iamaelephant

My post sent me this a few months ago, and I found it again while going through some old emails. I freely admit that this presents some clever verbal legerdemain and isn't entirely accurate, buit but it's a neat tale anyway. It's very "business round table-ish", so the more socialist amoung us might squirm a little upon reading.

I was watching SVU last night and was intrigued by a particular question; should parents get to choose whether or not to vaccinate their kids?

During the episode a baby was found dead due to being infected with the measles. The baby was infected while playing at the local park with an unvaccinated child that happened to have the measles. Unfortunately because the baby was less than 18 months old it had no immunization against the disease and therefore died. Later in the episode the mother of the first infected child was put on trial for murder because she had refused to immunize her child, a circumstance which lead to the death of the baby.

As I'm sure you all know measles is an infection respiratory system and is highly contagious. The infection has an average incubation period of 14 days and infectivity lasts from 2–4 days prior, until 2–5 days following the onset of the rash. The classical symptoms of measles include four day fevers, the three Cs—cough, coryza (runny nose) and conjunctivitis. Complications with measles are relatively common, ranging from relatively mild and less serious diarrhea, to pneumonia and encephalitis, corneal ulceration leading to corneal scarring. The fatality rate from measles for otherwise healthy people in developed countries is 3 deaths per thousand cases.

Clearly this a horrible disease but it is also preventable. The number of notified measles cases so far this year is already seven times the total number of cases last year. There have been more than 100 cases in Canterbury, with 11 hospitalisations. The number of cases in Auckland is growing and there are isolated cases in other regions.
Considering immunization is free in New Zealand the current outbreaks must therefore be a result of misinformation about vaccines that is often portrayed in the media.

So the question is should the vaccination of the measles be a legal requirement in order to prevent further deaths? Or should we let the parents decide and stand by our civil liberties? Your thoughts ....

On Scott's advice I'm writing an article on this. I was gonna cool off with a game of squash, but I've come home no less pissed off, so I'm going to vent. This post of for the enlightenment of people unfamiliar with the case, which has been worryingly underreported in mainstream media.

For those unaware, Roman Polanski is a hack director and a child-molesting pedophile. In 1977, he raped and sodomised a 13 year old girl during a photo shoot for a magazine while they were alone. To save confusion and a lot of rehashing posts I've made elsewhere, here are the facts which are not in dispute by either party:

1. During a photo shoot, Polanski stupefied the 13 year old with quaaludes and alcohol.
2. Against the girls protestation, he penetrated her vaginally, orally and anally.
3. The girl protested before the event (when she saw where the shoot was going), and prior to each instance during the rape.
4. Polanski was arrested shortly after, and plea bargained down from rape to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor (incidently , you might find some apologists trying to claim the age of consent was 14 in California at the time. This is not true, it was 18)
5. Polanski skipped bail and fled to France, where he couldn't be extradited because he had residency. For the rest of his career he avoided countries where he was likely to be extradited to face a court of law.

   Now all of this should make you angry enough as is. A pedophile rapist, who took advantage of a girl in an environment of trust and a huge imbalance of power, avoided facing any consequences whatsoever for this long. Two days ago, Polanski was arrested in Zurich and extradited to the USA to face the consequences of his actions. Of course, due to the passage of time and the fact he's a celebrity, he'll probably get a slap on the wrist and that's the end of that /cynicism.

   Here's where the real bullshit begins. Here's some quotes from an article in the Herald to get your blood boiling:
   

   Polish director, Andrzej Wajda wrote:

   The fact that the Polish-born Mr Polanski was arrested as he arrived to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Zurich film festival was, they said, “a provocation”.

   
   
   Leading French director, Bertrand Tavernier wrote:

   “The Swiss are extraordinary. Here is a law which is supposed to combat drug-trafficking and tax evasion and the first victim they pick on is an artist.”

   
   
   French Foreign Minister, Mr Kouchner wrote:

   The Californian and Swiss authorities had acted unreasonably. “It’s a little sinister, this business, to be quite frank,” Mr Kouchner said. “A man of such talent, recognised throughout the world … All this is not nice.”

   
   
   The jury of the Zurich film festival wrote:

   ... accused the Swiss government of “philistine collusion” with the US.

   
   
   The jury’s president, actress Debra Winger wrote:

   “[The arrest] is based on a three-decade-old case that is all but dead but for minor technicalities.”

   
   Yes, technicalities like a SENTENCE.

   But it's not just the cultural elite that are making statements like these. Spend some time on the message boards around the world and hear the cries for sympathy the Polanski. People bitch constantly about two classes of justice, but it's not the fault of the justice system. The people DEMAND two levels of justice. The unwashed masses demand that we treat their "heroes" with a greater level of dignity than we would a "common criminal". I can only conclude that people think of these celebrities as member's of the families, because they defend them with similar vigor. We saw the exact same thing with the Veitch case. People are not just willing, but eager not just to defend these criminals, but go as far as to blame the victims as we see in this video. Have a bag ready for you to vomit into.

   I want to conclude with a factor which at first appears relevant, but is not. The victim, who is now in her forty's, has publicly petitioned for the charges to be dropped. Not because they're untrue - the facts are not disputed, and Polanski has been convicted of the crime. It's not entirely clear why she wants the charges dropped, but it's seems likely she just doesn't want to go through court proceedings etc, and would rather move on. It's true that she has publicly forgiven Polanski. This is not relevant. A good justice system does not convict and apply sentence based on what the victim wants. Justice is applied for the fairness and good of society, not individuals. Furthermore, in the case of violent or sexual crimes, sentences MUST BE punitive to be effective. I hope to see Polanski, at the age of 76, serve the rest of his years in jail. I know this wont happen, particularly in a California court room, but I can hope.

