Newshoggers.com

The Rise of Turkey

By BJ Bjornson

An interesting article about one of the other unintended consequences of the U.S. invasion of Iraq; the coming out of Turkey from behind America’s shadow and its rise as major player in the Middle East and beyond.

Turkey is extending its influence by diplomacy rather than force. It is also forging economic ties with its neighbors, and has offered to mediate in several persistent regional conflicts. It has, however, not hesitated to use force to quell the guerrillas of the PKK, a rebel movement fighting for Kurdish independence.

But even here, Turkey is now using a softer approach. The rebels have been offered an amnesty and Turkey’s influential foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, has this past week paid a visit — the first of its kind — to the Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq. There is even talk of Turkey opening a consulate in Erbil.

In recent years, Turkey’s diplomacy has scored many successes, winning great popularity in the Arab world and strengthening Turkey’s hand in its bid to join the European Union. Some people would go so far as to argue that there is no future for Turkey without the E.U., and no future for the E.U. without Turkey.

The last about the E.U. seems a bit overblown to me, but the rest appears to be on target.

Riffing off of the article, Chuck Spinney notes that the Turkish revival goes far beyond what is in the article.

But there is more. Not mentioned are Turkey's bilateral overtures to Russia, Georgia, the Ukraine, and the various Turkic countries in great swath of Central Asia (including the Uighurs in NW China), as well as a bewildering variety of multilateral environmental and economic initiatives in the Black Sea region (involving Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Greece, and Turkey). On a personal level, when talking to individual Turks, I have sensed occasionally some faint echoes of a revival of the kinship links which once connected the cosmopolitan inhabitants around the Black Sea littoral (Turks marrying Ukranians and Russians, Turkish Tatars reconnecting with distant relatives in the Crimea or Kuban, Turkish Las east of Trabzon connecting to Georgians, etc.)

Much of this dynamism is definitely due to the proactive leadership of Prime Minister Edogan and Foreign Minister Davutoglu in the sense described by Seale, but part of the impetus, I think, also comes from Turkey being sucked willy-nilly into the power vacuum that arose suddenly with collapse of the Soviet Union, and then was deepened more recently by the escalation of US bungling in the Middle East and Central Asia (especially wrt Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Afghanistan,and Syria). The interplay of chance and necessity is now shaping unfolding events in an unpredictable way.

There is one area where Turkey’s new-found development on the international front has a large number of people concerned, the cooling of its relationship with Israel.

From the Arab point of view, the most dramatic development has undoubtedly been the cooling of Turkey’s relations with Israel. The relationship has been damaged by the outrage felt by many Turks at Israel’s cruel oppression of the Palestinians, which reached its peak with the Gaza War.

Even before the assault on Gaza, Prime Minister Erdogan — a strong supporter of the Palestine cause — did not hesitate to describe some of Israel’s brutal actions as “state terrorism.” A total breach between the two countries is unlikely, but relations are unlikely to recover their earlier warmth so long as Israel’s hard-line prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, remain in power.

And from Spinney:

One this is clear, however: The Neocon dream of Turko-Israeli regional military-economic cooperation sphere is now in tatters. How Israel adapts to these changes and how Israel attempts to use its pernicious lobbying influence in the US to shape our response to these changes is likely to be one the great strategic headaches for President Obama and his successors for the foreseeable future.

Given the spin present in a recent column at the Jerusalem Post, where Caroline Glick used Turkey’s refusal to allow Bush to use their territory to invade Iraq, and their recent overtures to Syria as proof that the country is lost to the West and has entered Iran’s sphere of influence (a ridiculous point, as Steven Taylor demonstrates), one guesses that Spinney is right to be concerned.

In many ways, I think this sort of realignment was an inevitable byproduct of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Without opposition to that great power to convince the Western powers to subsume their individual interests into a greater common (and nominally American) approach to the world, it was only a matter of time before the individual interests of each nation started to reassert themselves.

For a time after the Soviet Union collapsed, things did carry on much as they had before thanks to both inertia and the diplomatic chops of the Bush Sr. and Clinton administrations, but the Bush administration managed to accelerate the disintegration process by making demands on their traditional allies that clearly didn’t serve any common purpose and was, particularly in the case of Turkey, detrimental to those countries own interests.

The real question going forward is whether or not the U.S. and Israel deal with this realignment intelligently or instead take the belligerent route, screaming of betrayal when allies disagree, and wind up accelerating their isolation from the rest of the world.

