Author: VD

Watch what they do

And not what they tell you to do.  It’s intriguing to see that most health-care workers refuse to get the vaccinations they so religiously administer to everyone else.

In August, B.C. became the first jurisdiction in Canada to legislate
mandatory flu shots for doctors, nurses and any other healthcare worker
who may come into contact with patients. In previous years, the rate of
inoculation for the province’s health-care workers had been below 50%,
one of the lowest in Canada….

In a November op-ed, University of Toronto bioethics researcher Ross
Upshur maintained that eschewing a flu shot fundamentally violates the
credo of “do no harm.” If healthcare workers “are vectors of disease for
hospitalized patients, they are putting patients at risk for increased
harm,” he said.

It is “disheartening” to see how few Canadian professionals are
getting the flu shot, even if they work with children and the elderly,
said Maher El-Masri, a nursing professor at the University of Windsor.
“I think we have a responsibility to protect our patients.”

It would be fascinating, and I suspect extremely informative, to know if health-care workers are similarly disinclined to vaccinate their own children according the current recommended vaccine schedule.

Let Science be silent

There is an wise old saying that I very much attempt to apply to life, the universe, and everything.  “Let Reason be silent when Experience gainsays it.”  In this postmodern scientific age, we very much require a new aphorism.   

Let Science be silent when it cannot predict future events.  

The fear and outrage being expressed in light of the conviction of the Italian geologists who are guilty of manslaughter at L’Aquila are entirely misplaced, as it is not science that is being found guilty, but rather, the abuse of the common man’s faith in science by scientists.  Consider the facts of the case, as described by Nature, a publication that can hardly be considered hostile to science:

The indictments have drawn global condemnation. The American
Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of
Science (AAAS), both in Washington DC, issued statements in support of
the Italian defendants. In an open letter to Napolitano, for example,
the AAAS said it was “unfair and naive” of local prosecutors to charge
the men for failing “to alert the population of L’Aquila of an impending
earthquake”. And last May, when Italian magistrate Giuseppe Gargarella
ruled at a preliminary hearing that the scientists would have to stand
trial this September, the Italian blogosphere lit up with lamentation
and defence lawyers greeted the decision with disbelief….

The view from L’Aquila, however, is quite different. Prosecutors and
the families of victims alike say that the trial has nothing to do with
the ability to predict earthquakes, and everything to do with the
failure of government-appointed scientists serving on an advisory panel
to adequately evaluate, and then communicate, the potential risk to the
local population. The charges, detailed in a 224-page document filed by
Picuti, allege that members of the National Commission for Forecasting
and Predicting Great Risks, who held a special meeting in L’Aquila the
week before the earthquake, provided “incomplete, imprecise, and
contradictory information” to a public that had been unnerved by months
of persistent, low-level tremors. Picuti says that the commission was
more interested in pacifying the local population than in giving clear
advice about earthquake preparedness.

“I’m not crazy,” Picuti says. “I know they can’t predict
earthquakes. The basis of the charges is not that they didn’t predict
the earthquake. As functionaries of the state, they had certain duties
imposed by law: to evaluate and characterize the risks that were present
in L’Aquila.” Part of that risk assessment, he says, should have
included the density of the urban population and the known fragility of
many ancient buildings in the city centre. “They were obligated to
evaluate the degree of risk given all these factors,” he says, “and they
did not.”

“This
isn’t a trial against science,” insists Vittorini, who is a civil party
to the suit. But he says that a persistent message from authorities of
“Be calm, don’t worry”, and a lack of specific advice, deprived him and
others of an opportunity to make an informed decision about what to do
on the night of the earthquake. “That’s why I feel betrayed by science,”
he says. “Either they didn’t know certain things, which is a problem,
or they didn’t know how to communicate what they did know, which is also
a problem.”