So it's left to me to lament the resignation of activist-cum-MP, Sue Bradford.

Bugger.

In plenty of lunch rooms and workshops around the country, hers is a dirty name. Some Kiwis think Sue Bradford took away their right to give the kids a "clip around the ears" for getting into mischief. In frontier New Zealand, taking away a parent's right to physically discipline their child is like taking away their right to maintain a piece of equipment: it just can't be contemplated. The reality is Sue made an honest attempt to address our appalling rate of child abuse and general negligence in our duties as caregivers of children.

The complicated legal framework established in the wake of her genuine desire to help protect children isn't entirely her doing. Rather, it's the result of an almost unprecedented alliance between the country's political elite. With so many vested interests to appease it's no wonder the result is messy, but none of this changes the fact that she at least tried to make a difference. Not all MPs could claim even that much.

When the press release came through I can remember immediately considering the affect it would have on the country's Left. Whatever your opinions of Sue, the simple fact she tried meant you could remove her from her party's politicking and positioning; she seemed above it all.

I bring this up because there had been a natural assumption the Greens would always lean toward choosing Labour in any contest between the two major parties, a fact taken for granted right up until Rod Donald's death. Suddenly, with his passing, Russell Norman came onto the scene and the rules changed.

Along with Jeneatte Fitzsimons, Sue was one of the party's last remaining "Labour friendly" MPs. Others like Metiria Turei, Keith Locke and probably Catherine Delahunty certainly lean toward the left, but none are as affiliated with Labour. The Labour/Green combination made a formidable bloc right up until 2008, and even in that election, the Greens managed a very respectable nine MPs (in part thanks to a few quirks in our electoral system), making them a real force.

Russell Norman only knows how to be a political operator; how to take a trendy Green message out to as many people as possible and truly foster a kind of political chic. He does it very well. Just look at their last campaign, its inspiring images of young children in striking New Zealand landscapes and the ever positive "Vote for me" tag. That's all down to Russell.

Growing the Green brand means positioning the party very carefully. Russell has chosen to ignore focusing on areas of mutual agreement and instead distinguish his brand from that of Labour's by highlighting the differences between the two parties. This act of self-preservation means driving a wedge between the community of Green and Labour voters and, I suspect, makes Russell a difficult politician for Labour MPs to work with. The threat this wedge presents to the Left "movement" as a whole is made all the worse by Jeanette's retirement, Catherine Delahunty's general cluelessness, and Keith Locke's compulsion to find the conspiracy in everything. National would be silly not to capitalise, and they probably will.

So I lament Sue's leaving. Beyond just the fact the parliament loses a significant political character, and the fact the country loses a true rallying point for many, Sue's departure goes further toward the undermining of the Left's effectiveness, and threatens the Greens' relevance politically. An all-round bad result for a self-confessed "leftie".

RIP SB

Hey Guys,

As resident thread Necromancer I thought we would open this debate up again! I will see how this thread goes but I think I have the knockout girl for this debate. And yes girls, you can add your favourite guys if you want!

Dear Idiots,

Using the term "Politically Correct" to describe something you don't agree with is the laziest argument available. "PC" can be broadly used to describe any action, decision or policy that doesn't fit within your preconceived political or social ideology, and is therefore a meaningless phrase.

People who insist on using the "PC" argument should be strongly repudiated and ridiculed for their lazy stupidity. Apart from the obvious stupidity of its use, there's also the unavoidable hypocrisy associated with it. Being that the phrase is more often than not used to describe something unpopular, its self-evidently absurd.

Furthermore, labelling something as "PC" doesn't instantly make it so, and certainly isn't a slam-dunk argument. To the contrary, really it isn't an argument at all, but a way of avoiding intelligent debate. I encourage anyone who witnesses the use of this egregious and lazy phrase confront the user, and force them to explain themselves. That is all.

After hearing and reading tons of great interviews from Dan Ariely I finally picked up his book, Predictably Irrational yesterday. It's a great read and I can't put it down. I'd recommend the book to anyone, it's just so interesting.

Anyway, Ariely is a proponent of so-called "behavioral economics", a modern economic theory that claims that classical economics is flawed in that it's predicated on the idea that people are inherently rational. Ariely claims (and he has a ton of experimental data to back this up) that people are intrinsically irrational, and furthermore that the irrational behavior isn't random and so the individual behaviors won't "cancel out" on the free market.

I know there are some people around here who know a lot more about economics than I do, so I'd be interested in your opinions. I hope to contribute more to this thread when I finish the book (by tonight or tomorrow morning probably), but feel free to chime in even if you're not strong on economics.

Just to add an example of the irrational behavior, consider this example from the book. At the MIT campus Ariely and a couple of grad students set up a stand where they were selling chocolates. The stand had a large sign reading "One per customer only". They were selling two type of chocolates - Hershey's Kisses for $0.01 and Lindt Truffles (very fancy chocolates) for $0.15. 73% of students chose the truffles, 27% chose to buy the kisses. They then lowered the prices by $0.01, so the truffles were $0.14 and the kisses were free. According to classical economic theory the behavior shouldn't change - the price differential was the same and the expected value and loss from making a decision was unchanged. But in this case, 69% of students chose the free kiss over the 31% who bought the truffle. The 'free' price tag had much more effect than economic theory would predict.

There are way more experiments in the book and it's an incredible insight into how people think. If you want to read more, Jeff Atwood summarized a few of the experiments in a recent blog post. This book is a serious contender for the best I've read this year, up there with Masters of Doom.

Nutmeg didn't come home last night. He was found dead on the sidewalk this morning. He was less than a year old, and the best cat ever. RIP kitty.

My original post, December 30 2008 when we first got Nutmeg. I'm sad now