Knock Me Over With A Feather

By BJ Bjornson

Admittedly, I don’t think this was too hard to figure out.

Chief executives in 35 of the top Fortune 500 companies were overpaid by about 129 times their "ideal salaries" in 2008, according to an analysis by a Purdue University researcher.

. . .

Fair pay for an average S&P 500 CEO should ideally be in the range of 8 to 16 times the lowest employee salary, according to Venkatasubramanian's calculations.

By contrast, average CEO pay ratios were about 11-to-1 in Japan, 15-to-1 in France, 20-to-1 in Canada and 22-to-1 in Britain in 2006.

Since the 1970s in the United States, the ratio of CEO pay to the lowest employee's salary has gone up to as high as 344-to-1 from about 40-to-1

Hmmm. One of those countries does seem to stand out a bit, doesn’t it?

"V" - It's Worse Than You Thought

By BJ Bjornson

It isn’t very often that my TV viewing works into any political posts, but thanks to the Chicago Tribune, there is a fair bit of sounding off in the right side of the blogosphere today regarding the TV series reboot of “V” being a none-too-subtle jab at Obamania.

Imagine this. At a time of political turmoil, a charismatic, telegenic new leader arrives virtually out of nowhere. He offers a message of hope and reconciliation based on compromise and promises to marshal technology for a better future that will include universal health care.

The news media swoons in admiration -- one simpering anchorman even shouts at a reporter who asks a tough question: "Why don't you show some respect?!" The public is likewise smitten, except for a few nut cases who circulate batty rumors on the Internet about the leader's origins and intentions. The leader, undismayed, offers assurances that are soothing, if also just a tiny bit condescending: "Embracing change is never easy."

So, does that sound like anyone you know? Oh, wait -- did I mention the leader is secretly a totalitarian space lizard who's come here to eat us?

I’m kind of surprised he didn’t work in a quip about not knowing the individual's birthplace in there someplace.

There is of course the small problem that the “He” is actually a “She”; a rather attractive female who also happens to refuse to be interviewed by anyone who might ask tough questions (ironically enough the reporter apparently chastised for asking a tough question by the “fawning” types is who she ultimately chooses as a go to), who might also sound a little familiar to more than a few of us. But Sarah Starbursts references aside, it is actually further into the episode that we learn just how awful things really are.

In a meeting of the not-quite-fledgling resistance movement, it is discovered that these space lizards have actually been around for some time, helping to start unnecessary wars, create economic meltdowns, and twist faith into extremism, all to destabilize things to the point where their other half could come in looking like an enlightened alternative to the status quo.

Do you see? As part of the evil and dastardly plan to make himself our unquestioned overlord basking in the adulation of a grateful planet, Obama first sent forth his loyal minions in the form of the neocons, Banksters, and the Bush administration to screw things up so horribly that he would be seen as great figure riding to the rescue. I mean, how else could a Kenyan-born Islamofascist commie and Black Power racist get elected?

Indeed! It makes perfect sense now too why he keeps bailing out the big banks without adding much in the way of pesky regulations that might actually prevent a repeat of the financial disaster, or why he doesn’t seem to actually want to get those troops out of Iraq or end the war in Afghanistan, or stop the cross-border drone strikes into Pakistan that keep driving the locals into support of the Taliban, or close down Gitmo and the other prisons for the “enemy combatants”, or why he keeps using the Bush administrations “state secrets” interpretations in the courts, or, most importantly, why he doesn’t seem to want to actually hold any of those responsible for the torture state of the last eight years accountable for their actions. They’re allies! They were acting with his full support the entire time.

As I said, far worse than you thought. Because it turns out the opposition really isn’t the opposition at all. Figures Ron would be right.

I Should've Been an Investment Banker

By BJ Bjornson

I suppose the only thing stopping me is a bad case of morality.

Really, there isn’t much more to do with this excellent piece of journalism (and how often do we get to say that these days?) from McClatchy than offer some excerpts and recommend you read the whole article.

In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting.

Goldman's sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation's premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies.

Only later did investors discover that what Goldman had promoted as triple-A rated investments were closer to junk.

. . .

The Securities and Exchange Commission should be very interested in any financial company that secretly decides a financial product is a loser and then goes out and actively markets that product or very similar products to unsuspecting customers without disclosing its true opinion," said Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economics professor who's proposed a massive overhaul of the nation's banks. "This is fraud and should be prosecuted."

