be great. Has it ever achieved anything tangible? Nope. Has it ever predicted problems (like the economic meltdown we experienced during the last 2 years)? Nope. Has it predicted the radical changes that are afoot in the Middle East? Nope.

Why not cancel the meeting and let the great and the greatest pay for their next vacation in Switzerland? Just wondering.

Completely unrelated, and just for your amusement. Notice how Faux News has relocated Egypt on its map...

Organised Christianity's Evil Consequences - Murder of gay activist in Uganda

I am reproducing here without further comment a piece that's over at blacklooks.org . Further information is here.  Write to the Ugandan Embassy or High Commission and ask that this murder be properly investigated and the perpetrators punished.

On Wednesday 26th January 2010  David Kato – Ugandan Kuchu, activist, human rights defender, Man of courage, stubborn, intense, the real. He lived without trimmings literally and metaphorically. David lived his life on the edge with no protection from the sickening campaign of hate unleashed by political and religious leaders in Uganda and their supporters in the US and elsewhere.

So today i am writing about David and whatever I write it will not be enough to express my feelings for him or on his murder.   I only met him in person exactly one year ago. He was in York on a human rights defender course. I was in London. He wanted to organise a tour speaking on the Ugandan anti-homosexuality Bill – the hate bill and thats how we came together.  `He stayed with me a couple of times and we traveled to Canterbury, London and Manchester speaking about the Bill and LGBTIQ struggles on the continent.  David was always cracking sarcastic jokes when he was speaking about the Bill. He traveled to Brussels where one woman asked him to wear a suit for his presentation. Where the fuck am I going to get a suit said David. Will they buy me a suit? Who do they think I am?  David, intense, stubborn and not given to idle chat whether in person, on the phone or  email.  I would get intense abrupt emails informing me of the latest hate in Uganda, requesting information or discussing strategy or just what the fuck is this – whats wrong with these people?

A couple of weeks ago he asked me to find out about a suspected WSF money scam. I tried but did not get back to him in time so I know I didn’t try hard enough.  David had been beaten up many times. He was constantly harassed, his home broken into. The last time this happened a few months ago he tried to raise some funds to make his home secure but it was not enough.  This is no blame time – people do what they can when they can. It’s just a fact.  He walked around with a dislocated shoulder in constant pain from a particularly severe beating – he tried to get it fixed in York but the NHS couldn’t or wouldn’t provide him with the treatment he needed.

Recently David together with Kasha Jacqueline and Pepe Onziema won a landmark case against the Ugandan tabloid, Rolling Stone who had published the names and photos of what it called “Ugandans top 100 homos” on October 2nd 2010 which also included the headline “Hang Them”. A number of the photos were ones used by activists on their Facebook profiles including David’s. The High Court ruled that Rolling Stone had “violated their constitutional rights to privacy and safety” and warned them and other news media not to repeat the outings. We do not yet know the exact details surrounding David’s murder but the fact that he has received repeated death threats since the Rolling Stone outing we see there are consequences to actions which actively encourage hatred.

The responsibility for the repeated harassment, beatings, death threats and now possibly his murder lies with all those members of Parliament, religious leaders both in Uganda, other countries on the continent and in the US, who have led the campaign of hate against LGBTIQ people: David Baharti, Red Pepper newspaper, Martin Ssempa, Ugandan Minister of Ethics Nsaba Buturu, Archbishop of Rwanda, Onesphore Rwaje , Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda, the All African Bishops Conference, Apolo Nsibambi of Uganda, Rev. Bernard Ntahoturi of Burundi, Archbishop Akinola and Nicholas Okoh of Nigeria, Peter Karamaga, the National Anti-Homosexual Task-force Uganda, President Museveni, Mrs Museveni, President Mugabe. Pastor Mulinde of Trumpet Church Uganda, Lou Engle, Rick Warren, Scott Lively and Dan Schmierer of the ex-gay group Exodus International, Jon Qwelane and President Jacob Zuma who sent him to Uganda, Bishop Lawrence Chai of Free Apostolic Churches of Kenya and Sheikh Ali Hussein of Masjid Answar Sunna Mosque. The African Union [AU] African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights who denied CAL observer status, all those who voted at the UN General Assembly Human Rights Committee to delete the reference to killings due to sexual orientation from a resolution condemning unjustified executions. And all those who hold positions of responsibility and power who refused to speak up against hatred.
The lives of all Ugandan Kuchus are now at risk – how will they be protected? Who will protect them? How will there be justice for David? One way is to ensure there is a sincere investigation into his murder including the role played by the homophobia of MPs and religious leaders and what must be done to protect others. Another is to speak about this as widely and as much as possible.

