THE entrance to Ghazipur kabadi basti is littered with segregated waste such as empty water bottles, polythene covers and used packing materials. A young boy is sitting alone and separating recyclable items from an assortment of small things placed in front of him. So absorbed is he in his work that the act of taking pictures by an outsider does not disturb him. Inside the slum, adults seated together are busy separating and grouping recyclable and saleable things from the waste which they procured from the nearby landfill.
They all know that the landfill which has been the source of their livelihood all these years will not remain so in a year. Right now, access to it is illegally granted to those waste-pickers who pay Rs.20 to guards. The rules do not allow waste-pickers access to the landfill, where unsegregated waste transported by trucks is dumped, because it contains, apart from recyclable materials, hazardous waste to which a visitor may be exposed. Local residents say that recently the police picked up about 17 waste-pickers collecting waste from there. Those who guard the landfill alert the waste-pickers before the police arrive, but not always.
Despite the risk involved, the waste-pickers do not give up because the alternative is a hunt for saleable waste by endlessly roaming the residential colonies, facing ill-treatment at the hands of the police and society, and ending up collecting far less than what the landfills would give. The commissioning of a new waste-to-energy (WTE) incinerator that is being constructed near the landfill will close down the landfill. An NGO, Chintan, working among these families, has told Das that waste-pickers like him will be absorbed in the new incineration plant as workers. But residents of the basti realise that the new plant may at best provide employment to just 50 persons.
The Ghazipur WTE plant is one of the three projects undertaken by the Delhi government through public private partnerships; the other two are Timarpur-Okhla and Narela Bawana. The Timarpur-Okhla project became operational in January this year, while Narela Bawana is at a formative stage. A similar WTE plant set up at Timarpur in 1987 by the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy was abandoned after it failed to generate electricity owing to the lack of waste with a high calorific value.
The quality of waste produced by Indian consumers has remained the same over the years, yet WTE projects have secured official backing because they earn carbon credits from the Clean Development Mechanism of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The production of electricity itself has received less emphasis, as shown by the Timarpur-Okhla project’s failure to generate electricity so far.
The projects appear to be important to make the waste disappear, free the land from the landfills, and achieve the unstated objective of removing waste-pickers from the urban landscape. Indeed, the WTE projects, like the waste-pickers, also target recyclable materials and would prefer them to be segregated from other waste, but they have no means of doing so and this contributes to their inefficiency.
According to a study by the activist Dharmesh Shah, Delhi’s waste supports a population of approximately 100,000 waste-pickers, who recover nearly 1,600 tonnes, or approximately 15-20 per cent, of the waste comprising usable materials such as metal, paper, cardboard and plastic. These materials are manually or semi-mechanically processed and sold back to industry as raw material for new products. This, according to him, results in huge savings for the city municipality. He also estimates that the waste-pickers in Delhi collectively prevent the emission of 962,133 tonnes of greenhouse gases annually, about 3.6 times more than that saved by any WTE project accruing carbon credits in India.
2012年10月30日星期二
2012年10月28日星期日
Sandy was no Gilbert, but it was also dangerous
It seems than in the wake of hurricanes, whether they make landfall in Jamaica or have a close relationship with our coastline, the official reports we get afterwards always seems to be conflicting.
In September 1988 when the monster Hurricane Gilbert hit us, I was at a brother's residence in Golden Acres near to Red Hills.
The first part of the hurricane began on a Monday at some minutes to 2:00 pm and, never having seen a hurricane before, it was pretty much of a show for me to leave my house in Havendale and 'spend the hurricane' with a brother who had been newly divorced.
I was just on the mend in my own relationship, and my wife and young children were safe in Harbour View at their grandparents' slab roof house.
At Golden Acres I positioned myself at the door at an upstairs balcony and, with binoculars, scanned as far as I could see through my 8x35. The first part was relatively harmless.
It has to be recalled that Gilbert traversed Jamaica almost in a straight line from east to west. That meant that at all times Jamaica would have been engulfed in the most dangerous part of the hurricane, the eye-wall. As the system moved westward, the outer bands would first affect a location, then the western eye-wall and then the calm of the eye.
As it continued, that location would then encounter the eastern eye-wall and after that, the outer bands in the most eastern part of the storm.
The thing is this. I have friends who tell me that the hurricane began on the Monday and finished that same day.
What was my experience and the experience of others at Golden Acres? The first part of the hurricane 'blew off' in about two hours. A neighbor across the road, but about 30 feet below us, invited us for drinks. While we were there I was constantly timing the hurricane and telling my brother, 'Listen, we only have 10 minutes, let's go.'
We eventually got caught at the neighbour's house and, 50 metres from my brother's house, we could not get back. It was then that I saw what a real hurricane was — the eastern side of Gilbert's eye-wall. It damaged everything, including divesting the neighbour of his roof, relieving my brother of his and, unknown to me at the time, Gilbert took the roof of my house in Havendale sailing two blocks away.
We were in hurricane conditions until about five the next morning. And yet I keep hearing that Gilbert hit Jamaica in the day and completed its wrecking-ball trip that same day.
In Sandy, the only other direct hit since Gilbert, I am getting the same conflicting stories. Reports have said that Sandy hit Jamaica five miles from Kingston and then continued on its north, north-easterly trek. If that is so, and I live not very far from Kingston (Red Hills), why did I not experience the calm of an eye and then another few scary hours of wind in the opposite direction?
It is my belief that the centre of Hurricane Sandy was probably a few miles off the eastern coast. As the hurricane moved northerly, based on the experience I had that Kingston and St Andrew were at all times in the western eye-wall, there was no lull, no eye.
Reports say Sandy lasted for three hours. Was that three hours of 60 minutes each? What was my experience and that of all people in Red Hills? The hurricane began at about 1:30 pm and started tapering off at about 6:30 pm. That, in my book, is five hours of unrelenting, driving wind.
Let us get at least one fact straight. Sandy was nowhere near as monstrous and damaging as Gilbert was. That said, Hurricane Sandy was certainly no dance in the park. Five hours of category one winds, which sounded like category two, is more than testing on one's mental strength.
Chupski slept through it. I paced the floor like an idiot and was constantly plugging leaks at sections of windows and at places where the roof was breached.
Unlike Gilbert, as Sandy faded and we were fully able to view the landscape, while significant amounts of trees had broken apart and some had fallen, the majority still had leaves, even though most breadfruit and avocado trees were without fruit.
In September 1988 when the monster Hurricane Gilbert hit us, I was at a brother's residence in Golden Acres near to Red Hills.
The first part of the hurricane began on a Monday at some minutes to 2:00 pm and, never having seen a hurricane before, it was pretty much of a show for me to leave my house in Havendale and 'spend the hurricane' with a brother who had been newly divorced.
I was just on the mend in my own relationship, and my wife and young children were safe in Harbour View at their grandparents' slab roof house.
At Golden Acres I positioned myself at the door at an upstairs balcony and, with binoculars, scanned as far as I could see through my 8x35. The first part was relatively harmless.
It has to be recalled that Gilbert traversed Jamaica almost in a straight line from east to west. That meant that at all times Jamaica would have been engulfed in the most dangerous part of the hurricane, the eye-wall. As the system moved westward, the outer bands would first affect a location, then the western eye-wall and then the calm of the eye.