Yeah, the SEC should be very interested, but we haven’t really seen anything to indicate that it will be, yet, and there is probably a pretty good reason as to why.

For decades, Goldman, a bastion of Ivy League graduates that was founded in 1869, has cultivated an elite reputation as home to the best and brightest and a tradition of urging its executives to take turns at public service.

As a result, Goldman has operated a virtual jobs conveyor belt to and from Washington: Paulson, as Treasury secretary, sent tens of billions of taxpayers' dollars to rescue Wall Street in 2008, and former Goldman employees populate some of the most demanding and powerful posts in Washington. Savvy federal regulators have migrated from their Washington jobs to Goldman.

“Savvy” regulators being those who apparently know where their bread is being buttered, and having friends in high places, like former chief executive-turned Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, certainly has its benefits.

The firm benefited when Paulson elected not to save rival Lehman Brothers from collapse, and when he organized a massive rescue of tottering global insurer American International Group while in constant telephone contact with Goldman chief Blankfein. With the Federal Reserve Board's blessing, AIG later used $12.9 billion in taxpayers' dollars to pay off every penny it owed Goldman.

These decisions preserved billions of dollars in value for Goldman's executives and shareholders. For example, Blankfein held 1.6 million shares in the company in September 2008, and he could have lost more than $150 million if his firm had gone bankrupt.

The key for the lawsuits against Goldman is at the end of the article and relates to how much information they should have been disclosing about the fact they were hedging quite severely over the products they were offering for sale.

Whether companies are obliged to inform investors about such contrary trades, or "hedges," is "a very hot issue" in cases winding through the courts, said Frank Partnoy, a University of San Diego law professor who specializes in securities. One issue is how specific companies must be in disclosing potential risks to investors, he said.

Coffee, the Columbia University law professor, said that any potential violations of securities laws would depend on what Goldman executives knew about the risks ahead.

"The critical moment when Goldman would have the highest liability and disclosure obligations is when they are serving as an underwriter on a registered public offering," he said. "If they are at the same time desperately seeking to get out of the field, that kind of bailout does look far more dubious than just trading activities."

Another question is whether, by keeping the trades secret, the company withheld material information that would enable investors to assess Goldman's motives for selling the bonds, said James Cox, a Duke University law professor who also has served on the NYSE advisory panel.

If Goldman had disclosed the contrary bets, he said, "One would have to believe that a rational investor would not only consider Goldman's conduct material, but likely compelling a decision to take a pass on the recommendation to purchase."

You can bet this is going to be a long battle in the courts. It will also be interesting to see if the Obama administration actually does something useful in this case and make the disclosure requirements more transparent. Based on their record so far, I’m less than hopeful unless far more attention and outrage can be brought to bear.

At the very least, it’s good to see at least some journalists are paying attention.

Science is not a Religion

By BJ Bjornson

Even if there are those who occasionally treat it that way.

The title refers to the introductory post of David Sloan Wilson’s at Scienceblogs, “Science as a Religion that Worships Truth as its God”. I have a number of critiques about the post, but none as glaring as the title and theme.

The best take-down of said title I’ve seen is from Henry Gee, who notes that science is about the quantification of doubt rather than the pursuit of truth.

I don’t think I’ve read or heard anything more misleading all day, and in this post I hope to explain why I am so concerned.

The short answer (don’t worry, I have a longer one handy) is that it is not the business of science to discover ‘truth’, because ‘truth’ cannot be judged to be such, in any absolute way. To put it another way, were we to stumble upon the ‘truth’ we could never know that we had done so.

What science is all about, in contrast, is the quantification of doubt.

It is doubt, friends, that fuels science: the testing of hypotheses; the subjection of scientific ideas, grant applications, papers and presentations, to exacting scepticism.

James Hrynyshyn, at the appropriately (for this) titled Island of Doubt adds:

Let me just add that I know that social theorists find these kind of statements annoying. They consider science just another ideology with all the baggage that comes with one. But whenever I get into a debate with one of those social theorists, it's clear they don't understand how science really works. I will continue to insist that science is neither ideology nor religion. No other ideology or religion even comes close to the scientific method's reliance on skepticism to advance understanding.

I would say that it isn’t just social theorists who like to lump science in with religions and other ideologies, as there are significant political and financial gains to be made by doing the same.

While the reliance upon doubt and skepticism make science the very powerful tool that it is, it is also used quite cynically by those who oppose its findings to try and undermine them.

