Harper manipulating the scientific process

Unforgiven

Force majeure
May 28, 2007
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Yep. Our society isn't very healthy. But sociteies only reflect their members so we aren't doing very well either. As a community, we are a disaster.

That may have someting to do with trying to live the myth that we're the be all and end all on the planet.

They disappear for the most part in Vancouver, too.

Sometimes to pig farms, sometimes to jail, sometimes to the morgue. Sometimes someone comes along and tells you that it used to be them.

Stopgap remedies treating symptims don't cure problems. The root of the problem is our society and our attitudes.

You have to stop the bleeding before you can find out why someone slit their wrists.
 

CDNBear

Custom Troll
Sep 24, 2006
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So what if it is a blog? Follow the links the blogger makes to news agencies if you don't like reading a blog. Yes his complaint is biased, nobodies is without a bias. I have a bias too. I happen to think that positions on the Board at NSERC should be filled by scientists familiar with the process, or administrators with some background directing science funding. I don't think it should be given to folks who deny science. There is a wide gulf between scientific disagreement and science denial.
Bloggers are the same as us, passionate and prone to hyperbole. As is your blogger.

It's kind of like this: "You don't need to be an anti-Semite to be anti-Israel, it just so happens though that you're both."
:lol:

NSERC doesn't formulate government policy, they follow it. They do so by giving grants to researchers.
I know that, and research leads to papers and papers lead to policy. Hence why it makes perfect sense that they have a balanced view.

The title of the thread is manipulating science. A science denier...influencing where science funds are spent...I think it's wrong.
And you suddenly figured out the Gov't does this, on Harpo's watch? I see. :roll:

I don't happen to think that any appointee with their head in the sand over any particular issue germane to the role they will fill is a good idea. He's Harper's campaign manager... I don't think science requires anymore politicization. It requires the opposite.
Perspectives.

Some restrictions? What kind of restrictions? You think it's a good idea for bureaucrats to proof read what their scientists are answering to direct media questions? Again, I refer you to the thread title.

That is manipulation. I wonder if they needed to hire new staffers to do the proof reading...
:roll:...

And as we've seen with both the GW myth and the 911 C/T's, scientists seem to seep from the woodwork. And not everything they utter should be put forth under the heading of government agaency.

Not kidding. Do you think they take that oath literally?
Ummm, ya.

To do no harm. Those Doctors are involved in harm reduction, and treating the addicts for diseases they carry. Medical ethics is not constrained by some ancient rite of passage...
Ummm, allowing and giving refuge to an addict to poison themselves, is a slap in the face to the Oath.

The drug is only deadly if they overdose, which thus far not a single client has died from. I have been given morphine for pain in a hospital, some of the Insite clients are there for that addiction.
:roll:...The drug is poison, period.
Would you like to start a list of other drugs given by medical professionals which are deadly, if the dosing is wrong? There would be no such thing as an anesthesiologist if that were the case.
Why? Would it change your mind? I doubt that. Not to mention those drugs are given to promote healing, not get them high...:roll:

No, not really. For the logic to that comment, I'll refer you back to the beginning of the thread:

I cannot agree with the submission that an addict must feed his addiction in an unsafe environment when a safe environment that may lead to rehabilitation is the alternative.
Again, may doesn't cut it.

Funny, I can access it just fine.
Didn't work for me.

Ad Hominem. I don't care who appoints anybody. I just care that they are appropriate.
And who said he was appropriate? A different gov't. Your using your ideolohy and your perspectives here. Not reality.

If I take over managing a dept or business from someone that was fired, I get rid of his top staff. Their loyalties were with him, not me. I'm surprised it took this long to ditch him.

Proof that he was loyal to Martin? He was President of the National Research Council for ten years prior to that, amongst a stellar career in chemistry.
So a chemist is the best man to give the PM advice on GW? :roll: Then see last reply again.

Ministries to advise him...yeah, like more revenue to create a bigger bureaucracy.
You should like that, leaning a little more to the left, bigger gov't and more nanny-ism is sort of your thing.


Ministries,

And every single one of those agencies would jump at the chance to advise the government to make their budget larger...
:roll:

A Science Advisor would be an impartial person, who could raise skepticism of each of those Department's claims over new research. Do you not think there is a chance, that any one of those department's might overplay their hand? Like Maybe DFO with aquaculture research, AGRI-FOOD with GMO research?
Actually no, given where GMF's stands in Canada, I think between them and the MoH, they did a bang up job.

Most modern nations have science advisors, and there is a good reason for them. They are not at all a redundant position.
I really have no dispute with having one, just the right one.

Yeah, I kind of mentioned that a few times above.
I didn't believe you.