As it continued, that location would then encounter the eastern eye-wall and after that, the outer bands in the most eastern part of the storm.
The thing is this. I have friends who tell me that the hurricane began on the Monday and finished that same day.
What was my experience and the experience of others at Golden Acres? The first part of the hurricane 'blew off' in about two hours. A neighbor across the road, but about 30 feet below us, invited us for drinks. While we were there I was constantly timing the hurricane and telling my brother, 'Listen, we only have 10 minutes, let's go.'
We eventually got caught at the neighbour's house and, 50 metres from my brother's house, we could not get back. It was then that I saw what a real hurricane was — the eastern side of Gilbert's eye-wall. It damaged everything, including divesting the neighbour of his roof, relieving my brother of his and, unknown to me at the time, Gilbert took the roof of my house in Havendale sailing two blocks away.
We were in hurricane conditions until about five the next morning. And yet I keep hearing that Gilbert hit Jamaica in the day and completed its wrecking-ball trip that same day.
In Sandy, the only other direct hit since Gilbert, I am getting the same conflicting stories. Reports have said that Sandy hit Jamaica five miles from Kingston and then continued on its north, north-easterly trek. If that is so, and I live not very far from Kingston (Red Hills), why did I not experience the calm of an eye and then another few scary hours of wind in the opposite direction?
It is my belief that the centre of Hurricane Sandy was probably a few miles off the eastern coast. As the hurricane moved northerly, based on the experience I had that Kingston and St Andrew were at all times in the western eye-wall, there was no lull, no eye.
Reports say Sandy lasted for three hours. Was that three hours of 60 minutes each? What was my experience and that of all people in Red Hills? The hurricane began at about 1:30 pm and started tapering off at about 6:30 pm. That, in my book, is five hours of unrelenting, driving wind.
Let us get at least one fact straight. Sandy was nowhere near as monstrous and damaging as Gilbert was. That said, Hurricane Sandy was certainly no dance in the park. Five hours of category one winds, which sounded like category two, is more than testing on one's mental strength.
Chupski slept through it. I paced the floor like an idiot and was constantly plugging leaks at sections of windows and at places where the roof was breached.
Unlike Gilbert, as Sandy faded and we were fully able to view the landscape, while significant amounts of trees had broken apart and some had fallen, the majority still had leaves, even though most breadfruit and avocado trees were without fruit.
2012年10月24日星期三
A closer look at Assassin's Creed 3
This is likely because if you didn't play the whole thing to see how everything ties together into the overarching conspiracy, you might be led to believe that someone had an agenda.
The first game takes place in the classical era in a very Arab-centric series of locations with an Arabian protagonist fighting against the forces of The Crudsades and the Catholic Church. The game depicts the first major conflict between the Assassins and the Templars. with the later being a force who uses death-dealing to maintain peace and justice, while the former is a power-hungry group of megalomaniacs who will stop at nothing to enforce on the world their own vision of how it should be run and organized.
The game makes it clear that the modern incarnation of that organization has become seperate from the church, labeling itself the Abstergo Corporation. But through most of history it was essentially a secret arm of the Roman Catholic church, run from a post in the Vatican.
It's all rather abstract in that first game, with the most concrete connection being the need to kill a few actual Crusaders in some of the missions. The final villain turns out to have come from within the Assassin's organization, corrupted by the power the Templars represent.
The second through fourth games, known collectively as Assassin's Creed II, take a more direct approach, having moved the story ahead to a new world-center, Renaissance Italy, the protagonist fights directly against the forces of The Pope, and in Brotherhood, is even forced to directly confront Pope Alexander IV with intent to assassinate him after leaving him alive at the end of the previous story, though the pontiff's son, Cesare had already taken care of it.
In the upcoming sequel, Assassin's Creed III, time will jump again, this time to Colonial Era America. The player will take on Connor, a half-native man trained up by the Assassins. The time period and location means that, while the Pope may no longer be directly involved in Connor's plot, he will be surrounded by a conflict between American Colonials and British Imperials, violence toward Native Americans, and the beginnings of American slavery.
Potentially this will be the most controversial Assassin's Creed game yet, and thus Gamesindusty International magazine asked Assassin's Creed III creative director Alex Hutchinson and Assassin's Creed III: Liberation - the mobile platforms version of the game - scriptwriter Jill Murray about their philosophy toward designing a game that includes such potentially inflammatory topics.
"Usually we're trying to be truthful," Hutchinson said. "And we like it--I should say we don't mind it--if the truth is uncomfortable, if we can back it up with facts. When we were dealing with the Borgias, we were saying the Pope is a really bad guy. But if you do any amount of research, it's pretty clear we didn't make this up and it's pretty well documented. And it's the same with the Founding Fathers. These are real people; they have their ups and downs, their opinions. And when we can find documented evidence of an opinion they had or something they asked for and it was just true, then we were happy to put that in the game. But we tried not to have our subjective layer come into it; we saved that for the fictional storyline and the fictional characters."
The Fictional storyline he's referring to is the planned DLC adventure for the game entitled The Tyranny of King George, which you can read more about here.
"As basically a bunch of often middle-aged white guys and girls working on a game, we knew we were not experts in Native American history," Hutchinson said of the upcoming game. "A lot of the things we thought we knew were wrong, or caricatures, or exaggerations of the truth."
This led to exhaustive research by the team, similar to how they handled previous incarnations; commendably, trying to be as well-informed as possible about the cultures and figures of the time they were writing about. The more controversial, the more careful they need to be about being accurate. They decided that they did need to draw a line this time however, and chose not to deal with the slavery of the era.
"We tried to present [slavery] objectively without crossing over into commenting on it," Hutchinson said. "We didn't want to take one step into that issue and then not deal with it, so really for us, it's not a topic we try to tackle in this game."
Murray, however wasn't able to take the same course, as the protagonist of Liberation is a freed slave, and completely skirting the issue would be poor characterization. "For me the importance of talking about things outweighs the fear," Murray said. "The fear you can deal with by doing your research, by talking to people, by really looking deeply into the character, understanding how they work, how they respond to their environment. To me, it's so much more important to talk about things, I'm willing to set the fear aside long enough to do my research and make sure I get it right."
The first game takes place in the classical era in a very Arab-centric series of locations with an Arabian protagonist fighting against the forces of The Crudsades and the Catholic Church. The game depicts the first major conflict between the Assassins and the Templars. with the later being a force who uses death-dealing to maintain peace and justice, while the former is a power-hungry group of megalomaniacs who will stop at nothing to enforce on the world their own vision of how it should be run and organized.
The game makes it clear that the modern incarnation of that organization has become seperate from the church, labeling itself the Abstergo Corporation. But through most of history it was essentially a secret arm of the Roman Catholic church, run from a post in the Vatican.
It's all rather abstract in that first game, with the most concrete connection being the need to kill a few actual Crusaders in some of the missions. The final villain turns out to have come from within the Assassin's organization, corrupted by the power the Templars represent.
The second through fourth games, known collectively as Assassin's Creed II, take a more direct approach, having moved the story ahead to a new world-center, Renaissance Italy, the protagonist fights directly against the forces of The Pope, and in Brotherhood, is even forced to directly confront Pope Alexander IV with intent to assassinate him after leaving him alive at the end of the previous story, though the pontiff's son, Cesare had already taken care of it.