The most common form of this is the “there is actually a lot of controversy over X”, with X being anything from evolution to climate change. This is usually a partial truth, as with something like evolution, there really isn’t any scientific controversy over its occurrence but a fair bit over the exact mechanisms by which it occurs. But even at that, one cannot say as a scientist that evolution in an absolute certainty. As Hrynyshyn says in his post, “a lack of uncertainty is one of the ways you can identify something as unscientific.” We are generally disposed to granting arguments to people who can claim absolute certainty in their positions, whereas as a proper skeptic and scientist, one has to always acknowledge the possibility, however remote, that you may be wrong. Doing so sounds wishy-washy and uncertain, like you are unsure of the merits of your argument, which doesn’t do so well debate-wise with people who can proclaim the certainty of their own beliefs. Of course, belief in something says nothing about its accuracy, but one can be endlessly impressed by how hard folks cling to such beliefs even in the face of contradictory evidence.

Faced with such opposition, it is hard to resist using the language of certainty yourself when engaged in arguments over these topics. Do so, however, and you’re painted as just another ideologue who “believes” in evolution, or climate change, or science itself. And, since as I noted above belief doesn’t imply accuracy, if you can pretend that science is just another belief system, you can also ignore its findings in favour of your own belief system.

(As an aside, my co-workers have noticed that while I tend to shoot down their arguments with some certainty, I usually couch my own arguments with qualifiers like “seems to”, “its likely that”, and so forth. The reason being that it is far easier to know if something is wrong that to be certain that something is right. If the evidence contradicts a claim, you can be certain the claim is incorrect, whereas if the evidence supports the claim, you can only properly have some confidence that the claim is provisionally true, since further research may turn up some contradictions. That scientific way of thinking colours the way I see pretty much everything, it seems.)

All this is a long-winded way of saying that if you want to increase the role of science and scientific thought in the public domain, then it would be best not to attach to it the trappings of an ideology or belief system.

For the last word, we’ll go to PZ Meyers:

Science isn't a religion, period. It doesn't worship anything. Science is a toolbox, and if you must stretch the metaphor even further, doubt is the crowbar we use to get at useful answers…but again, we don't worship the crowbar. We admire it, can ooh and aaah over a particularly well-tricked-out crowbar, and we can relish opportunities to swing it, but it never, ever assumes the role of religion in our our lives.

David Sloan Wilson is going to fit right in. He's giving everyone an excuse to swing their crowbars.

And it appears that there is a lot of swinging going on at scienceblogs, which is the way it should be.

Hitchens: Always a good time to bomb Iran

By BJ Bjornson

You do have to hand it to Chris Hitchens. Not many people could take the news that Iran’s nuclear program is less of a threat than thought (or more accurately, claimed) and turn it into a reason to start bombing.

At question is a report noted by David Ignatius noting that Iran’s low-enriched uranium probably contains impurities that would make it impossible to enrich any further, let alone to weapons grade.

Rational folk would probably conclude that the fact that Iran’s program is even more fraught with difficulties than previously noted would mean that you have even an even greater amount of time to pursue diplomatic solutions, but then Hitchens has never struck me as being entirely rational when it comes to Middle Eastern affairs.

No, for Hitch, the fact that Iran is even further from being a threat means that it should be even easier to bomb the hell out of them (for their own good, of course).

Thus, if it is true that Iran is not as close to "break-out" as we have sometimes feared, should that not make our deliberations more urgent rather than less? Might it not mean, in effect, that now is a better time to disarm the mullahs than later?

. . .

Against this, we are at least entitled to consider the idea that a decaying regime that is bluffing and buying (or rather stealing) time on weapons of mass destruction is in a condition that makes this the best moment to do at least something to raise the cost of the lawlessness and to slow down and sabotage the preparations. Or might it be better to wait and to fight later on more equal terms?

Yeah, and to think there are some people out there who figure that the whole reason Iran would actually want to get their hands on a nuclear arsenal is so they would have the deterrent capacity should the U.S. or Israel get the hankering to go all “regime change” on their ass.  Can’t imagine how they could come to such a conclusion after reading Hitchens muse that the fact that they may be further than ever to a nuclear weapon is just a golden opportunity to move in and rearrange the place to his liking. 

(I’m also trying to figure out how a country with a defence budget 1/100th of America’s and an economy that Hitchens himself notes is barely functional is ever going to get to “more equal terms”, but never mind that.)

