I usually just ignore TV news programs’ online polls. But when I saw a TV show this morning publishing their own online poll results of the 2010 Calgary voters’ preferences for mayor, I decided enough is enough. I have to write something about TV news polls in general.
Why TV news polls are unreliable?
TV news polls ask their viewers to go online or call a number to register their views, and then they report these results as “news”. A lot of TV stations have done this so the disease is wide spread! :)
Sure, don’t get me wrong, these polls are nice tools to engage viewers and make them feel their voices are heard but they are also useless as a scientific and rigorous polling tool.
“Reliable polls” share one common criteria that is easy to appreciate. The individuals selected for the polls have to be fair, that is everyone has to have the same “chance” of being selected, in other words “random” (a geeky explanation at wikipedia). And TV news polls, by its nature, suffer from self-selection bias. What the heck is self-selection bias? Here is a simple explanation, any poll you can volunteer yourself and get your friends to vote is not “fair” because we can “stack the deck”. Here is better and more rigorous explanation,
So I hope I managed to shine some light on the unreliability of TV news polls.
Note: Polls done by large polling firms are usually done in a more rigorous manner. But it never hurts to, once in a while, question the methodology of the polls and try to find out the questions being asked and the conclusions being drawn from the questions. Think for yourself and don’t blindly trust.
I had a lot of unexpected fun and gained much insight (FDA-approved clinical trials, drugs vs placebo, etc) from watching the internationally widely acclaimed documentary Orgasm Inc by director Liz Canner. And I was fortunate to be able to arrange an interview with Liz to talk about her doc and issues raised by her film.
Now, before I start discussing some serious issues, I want to say Orgasm Inc. is “upbeat, engaging, enlightening, and provocative” and indeed will ”change the way you think about sex.” In short, the film is fun (pronselection for medical study) and thoughtful at the same time, so don’t let the seriousness in the following discussion scare you from watching Orgasm Inc.
- The claim of “43% of American women experienced sexual dysfunction“
In the film, Liz dug deep and discovered the origin of the “43% of American women experienced sexual dysfunction” claim was from the article “Sexual Dysfunction in the United States: Prevalence and Predictors” (JAMA 1999). Problems with the widely publicized “43%” claim, as Liz explained in the film and the above interview, include:
* the 1999 study was based on extremely liberal interpretation of sociological survey conducted in the early 90s. In fact, a woman answering “yes” to thesequestions will qualify her as “sexual dysfunction“.
* the authors’ financial ties with the drugs companies. (originally undisclosed when the article was first published)
- The Berman Sisters and other “experts” in the media
I am now more cautious when I see “experts” speaking on TV in advance of drugs launches, the public need to know drug companies often spend millions to promote drugs. For example, P&G spending $100 million to advertise a drug can be powerful and influential enough to create the need for the drugs when people are not really “sick” and don’t really need the drugs.
It seems wrong to me that “medical experts” are permitted to be much less careful on TV speaking to the general public, declaring their “beliefs” of the benefits of certain medications when the drug companies’ own FDA approved researches have clearly failed to prove the benefits in a scientifically significant manner.
Quoting Wikipedia, “Off-label use is the practice of prescribing pharmaceuticals for an unapproved indication.” I now am much better aware of the potential danger of off-label use which may not be work to the benefit of the patients.
- Medical ethics
In some way, Orgasm Inc expose the lack of medical ethics in our society. In an age where drugs are billion dollars businesses, there are many doctors, “experts”, TV/showbiz personalities who are willing to do and say things for money. So it is very important for the public to be careful to not blindly trust anyone.
I first read about medical ethics in Dr. A. J. Cronin‘s classic novel “The Citadel” and I am saddened to see there are enough “doctors” today willing to bend or disregard their medical ethics in order to make money.
In the shocking and hilarious documentary ORGASM INC., filmmaker Liz Canner takes a job editing erotic videos for a drug trial for a pharmaceutical company. Her employer is developing what they hope will be the first Viagra drug for women that wins FDA approval to treat a new disease: Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD). Liz gains permission to film the company for her own documentary. Initially, she plans to create a movie about science and pleasure but she soon begins to suspect that her employer, along with a cadre of other medical companies, might be trying to take advantage of women (and potentially endanger their health) in pursuit of billion dollar profits. ORGASM INC. is a powerful look inside the medical industry and the marketing campaigns that are literally and figuratively reshaping our everyday lives around health, illness, desire — and that ultimate moment: orgasm.