In the upcoming sequel, Assassin's Creed III, time will jump again, this time to Colonial Era America. The player will take on Connor, a half-native man trained up by the Assassins. The time period and location means that, while the Pope may no longer be directly involved in Connor's plot, he will be surrounded by a conflict between American Colonials and British Imperials, violence toward Native Americans, and the beginnings of American slavery.
Potentially this will be the most controversial Assassin's Creed game yet, and thus Gamesindusty International magazine asked Assassin's Creed III creative director Alex Hutchinson and Assassin's Creed III: Liberation - the mobile platforms version of the game - scriptwriter Jill Murray about their philosophy toward designing a game that includes such potentially inflammatory topics.
"Usually we're trying to be truthful," Hutchinson said. "And we like it--I should say we don't mind it--if the truth is uncomfortable, if we can back it up with facts. When we were dealing with the Borgias, we were saying the Pope is a really bad guy. But if you do any amount of research, it's pretty clear we didn't make this up and it's pretty well documented. And it's the same with the Founding Fathers. These are real people; they have their ups and downs, their opinions. And when we can find documented evidence of an opinion they had or something they asked for and it was just true, then we were happy to put that in the game. But we tried not to have our subjective layer come into it; we saved that for the fictional storyline and the fictional characters."
The Fictional storyline he's referring to is the planned DLC adventure for the game entitled The Tyranny of King George, which you can read more about here.
"As basically a bunch of often middle-aged white guys and girls working on a game, we knew we were not experts in Native American history," Hutchinson said of the upcoming game. "A lot of the things we thought we knew were wrong, or caricatures, or exaggerations of the truth."
This led to exhaustive research by the team, similar to how they handled previous incarnations; commendably, trying to be as well-informed as possible about the cultures and figures of the time they were writing about. The more controversial, the more careful they need to be about being accurate. They decided that they did need to draw a line this time however, and chose not to deal with the slavery of the era.
"We tried to present [slavery] objectively without crossing over into commenting on it," Hutchinson said. "We didn't want to take one step into that issue and then not deal with it, so really for us, it's not a topic we try to tackle in this game."
Murray, however wasn't able to take the same course, as the protagonist of Liberation is a freed slave, and completely skirting the issue would be poor characterization. "For me the importance of talking about things outweighs the fear," Murray said. "The fear you can deal with by doing your research, by talking to people, by really looking deeply into the character, understanding how they work, how they respond to their environment. To me, it's so much more important to talk about things, I'm willing to set the fear aside long enough to do my research and make sure I get it right."
2012年10月22日星期一
The Search for the Parked Car
Men and women use different spatial memory techniques to find their cars in crowded parking lots, says a study published in Applied Cognitive Psychology. The research showed women relied more on visible landmarks and took substantial detours, while men were better at estimating distances and more likely to take a direct route to the vehicle.
The subjects were 115 shoppers, 59 men and 56 women, at a mall in the Netherlands. Each underwent interviews and tests designed to assess spatial memory, or the ability to remember where things are in the world. For example, they were asked to estimate the distance from the mall exit to the car and to point to their car on a map of the 431-space lot. Subjects described the route and strategies they might use to locate their car.
About 59% of women and 42% of men reported having some or frequent problems retracing their cars in parking lots, though the difference wasn't statistically significant. Landmarks were used by 38% of women compared with 15% of men; 21% of women and 7% of men said they often took detours of up to 400 feet before finding the vehicle.
Men were significantly better than women at estimating the car's location on a map but 83% of women and 81% of men reported using conscious strategies to find it. For example, 57% of women and 66% of men park near the entrance; 63% of women and 49% of men retrace their original path; 38% of women and 32% of men use mental imagery; and about 20% of both sexes have a favorite spot. Only 4% use a mobile phone app or GPS device.
Personality might help fend off impaired cognition and dementia in older people, even if they have brain abnormalities typically associated with Alzheimer's disease, according to a study in Neurobiology of Aging. About 30% of older adults who don't have dementia are found to have plaque deposits, protein tangles and other brain-tissue changes linked with Alzheimer's.
In the study, U.S. and Swedish researchers compared personality traits and brain-tissue changes in 111 people ages 65 and older who had agreed to be autopsied after death. (Such brain abnormalities can be diagnosed only by autopsy.) The subjects included 55 people with clinically diagnosed dementia and brain abnormalities related to Alzheimer's disease; 29 cognitively normal subjects who had Alzheimer's-related brain abnormalities; and 27 cognitively normal controls with normal brain tissue. Personality tests assessed neuroticism, extraversion, openness, conscientiousness and agreeableness.
Compared with Alzheimer's subjects, asymptomatic-Alzheimer's subjects had a high degree of conscientiousness and low neuroticism. They were less vulnerable to stress, anxiety and depression than controls and Alzheimer's subjects. Two key risk factors for dementia—body mass index, an indicator of obesity, and smoking—didn't influence the findings.
Researchers said emotionally stable and conscientious individuals are more likely to exercise regularly, abstain from smoking and engage in other healthy behaviors associated with a reduced risk of dementia.
The subjects were 115 shoppers, 59 men and 56 women, at a mall in the Netherlands. Each underwent interviews and tests designed to assess spatial memory, or the ability to remember where things are in the world. For example, they were asked to estimate the distance from the mall exit to the car and to point to their car on a map of the 431-space lot. Subjects described the route and strategies they might use to locate their car.
About 59% of women and 42% of men reported having some or frequent problems retracing their cars in parking lots, though the difference wasn't statistically significant. Landmarks were used by 38% of women compared with 15% of men; 21% of women and 7% of men said they often took detours of up to 400 feet before finding the vehicle.
Men were significantly better than women at estimating the car's location on a map but 83% of women and 81% of men reported using conscious strategies to find it. For example, 57% of women and 66% of men park near the entrance; 63% of women and 49% of men retrace their original path; 38% of women and 32% of men use mental imagery; and about 20% of both sexes have a favorite spot. Only 4% use a mobile phone app or GPS device.
Personality might help fend off impaired cognition and dementia in older people, even if they have brain abnormalities typically associated with Alzheimer's disease, according to a study in Neurobiology of Aging. About 30% of older adults who don't have dementia are found to have plaque deposits, protein tangles and other brain-tissue changes linked with Alzheimer's.
In the study, U.S. and Swedish researchers compared personality traits and brain-tissue changes in 111 people ages 65 and older who had agreed to be autopsied after death. (Such brain abnormalities can be diagnosed only by autopsy.) The subjects included 55 people with clinically diagnosed dementia and brain abnormalities related to Alzheimer's disease; 29 cognitively normal subjects who had Alzheimer's-related brain abnormalities; and 27 cognitively normal controls with normal brain tissue. Personality tests assessed neuroticism, extraversion, openness, conscientiousness and agreeableness.
Compared with Alzheimer's subjects, asymptomatic-Alzheimer's subjects had a high degree of conscientiousness and low neuroticism. They were less vulnerable to stress, anxiety and depression than controls and Alzheimer's subjects. Two key risk factors for dementia—body mass index, an indicator of obesity, and smoking—didn't influence the findings.
Researchers said emotionally stable and conscientious individuals are more likely to exercise regularly, abstain from smoking and engage in other healthy behaviors associated with a reduced risk of dementia.