Condolences David’s family, his brothers and sisters at SMUG and to all those who knew and loved David. 


Rest In Peace David, we remember you for your courage, honesty and unwavering commitment to the struggle for the right and dignity for all of us to be who we are. We remember you, David for the beautiful human being you were and you will always live in our hearts. We have lost a great activist and a great man

“Determined to struggle till a yard done to the journey of liberating the LGBTI community from the discrimination and oppressional laws in the name of sodomy!” David Kato

Apologies for posting hiatus

Folks,

I have been away in Europe for talks in Germany and Britain. I will be back in Canada by the end of this coming week, and I will be posting stuff again. Meanwhile, enjoy this link. Also, I was castigated by some religious nut in Canada last year about claims I made about patients in Catholic hospitals being unable to be certain that they'll received best standards of professional care due to conflicting ideological (pardon me, religious) teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. You might want to check out this link in the Washington Post on the matter. It provides plenty of evidence in support of my contention.

Warning: Beware of St Lawrence Exteriors in case you live in Kingston, Gananoque, Napanee and surrounding areas

Here's a warning to my good neighbours in Gananoque, Kingston, Napanee and surrounding towns about St Lawrence Exteriors. About 2 years or so ago I hired St Lawrence Exteriors to replace the shingles on my roof. In the process the company destroyed one of the skylights on my roof. There was glass all over in one of my bedrooms, the lot. To be fair, that sort of thing can happen, and the company agreed to replace the skylight. It goes without saying that initially it tried to crank up the price of the roofing way beyond the initial quote, presumably to recover the cost of what was so obviously the company's mistake.

Worse, this winter I discovered that the window they had put in was actually cracked. They hid this by gluing (!) flashing on top of the crack. Well, eventually the crack extended and now covers the whole window. Worse, the flashing has come off during a recent storm (it was glued onto the glass - boggles the mind in its own right). The window has to be replaced yet again. All a result of terribly shoddy workmanship.

I have since called both of the company's owners as well as their office, but nobody bothered returning my calls. I asked that they fix the problem they or their contractor have caused. I also emailed them with the same request. No reply. I also asked the Better Business Bureau to try on my behalf, but to no avail. It turns out that the company is already ranked as 'D' (second lowest), because it does seem to have a habit of ignoring customer complaints.

I learned my lesson. From now on I will first check at the Better Business Bureau website how companies are ranked to avoid being treated like I am currently treated by St Lawrence Exteriors. Think twice about hiring St Lawrence Exteriors for any work that you might have. They might just let you down, too.

50 Voices of Disbelief in Polish

Yay, the Polish translation of our anthology 50 Voices of Disbelief is coming in March 2011. Here's the publisher's announcements. Tell your Polish friends :-). - Here's hope that they won't misspell my name on the book cover (like they did on their website)...

25 Years of Bioethics (the journal)

here's the ToC of our 25th anniversary issue. The commissioned
contributions have been made available in Open Access format, so no
subscription to the journal is required.

The content can be accessed here:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bioe.2011.25.issue-2/issuetoc


EDITORIAL (page ii)

UDO SCHÜKLENK

ARTICLES

PUBLISHING BIOETHICS AND BIOETHICS – REFLECTIONS ON ACADEMIC
PUBLISHING BY A JOURNAL EDITOR (pages 57–61)
UDO SCHÜKLENK

PERSONAL GENOMES: NO BAD NEWS? (pages 62–65)
RUTH CHADWICK

WAS BIOETHICS FOUNDED ON HISTORICAL AND CONCEPTUAL MISTAKES ABOUT
MEDICAL PATERNALISM? (pages 66–74)
LAURENCE B. MCCULLOUGH

LOOKING BACKWARDS, LOOKING FORWARD: HOPES FOR BIOETHICS' NEXT
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS (pages 75–82)
SUSAN SHERWIN