Upbeat, engaging, enlightening, and provocative, ORGASM INC. will change the way you think about sex.
Bloomberg has done a great job turning around BusinessWeek and making the articles much more readable again. Here are two of my recent favourite articles,
The next one is a must read for people who call themselves “investors” because I consider it a form of immunization against future “commodity ETFs” of different names.
The wonderfully made Me, Too (Yo, Tambien) is one of my 2010 Calgary International Film Festival Picks. This is a drama/romantic comedy with a twist where the lead actor has Down syndrome. Don’t worry, this film never lecture us hard about the right or wrong way to treat people with Down syndrome, and it is touching, funny, and refreshing to watch. (4 out of 5 stars) Highly recommended.
Now, to be fair, while I attended U of T and I still love UT, I have to say the social media team behind Princeton seems slightly ahead and more active than Toronto in using Twitter and Facebook. By the way, you can check out the titles by season at Princeton (sample chapters by title) and Toronto. [Thanks for the helpfrom Princeton.]
I want to wish both University of Toronto Press and Princeton University Press good luck as I think university published books (hard copies and even e-books) may need some rework/rethink and better social media PR for these books to stay relevant in the new digital/YouTube age.
[ref my tweet & HT Paul (I guess, "no press is bad press")]
If it is up to me: I say a University, in our age of YouTube and online videos, should consider posting videos of most (or all) of its invited guest lectures and cutting-edge seminars online for people to watch.
My logic is this: The most “expensive/valuable” part of a guest lecture or a seminar is arranging for an expert to come to speak and his/her time. The cost of capturing and creating the online videos should be very manageable and can even be handled by a department staff. Once these lectures/seminars have been captured, the videos can be viewed later by people who are unable to attend the event or for people who want to watch the presented material again.
P.S. I am a big fan of the OpenCourseWare movement and its goal of sharing university course materials freely with the world. MIT OpenCourseWare and Open Yale Courses are two examples that have done pretty good jobs.
P.P.S. These days, many TED Talks have also played important roles in knowledge dissemination. Some of the TED Talks speakers are actually doing a better job in educating the general public than most universities/colleges.
It was fun for me to see what lead to the the Equal Pay Act 1970, and I think you will have fun watching the film as well. I especially love one scene between the characters played by the beautiful Rosamund Pike and Sally Hawkins. Rosamund, playing a Cambridge/Oxford educated smart woman who was reduced to a “supportive wife” role by her husband and partly by herself, encouraged Sally to keep up the fight as Sally was doing what Rosamund dreamt of doing but never had a chance of doing much after her university education.
In Jeff’s live action and animated documentary One Big Hapa Family, he insightfully and in a fun way explores “why almost 100% of all Japanese-Canadians are marrying interracially, the highest out of any other ethnicity in Canada, and how their mixed children perceive their unique multiracial identities.” Jeff explored the subject with insightful interviews and observations.
Jeff has also blended animation nicely into his documentary so the film can also reach the younger audiences and students easier. If you have a chance, I highly recommend you check out the film. Look out for the film as it will be coming to your local OMNI TV channel in 2011.
The following animated frames are examples of Jeff skillfully using animation to tell the story in a more fun and informative manner. Sushi may now be loved by many North Americans, but the first frame illustrates the younger Jeff having the unfortunate experience of his home-made sushi being unloved and rejected by his fellow classmates. The worst thing was even his teacher didn’t even break the ice by trying one piece!
Kings of Pastry is one of my 2010 Calgary International Film Festival Picks. The film was great to watch for food/pastry lovers as the pastry were all beautifully made , creatively inspiring, and made with all the attentions to the smallest details. On a deeper level, I also see Kings of Pastry as a film about the journeys for a group of people (pastry chefs in this case) who are willing to go really far (to the extreme) in their pursuits of excellence.
Kings of Pastry made me felt like one of the chefs, experiencing their ups and their downs with them. I highly recommend you check out Kings of Pastry when you can.
After a wonderful dinner with a friend tonight, we started talking about some of the Calgary mayoral candidates, Calgary politics and bureaucratic inefficiencies. Some further reflection got me thinking about two movies and a movie quote I love. Let me share the quote with you here.
“[addressing the Congress] Napoleon once said when asked to explain the lack of great statesmen in the world, that “to get power you need to display absolute pettiness; to exercise power, you need to show true greatness.” Such pettiness and greatness are rarely found in one person.” - The character President Jackson Evans said in The Contender (2000) [HT imdb memorable quotes]
In the imaginary world of movies and fictions, we know the “truth”, can make the “right” decision, and can aspire to achieve the moral absolutes.