2012年10月17日星期三
To the Barricades
I am a product of my times. Born at the end of the “gee whiz” Eisenhower years; raised in the idealism of the 1960s; lulled into political boredom in the 1980s and disaffected with political conversations ever since. Middle age has allowed me to let politics become the background noise murmuring away on NPR. This ended when I saw how quickly the unemployment numbers issued two weeks ago by the Bureau of Labor Statistics became a political football. We are once again plunged into that world where the apparatus of the federal government that collects and reports data is challenged for political purposes. Wasn’t it just this spring when the American Community Survey was branded as too invasive and threatened with extinction? For some, the current flap over the unemployment rate might be another interesting election story, but for me this is now a deeply emotional issue. For many people, the core of democracy is the freedom to act --- for me, it is the freedom to know.
The federal government of the United States since its inception has been in the business of collecting data. The original purpose of the decennial Census is well-known -- to supply the population counts necessary to ensure political representation is allocated fairly. To me, the marriage of politics to data at the birth of the nation is not a sign that data can be corrupted by political influence but rather that our political forebears understood that the key to good government is information.
The American statistical system, which includes the Bureau of Labor Statistics, grew from these exalted beginnings to be among the most admired in the world. The federal government collects data to inform both policy and science. Knowledge about the government and its citizenry has long been recognized as the key to democracy. The stigmata of tyranny is an unwillingness to collect or share data. The U.S. has surpassed other democracies by declaring data collected by the government to be a free good and by providing open access to microdata (that is de-identified individual records) for almost 50 years. Governments as modern as those of France and Japan have only recently begun to provide minimal access to microdata. The difference between reading aggregate statistics tabulated by the government and having access to the raw data used to create those tabulations is like the difference between looking at a painting of a mountain and actually climbing that mountain. Having your hands in the raw material allows you to discover important and controversial things regardless of your political affiliation.
The scientific, political, and economic engine created by federal data collection is enormous. Others have eloquently recounted the spillover into marketing, store locating, oil and gas exploration, to say nothing of what we have learned about family formation, poverty, residential segregation, income inequality and all the other social issues that dog American society. Conservatives suggest that the free market can generate alternatives to the data collection done by the government. These alternatives are called Google and Facebook.
Data-gathering enterprises such these are on the other end of the continuum from the supposedly invasive partisan data collected by the federal government. Google and Facebook monitor your daily activities and require you to opt out of monitoring, not in. They sell data but do not share. They do not ask if you have a toilet but rather passively track where you bought it, what kind it is, who uses it, and who hates you for having it. Transparent, free, democratic access to data collected under scientific protocols that can be reviewed and replicated using techniques that must pass the rigorous scrutiny of human subjects review is asked to make way for unregulated black box methods to collect data that can only be purchased and only by selected individuals. This feels like a step back from democracy -- not a step forward.
Regardless of your generation or your politics, if you value the right to know as the highest form of liberty, I urge you to go to your closet and find your tie-dyed T-shirt. Tie back your hair, put on your sneakers, and find your bullhorn. While there have always been challenges to federal data collection activities, the threatened loss of the American Community Survey, which in itself replaced the much maligned Census long form, and the unsubstantiated claims of bias in the monthly unemployment numbers suggests that the political heat is once again turned up. The cause of liberty requires knowledge and to generate knowledge we need data. Man the barricades in defense of the American statistical system. And bring data.
The federal government of the United States since its inception has been in the business of collecting data. The original purpose of the decennial Census is well-known -- to supply the population counts necessary to ensure political representation is allocated fairly. To me, the marriage of politics to data at the birth of the nation is not a sign that data can be corrupted by political influence but rather that our political forebears understood that the key to good government is information.
The American statistical system, which includes the Bureau of Labor Statistics, grew from these exalted beginnings to be among the most admired in the world. The federal government collects data to inform both policy and science. Knowledge about the government and its citizenry has long been recognized as the key to democracy. The stigmata of tyranny is an unwillingness to collect or share data. The U.S. has surpassed other democracies by declaring data collected by the government to be a free good and by providing open access to microdata (that is de-identified individual records) for almost 50 years. Governments as modern as those of France and Japan have only recently begun to provide minimal access to microdata. The difference between reading aggregate statistics tabulated by the government and having access to the raw data used to create those tabulations is like the difference between looking at a painting of a mountain and actually climbing that mountain. Having your hands in the raw material allows you to discover important and controversial things regardless of your political affiliation.
The scientific, political, and economic engine created by federal data collection is enormous. Others have eloquently recounted the spillover into marketing, store locating, oil and gas exploration, to say nothing of what we have learned about family formation, poverty, residential segregation, income inequality and all the other social issues that dog American society. Conservatives suggest that the free market can generate alternatives to the data collection done by the government. These alternatives are called Google and Facebook.
Data-gathering enterprises such these are on the other end of the continuum from the supposedly invasive partisan data collected by the federal government. Google and Facebook monitor your daily activities and require you to opt out of monitoring, not in. They sell data but do not share. They do not ask if you have a toilet but rather passively track where you bought it, what kind it is, who uses it, and who hates you for having it. Transparent, free, democratic access to data collected under scientific protocols that can be reviewed and replicated using techniques that must pass the rigorous scrutiny of human subjects review is asked to make way for unregulated black box methods to collect data that can only be purchased and only by selected individuals. This feels like a step back from democracy -- not a step forward.
Regardless of your generation or your politics, if you value the right to know as the highest form of liberty, I urge you to go to your closet and find your tie-dyed T-shirt. Tie back your hair, put on your sneakers, and find your bullhorn. While there have always been challenges to federal data collection activities, the threatened loss of the American Community Survey, which in itself replaced the much maligned Census long form, and the unsubstantiated claims of bias in the monthly unemployment numbers suggests that the political heat is once again turned up. The cause of liberty requires knowledge and to generate knowledge we need data. Man the barricades in defense of the American statistical system. And bring data.
2012年10月15日星期一
Use science to improve game
In a year when the NHL has shut itself down, people have kept looking up. The Space Shuttle has flown over American cities to celebrate its retirement from service, NASA has landed the Curiosity probe on Mars, and Felix Baumgartner has broken the sound barrier while jumping out of a balloon 24 miles above New Mexico.
While launching Gary Bettman into space or dropping Donald Fehr from the stratosphere might be appealing ideas to hockey fans right now, there is more for hockey to take from humanity’s latest explorative exploits than cartoonish revenge for lost NHL games or Ilya Bryzgalov jokes. When top-flight pro hockey does return to North America, it's time to start taking better advantage of the gifts that science has given the world. Technology will not end the lockout, but it can take the game forward.
Everything starts with the puck. It may be hard to believe, but it has been 16 years since Fox introduced the much-reviled glow puck, a disc implanted with more circuitry than you would find in a phone today. While demand for a puck that glows on television is no higher now than it was in 1996, especially with the advent of HDTV, the fact that pucks can be crafted around electronic transmitters should inspire a change that can act as a technological springboard.
While the FoxTrax system required a motherboard with flashy spokes, all that the puck would need now is an implanted RFID (radio frequency identification) chip. While the glow puck was designed to be viewed on television, the RFID puck would change the game forever.
RFID technology already is part of the NHL. Last year, the Tampa Bay Lightning gave jerseys to season ticket holders that had RFID chips implanted in the sleeves. By scanning their sleeves at team stores and concession stands, the Lightning’s biggest fans can get discounts on merchandise and food.