LOCALIZED PAST, GLOBALIZED FUTURE: TOWARDS AN EFFECTIVE BIOETHICAL
FRAMEWORK USING EXAMPLES FROM POPULATION GENETICS AND MEDICAL TOURISM
(pages 83–91)
HEATHER WIDDOWS

IN WHOSE INTEREST? POLICY AND POLITICS IN ASSISTED REPRODUCTION(pages 92–101)
ANNE DONCHIN

MORAL ENHANCEMENT AND FREEDOM (pages 102–111)
JOHN HARRIS

LITERATURE, HISTORY AND THE HUMANIZATION OF BIOETHICS (pages 112–118)
NATHAN EMMERICH

In Matters Bioethics

I am reproducing here a blog entry that appeared over at retraction watch. It affects a plagiarized paper in BMC Medical Ethics. The paper plagiarized from an article we had published in Bioethics in 2009. Appreciate the irony.

Irony alert: Shades of plagiarism undo med ethics paper on terminal care

With some conservatives fulminating over President Obama’s eternal lust for “death panels,” we have our own case of end-of-life outrage to report.

BMC Medical Ethics has retracted a November 2010 paper by two authors from Mayo Clinic whose manuscript — “End-of-life discontinuation of destination therapy with cardiac and ventilatory support medical devices: physician-assisted death or allowing the patient to die?” — contained passages that closely echoed those in another article, “Moral fictions and medical ethics,” published online in July 2009 in the journal Bioethics.

According to the retraction notice:

The authors have voluntarily retracted this article and it is no longer available for online public display because portions of the article are similar to a previous publication. While there was no intention to use pre-existing work without appropriate attribution, the authors nonetheless extend their apologies [to the authors and and all others concerned].

The article does appear to still be available, however.

The authors, Mohamed Y. Rady and Joseph L. Verheijde, have published nearly 60 articles together since 2006, on topics ranging from organ donation and the Islamic religion to whether discontinuing life support in patients who have experienced cardiac death in order to harvest their organs for transplantation constitutes homicide under state law (it likely does, they argue). Other than the BMC Medical Ethics paper, it does not appear that any of their previous papers has been retracted.

We find the retraction notice more than a little opaque and confusing. It’s unclear how “similar” the article was to the Bioethics paper it offended. But why not use the word “plagiarism” to describe the similarities? Also, how convincing is that “no intention” disclaimer? (Not very, as it happens, as you’ll soon learn.) And why is the article still available?

We’ve emailed the editor of BMC Medical Ethics for an answer to these questions and will update this post when we learn more.

Meanwhile, we spoke to Franklin G. Miller, a bioethicist at the National Institutes of Health and first author of the plagiarized Bioethics paper. Miller, to whom the retraction notice specifically apologizes, said he discovered the offending material this fall when he chanced upon the BMC Medical Ethics article.

I first saw a citation to a piece of mine in Bioethics, but then I had the feeling some of this language sounded a little familiar to me. I looked side by side at the two articles and I found extensive passages that were lifted—some were verbatim, some had a couple of minor word changes. There was a citation, but only one, and no quotation marks. They had essentially appropriated our language, our arguments, and our analysis as their own.”

Miller said he contacted the journal, which conducted an investigation.

At first they said they were going to issue a correction, which I said was not satisfactory. Finally the legal dept of the publisher of Bioethics got into the act, and that led to the retraction.

Miller said he is “very dissatisfied” with the retraction notice for its failure to use the word plagiarism and its claim that the misappropriation was inadvertent.

To say that it wasn’t intentional is mind-boggling. You cannot systematically lift someone else’s text without intending to do it. It seems not possible. A sentence or two, maybe, but not paragraphs.

Miller said he now has discovered plagiarism of his own work five times over the course of his 20-year career in bioethics. On two other occasions, he detected plagiarism of someone else’s work.

To my mind, in bioethics, one time in 30 years is a lot.

Rady did not immediately return an e-mail requesting comment.

Surely there must be a space for some kinds of official secrets?!

Seldom before have I been this ambivalent about an issue. Am I curious about state and other secrets? Probably as much as the curious guy next door. Did I enjoy the egg on the US Secretary of State's face that resulted from the Wikileaks disclosures. Did I enjoy information about Arab countries egging on the US to flatten Iran in order to prevent the Islamic regime from getting its hands on nuclear weapons? Hell, I did!