In real life, as responsible citizens and Calgarians, we can only do our best by researching, reading, and getting to know the candidates in order to do our best to pick a candidate that we see can best represent and lead Calgary as our next mayor.
The following are from two American movies but I think they contain some universal truth and lessons that may be good for us to keep in our mind. If nothing else, I think they are good movies and the scenes are great.
On the surface, it seems nice that RIM averts BlackBerry ban in UAE. For those who actually knows more about security like Bruce Schneier, here he talked about the possible price RIM might have paid in detriment to RIM users’ secure communications. Have a read of this telling excerpt,
“Am I missing something here? RIM isn’t providing a file storage service, where user-encrypted data is stored on its servers. RIM is providing a communications service. While the data is encrypted between RIM’s servers and the BlackBerrys, it has to be encrypted by RIM — so RIM has access to the plaintext.
In any case, RIM has already demonstrated that it has the technical ability to address the UAE’s concerns. Like the apocryphal story about Churchill and Lady Astor, all that’s left is to agree on a price.”
Without transparency of the compromises made, reading the following gives me no additional confidence of RIM’s “promise”,
“In a response to news of the agreement with the UAE, a RIM spokesperson e-mailed CNET the following statement dated today:
“RIM cannot discuss the details of confidential regulatory matters that occur in specific countries, but RIM confirms that it continues to approach lawful access matters internationally within the framework of core principles that were publicly communicated by RIM on August 12.”"
The following excerpted opinion makes sense to me,
“I’m actually sympathetic to the need for government to engage in surveillance where appropriate. But even if you think you can trust the government not to abuse this access—and I don’t think you can—backdoors in systems like RIM’s Blackberry e-mail may become available to other parties, including criminal enterprises.”
“A deeply divided Supreme Court of Canada refused Friday to import U.S. “Miranda rights” to Canada, ruling that it would frustrate criminal investigations and slow down the justice system to impose a constitutional guarantee for suspects to have lawyers present during police interrogations.
By a 5-4 margin, the nine-member bench said that the right to counsel entails a phone call and consultation after arrest, but it does not extend to having lawyers in police interview rooms.
“We are not persuaded that the Miranda rule should be transplanted in Canadian soil,” Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin and Justice Louise Charron wrote for the majority.
“While the police must be respectful of an individual’s Charter rights, a rule that would require the police to automatically retreat upon a detainee stating that he or she has nothing to say would not strike the proper balance between the public interest in the investigation of crimes and the suspect’s interest in being left alone.”
The majority added that the prevailing view in courts nationwide is that “we should not (and cannot) change the law of Canada so as to forbid the police to talk to a detained suspect unless defence counsel sits in and rules on each question.“
Justices Louis LeBel and Morris Fish, writing a biting dissent for the minority, warned that the majority ruling “carries significant and unacceptable consequences for the administration of criminal justice and the constitutional rights of detainees in this country.”
The dissenting judges asserted the majority’s fear that the administration of justice would grind to a halt is groundless, since it has not come to fruition in the United States in the nearly 50 years since it adopted Miranda rights, despite dire predictions by naysayers at the time.
In a separate dissent, Justice Ian Binnie said that denying suspects the right to counsel during interrogations gives police a “trump card.”“
“In the case of R. vs. Sinclair, the justices split 5-4. In that case, Trent Terrence Sinclair was arrested by the RCMP from Vernon, B.C., in December 2002 and charged with second-degree murder in connection with the killing of Gary Grice the previous month. Sinclair was ultimately found guilty of manslaughter by a jury.
At the time of his arrest, Sinclair was advised of his right to counsel, and spoke twice by phone with his lawyer. During an hours-long interview with police, Sinclair said several times that he had nothing to say and wanted to talk to his lawyer again.
The police officer who conducted the interview said Sinclair had the right to keep quiet, but refused to allow him to contact his lawyer and told him he did not have the right to have a lawyer present.
Sinclair eventually implicated himself during the interview. He was then placed in a holding cell with an undercover officer, where he made further incriminating statements.
Sinclair later accompanied the police to the site where Grice had been killed and participated in a re-enactment.
Statements ruled admissible
At trial, following a voir dire, the judge said the interview, the statements to the undercover officer, and the re-enactment were all admissible.
A court of appeal agreed with that decision, and the Supreme Court upheld the appeal ruling.”