The technology is not limited to close-range applications at a cash register or an electronic toll reader on the highway. In San Antonio, Texas, there are schools that use RFID-embedded identification cards to track students. Controversial though this may be, the ability to pinpoint the location of an RFID chip can be a boon to the NHL.
Even with one of the best video-review systems in sports, there are limitations to what the NHL can do with instant replay. If there is a pileup of bodies in the crease on a disputed goal, it is borderline impossible for officials to tell whether the puck crossed the line. All the overhead and in-the-net cameras in the world are useless if the puck is in the glove of a goaltender with his hand straddling the goal line, or under someone’s leg. The preponderance of teams who wear black equipment make sorting out tricky scoring plays even more of a challenge.
With RFID-implanted pucks, the NHL would be the first major professional sports league to use technology to ensure correct scoring decisions. While soccer, the global game and the top challenger to hockey’s Big Four status in North America, wrestles with the decision of whether to even use cameras on the goal line, hockey could move well ahead and begin to stake its own claim as the “Sport of the Future.”
Combining RFID pucks with tags on each player’s skates, the NHL could also use technology to make infallible decisions on offside and icing plays, and end controversy once and for all on too many men on the ice penalties. By programming a rules violation to automatically trigger a sound or a notification to a referee to blow his whistle, the NHL could theoretically take its linesmen off the ice, freeing valuable real estate on an ice surface that stays the same size as players get larger through the years.
In addition to taking factual decisions out of the hands of mistake-prone humans, RFID-equipped pucks and skates have another application that can turn into another great leap forward for the NHL, and that's in the load of data that they can record.
Thanks to the tireless work of the NHL’s Real Time Stats crews at all 30 arenas, we know that Florida Panthers defenseman Brian Campbell played 2,205 minutes and 31 seconds last season, the most ice time in the NHL. But which skater put in the most mileage on ice? The holy grail of hockey statistics, passing numbers, could be within reach with further application of technology. Using location data to create heat maps for teams and individuals would help forward-thinking teams to plot their strategy based on players’ actual tendencies rather than observations on scouting reports and video.
For diehard fans, answers to questions like “who’s the best player in the league at scoring top shelf?” would have factual answers. Analysts who track scoring chances would be able to rely on RFID data instead of guessing at whether a shot was attempted from within the scoring-chance area—this human variance is one of the greatest obstacles to scoring-chance data being applicable on a more widespread basis. The possibilities for RFID applications from a hockey data standpoint are endless.
The uses for technology do not stop with tracking pucks and players. Using sensors in helmets has allowed football teams, including at Virginia Tech to better monitor head injuries. The sooner that such sensors come to the NHL, the better. Technology also does not have to mean transmitting anything electronically—some of the greatest uses for scientific advances in hockey are in the evolving protective equipment that players wear, with new materials that provide a higher level of safety for hitter and hittee while preserving the wearer’s flexibility to move on the ice.
While launching Gary Bettman into space or dropping Donald Fehr from the stratosphere might be appealing ideas to hockey fans right now, there is more for hockey to take from humanity’s latest explorative exploits than cartoonish revenge for lost NHL games or Ilya Bryzgalov jokes. When top-flight pro hockey does return to North America, it's time to start taking better advantage of the gifts that science has given the world. Technology will not end the lockout, but it can take the game forward.
Everything starts with the puck. It may be hard to believe, but it has been 16 years since Fox introduced the much-reviled glow puck, a disc implanted with more circuitry than you would find in a phone today. While demand for a puck that glows on television is no higher now than it was in 1996, especially with the advent of HDTV, the fact that pucks can be crafted around electronic transmitters should inspire a change that can act as a technological springboard.
While the FoxTrax system required a motherboard with flashy spokes, all that the puck would need now is an implanted RFID (radio frequency identification) chip. While the glow puck was designed to be viewed on television, the RFID puck would change the game forever.
RFID technology already is part of the NHL. Last year, the Tampa Bay Lightning gave jerseys to season ticket holders that had RFID chips implanted in the sleeves. By scanning their sleeves at team stores and concession stands, the Lightning’s biggest fans can get discounts on merchandise and food.
The technology is not limited to close-range applications at a cash register or an electronic toll reader on the highway. In San Antonio, Texas, there are schools that use RFID-embedded identification cards to track students. Controversial though this may be, the ability to pinpoint the location of an RFID chip can be a boon to the NHL.
Even with one of the best video-review systems in sports, there are limitations to what the NHL can do with instant replay. If there is a pileup of bodies in the crease on a disputed goal, it is borderline impossible for officials to tell whether the puck crossed the line. All the overhead and in-the-net cameras in the world are useless if the puck is in the glove of a goaltender with his hand straddling the goal line, or under someone’s leg. The preponderance of teams who wear black equipment make sorting out tricky scoring plays even more of a challenge.
With RFID-implanted pucks, the NHL would be the first major professional sports league to use technology to ensure correct scoring decisions. While soccer, the global game and the top challenger to hockey’s Big Four status in North America, wrestles with the decision of whether to even use cameras on the goal line, hockey could move well ahead and begin to stake its own claim as the “Sport of the Future.”
Combining RFID pucks with tags on each player’s skates, the NHL could also use technology to make infallible decisions on offside and icing plays, and end controversy once and for all on too many men on the ice penalties. By programming a rules violation to automatically trigger a sound or a notification to a referee to blow his whistle, the NHL could theoretically take its linesmen off the ice, freeing valuable real estate on an ice surface that stays the same size as players get larger through the years.
In addition to taking factual decisions out of the hands of mistake-prone humans, RFID-equipped pucks and skates have another application that can turn into another great leap forward for the NHL, and that's in the load of data that they can record.
Thanks to the tireless work of the NHL’s Real Time Stats crews at all 30 arenas, we know that Florida Panthers defenseman Brian Campbell played 2,205 minutes and 31 seconds last season, the most ice time in the NHL. But which skater put in the most mileage on ice? The holy grail of hockey statistics, passing numbers, could be within reach with further application of technology. Using location data to create heat maps for teams and individuals would help forward-thinking teams to plot their strategy based on players’ actual tendencies rather than observations on scouting reports and video.
For diehard fans, answers to questions like “who’s the best player in the league at scoring top shelf?” would have factual answers. Analysts who track scoring chances would be able to rely on RFID data instead of guessing at whether a shot was attempted from within the scoring-chance area—this human variance is one of the greatest obstacles to scoring-chance data being applicable on a more widespread basis. The possibilities for RFID applications from a hockey data standpoint are endless.
The uses for technology do not stop with tracking pucks and players. Using sensors in helmets has allowed football teams, including at Virginia Tech to better monitor head injuries. The sooner that such sensors come to the NHL, the better. Technology also does not have to mean transmitting anything electronically—some of the greatest uses for scientific advances in hockey are in the evolving protective equipment that players wear, with new materials that provide a higher level of safety for hitter and hittee while preserving the wearer’s flexibility to move on the ice.
2012年10月11日星期四
Not Dead Experiences
But then in the fall of 2008, Dr. Alexander spent seven days in a coma and "experienced something so profound that it gave me a scientific reason to believe in consciousness after death." He had what is commonly called a near-death experience (NDE) in which an unconscious person whose brain is minimally functioning catches glimpses of what they are convinced is a world beyond--heaven. Usually they see a tunnel with light at the other end, and often meet Jesus (if they are Christians) or Buddha (if they are Buddhists), and loved ones, dead or alive.