But... really, should these disclosures have occurred? I doubt it, to be honest. I think Wikleaks disclosures are superb when they disclose crimes committed by states, banks, whoever. Surely I'd want to know to what extent states are involved in torturing or murdering people when the very same states pretend that they'd never do such a thing.

However, what purpose is served with Wikileaks spreading gossip about what the US ambassador to Germany really thinks about the German Chancellor? This serves no purpose whatsoever. Surely diplomatic staff must be able to communicate frank assessments to the governments of the countries that they serve without seeing those subsequently splattered all over the world's newspapers. I cannot understand why anyone would want to take that ability away from diplomatic staff, and why anyone would think that disclosure of such sensitive information is in any way desirable.

I am equally puzzled that all this transparency and openness agitprop is deployed by a secretive organisation like wikileaks. The personality cult surrounding its figurehead, Mr Assange, is plain ridiculous, much as he seems to enjoy it.

Somewhat relatedly, The Telegraph newspaper, a conservative broadsheet in Britain, trapped a number of liberal ministers in the Conservative/Liberal Democrat government into saying that they don't really love their conservative fellow coalition government ministers (and their policies). For starters, it's trivial that this would be the case, so what kind of revelation really was that? None to anyone with just a minor amount of critical thinking skills available to them. The paper also trapped a Liberal Democrat government minister into saying that he can't stand Rupert Murdoch's news corporation (owner of Faux News in the US of A) and that he will try to prevent  the company from taking over BSkyB, a satellite broadcaster. How did The Telegraph manage to do this? Its staff pretended to be constituents of those government ministers. So they popped in during office hours and discussed these question with their local MP (ie in this case the Liberal Democrat government ministers). These ministers, admittedly naively, were quite frank in their conversations with their constituents (ie the masquerading conservative newspaper hacks), ans duly found their private conversation with what they believed were their constituents splattered across the Telegraph's frontpage.

All that this paper has achieved is that from now on MPs will be even less honest and forthcoming with their constituents. Were these few headlines, not exactly revelatory that they were to begin with, really worth this price. Of course not. Was the paper wrong in deceiving these parliamentarians? Of course it was. Did the parliamentarians show a remarkable lack of good judgment? They probably did.

What I am trying to say is this: Not every revelation of confidential government business should automatically be applauded as a brilliant coup worthy of our support.

This blog

Interesting stats from blogger itself. This blog had more than 20,000 hits between May and December this year :). Thanks everyone.

Oversight, oversight, oversight

It can’t be repeated often enough: Efficient and competent oversight is of crucial importance when trying to ensure ethically run clinical trials anywhere. Bioethicists were for some time distracted by chasing smaller prizes in their ongoing debates about the ethics of clinical research in developing countries. These smaller prizes were and are important prizes as surely the standards of care provided in a trial matter, and so do our answers to concerns about post-trial benefits and the question of what constitutes a trial related injury that ought to be subject to compensation in prevention trials. And yet, all of these questions seem like skirmishing activities when, after a brief reality check, we realize that next to no trials that are undertaken in developing countries by Western for-profit as well as non-profit sponsors are vetted for ethics compliance by developed country oversight agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration agency in the USA.[1] The reported behaviour of pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer – a frequent sponsor of bioethics causes – in developing countries is undoubtedly cause for concern and suggests at a minimum that oversight agencies should more rigorously and more vigorously monitor the ethics compliance of research undertaken in developing countries.[2]

The same holds true for trials listing researchers with multiple affiliations on their papers.  When a researcher lists a US American institution among his or her institutional affiliations on a research paper reporting clinical research that was undertaken while he or she was affiliated with that institution, there is no excuse for that institution not to have vetted the trial its staff has undertaken in a developing country.  Unfortunately, the opposite is actually the case.[3]

Perhaps this is as good a time as any to stress the importance of ensuring the enforcement of ethics standards by means of ongoing and efficient oversight. Ethics standards without bite and human power to back them up are not worth the paper they are written on.

---

[1] 

Office of Inspector General (DHHS). 2010. Challenges to FDA’s Ability to Monitor and Inspect Foreign Clinical Trials.  DHHS: Washington DC. (OEI-01-08-00510)

[2]  Anonymous. UPDATE 1-WikiLeaks cables: Pfizer took aim at Nigeria AG. The Economist 10 Dec 2010 (accessed 15 December 2010).  A Ballantyne. Benefits to Research Subjects in International Trials: Do They Reduce Exploitation or Increase Undue Inducements? Developing World Bioethics 2008; 8: 178-191.