The article and the account it provides of the fate of the Vittorini family is damning to guilty geologists.  It is clear that the Italian families resident there no longer abided by their traditional custom of clearing out of their houses when there were tremors, primarily due to the assurances they received from the National Commission, which is why the death toll was larger than it would have been if it hadn’t been for those assurances.  The defenders of the scientists around the world are observably bending the truth, even lying, for claiming that science is on trial or that the basis of the charges are that they failed to do the impossible by not “pinpointing the time, location and strength of a future earthquake in the short term”, as Nature puts it.

As the prosecutor points out, the basis of the charges is not that the scientists didn’t predict the earthquake, but rather that they did not fulfill their legal duties to perform a proper risk assessment.  Moreover, if it is impossible to predict an earthquake, then how could any honest geologist accept a paid position on a government body called the National Commission for Forecasting
and Predicting Great Risks?  If you know you can’t do the job required, then you had better not accept it in the first place.

I have to disagree with Instapundit’s take on the matter.  He sees this Italian attempt to hold scientists accountable for engaging in unscientific activity that led directly to great loss of life as creating “incentives for scientists to leave Italy and
to avoid giving any sort of earthquake advice to the Italian government.
I predict a run of bad luck.”

First, I note the inapplicability of the quote to the situation.  Heinlein was talking about entrepreneurs and technological and conceptual innovators when he described his “extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people”.  He most certainly wasn’t describing publicly acclaimed, government-funded individuals hailed as the nation’s “most respected geophysicists”.

Second, I very much doubt Italy will have any trouble at all finding top-credentialed scientists to continue accepting government funding.  And to the extent that those scientists learn to keep their mouths shut about things they can neither predict with any reasonable accuracy nor support with credible scientific evidence, that would be an entirely desirable advancement from the current state of scientistry, which so often attempts to confuse credentialed democracy and amateur editing for genuine scientody.

Debate the debate

“Foreign policy took command of the campaign spotlight Monday at the
third and final debate between President Barack Obama and Republican
Mitt Romney, two weeks before Election Day in a close race for the White
House dominated by pocketbook issues and the economy.  Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the recent attack on the U.S. Consulate in
Benghazi, Libya, and Iran’s nuclear ambitions were all ripe for
disagreement in the 90-minute event at Lynn University.”

Feel free to provide the color commentary or keep score if you’re watching.

La responsabilità della scientista

Avanti azzurri!  Much to the shock and horror of the world’s scientists, Italy holds seven “experts” accountable for their criminal negligence:

An Italian court convicted seven scientists and experts of manslaughter
on Monday for failing to adequately warn citizens before an earthquake
struck central Italy in 2009, killing more than 300 people.  The
court in L’Aquila also sentenced the defendants to six years in prison.
Each one is a member of the national Great Risks Commission.

Scientists worldwide had decried the trial as
ridiculous, contending that science has no reliable way of predicting
earthquakes.  Among those convicted were some of Italy’s most
prominent and internationally respected seismologists and geological
experts, including Enzo Boschi, former head of the national Institute of
Geophysics and Volcanology. 

It’s both fascinating and informative, isn’t it.  Scientists are absolutely certain that the science is settled and they are more than willing to declare what laws should be passed, what classes should be taught, and what massive economic interventions and intrusions on individual freedom should be suffered due to the absolute reliability of their scientific knowledge.

But hold them personally responsible for their predictions and declarations?  Well, that’s an outrage!  Science isn’t actually expected to be reliable, after all!  I look forward to seeing climate scientists being similarly prosecuted one day for the complete failure of their predictive models.  The evolutionary biologists should be safe, unfortunately, since they don’t even have any predictive models.

WND column

Polls and the next president

Interest in the presidential election is heating up. Independents and
undecided voters are gradually coming around to their decisions.
Democrats are shrieking about the threat to Roe vs. Wade and warning
that Mitt Romney intends to put women and gays into concentration camps,
where they will be forced to wear sacred chastity belts. Republicans
are shouting that this time it really and truly is the most important
election ever and warning that Barack Obama wants to turn America into a
communist Islamic republic and launch an attack on Israel.

None of these dire warnings are true. 