Dr. Alexander claims from his knowledge of the brain that his own glimpses of heaven occurred while his cortex was not just malfunctioning but totally shut down. He does not explain how he knows that his experience occurred during that time and not the period just after losing consciousness, or the period just before regaining consciousness, when his brain was almost if not fully functional. Furthermore, current brain monitoring technology does not preclude some undetected brain activity.
He writes, "According to current medical understanding of the brain and mind, there is absolutely no way that I could have experienced even a dim and limited consciousness during my time in the coma, much less the hyper-vivid and completely coherent odyssey I underwent."
This is nothing more than the classic argument from ignorance, which forms the basis of almost all ostensibly scientific arguments for the existence of the supernatural. The argument from ignorance is a less polite but more descriptive name for the God-of-the-gaps argument. This argument often appears in dialogues on the existence of God or anything supernatural. Basically, it says: "I can't see how this [observed phenomenon] can be explained naturally; therefore it must be supernatural."
The flaw in the argument should be obvious. Just because someone--or even all of science--currently cannot provide a natural explanation for something, it does not follow that a natural explanation does not exist or will never be found. Indeed, the history of science is nothing more than the story of humanity filling in the gaps in its knowledge about the world of our senses. In the case of NDEs, plausible natural explanations do exist (Augustine, 2011).
Despite its worthlessness, the argument from ignorance continues to be the mainstay of religious apologetics. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the argument from design, which goes back to Plato. Commonly one hears today, "I can't see how the eye could have evolved naturally; therefore it must have been designed by God."
Most recently, the argument from design has appeared in the form of the argument from fine-tuning: If the values of the parameters of physics were slightly different, life would not have been possible; thus they must have been fine-tuned by God to make life, and in particular, human life, possible.
According to our best scientific knowledge, the parameters of physics and cosmology are not so constrained that some form of life could not have formed over a wide range of parameters (Stenger 2011a). But even if this were not the case, no one has proven that a natural explanation for the constants of physics is forever beyond our reach.
Near-death experiences have been studied for over thirty years. Almost every year or two a book appears claiming incontrovertible proof of the afterlife based on NDEs. They are usually instant bestsellers. But they never convince anyone except those who want to be convinced because none present anything more than personal anecdotes such as those provided by Dr. Alexander. And, "anecdote" is not another name for "data."
In my own writing on the subject, I have pointed out that the supernatural interpretation of near-death experiences, if true, can easily be verified scientifically. To provide a specific example, place a target such as a card with some random numbers on it on a high shelf facing the ceiling of the operating room so that it is unreadable not only to the patient on the table but to the hospital staff in the room. Then if a patient has an NDE that involves the commonly reported sensation of moving outside her body and floating above the operating table, she should be able to read that number.
This experiment has been tried several times without success. So have other attempts to provide verifiable evidence--what researchers in the field call "veridical perception" (Holden 2009, p. 209). The principle is simple and can be applied to anyone who claims to have communicated with another world beyond matter. All that has to happen is a subject claiming such a communication return with some important piece of knowledge she could not have possibly known previously, such as the exact date and epicenter location of the future earthquake that will destroy Los Angeles.
Dr. Alexander claims from his knowledge of the brain that his own glimpses of heaven occurred while his cortex was not just malfunctioning but totally shut down. He does not explain how he knows that his experience occurred during that time and not the period just after losing consciousness, or the period just before regaining consciousness, when his brain was almost if not fully functional. Furthermore, current brain monitoring technology does not preclude some undetected brain activity.
He writes, "According to current medical understanding of the brain and mind, there is absolutely no way that I could have experienced even a dim and limited consciousness during my time in the coma, much less the hyper-vivid and completely coherent odyssey I underwent."
This is nothing more than the classic argument from ignorance, which forms the basis of almost all ostensibly scientific arguments for the existence of the supernatural. The argument from ignorance is a less polite but more descriptive name for the God-of-the-gaps argument. This argument often appears in dialogues on the existence of God or anything supernatural. Basically, it says: "I can't see how this [observed phenomenon] can be explained naturally; therefore it must be supernatural."
The flaw in the argument should be obvious. Just because someone--or even all of science--currently cannot provide a natural explanation for something, it does not follow that a natural explanation does not exist or will never be found. Indeed, the history of science is nothing more than the story of humanity filling in the gaps in its knowledge about the world of our senses. In the case of NDEs, plausible natural explanations do exist (Augustine, 2011).
Despite its worthlessness, the argument from ignorance continues to be the mainstay of religious apologetics. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the argument from design, which goes back to Plato. Commonly one hears today, "I can't see how the eye could have evolved naturally; therefore it must have been designed by God."
Most recently, the argument from design has appeared in the form of the argument from fine-tuning: If the values of the parameters of physics were slightly different, life would not have been possible; thus they must have been fine-tuned by God to make life, and in particular, human life, possible.
According to our best scientific knowledge, the parameters of physics and cosmology are not so constrained that some form of life could not have formed over a wide range of parameters (Stenger 2011a). But even if this were not the case, no one has proven that a natural explanation for the constants of physics is forever beyond our reach.
Near-death experiences have been studied for over thirty years. Almost every year or two a book appears claiming incontrovertible proof of the afterlife based on NDEs. They are usually instant bestsellers. But they never convince anyone except those who want to be convinced because none present anything more than personal anecdotes such as those provided by Dr. Alexander. And, "anecdote" is not another name for "data."
In my own writing on the subject, I have pointed out that the supernatural interpretation of near-death experiences, if true, can easily be verified scientifically. To provide a specific example, place a target such as a card with some random numbers on it on a high shelf facing the ceiling of the operating room so that it is unreadable not only to the patient on the table but to the hospital staff in the room. Then if a patient has an NDE that involves the commonly reported sensation of moving outside her body and floating above the operating table, she should be able to read that number.
This experiment has been tried several times without success. So have other attempts to provide verifiable evidence--what researchers in the field call "veridical perception" (Holden 2009, p. 209). The principle is simple and can be applied to anyone who claims to have communicated with another world beyond matter. All that has to happen is a subject claiming such a communication return with some important piece of knowledge she could not have possibly known previously, such as the exact date and epicenter location of the future earthquake that will destroy Los Angeles.
2012年10月9日星期二
To catch a thief, with monitoring software
If you have ever had a laptop or smartphone stolen, you probably found yourself fantasizing about capturing the thief red-handed. I know I did when I lost my smartphone last year.
I used the Lookout mobile security service to locate where the phone was on a map and made it "scream" a few times. But I didn't want to knock on a stranger's door all by myself and ask if they had my phone, and the battery had died by the time I could take someone with me. I just wasn't sure I was ready for a confrontation based on approximate GPS location tracking.
But some device recovery services let you spy on whoever snatched your laptop or phone. For instance, LoJack for Laptops allows investigators to watch what a thief might be doing with the device, checking e-mail, conducting Google searches, and so on -- activities that in most cases can lead police straight to the device. Apparently, even thieves can't resist the urge to log on to social-networking sites.
"When they get to a password prompt, to get through they reinstall Windows," said Geoff Glave, a senior product manager at Vancouver-based Absolute Software, which makes LoJack for Laptops. "But the app is there and turned on when they brag on Facebook about stealing a cool laptop."