[3] 

S Philpott, U Schuklenk. A Trial That Should Not Have Been Done http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Bioethicsforum/Post.aspx?id=4626&blogid=140 (accessed: 15 December 2010)

Travelling

Apologies for the unannounced hiatus. I have been travelling in Asia and, for awhile, couldn't even access this blog in order to up-date it. So, just a quick note from the Cathay lounge at Hong Kong's airport. I'll be blogging more this coming week. Had a most interesting time. Incredibly, I bumped into a bloke wearing Queen's University paraphernalia (a sweater) in Hong Kong this morning. Turns out that he's a Queen's graduate. Talking about how small the world is. What were the odds of something like that happening... I met great people both in China as well as in Hong Kong. The trip was well worth it, both professionally as well as personally. I took about 400 photos...

I ended up in two remarkable hotels during this trip. One houses the Chinese Communist Party's leadership during winters (in Shenzhen), the other (in Hong Kong) forced me to listen to Xmas music on the loo. An Ave Marie while you go about your business. Odd indeed.

Conversing with Falun Gong

I received the below message from a self-declared Falun Gong practitioner. Presumably written in response to this blog post of mine. Well, read the email I received in all its entirety. Kinda fun. Nutcases united! I think the bits about flying Faluns are pretty funny. My personal favourite though, changing gays, mixed-race and computer engineers who were sent by extraterrestrial aliens to destroy earth. That's pretty cool as far as crazy stuff goes...

Dear professor:
--How are you? I am a Falun gong practitioner. Do you know about Falun gong?
--Do you often have agony? Are you distressed? I tell you a key to calm your distress.
--I am 43 years old. I am a Falun gong practitioner for 15 years. I was poor health and bad temper 15 years ago until I became a Falun practitioner. One day in this year, I suddenly entered into tranquility and I felt so peaceful that I couldn't move at all. Then I saw Li Hongzhi Master sitting in front of me with golden light around him. Our mighty and solemn Master Buddha looked at me with boundless benevolence. Although he didn't say any words, I heard clearly his earnest and tireless teaching.
--Several years ago, when I was first doing sitting meditation, I could clearly hear the turning sounds of Falun when my hand passed by my ear. Also, since practicing Dafa, I have recovered from several diseases. Before I started to cultivate, I had imagined how wonderful I would feel if I had no disease. I have been enjoying this feeling for the past several years. I haven't even caught any colds since then.
--In 1997, Master's hint helped me to avoid a severe train accident. Many people on the train that I missed died or were seriously injured. For a long time, the media outlets in China were afraid to report the accident to avoid frightening the public.
--Since the year 2000, I have seen countless silver lights flying and dancing all over the sky that appear to be Falun. If I get a camera, I would like to take pictures and magnify them so that I can show them to the ordinary people who don't believe it at all. With the coming of the Fa-rectification in the human world, those who have known the truth of Dafa through the efforts of practitioners, and who therefore have righteous thoughts of Dafa and treat Dafa kindly, will be able to see it soon.
--We can save mixed-blood ones, the gay and computer engineers. Although they are the plot that the extraterrestrial aliens sent to our Earth to destroy human, but we can use the “truthfulness, benevolence and forbearance” to change them. We need you help us to practice together. For human, join us!
--If you want to know more about Falun Dafa, you can tell me!
--Good Luck!

Corruption pays @ FIFA

Fun stuff at FIFA. Six members of the voting body that decides where the next world cup takes place have been found guilty of bribery charges to some extent or other. Remarkably so, none of those voting members received more than the equivalent of a slap on the wrist. None of them, for instance, was dismissed from the committee in question. Some of them are banned from voting for up to four years, and that's where it ends.

Now, these guys ended up in a typical Murdoch 'news'papers style sting operation. You know, one of those Ms Ferguson is used to these days. Basically the newspaper offers bags of cash to folks with either access to folks in power (Ferguson) or folks with actual power (FIFA Executive Committee members), films their response to the bribery offer and publishes the results of their sting operation in order to sell more of its 'news'papers. These kinds of 'news'media create the news they then report about.