VPFL 2012 week 6

85 Moundsview Meerkats
75 Bane Sidhe

102 Bailout Banksters
64 Suburban Churchians

79  D.C. Hangmen
42 Greenfield Grizzlies

77 RR Redbeards
75 Luna City Gamma Rays

66 Fromundah Cheezheads
61  ’63Mercury Marauders

Fromundah narrowly escapes to preserve their undefeated record, but three teams, including the much-feared Meerkats, are chasing after them from two games behind.

A goal and the existence of God

About five years ago, I had to stop playing soccer.  I’d re-aggravated an old leg injury and while I could run without trouble, I couldn’t kick the ball with any force with my better foot.  Two years ago, I was invited to join another veterans team, one that competed at a lower level than the Elite Promoted team with whom I’d been playing, (and with whom there was no way I would be able to play for after so much time away from the game), and since I thought I could use the exercise, I thought I’d give it a try.

It went pretty well, as we won the league championship both years, and I was able to contribute six goals to the effort last year despite being the fifth option at striker.  Like most veterans teams, we were injury-plagued and so I ended up starting a few games last year.  This year, we began the season in such collectively bad condition that I’ve been starting most of the games, and indeed, have even had to play entire games without being substituted.  I’m not the worst player on the team, but I’m easily and unquestionably the least technically-skilled of the starters.  But, if nothing else, it’s really an excellent workout.

However, I’ve finally understood the nature of my role on the team – about which more another time, as it’s a lesson in teamwork – so the coach has decided that I’m the ideal complement for the best striker and usually starts me in preference to two of our better strikers even when they are available.  That’s because I am the only one fast enough to keep pace with S, the aforementioned striker, and can therefore prevent the defense from committing two or even three defenders to him when we’re attacking.  We don’t need me to score in order to win, only to make enough runs and create enough dangerous opportunities to make the defense nervous and give S room to work.  In an ideal game, I get two or three shots, S scores three goals, our midfielders add two more, and we win 5-2 or thereabouts.

I knew the guys were a bit nervous this weekend, though, since our number 10 told me that I would have to score two goals if we were going to win.  The problem was that as good as our attack is, the other team’s is better.  They were ahead of us in the league table and had scored almost twice as many goals as us thanks to their star player, a retired professional named D.  We simply couldn’t count on S scoring enough to keep pace with him. 

We got off to a really good start, however, when about five minutes into the game, I broke for the center and our left wing sent a cross towards me.  It was too low to head, too high to kick, and I had a defender right on me so I couldn’t try to control it either.  So, I concentrated on getting my right knee up as high as I could, and managed to redirect the ball past the keeper from just inside the box.  It wasn’t perfectly placed or anything, but the cross was whipping across so fast that he never had a chance at blocking the deflection.  1-0.

It was a good goal, maybe even mildly impressive, but it was the sort of instinctive goal I still score from time to time.  I was very pleased, of course, but we didn’t get too carried away since we knew they could score too and D was proving to be an absolute freaking handful for our midfielders and defenders.  He didn’t really play a proper position, he just sort of roamed free and created havoc anywhere he wanted despite our attempts to double- and triple-team him every time he touched the ball.  Our number 10 set me up with a nice pass, but I blew the pass to S when I should have probably just run in straight on the right side of goal.  Still, we were keeping up the pressure when D went past three of our guys before being knocked off the ball… and our last defender whiffed on the clearance.  Their other striker pounced on his miss and put a hard, low shot into the corner that our goalie couldn’t possibly stop.  1-1.

We were dominating possession, though, and before too long, S drew a free kick just outside the box, then whipped the kick over the wall and into the upper right corner.  I don’t think the keeper even saw it until it was too late.  2-1.

It was just before halftime when the left wing tried the same cross with which we’d scored earlier, only he hit it too hard.  It not only went over my head, and my marker’s head, but also beyond the left defender.  I realized the ball was going high early and had already cut right before it passed overhead, so I managed to get to it first, about halfway between right corner of the box and the sideline.  I knew S, the number 10, and the left wing were all breaking to the middle, so without slowing down, I leaped, twisted my body and hit it as hard as I could with my right foot without looking.  That spun me in a circle, which stopped just in time for me to see the ball fly right into the very upper left corner of the net.  3-1.