How about your cure for the addiciton slight? That is definitely going to require a growth of Government.
Not really, an increase in purchaces from Winchester maybe, but we could do it without more gov't.

Don't you find this the slightest bit ironic or hypocritical?
Nope.

You have hung onto many of my words, but I can't possibly agree with the words of other writers without it being troubling?
Because your words were based on facts, you provided facts, not OP/ED pieces from bloggers and Colomnists.

I happen to agree with the material I posted here, as you have of stuff I posted in a similar context and format to op-eds or blogs... I think Harper is using every option available to suppress science that clashes with his ideology, or manipulate it where he can. In fact, this is supported by his own hypocrisy. He knows that the climate change issue isn't polling on his side. It hasn't for some time here in Canada. So he talks out one side of his mouth, making nice platitudes, but then gives positions to people who would do their best to see anything related to climate change molded to fit a pro-industry bent. Not at all in the interests of the guiding principles of NSERC, or of the CFI.
Then we'll have to agree to disagree. Because from where I sit, this seems more an attack on a gov't you don't like, moreso then anything else.

Just because I agree, doesn't mean I'm using someone else's opinion to formulate my own.
I see differing perspectives.

I think the problem is to define the problem being solved.

Your perspective must be that the drug use is not the problem, because you are not proposing anything to reduce or stop that. Others think that the drug use is the problem, and want to aim at that.
Bingo.

Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous both have many members which have successfully kicked their habits, or at least remained drug free over the long term.
When was the last time you saw the host at an AA meeting handing out shot glasses, or coupons to the LCBO?

:roll:


NA and AA aren't "experimental". These programs have a proven track record of success.
And they do not promote safe consumption, they promote no consumption...:roll:

AA has a much lower success rate than they would have you believe.
I agree. I failed twice, before I made it through. And I still fall once in a while.

AA and NA acknowledge they can't help everyone. People have to go through a process and many people fail.

But these organizations have helped literally millions of people. I know people personally who quit their addictions thanks in part to the support they got from AA and NA.
Yep, and they've helped through abstinance, not placation and enabling.
 

L Gilbert

Winterized
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That may have someting to do with trying to live the myth that we're the be all and end all on the planet.
Who, our pols? I agree.



Sometimes to pig farms, sometimes to jail, sometimes to the morgue. Sometimes someone comes along and tells you that it used to be them.
Sometimes to the undersides of bridges, sometimes to abandoned buildings, etc.



You have to stop the bleeding before you can find out why someone slit their wrists.
So we should keep throwing stuff into the black hole hoping it'll stop sucking soon instead of steering the spaceship away from it?
Simply throwing more money at it won't work and that's all we seem to be doing. And it will only get worse as more demand is put on the system. Next year's cost is projected to be an increase of 9% over this year.
 

L Gilbert

Winterized
Nov 30, 2006
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Anyway, Harpy and the rest of Canada's pols seem to be more interested in the status quo than actually wanting to better Canada and R&D seems to be about as important to them as the arts. Have to feed the machine (bureaucracy), even if it isn't going anywhere.
 

Unforgiven

Force majeure
May 28, 2007
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Who, our pols? I agree.

What do you mean "pols"?

Sometimes to the undersides of bridges, sometimes to abandoned buildings, etc.

You don't disappear to the underside of a bridge or a building. If you don't understand what something means then just ask.

So we should keep throwing stuff into the black hole hoping it'll stop sucking soon instead of steering the spaceship away from it?

WTF are you talking about?

Simply throwing more money at it won't work and that's all we seem to be doing. And it will only get worse as more demand is put on the system. Next year's cost is projected to be an increase of 9% over this year.

Throwing money at what? Why would you want to try and tie national health care into an injection site discussion? Insite shows that it is successful at what it set out to do. It's a provincial jurisdiction and the federal government should keep it's nose out.
 

Niflmir

A modern nomad
Dec 18, 2006
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How many times do you have to assist someone in the self- and society- destroying behaviour, before it's enough?

One advantage of maritime winters - at least there are a few months when the street addicts go away, ususally to Vancouver.

It has been consistently shown that prohibition is the society destroying step. So I turn the question back to you--how many times do you have to assist (vote for) someone in their society destroying behaviour before it is enough?
 
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earth_as_one

Time Out
Jan 5, 2006
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Harper has nice hair, but his talking points are written by the same people who wrote talking points for US President G.W. Bush, UK PM Tony Blair and Australian PM John Howard.

Remember this?
Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae accused Conservative Leader Stephen Harper on Tuesday of plagiarizing a speech from Australian Prime Minister John Howard in a 2003 address in the House of Commons calling for Canadian troops to be deployed to Iraq. What do you think of the similarities in the speeches?


Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae accused Conservative Leader Stephen Harper on Tuesday of plagiarizing a speech from Australian Prime Minister John Howard in a 2003 address in the House of Commons calling for Canadian troops to be deployed to Iraq....


CBC.ca News - Canada Votes - Your View - What do you think of the similarities in the speeches?
Within a few months of the Howard/Harper speech supporting the Iraq war, most Australians figured out they had been duped.

Poll: majority of Australians 'feel misled' by Howard By Mark Riley, Political Correspondent
September 24, 2003

Almost 70 per cent of Australians believe John Howard misled them on his case for war in Iraq, a new poll shows...

Poll: majority of Australians 'feel misled' by Howard - National - smh.com.au
Personally I don't trust the judgment of anyone who supported the Iraq war. Either they were misleading people or they were misled themselves.

Ignatieff regarding Iraq:
Who's Sorry Now?

The US led Iraq invasion was a crime crime. Lucky for Canada Harper was just an opposition leader at the time and not the PM like Howard. I'd say Canada dodged a bullet on Iraq.

Neo-conservatives like Bush-Howard-Harper-Blair also supported financial de-regulation, which led to bank failures in the US and a global recession. Luckily those agendas took years to impose and were resisted by Canada's Liberal. Dodged another bullet.

Regarding Harper: Two down, one to go.

Also I don't trust Ignatieff. How did he end up leader of the Liberals again?
Michael Ignatieff’s Coronation Countdown — Photo Gallery - Photo - Macleans.ca

That pretty much leaves Duceppe and Layton.
 

AnnaG

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Drug abuse will not end ... ever. Even if the government (federal) wises up and legalizes drugs, regulates them, etc., the abuse won't end. The "war on drugs" is a joke and doomed to stay a failure.
With the healthcare system becoming more and more burdened, it does not help to have these people using drugs that makes them sick putting more of an undue burden on the system. At least if they are recognized as being sick they can be treated that way instead of being made into criminals (It kind of reminds me of the Gliberal turning farmers and ranchers into criminals via the firearms registry crap). The only sort of solution I see is that governments quit fighting a lost war and accept a responsible role in the issue by at least controlling a part of it. At this point, however all the feds are doing is loading up the provinces and not allowing them to deal with things effectively (by cutting back funding for health, for instance. The last time I looked the feds had dropped funding from something like 50 or 60% of total cost to about 33 to 37%). IMO, the feds should butt out of healthcare (except to make sure that the provinces keep up a decent amount of maintenance on it) and let the provinces deal with it.
 

#juan

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Aug 30, 2005
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Who, our pols? I agree.



Sometimes to the undersides of bridges, sometimes to abandoned buildings, etc.



So we should keep throwing stuff into the black hole hoping it'll stop sucking soon instead of steering the spaceship away from it?
Simply throwing more money at it won't work and that's all we seem to be doing. And it will only get worse as more demand is put on the system. Next year's cost is projected to be an increase of 9% over this year.

Weird chart...;-):roll: 15.9, 15.9, 16.0, 16.2, then a huge jump to 25 %. Doesn't make sense.
 

AnnaG

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Weird chart...;-):roll: 15.9, 15.9, 16.0, 16.2, then a huge jump to 25 %. Doesn't make sense.
Must be too early for you, Juan. lol
Look at the years; the 25% is a projection, the previous year was 2007's figure.

The really funny part is that Les thought that graph indicated Canadian spending. It's for the US, I think. lmao
Canada's looks like this:

http://www.chsrf.ca/mythbusters/html/myth28_e.php#xiii


and it's supposed to go up next year by 9%. I think it will probably be on par with the States.
 
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#juan

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Must be too early for you, Juan. lol
Look at the years; the 25% is a projection, the previous year was 2007's figure.

The really funny part is that Les thought that graph indicated Canadian spending. It's for the US, I think. lmao

My point AnnaG, was that the graph was pretty well flat for four years and the projection didn't seem to fit....;-):lol:
 

AnnaG

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My point AnnaG, was that the graph was pretty well flat for four years and the projection didn't seem to fit....;-):lol:
:) Ok. Now all you have to do is think about the demographics. When the boomers reach seniority the powers that be think it'll be the first time in history that seniors will outnumber kids. Old people need healthcare a lot more than the rest.
Also, we read something a while back that by 2030 or 2050 or something Canada will be spending 70% of it's yearly budget on healthcare if it continues with the present rate.
 

earth_as_one

Time Out
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I guess Canada should adopt Nazi communist death panels for the elderly like the US is proposing. Wait a minute, I fit that demographic...
;)
 

AnnaG

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I guess Canada should adopt Nazi communist death panels for the elderly like the US is proposing. Wait a minute, I fit that demographic...
;)
lol What popped into my head was a book called "Logan's Run" and they made a movie about it, too. Spooky.