Curious to see how the monitoring worked, we got a loaner Dell Latitude E6430 laptop from Absolute Software that has the program on it. I had a colleague hand it off to her brother to play thief with it. He used it for a short while one night and by the next morning Absolute had identified him, figured out where he lives, who his family members are, what school he attends, and other sensitive data that must have surprised him.
Though victims generally aren't privy to details about what a thief does with the stolen device, Absolute Software shared the report with me so I could see exactly how the program snoops and what investigators do to track down the thief. The first thing our fake thief did was connect to the Internet over a Wi-Fi hot spot and get on eBay. This revealed an e-mail address ending in ".edu," and it was easy to figure out which college he goes to based on that. He also accessed a Yahoo e-mail account, which revealed his first name.
The investigators cross-referenced the information using a database called Accurint. And based on Wi-Fi connections, they were able to see that our "thief" had taken the laptop from his home to another address about seven blocks away at one point. All in all it can be a couple of hours worth of work, if it even took that long, an investigator told CNET.
Our "thief" could have reformatted the device, but once he connected to the Internet a program hidden on the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) called the "Computrace Persistent Module" would phone home to the servers at Absolute Software and the monitoring capabilities would be revived. A password on the laptop would force a thief to reboot the computer in Safe Mode or via a USB and reinstall Windows. But then the Persistent Module, which comes preloaded on certain Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Lenovo notebooks, would still ultimately spring into action. Our "thief" tried to delete the Computrace software from the laptop but was not able to.
In a real-world scenario, the victim would need to file a police report before Absolute Software would kick into gear. The software can capture keystrokes and screens, as well as track a device via GPS (Global Positioning System), but it doesn't turn on the Web cam. "The Web cam doesn't tell us anything," Glave said. "It could be an innocent person at the other end, and there's no name" associated with a live image. Plus, the company wants to avoid anything that could be perceived as wiretapping, he added.
There's always the possibility that whomever is being monitored didn't actually steal the computer and is innocent. If investigators determine that to be the case, for instance the person being monitored appears to have purchased it on Craigslist, the company can display a message on the screen that warns that the computer is stolen and asks for it to be returned.
The use of surveillance software to snoop on people can pose problems in some cases. The Federal Trade Commission recently settled charges with some rent-to-own computer firms that were accused of spying on customers using software that captured keystrokes, screenshots, and photos. The software was designed to be used to track down the computer in the case that the customer got behind on payments, but the FTC accused the companies that used it of engaging in unfair business practices.
I used the Lookout mobile security service to locate where the phone was on a map and made it "scream" a few times. But I didn't want to knock on a stranger's door all by myself and ask if they had my phone, and the battery had died by the time I could take someone with me. I just wasn't sure I was ready for a confrontation based on approximate GPS location tracking.
But some device recovery services let you spy on whoever snatched your laptop or phone. For instance, LoJack for Laptops allows investigators to watch what a thief might be doing with the device, checking e-mail, conducting Google searches, and so on -- activities that in most cases can lead police straight to the device. Apparently, even thieves can't resist the urge to log on to social-networking sites.
"When they get to a password prompt, to get through they reinstall Windows," said Geoff Glave, a senior product manager at Vancouver-based Absolute Software, which makes LoJack for Laptops. "But the app is there and turned on when they brag on Facebook about stealing a cool laptop."
Curious to see how the monitoring worked, we got a loaner Dell Latitude E6430 laptop from Absolute Software that has the program on it. I had a colleague hand it off to her brother to play thief with it. He used it for a short while one night and by the next morning Absolute had identified him, figured out where he lives, who his family members are, what school he attends, and other sensitive data that must have surprised him.
Though victims generally aren't privy to details about what a thief does with the stolen device, Absolute Software shared the report with me so I could see exactly how the program snoops and what investigators do to track down the thief. The first thing our fake thief did was connect to the Internet over a Wi-Fi hot spot and get on eBay. This revealed an e-mail address ending in ".edu," and it was easy to figure out which college he goes to based on that. He also accessed a Yahoo e-mail account, which revealed his first name.
The investigators cross-referenced the information using a database called Accurint. And based on Wi-Fi connections, they were able to see that our "thief" had taken the laptop from his home to another address about seven blocks away at one point. All in all it can be a couple of hours worth of work, if it even took that long, an investigator told CNET.
Our "thief" could have reformatted the device, but once he connected to the Internet a program hidden on the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) called the "Computrace Persistent Module" would phone home to the servers at Absolute Software and the monitoring capabilities would be revived. A password on the laptop would force a thief to reboot the computer in Safe Mode or via a USB and reinstall Windows. But then the Persistent Module, which comes preloaded on certain Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Lenovo notebooks, would still ultimately spring into action. Our "thief" tried to delete the Computrace software from the laptop but was not able to.
In a real-world scenario, the victim would need to file a police report before Absolute Software would kick into gear. The software can capture keystrokes and screens, as well as track a device via GPS (Global Positioning System), but it doesn't turn on the Web cam. "The Web cam doesn't tell us anything," Glave said. "It could be an innocent person at the other end, and there's no name" associated with a live image. Plus, the company wants to avoid anything that could be perceived as wiretapping, he added.
There's always the possibility that whomever is being monitored didn't actually steal the computer and is innocent. If investigators determine that to be the case, for instance the person being monitored appears to have purchased it on Craigslist, the company can display a message on the screen that warns that the computer is stolen and asks for it to be returned.
The use of surveillance software to snoop on people can pose problems in some cases. The Federal Trade Commission recently settled charges with some rent-to-own computer firms that were accused of spying on customers using software that captured keystrokes, screenshots, and photos. The software was designed to be used to track down the computer in the case that the customer got behind on payments, but the FTC accused the companies that used it of engaging in unfair business practices.
2012年10月7日星期日
Canadian diplomacy takes a backward step
WHERE CANADA has no foreign mission and Britain does, the two countries will now seek to pool their diplomatic resources for consular purposes, for dealing with emergencies and possible evacuations, and for sharing local expertise.
As British Foreign Secretary William Hague told CTV News: “So it is natural that we look to link up our embassies with Canada’s in places where that suits both countries. It will give us a bigger reach abroad for our businesses and people for less cost.”
And if you listened to Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird tell it, last week’s decision to share embassy office space, services and staff with Britain is little more than a “small administrative agreement” and cost-saving measure.
Former clerk of the Privy Council and Canadian high commissioner in London, Mel Cappe, also concurred: “This is merely a matter of sharing facilities. I don’t see this as a problem at all. We’re never going to see a British officer delivering a diplomatic note to a foreign minister on behalf of Canada.” At least not yet. While it may be true that such a move will not immediately affect the independence of our foreign policy decision-making process, this is still a bad idea.
Let’s remember that Canadians fought long and hard to secure the 1931 Statute of Westminster, which effectively extricated us from the colonial box and turned over autonomous conduct of foreign affairs to Ottawa.
Furthermore, at least part of the push for these changes comes expressly from the Brits (who first leaked it to the Daily Mail newspaper in London). But we should be careful here that Canada is not being used by the British for their own domestic political interests — that is, for putting some diplomatic space between them and the extension of the European Union’s (EU) own foreign policy reach. (One is left wondering: does that explain why the Brits would not want to utilize the diplomatic missions of other EU countries as opposed to those of Canada?) To be sure, the last thing that Canada needs to do is to jeopardize ongoing free trade negotiations with the EU, which are now at a very crucial and delicate stage.