You can argue about the question of whether it's fair game to offer huge amounts of money to FIFA folks who come from impoverished parts of the world, in the hope that they might take the bite. At least one of those folks made quite clear that he didn't mean to take any of the offered dosh for himself. He wanted it to be channeled to his local football association so that they could build more soccer fields. The other bloke wanted it transferred into his personal bank account, also ostensibly to support soccer in his home country. Who knows what would have happened to that money.

Either way, these votes were on sale, and for FIFA to not kick those folks off their voting committee for good tells you all that you need to know about that organization's ethics code and more important ethics standards!

Ghostwriting Ethics

There's obviously ghostwriters and ghostwriters. Some ghostwriters are acknowledged by name (eg in various autobiographies, including Hilary Clinton's, but also in acknowledgments of biomedical journal articles). What these ghostwriters basically do is to grab existing drafts or manuscripts fragments and draft them into a polished whole, but without adding contents of their own. This, arguably is an above-board type activity, provide due credit is given.

Then there's other ghostwriters, such as authors who write whole biomedical journal articles for pharmaceutical companies where at a later stage other authors' (usually senior professors) names are added. This is clearly a fraudulent activity, because the supposed authors in question had no hand in conceptualizing, and drafting the research paper in question. There have been quite some occasions where they didn't even have a hand in the research that was reported. This clearly is unethical, because they made false representations about their research activity in the process. They made their readers believe that they undertook the research in question, and that the paper published under their name was truly theirs.

Equally as bad is the ever-growing industry of for-hire essay and thesis writers that floods university campuses with its advertisements offering to write student seminar papers and theses (even PhD theses!) for a fee. There is plenty of evidence that this industry is significant in size, and that the fraud that is being undertaken here is undertaken by many students at all levels of their studies. Here and here are examples of how this works from the perspective of people paid to write all these fake essays and theses.

All this stuff is pretty bad news, not only because we graduate students unable to write their own contents, but also because these students and we as degree granting institutions make false representations about the then graduates' competencies. The former, of course, make these false representations knowingly. They're fraudsters. Universities, by virtue of awarding degrees make false representations on some occasions, not knowing of course, how many of our graduates are serial cheats. In fact, it seems to be the case that we as academics have remarkably few tool available to us that would permit us to identify customers of paper mills.

It's all somewhat frustrating. I can't think of any efficient means to actually deal with this problem.

Anonymous vouching and such stuff

Some time ago I attacked Ted Hsu on this blog. Ted Hsu, whatever one might think of him, deserves credit for at least saying what he believes in, even if that does not win him votes, and even if - in the eyes of this commentator - his stances on important issues do not add up. I respect people I disagree with, as long as they have thought about what they believe in, and as long as they put their names to their views.

Bizarrely, yesterday a friend or acquaintance of Mr Hsu told me (in a response to the same blog entry) both how much of a person of integrity Mr Hsu is (I have no reason to doubt his integrity and have never suggested otherwise) and that he's progressive (I have serious reason to doubt that, but then, I suspect what's progressive these days is very much in the eyes of the beholder). Mr Hsu's friend or acquaintance also kind of vouched for Mr Hsu, he or she gave a character witness. Nothing at all is wrong with  this. Where the witness giving turned bizarre was when the friend of acquaintance decided to attack me anonymously. When questioned the rationale given was that he or she always uses his or her pseudonym on the internet. Obviously, if you were to use the pseudonym Don Quixote on the web and you decided to give witness on your friend, you do make a fool of yourself. Why should anyone care about an anonymous writer vouching for someone else about whom we actually know more than about the writer who busies him- or herself vouching?

At least this is something I won't hold against Mr Hsu. You cannot control your friends and acquaintances who decide to praise you anonymously.

For what it's worth, the Liberal Party riding association chose Mr Hsu as its candidate for parliament in the next federal elections. Congratulations are due to Mr Hsu. He fought a bitterly contested campaign well, and he won (no doubt the other pro-life candidate's second preference votes would have flown to him, because he failed to win outright in the first round). Nonetheless, a win is a win is a win! Good on him!

I have supported Bill Flanagan, who lost narrowly to Mr Hsu. Let me predict then that our riding will fall to the conservatives (whose pro-life candidate offers a more coherent conservative package than Mr Hsu) in the next election as a result of this decision of the local Liberal party's membership. But hey, that's what democracy is all about.

