Harper, the ultimate anti-democrat

After banning the media from covering the arrival of the Canadian soldiers who lost their lives in Afghanistan, Harper took away a little bit more of our rights as humans yesterday.

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

So in this spirit, and in order to fulfill two of his promises namely “accountability” and “transparency” (*insert sarcasm*), Harper decided to refrain from holding press conferences unless his staff gets to pick which journalists ask questions.

Who does he think he is exactly?

Bush (well that we knew)? Castro? Jiabao? Mugabe?

I cross my fingers that the masses will realize how wrong this is (and won’t forget about it within two hours), but I am highly skeptical. The same scheme worked very well South of the border after all.

Now Boarding Flight to Orlando

Feeling hot hot hot! What a fantastic weekend we had in Florida. The weather was warm (like 34C warm) and sunny). Friday, we hung out around Disney. At MGM Studios, we did The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster. I hate rollercoasters. I closed my eyes, hold my breathe and waited til it was over. We then took the monorail to Magic Kingdom where I met Mickey. We finished at Epcot where we had a great lunch at the French restaurant, checked out the World Pavillons, and tried out their new ride (Soarin).

Now on to the real reason why we went all the way to Orlando. R turned 30 this year. For the space geek that he is, only a trip to NASA would be worthy of his 30 year old birthday. Up until Friday, he had no clue where I was taking him (whee!). We were registered in the Astronaut Training Experience at NASA.

We got to chichat with Charlie Walker, an astronaut who went to space three times (3!). It was amazing to talk to him. He seemed like a well rounded individual. I asked him if going to space had changed the way he sees the world. He responded that he is even more aware of environmental issue now that he has seen from up above how thin the layer of air around the earth is. The second highlight of our visit was to SEE the space shuttle.

To our surprise, Discovery was on its launch pad, uncovered. This does not happen very often so we were lucky. We also did a simulation of two missions. I was a mission specialist and the public affair officer. R was a mission specialist and the flight director. Needless to say he loved his surprise!

We spent Sunday at the pool enjoying the weather. I cannot believe it’s only 11C here!

Pictures

The Power of Statistics (and I don’t mean statistical power!)*

The more I know about statistics, the more I understand why they’ve acquired such a bad reputation over the years. Statistics do not lie, liars use statistics. There are individuals who will deliberately use statistics to their advantage. No doubt, it’s bad. However, what scares me even more than a skilled dishonest statistician is an unskilled wanna-be statistician.

I recently discovered that quantitative analysis is a requirement in undergrad Communication/Journalism in some universities. Students learn SPSS (Statistical Package of Social Sciences) and the basic of statistics. Of course, one course doesn’t teach you enough to really understand stats, but it gives you just enough knowledge to make you believe that you can conduct your own statistical analysis.

Many crucial details will influence the results of an analysis, most of which people with limited statistics experience are probably not even aware of. Let’s look at one example. When you hear that a finding is statistically significant, there is a lot more going on than you probably think. There are literally dozens of statistical tests. Some are liberal (LSD), some are more conservative (Bonferroni). A relationship may be significant using a liberal test, but not significant using a more conservative one. The confidence interval you choose (95%, 99%) will also affect the significance. With a large sample size, most relationships will be significant anyway, but that doesn’t mean they are meaningful.

Statistics are extremely powerful tool. There is a reason why only trained professionals such as police officers are allowed to use guns. There is also a reason why only medical professionals perform surgeries and engineers build bridges. If statistics were left to statisticians (and trained sociologists/psychologists obviously!), the field would have a much better reputation.

* I feel the need to explain the title. It’s a joke! Statistical power is the probability of getting a statistically significant result. It’s the odds of confirming your theory when in fact there is a relationship. A large sample size, for example, increases your statistical power. It’s a good thing, but it may lead to Type I Errors i.e. the probability of saying that a relationship is statistically significant when it’s not. Using a 99% confidence interval decreases statistical power and your chance of making Type I Errors.

The Little Lucy Stoners In Me

Even after 2.5 years of marriage, I am still referred to as Smarties HisLastName. This really irritates the little Lucy Stoners in me. I kept my birth name (“maiden is another irritant of mine) because I hate doing things ‘just because’. I dislike traditions and I dislike patriarchal traditions even more. I have a career, two degrees, and publications in my birth name.

Most importantly, I kept my birth name because there are not enough valid reasons to change it! Here’s what I have to say to the 90% of women who use the following arguments to rationalize their choice.

* It’s tradition.

It’s an archaic patriarchal tradition through which women became their husband’s property after being their father’s property. Women also stayed home to raise children in the name of tradition. Thankfully, only a small minority of women still argue that this tradition should be followed.

* I want to start OUR family.

Rather amusing. If you really wanted to start "OUR" family, you would BOTH change your names (merge them, hyphenate, etc). By changing YOUR name to HIS, you are becoming part of HIS family.

* Unity of the family: I want the same last name as my children.

Here's a thought: Children don't have to be given their father's name. Why not the mother's name? Why not both? There are no legal rules about naming children, only traditions. The child can have your last name or even both of your names. It’s a common practice in Quebec.

* Children are going to be confused.

There were 1.4 million lone-parent families in 2002 (StatCan) . That’s 16% of all families. Add to this the number of step, blended, and other type of family arrangements we probably can’t even imagine in our wildest dream and you end up with several millions of confused children. That’s underestimating children’s intelligence to think that they will be confused. Even children living in complex family situations can positively identify their parents.

* I was given my father’s name at birth, what difference does it make if I take my husband’s name?

The difference is that you’re a grown up woman and you can make choices now. Should women who were abused by their father allow their husband to abuse them? Let me think. Hmm. No.

Another annoyance of mine is to be referred to as “Mrs.” which implies that I am a married woman. “Mr.” does not refer to a married man. Why should women be identified by their marital status?

And I am positively not Mrs. HisFirstName HisLastName. I did not change my last name nor my first name! For future reference, I am Ms. Smarties.

My name is the symbol for my identity and must not be lost
–Lucy Stone League

Now Boarding Flight to Vancouver

Another quickie on the West Coast. This time, Vancouver was the destination. I arrived Friday night at 8:30pm. We had a quick dinner at Blue Water Café in Yaletown. It was very good, too bad I was too jet lagged to enjoy it!

We had typical Vancouver weather on Saturday i.e. rain. We went to the Museum of Anthropology in the morning. It was a bit of a rip off. The museum is very small and displays lack descriptions.

In the afternoon, we hung out on Katsilano Beach, goofing around and loving each other. We had the best sushi ever at Tojo’s for dinner.

The weather was a little nicer on Sunday. It was very windy, but no rain. We went to Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden in the morning. $7/pers for a tiny garden is a mega huge rip off. We went to Stanley Park and English Bay in the afternoon.

We had great Italian food at Quattro on Fourth for dinner. R dropped me off at the airport at 9:30pm. I was at work at 10am. Red eyes suck.

Clicky for pictures