We also run the risk of having Canada’s brand undermined globally. Canadians could be simply lumped in with the British whether we like it or not. And given the U.K.’s less than stellar colonial history, such association will only hurt Canada’s image and profile in regions like Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.
Indeed, we have tried in certain parts of the world to take advantage of the fact that we don’t have the baggage of a colonial master and military intervenor. Canadians constantly tell others that we conduct ourselves differently than the Brits or the Yanks.
But our reputation in Latin America (to say nothing of our bilateral relations with Argentina) has already suffered because of our siding with the British at the 2012 Summit of the Americas over the Falklands/Malvinas territorial dispute. Do we really want to further cement the idea — by moving forward with these diplomatic changes — that Canada is doing the U.K.’s bidding in the Americas?
Foreign policy is, in part, about image-making and perception, sending messages to the world and national branding. We certainly don’t want anyone abroad mistaking us with British support for apartheid in South Africa during the 1980s (which we opposed), with British reluctance to put boots on the ground in Bosnia during the early 1990s (where we sent peacekeepers), and with British military engagement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq (which, thankfully, we stayed out of). Do we want this kind of confusion and blurring of Canada’s image to mark our foreign relations?
Accordingly, former Canadian ambassador Louis Delvoie worried about the collateral damage to Canada in countries where the British are held in low regard. “The British embassy in Iran was attacked last year — if it was a joint embassy, our Canadian diplomats would have been in danger,” he explained.
The timing of this announcement is also questionable given the recent election of a secessionist government in Quebec. Everyone knows that the sovereigntists have no time for the “Britainization” of Canadian foreign policy or for expanding connections with the motherland, the Queen or even the Commonwealth. Why would we want to make this change knowing that the Péquistes will only use it to bolster their own argument for why they need to chart their own course in international affairs?
More important, could key Canadian interests be negatively affected by this move? What happens in a place like Burma, where Canada has no diplomatic footprint, and one or two Canadian diplomats are posted to the British embassy (will the Canadian flag be prominently displayed?). Will Canadian economic interests be aggressively pursued in that country from the British embassy?
Are not the Brits and Canadians commercial competitors in Burma? And how does it look when you have to hold Canada-Burma bilateral trade discussions back at the British embassy compound. Is that a secure office location for Canada?
After all, Canada should not be trying to conduct its foreign policy on the cheap. We are a rich industrialized country, with vast mineral wealth, and a respected member of the G-8. We don’t need to be pinching pennies when it comes to our foreign relations and diplomatic presence abroad. If we want to be a real player on the world stage, this is not the way to do it.
The bottom line is that we should have our own embassy and physical presence in Burma (and elsewhere) to build constructive relationships with the host government and civil society, to collect valuable intelligence and to identify business opportunities, and to serve Canadians there (and those who want to come to Canada). As a former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations opined succinctly to one media outlet: “You need your embassies to be your eyes, ears and your voice abroad.” Well said.
As British Foreign Secretary William Hague told CTV News: “So it is natural that we look to link up our embassies with Canada’s in places where that suits both countries. It will give us a bigger reach abroad for our businesses and people for less cost.”
And if you listened to Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird tell it, last week’s decision to share embassy office space, services and staff with Britain is little more than a “small administrative agreement” and cost-saving measure.
Former clerk of the Privy Council and Canadian high commissioner in London, Mel Cappe, also concurred: “This is merely a matter of sharing facilities. I don’t see this as a problem at all. We’re never going to see a British officer delivering a diplomatic note to a foreign minister on behalf of Canada.” At least not yet. While it may be true that such a move will not immediately affect the independence of our foreign policy decision-making process, this is still a bad idea.
Let’s remember that Canadians fought long and hard to secure the 1931 Statute of Westminster, which effectively extricated us from the colonial box and turned over autonomous conduct of foreign affairs to Ottawa.
Furthermore, at least part of the push for these changes comes expressly from the Brits (who first leaked it to the Daily Mail newspaper in London). But we should be careful here that Canada is not being used by the British for their own domestic political interests — that is, for putting some diplomatic space between them and the extension of the European Union’s (EU) own foreign policy reach. (One is left wondering: does that explain why the Brits would not want to utilize the diplomatic missions of other EU countries as opposed to those of Canada?) To be sure, the last thing that Canada needs to do is to jeopardize ongoing free trade negotiations with the EU, which are now at a very crucial and delicate stage.
We also run the risk of having Canada’s brand undermined globally. Canadians could be simply lumped in with the British whether we like it or not. And given the U.K.’s less than stellar colonial history, such association will only hurt Canada’s image and profile in regions like Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.
Indeed, we have tried in certain parts of the world to take advantage of the fact that we don’t have the baggage of a colonial master and military intervenor. Canadians constantly tell others that we conduct ourselves differently than the Brits or the Yanks.
But our reputation in Latin America (to say nothing of our bilateral relations with Argentina) has already suffered because of our siding with the British at the 2012 Summit of the Americas over the Falklands/Malvinas territorial dispute. Do we really want to further cement the idea — by moving forward with these diplomatic changes — that Canada is doing the U.K.’s bidding in the Americas?
Foreign policy is, in part, about image-making and perception, sending messages to the world and national branding. We certainly don’t want anyone abroad mistaking us with British support for apartheid in South Africa during the 1980s (which we opposed), with British reluctance to put boots on the ground in Bosnia during the early 1990s (where we sent peacekeepers), and with British military engagement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq (which, thankfully, we stayed out of). Do we want this kind of confusion and blurring of Canada’s image to mark our foreign relations?
Accordingly, former Canadian ambassador Louis Delvoie worried about the collateral damage to Canada in countries where the British are held in low regard. “The British embassy in Iran was attacked last year — if it was a joint embassy, our Canadian diplomats would have been in danger,” he explained.
The timing of this announcement is also questionable given the recent election of a secessionist government in Quebec. Everyone knows that the sovereigntists have no time for the “Britainization” of Canadian foreign policy or for expanding connections with the motherland, the Queen or even the Commonwealth. Why would we want to make this change knowing that the Péquistes will only use it to bolster their own argument for why they need to chart their own course in international affairs?
More important, could key Canadian interests be negatively affected by this move? What happens in a place like Burma, where Canada has no diplomatic footprint, and one or two Canadian diplomats are posted to the British embassy (will the Canadian flag be prominently displayed?). Will Canadian economic interests be aggressively pursued in that country from the British embassy?
Are not the Brits and Canadians commercial competitors in Burma? And how does it look when you have to hold Canada-Burma bilateral trade discussions back at the British embassy compound. Is that a secure office location for Canada?
After all, Canada should not be trying to conduct its foreign policy on the cheap. We are a rich industrialized country, with vast mineral wealth, and a respected member of the G-8. We don’t need to be pinching pennies when it comes to our foreign relations and diplomatic presence abroad. If we want to be a real player on the world stage, this is not the way to do it.
The bottom line is that we should have our own embassy and physical presence in Burma (and elsewhere) to build constructive relationships with the host government and civil society, to collect valuable intelligence and to identify business opportunities, and to serve Canadians there (and those who want to come to Canada). As a former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations opined succinctly to one media outlet: “You need your embassies to be your eyes, ears and your voice abroad.” Well said.
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