Quixotian war on drugs wins another pointless battle

One could consider it amusing, if not laughable, if so many lives were not lost in the war on drugs in Mexico. Today a joint US/Mexican operation managed to find a drug tunnel between the two countries where smugglers transported weed from Mexico to the USA. In what they undoubtedly consider an amazing victory the authorities in Mexico and the USA confirmed also that they seized 25 tons of marijuana. Well, it seems like a Quixotian victory of a kind, if it's a victory at all. A consequence of the pointless criminalization of Marijuana (a drug much less harmful than say alcohol) is an open-ended invitation to criminals to capture the drug market. Quite some of this criminal drug money goes straight back into funding the war criminal gangs fight in Mexico against the Mexican people. It is clear then that the seizure of these 25 tons will actually fuel the war, rather than bring it closer to an end. Why is that?

As it goes in all markets, the price increases when the quantity of the product available remains stable but demand increases, or when there is even less of the product at steady demand or increasing demand. That then is what this 25 ton fund will practically mean. If anything, it might fuel the civil war in Mexico, because the other criminal weed producers will be able to sell their quantities at higher prices. 'Sisyphus'  and 'pointless' come to mind when looked at from disinterested perspective. In addition to being pointless from the perspective of those wanting to 'win the war on drugs', arguably these sorts of 'successes' assist criminals in financing their counter war more efficiently.

Complete waste of time, it appears to me. The societal answer to people's interest in taking drugs should be based on the objective harms that are caused by particular classes of drugs. These harms should not be measured by policies resulting into harms (as criminalization fuels today the civil war in Mexico), but on the intrinsic harmfulness of particular drugs. If a societal responses causes more harm than could be caused by the intrinsic harmfulness of a particular drug policy changes are surely called for.

Praying doesn't work

Interesting side story in the US midterm elections. Christine O'Donnell, a teaparty supported Republican candidate for a cushy Senator job, who gained some claims to fame for saying that homosexuality and masturbation are immoral, that evolution does not take place, and for claiming that clinical trials resulted into mice with human brains, has lost her bid for the Senator seat in Delaware. It seems this nutcase was considered electable by some 40% of the electorate. Tells you quite a bit about that country, doesn't it...

Anyhow, O'Donnell belongs to the kind of people who believe that doing nothing (ie praying) helps achieve whatever you do nothing about (ie pray for). So her and her fans busily prayed for her win. God, unfortunately, was busy with so many other races that he must have missed her prayers. Seems praying doesn't work after all. Bummer... makes me wonder though whether one should suggest to the teabaggers and their Republican lapdogs to pray harder in the future and spend less time poisoning the public domain with their ideology (aka that of their corporate funders).

I assume that she will soon be working for the Fox News network where all failed Republican politicians end up doing their own lil shows or work as talking heads. A million $$ salary is likely awaiting O'Donnell. Should be fun.

United Kingdom of Censorship

The UK is clearly currently losing it on the censorship front. On the one hand, thankfully parliament abolished blasphemy legislation a few years back. On the other hand, the country's Advertising Standards Authority in recent months cancelled two advertisements because they ('potentially' - I like that phrase) offend the feelings of religious folks. The ads were both for - get this - an ice cream. In each of the advertisements, while religious symbols were used, the actual transgression did not take place. Let's leave aside for a moment the question of whether in the age of gay marriage and legal civil partnerships two guys in black dresses kissing each other is a transgression of a kind. Oh, right, the transgression is about the black dress. They're God people. God people don't kiss (each other) it seems. Well then, it's here where the Advertising Standards people moved in. They cancelled one advertisement because they received six complaints from Catholics saying they're - get this - offended by the ad.

Why would a tiny number of complaints (six) justify canceling a nationwide advertising campaign? Advertising is still a speech act, so really the advertising watch dog is saying that freedom of speech may legitimately be curtailed when a - however small - number of religious people complain.  This is surely unacceptable. I get offended all the time by the activities of religious folks (eg Christian aid agencies taking photos of starving black kids to get money out of me so they can use my donations to feed and indoctrinate kids in developing countries). I'm hugely offended by this. If I wrote to the Advertising Standards Authority, would they cancel those ads, too? I bet you that they would not. Should they cancel this ad because I am upset? Of course not. Offense in its own right is insufficient a reason to limit speech acts. Nobody has an absolute right not to be offended (pace Muslim activists who think otherwise)! The very idea that offense could be a reasonable principle for limiting speech acts makes no sense, because on that logic the most fanatic folks (of whatever persuasion) would decide what can and cannot be said. After all, they'd be most likely to be upset whenever the views that they hold fanatically are contradicted. So on this logic the most fanatic would also be the judge of what can or cannot be said with regard to whatever they are most fanatic about. Absurdistan in action. Yet this is precisely the logic of the UK's Advertising Standards Authority. I wonder how long it will take until Il Papa central will declare it a 'saint' :-).

