Canada, the B-Movie, Reigns and Rains

We can be proud that Canada is firmly maintaining its grip on the titles Second Rate Country and B-Movie Society.

Item: We can't get rid of war criminals.

Nice.

No country is as forgiving and as welcoming to the scum of the earth. Even when they are found guilty of minor infractions like mass murder, we graciously allow them years upon years of legal appeals, while they continue to shop at groceries near you.

Item: Canada to skip World Water Expo in Spain next summer.

Nice.

We are surrounded on 3 sides by water. We have more rivers, lakes and streams that any 20 other countires combined, more and cheaper hydro-electric power than most sovereign states in the world and we are among the greatest per capita consumers of water.

Buy, hey! Why should we attend an international exposition on the the single greatest issue facing mankind today? 95 other countires, big and small, rich and poor, are managing to show.

But that would be too easy and and put us in danger of losing our title of World's Greatest Ditherers.

Novak is no Djoke

Tiger was magificant as always in winning his 13th major in Oklahoma yesterday.

And Novak Djokovic was wonderful in deafeating the numbers 3, 2, and 1 in the world at the Rogers Cup tennis tournet in Montreal.

Roddick is not really a factor these days; his game is brutish and limited.

But now add the Djoker to the names Federer and Nadal and we have entered an era of tennis similar to the days of Borg, Conners & McEnroe.

I love it.

NEWS FLASH! ROVE RESIGNS!

In a move that will be cheered by many and covered all day by CNN and others, the President's Creator, Karl Rove, has resigned from the Bush White House.

Does this mean that he will be freed from subpoenas or at least free to tell something resembling the truth.?

Rove has been up there on the Evil List for many of us for a long time time, compared to Haldeman and Erlichman, Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Without this scheming creep, there would be no George Bush.

Read the early dispatch now.

The Outright Lies of "Insite"

Guest Blogger, Steve, reports on the false claims of the safe injection site:

"There's a bit more data in on OD Deaths in Vancouver.

It looks like my initial evaluation that there was a significant increase in deaths caused by the opening of the SIS may have been premature. I had stated that the deaths in Vancouver went up by 29% in 2004, while they went down by 22% elsewhere. These numbers have since been revised to +22% and -8% respectively. http://www.pssg.gov.bc.ca/coroners/publications/docs/annualreport2005.pdf

Previous to 2003, the numbers for Vancouver tracked fairly closely with the numbers for the rest of BC. So I attributed this sudden divergence to the opening of the SIS.

If that were true, the trend would have continued. It didn't. OD deaths in Vancouver went down in 2005 (by 13%), while they went up in the rest of the province (by 22%). More data is required to make a proper evaluation.

I don't have complete numbers for 2006 or 2007 yet, but the Globe and Mail reported a comparison between the first six months of each of those years, and reported that, while OD deaths went up in Vancouver during that time (from 26 to 36), they went down in the rest of BC.**

However, if I extrapolate those numbers, it looks like OD deaths in Vancouver decreased in 2005 (as above) by about 13%, and again in 2006 by about 16%, only to shoot up again in 2007 (by about 38%). I don't know precisely what the rest of BC did during 2006 and 2007. I don't yet have those numbers.***

Early evaluation indicates that after the SIS opened, OD deaths went up slightly, but not significantly more than the rest of BC.

In any case, the differences are small enough to be of limited statistical significance. So the SIS doesn't seem to be having a large effect in either direction.

This sounds like a non-result, until you remember that the SIS proponents have been publishing glowing positive results, and overtly and categorically stating that the SIS is an amazing success, "according to the science". THIS AGAIN PROVES THEY ARE LYING, and have been lying all along.

As scientists, they should know that their own science never proved anything of the kind. As Colin Mangham pointed out in his report, far better than I ever could.

So far, the only thing we can say for sure is that the SIS is definitely not saving lives. The lowest number of OD deaths in Vancouver was in 2002, the last full year before the SIS opened. No matter what math you do, you can't make a case for any improvement in OD deaths in Vancouver. The situation is slightly worse. But that amount is probably not statistically significant.