“Per McLachlin C.J. and Deschamps, Charron, Rothstein and Cromwell JJ.: Section 10(b) of the Charter does not mandate the presence of defence counsel throughout a custodial interrogation. Precedent is against this interpretation and the language of s. 10(b) does not appear to Read the rest of this entry »
For those that think internet voting system is a solution to low voter turnout, they should read this, “Hacking Trial Breaks D.C. Internet Voting System“. And here is an important observation (emphasis added),
“My primary worry about contests like this is that people will think a positive result means something. If a bunch of students can break into a system after a couple of weeks of attempts, we know it’s insecure.But just because a system withstands a test like this doesn’t mean it’s secure.“
I had dared not to dream of this morning’s announcement but it is finally true.
Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) has been announced as the winner of Nobel Peace Prize 2010 “for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China”.
The quest for Chinese democracy is truly a long struggle (山長水遠的鬥爭). Because of Mr. Liu‘s ill health for being locked in Chinese prison for so many years, it is important for citizens and governments of the world to demand Mr. Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) to be released from prison now.
- Here is an earlier article/interview “Chinese dissident tipped for Nobel Peace Prize“, published three days ago on Oct 5th, showing a bit of Canadian involvement and inspiration that is worth quoting here (emphasis added),
“But recently, Liu Xia revealed, she has taken some strength from words by Canadian author Margaret Atwood.
Writing to friends in Hong Kong last month to thank them for supporting her husband, Liu Xia cited words from a speech that Atwood delivered in April on receiving an award from PEN America, an organization that works to defend free expression.
“Atwood spoke of how silence and secrecy allow the worst horrors to breed,” she said, “and how sooner or later the hidden stories in a society have to come out.
“Atwood then went on to say, ‘The messengers in such cases are seldom welcome — yet they are necessary and must be protected.’”
“Of course,” said Liu Xia, “my husband is one of those messengers.”
And yet his winning a Nobel Peace Prize is one message the Chinese government doesn’t want to hear.
In fact, last summer the Chinese government sent an envoy to Norway to directly threaten the Nobel Committee if it dared to give the award to a Chinese dissident.“
“The Norwegian Nobel Committee said Friday it awarded the peace prize to imprisoned Chinese pro-democracy activist Liu Xiaobo for his fight for human rights in China, but there is no mention of it in Chinese media. Access to news segments broadcast on CNN and BBC International, normally available, have been blocked by government censors, aiming to thwart widespread knowledge of the prize.
China’s Web censors have deleted chatter from Liu’s colleagues, as well as China’s intellectuals and elite, that began to spread on China’s blogs and message boards only minutes after the news broke. On Sina, personal comments that referred to Liu as LXB or Liu Liu, avoiding his full name, disappeared an hour after having been posted. Remarks that said, “He won,” are no longer visible.”
Because I think the 2010 mayoral/municipal election is very important and as a public service to my fellow Calgarians, I took the initiative to find one YouTube campaign promotional clip from each of the leading mayoral candidates’s YouTube channel (Twitter: Barb Higgins, Ric McIver, Naheed Nenshi) and post them here.
The last three elected mayors of Calgary (Klein, Duerr, Bronconnier) held 9, 12, and 9 years terms respectively. And mayor Klein later became the 12th premier of Alberta for 14 years! So it is very likely that whoever get elected as mayor will be our mayor for some years to come and change the lives of Calgarians positively or negatively. He/she may even lead the province one day.
Casting an informed vote
I believe it is important to be a responsible citizen and cast my vote in an informed manner and not based on sound bites or headlines. To help me decide which candidate deserve my vote as Calgary’s next mayor in the Oct 8th municipal election, I have been reading & watching some of the election news. And I took time to attend my first Calgary mayoral forum at Southcentre mall last night to see and listen to the candidates talked about their policies and their plans for the city.
While I am not committed to any one candidate enough to go to the advanced polling station and make my decision now, I now have more insights of what the candidates stand for and believe. And I feel I can make a more informed decision when casting my vote.
Our democratic system only works if lots and lots of Calgarians come out to vote. The voting rates in the last few elections have been dismal. So please exercise your democratic right and duty to vote on Oct 18th. Check out the 2010 official Calgary election site for more advanced polling and election day information.
Photos and video clips of the 2010 mayoral candidates
To keep our municipal democracy alive and healthy, it is important to have different candidates with different views participating. Sure, it is easy to be cynical to think some of the candidates want the jobs because of their ego or love of power but unless and until the cynics standup and run in an election, the candidates who are willing to run are what we have.
Posted by kempton 
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