Screwing the environment again

Big bottle of rum lasting me six months now.... I like the taste but I'm wary of the effects...

 

Baaaaa Baaaacardi Rum!!

Stop it Daniel, bloody Mr sensible!

 

ound:

Baaaaaacardi ....

 

Ach Aye!

I miss me pints, but being able to pick me bairns up is more important to me than a pint or two a day. With my arthritis I have to take a rather unpleasant drug that severely restricts my alcohol intake. If I'm honest I have missed it nearly as much as I thought I would.

 

I'm confused. Do you miss it nearly as much as you thought you would, or do you *not* miss it nearly as much as you thought it would? Arthritis sucks anyway

 

It? You? I need a drink. Baaaaaa

 

Sorry mate. I haven't missed it as much as I thort I would. Arthritis does suck, but I've got it under control at the moment. It hasn't slowed me down too much. I play indoor football twice a week. I did have to retire from ice hockey because I left wrist is just too crocked to play well anymore.

 

Didn't seem to slow you down much in Detroit.
Excuse me I need to mix a Baaaaaaanana daiquiri for my partner, she is feeling a little wild and wooly.

 

Just couldn't help but note that Hadrian's Wall was successful until abandoned by the legions because of problems elsewhere. It was never intended to stop people from crossing though... just to make sure the legions knew people were doing so, and to slow them down. Then the soldiers could round them up and send them back north if they wanted to.

I used to agree on our border wall... but the 6000 murders in 2008 in Mexico over drugs has me re-thinking. Now I'm just undecided.

I do think it's interesting that 1 million anglo-Americans now live in Mexico.

 

No doubt that with enough people, a wall is a viable short time tool. But the history lesson is that eventually there is always a problem elsewhere that requires abandoning the wall.

 

Good to hear. My mom's side has bad arthritis, I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy

Well, perhaps my *worst* enemy

 

ound:



Aren't you the sheepish one?

 

Until we consider the *real* issue, a wall is absolutely a short term "solution" that offers questionable results at best

Say you turn it into the sort of wall that divided the former east and west Germany. That wall was intended to keep people IN, not out, like a glorified prison. Of course, you can make the case that the Soviet Union was a glorified prison

Until we accept that WE are responsible for the drug cartels and gangs, nothing will be fixed. I found it interesting that Glenn Beck brought this up on Fox News, and his former buddies Rove and Bolton suddenly went on the defensive. Very interesting

 

I find it interesting that the DoD is initiating grants seeking to to understand social aspects of conflict (and avoiding them).

Minerva Initiative

If more diciplined steps in this and similar direction were to be done for the immigration problems, walls would be seen as worthless.

 

Interesting how they mention climate change. According to the neocon's, that doesn't exist. Hmmmmm

Other funding sources, like ARPA and MURI, also take very holistic approaches to problems. I've been involved in ARPA and MURI work

What I find frustrating is that final program outcomes are cherry picked for data. This presents a very distorted view of what the project actually uncovered

Assuming the project isn't Classified, or was recently Declassified, one can look at the original program data and compare it to the dumbed down Executive Summary that cherry picked the data. Sometimes the difference is so glaring you stop reading, go



Then you start to

:frusty:

and finally have a few stiff drinks to hopefully erase it from your brain

 

Not that it's an environmental study, but I did see an example of cherry picking data that was really blatant. It was a medical study of the effects of taking vitamin E. The conclusion of both the abstract, and the main text was that taking the vitamin had no discernable effect on health.

Another scientist reviewed the data, and concluded that taking the vitamin had a significantly positive effect on health. The difference was whether the people had actually consumed the vitamin or not. Being assigned to the group that was supposed to take it was not sufficient - you had to actually consume it. Duh.

Note that nobody lied. The literal interpretation of the results presented was correct. People who didn't take the vitamin didn't get any benefit from it. The impression created from the study was exactly the reverse of what the study data showed.

And they call it science. More like politics under the color of science.

 

RobH,

Some folks just really suck at interpreting data. Doesn't matter what the data indicate, they will draw the wrong conclusions. It looks bad when doing so supports their expected slant going in. One must ask if they drew erroneous conclusions intentionally, subconciously, or out of incompetence?

Medical studies are awful in this regard. There are so many confounding variables that it is difficult to account for or even identify many of them, even when the researchers are doing their level best. Then there is also the problem with sponsored research bias...this is especially true when it comes to underreporting of the severity and quantity of side effects. They tend to undercount by an order of magnitude or more. (Ditto for infectious diseases during the early outbreaks...)

 

I hate to poop in your cornflakes, but what you described happens VERY frequently

 

It's this complexity that gives them cover to explain their convoluted results. I think most of the incorrect results are intentional, driven by a financial incentive toward the reported results. The true science going on is the careful attention to how the intended results can be obtained.

But even exposing conflict-of-interest relationships is complicated. It is regarded as a conflict if a researcher owns stock in a company that is the subject of the research. But owning stock in a direct competitor is acceptable. Boosting your benefactors is considered bad, but dumping on your competitors is perfectly ok.

The whole area of cancer treatment is full of deceptive statistics. When a toxic cancer treatment kills someone as a side effect, it is counted as a success. Say, for example, the treatment causes someone to die of a heart attack. Since they died of the heart attack, and not of the cancer, the cancer treatment was successful. And then the results are touted as being "disease specific mortality" instead of "total mortality".

My brother in law told me about how traffic studies are rigged. In order to justify some new construction project, studies are required. If a study isn't delivering the intended results halfway through the study, then it is cancelled. But even the cancelled study is used for promotion of the project. A track record of half done studies builds credibility for the next study that is actually completed. If the true results of the studies are entirely random, then all that is necessary to present a positive result is to cancel each negative study until a positive one turns up.

 

Eeewwe yuk, no need for that, I have 2 perfectly good toilets you can use. (No, they don't swirl either way.)

Baaaaaaaaa <--in 6 months time this will make people wonder--<