It was as ludicrous as it was spectacular.  You just don’t see many goals like that, not even in a league where there is enough skill that guys not infrequently score from 35 yards out.  Our defensive captain, who gets frustrated with me on pretty much a weekly basis, (and for good reason), actually got down on one knee and kissed my shoe as if it were the Pope’s ring.  The goal completely demoralized the other team. 

In the second half, we missed a penalty, but lanes started opening up, their defense mostly stopped trying to run with us, and if it weren’t for some poor touches and foolish offsides, we would have added more than the one additional goal scored by S.  The game finished 4-1, and when I complimented D afterwards for being such an incredibly massive pain in our collective posterior, he was kind enough to say that he was pretty impressed with my second goal himself. 

Right after the game, about six of my teammates surrounded me and demanded to know if I had been actually trying to take such an improbable shot, or if it was merely an attempt to cross gone fortunately awry.  I told them the truth, which was that I was only trying to send the ball in S’s general direction, so it must have been “la grazia di Dio” that put it in the net.  That made them all laugh, and one midfielder, a skilled player who has a keen sense of my technical limitations, commented that as far as he was concerned, it was definitive proof of the existence of God.

There have been a handful of games I can still clearly remember throughout the course of my soccer-playing career.  A 13-0 demolition of Breck in junior high.  Beating the Lagos brothers for the conference championship in high school, then downing our archrivals in the first round of the state championship.  This game will most definitely be one of them.

The polls say Romney can’t win

In which we note the latest Gallup poll:

According to the latest Gallup survey, Mitt Romney is polling 52% of likely voters. At this point in the race he is ahead of:

  • Where Jimmy Carter was in 1976 (47%)
  • Where Ronald Reagan was in 1980 (39% — Carter was six points up)
  • Where George H.W. Bush was in 1988 (50%)
  • Where Bill Clinton was in 1992 (40%)
  • Where George W. Bush was in 2000 (48%)
  • Where Barack Obama was in 2008 (49%)

Cue Nate Silver complaining: “But… but… the 538 state poll model estimates that Obama has a 172.3% chance of winning!”

    Cancer-free sterility

    On the plus side, with Gardasil, young women are theoretically protected from a few of the many strains of HPV, which can, but usually doesn’t, result in cervical cancer.  On the con side, it appears that it can render teenage girls sterile.  How fortunate for the manufacturers that Congress has rendered them immune to civil liability for their defective products.

    The BMJ has published the case report of a healthy 16-year-old
    Australian girl whose womanhood appears to have been stolen by Gardasil
    vaccinations. She has been thrust into full-fledged menopause, her
    ovaries irrevocably shut down, before becoming a woman. The
    authors, Deirdre Therese Little and Harvey Rodrick Grenville Ward,
    draw direct attention to the fact that, though the girl has been
    thoroughly examined and tested, there is no known explanation other than
    the series of three Gardasil vaccinations she had.

     The potentially damning information is here:

     “It is not known whether this event of premature ovarian failure is
    linked to the quadrivalent  HPV vaccine. More detailed information
    concerning rat ovarian hist-ology and ongoing fecundity post-HPV
    vaccination was sought from the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). Although the TGA’s Australian Public Assessment Report for Human
    Papillomavirus Quadrivalent Vaccine, February 2011, does report on the
    histology of vaccinated rat testes and epididymides, no histological
    report has been available for vaccinated rat ovaries.”

    Translation: Neither Merck nor the TGA ever tested for ovary-related problems, in rats or in humans.  This is why the “vaccines are safe” arguments are so inherently vacuous.  The various studies purporting to “prove” their safety do absolutely nothing of the kind, most of them aren’t even relevant to the primary risk factors.  It is certainly too soon to say that Gardasil sterilizes girls, but on the other hand, it is also too soon to assert that it doesn’t.  If it is true that Gardasil causes premature ovarian failure, this is likely to be the biggest medical scandal since thalidomide was shown to be a teratogen.