Oh, and does any of this sound familiar to the “Iraq will be a cakewalk” rhetoric people like Hitchens were wont to spout not too long ago? I find it quite amusing that Hitchens opens his little diatribe by reeling off a bunch of extremely pessimistic Iraq War predictions in an attempt, I suppose, to discredit anybody who didn’t support that clusterfuck and may not be too willing to sign up for the new one he’s pushing in this column, all the while ignoring the disastrously optimistic assessments of the war’s supporters like himself. Most likely due to the fact that he’s trying to sell the exact same line in terms of Iran.

Hey! Their vaunted nuke program is a mess! They can’t even turn their oil into gasoline! They’re weak and tottering! We could so go in and clean up the place now, easy! Seriously, how can we afford to pass up on a such a bargain basement regime change! Act now before the price goes up!

Anybody feel like buying another war from this guy?

Maybe There's Something in the Oil?

By BJ Bjornson

Do you remember a few days back when it was reported that the Saudis figured that if the world ever actually got serious about reducing carbon emissions, and as a result, starting using less oil, they should be forced to pay the producers of oil compensation for all the oil they will no longer be able to sell? I believe the term chutzpah was bandied around a fair bit, and it seems that the Canadian version of the Saudis have learned the lesson well.

Alberta's oil sands producers should be allowed to significantly increase their greenhouse gas emissions, even if that means forcing other sectors to take on additional expensive obligations to meet Canada's climate change targets, an industry executive says.

. . .

Mr. Coutu – whose company owns 36.7 per cent of the Syncrude oil sands project – acknowledged other sectors would have to take up the slack if the oil sands have only intensity-based requirements and Ottawa imposes a national cap on emissions.

. . .

Driven by its need to keep the oil industry growing, Alberta has set regulations that will see emissions continue to grow between 2006 and 2020, even as Ottawa attempts to cut levels by 20 per cent over that period. With Alberta representing more than a third of Canadian emissions in 2006, the failure by that province to cut back will require the rest of the provinces to reduce their emissions by more than 35 per cent from 2006 levels over the next 10 years.

Yep, make other people pay for your pollution so you can keep raking in the big profits.

I’m not actually surprised that Mr. Coutu is trying to keep his gravy train running. After all, it is in his own best interest. I am surprised at how blatantly it is now assumed that the government’s preferred oligarchs can force everybody else to pay for their problems.

Book Review - The Greatest Show On Earth

By BJ Bjornson

Richard Dawkins latest book is to some extent overshadowed by his previous work, The God Delusion. Indeed, in every interview I’ve seen of him promoting his newest tome, he has instead been dragged into a conversation about his last. Dawkins does his best to separate the two works, but while the thrust of The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution is definitely far different than The God Delusion, they do share a common target in many respects, since it is mainly the fundamentalist faithful whose denial and indeed, active hostility towards evolution, that has made this book and others like it necessary in Dawkins opinion.

The purpose of The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, Dawkins states, is to hopefully reach some of those who deny evolution as a fact and convince them otherwise, but more importantly (and more likely, IMO) to provide the necessary evidence to deal with such people for the rest of us who don’t happen to be evolutionary biologists or otherwise intimately familiar with the subject matter. I have serious doubts on his making any inroads on the first group, thanks again to his reputation as a “militant atheist” that has been cemented in their minds.

As for providing the evidence for evolution, the book does it very well. For anyone of the scientific mindset, his layering of the various tracks of evidence, from the fossil record and geology, to domesticated animals and experiments with foxes, guppies, and bacteria that show evolution in practice, through to embryology and molecular biology, all coming to the same answer as to how life develops is as persuasive as any argument I could ever think of. After all, people can at times find some argument, usually pretty weak ones, against one track of evidence, but when you have several unrelated tracks all coming to the same conclusion, it is hard for any rational person to come to a contrary conclusion. (Not that we don’t see this sort of thing in other scientific disciplines were people have a vested interest in the science being ignored, such as Climate Change.)

That being said, there were a couple of areas in the book that kind of dragged on for me, though that may be my personal dislike of biology among the sciences rather than the readability of the material itself. I do sympathize with Dawkins problem here; trying to make an interesting and engaging book without skimping on the kind of details that a skeptical mind needs to accept the arguments being made.

Overall, I’d say the book works best for those who have a passing interest in evolution but haven’t done any great deal of thinking on the matter beyond that. It should also be useful as a reference tool to help debunk the creationist arguments you run into.  You can find excerpts from the first and second chapters here.