There's another aspect of this that also troubles me. The advertising company that produced these two advertisements will probably think twice about using religious symbols for future ads, seeing that two of its ads were cancelled. Almost certainly self-censorship will occur in the wake of these decisions! Seeing that the new government in Britain has a liberal coalition partner, I wonder whether the powers that are in charge now will do something about this.

How sickening is that...

Really, how sickening is that? How can it be that Haiti suffers a cholera outbreak killing scores of its people? I mean, since the earthquake a lot of money was given do do-good operations (let's ignore for the time being the 'Bibles for Haiti' type collections by religious fanatics), and yet there is a cholera outbreak. So, these do-good operations have REALLY not yet managed to secure clean water supply for the Haitian people? What have they done with all that money?

Either way, it beats me, how it can be that we spent worldwide trillions of $$ to prop up a gone-nuts banking system in order to ensure that bankers (investment and otherwise) don't see their gazillion $$ bonuses shrink to thousand $$ bonuses, yet seemingly getting our acts together to ensure that the people of Haiti have clean water supply is asking too much.

I'm giving up. It just doesn't make sense, no matter how I look at it. Enjoy the photos of the hardware the do-gooders have amassed to impress their donors...

Those reference letters

The older you get, the more reference letters you are asked to write. The price you pay for moving closer to death. - This thing cuts really both ways. Initially you spent your while hassling busy mentors of yours to do reference letters for you, and another, and another ... you felt bad, and no doubt, so did they. Well, eventually you find yourself in the same situation, provided you do/did some mentoring or other.

Here are several problems I have both with writing and reading reference letters:

1) More often than not what I read is utterly dishonest and stands in no relation to the person who is being praised over the moon. As a result of seeing this time and again, I barely - if at all - bother reading reference letters. I assume that whoever requested one asked someone with the understanding that it would be a positive, uncritical letter. Well, if all I find out is what is good about a particular job applicant, and I have good reason to assume that whatever is written down in the reference letter is hyperbolic, what's the point?

2) My problem as a reference letter writer is that I can't get myself to lie even in order to help good people. So, if you were to ever compare my reference letters to those of people who do the whole hyperbolic shebang, you'd think I hated a candidate who I actually think would be a good choice. Am I supposed to put on the rhetorical battle gear and write about that 'one in a life-time' future academic, a coming academic superstar? I don't even think of current crowned academic superstars (just check the philosophical gossip site Leiter Report for ongoing coronation activities) in those terms.  I know that, secretly they go to the loo, just like I do, and just like Professor Middle-of-the-Road at Popplesdorf University.

3) I would love a system whereby reference letters could be honest and balanced. In the absence of this, I prefer to stick only to objective markers like peer reviewed publications, citations of those publications, teaching evaluations, etc, when it comes to academic appointments. You might want to take a closer look and check how frequently, especially in the arts and humanities, appointments are made based on verifiable evidence of excellence versus appointments made entirely on a candidate's capacity to drop names and attract reference letters from crowned superstar academics. It's painful to watch.

4) Dishonest reference letters reflect very badly on the professional who wrote them! I mean, once I have seen Prof XYZ praise a weak student to me, and I fell for the praise, what would I think of future reference letters I received from that same professor? These sorts of activities can only work efficiently for a short period of time, begging the question why Prof XYZ thought it would be sensible to lie about her supposedly to brilliant student!

5) So, what lesson is there to be drawn from this? Are we really compelled to lie reasonably qualified to good candidates into jobs with our reference letters, because that's what everyone else is doing?

All a bit self-defeating, isn't it? As I said, I give close to no weight and attention to reference letters. I wonder how many others in more senior positions do the same. Are we all wasting our time with this sort of stuff?

ps: you're welcome to make use of the disposable bullshit bag displayed to the top left of this blog. Seems the perfect place for most reference letters.