Say What!?

By BJ Bjornson

I actually thought this was something of a joke post when I first say the headline on the memeorandum feed here, but no, it’s the real deal.

US President Barack Obama has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

The Nobel Committee said he won it for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples".

The committee highlighted Mr Obama's efforts to support international bodies and promote nuclear disarmament.

Seriously? I mean, come on! I like Obama and everything, and he certainly compares favourably to his predecessor in office in not being a psychopathic war-monger instigating conflicts without cause and with no respect whatsoever for the rule of law, but that alone doesn’t a Nobel Peace Prize make, at least in my opinion.

Really, what has Obama actually done so far? Resisted the urge to start bombing Iran? Even Bush managed to do that, not to mention the Israelis. Obama hasn’t withdrawn US troops from Iraq, he certainly has shown no compulsion to end the war in Afghanistan or cease cross-border drone attacks into Pakistan. There is even a good possibility he will be increasing the US commitment to that war in the near future. Hell, he hasn’t even gotten around to closing down Gitmo.

As far as international diplomacy is concerned, he was lockstep in his support of Israel’s war in Lebanon and against Hamas and joined the demonization chorus against Russia in their war against Georgia that Georgia started. Sure, he’s made a lot of fine sounds when it comes to nuclear disarmament and international diplomacy, but so far the only actual achievement under his belt has been the cancellation of the non-functional missile defence bases in Eastern Europe.

I just see nothing here that makes Obama deserving of the Nobel Prize at this point, and by giving it to him, the Nobel committee has basically managed to make the right-wing media attacks claiming they are nothing more than a left-wing propaganda arm look valid.

Asked why the prize had been awarded to Mr Obama less than a year after he took office, Nobel Committee head Thorbjoern Jagland said: "It was because we would like to support what he is trying to achieve".

"It is a clear signal that we want to advocate the same as he has done," he said.

So not a joke, but it should be.

Who Are They Kidding?

By BJ Bjornson

Tom Levenson has a major four-part opus up eviscerating Megan McArdle far asserting that a decrease in drug company revenues that might occur due to health care reform would result in decreased life expectancy for Americans. She uses a study to back up this claim, which Levenson notes in Part 2, happens to have been funded by the world’s largest pharmaceutical company.

Now, as Levenson notes, that alone does not make the study wrong in any way, but it would, for most people at least, make one question its claims a bit more closely. (Levenson does so in parts three and four.)

I don’t have a dog in the fight over health care reform in the U.S. due to my grandparents having the good sense to homestead in the socialist hell-hole that is Canada, but that particular point of looking to the source of a particular study certainly came to mind while I was reading this news.

Canada is doing very well in broadband availability, speeds and affordability as compared to other countries, according to a new study funded by the country's largest internet service providers.

The report, commissioned by Bell, Bell Aliant, Rogers, Cogeco, Telus, Shaw and SaskTel and prepared by telecommunications consultant Mark Goldberg, found that Canadians are well served in broadband, contrary to the findings of other international reports.

Well, can you imagine that? The Canadian ISPs have come out with study saying that their service isn’t actually the slow, overburdened, and expensive pile of crap all those international studies comparing them to other countries have said it is. I guess we can all stop complaining then!

Granted, one shouldn’t just dismiss the study out of hand. It is still possible that they have in fact come up with a proper study that does show what they are claiming, even if it just happens to serve their own self-interest, though the fact that it contradicts independent studies does mean one should look at it with increased scepticism at the very least. I look at this and wonder why companies even bother funding such studies when they should know that most people are going to consider them hopelessly skewed and biased. Then I go back to the McArdle example Levenson shows, and the reason companies keep putting out these studies becomes clear again.

There are always those who, quite unlike the CBC reporter who did their job properly in telling the audience just exactly where the report was coming from and that it was contradicted by pretty much every other study with more credible pedigrees, will happily spout the results of said “studies” without questioning, or indeed mentioning, just where it is they come from, so long as it supports their own viewpoint (which is why I’m certain that by the end of the day there will be dozens of posts on right-wing blogs carrying this story “proving” CO2 doesn’t have anything to do with Climate Change).

And so long as there are such shills willing to push such studies, and news organizations willing to pay and promote them as though they are serious journalists, then it makes good business sense to keep producing such studies. Sure, you won’t convince those who know better or who will actually check the claims against reality, but it’s likely enough to keep the waters muddied for everybody else.