Details

I was intrigued yesterday to read on WebMD that a recent study had shown that "People who have never married are more likely to die -- at all ages -- than people who are married and live together...." Strange. The two researchers took already existing government data and did statistical analysis on it. I too had to do statistical analysis as part of the quantitative methods section of the research module for my MA. I think it's one of those things where, depending on your brain abilities it either looks like a piece of cake to you or an impenetrable knot of figures. For me, the latter, but I could see that it was a very valid form of research, in fact since one problem for most forms of research is that the researcher affects the research, it almost looks like the perfect method.
Ah, not so. The biggest problem is in deciding which numbers you are going to interpret. Sadly Kaplan and Kronick dropped the ball on that one.
For some reason which can only be due to too little coffee or too much alcohol, they excluded unmarried couples living together but included single gay men.
So let me run that by you again. They are in California, although we are not told whether it is just figures from that State they are using, and they leave out gay men in permanent relationships, but include the ones who are at that time doing the old Bath house shuffle. Nice work lads. When the statistics showed you that married people are less likely to die from infectious diseases you didn't think, 'hmmmm..'?
And yet they published it anyway.

Another piece which floated past my nose yesterday, was the actual story behind the 'rumour' that I commented on a couple of days ago. This article was written and the weirdo interviewed by a Vancouver journo, Terry Glavin who writes for, among other things, the Georgia Straight. It's a good thorough write-up of Terry's investigation of Barrie Zwicker's claims that all of the terrorist activities since and including the 11th of September, are a western plot to discredit Islam. *Dr. Evil's puts his little finger to his lips and says* 'Riiiiiiiight.'

Good news for overweighties like myself is that we are more likely to survive a heart attack. What it does mention is that BMI might not be a good indicator of fat because it can't take into account muscle mass, what it doesn't mention is whether fatties are more likely to suffer a heart attack in the first place, which we have always been told is the case. Still, I can't help having a little smile to myself. A friend of mine recently suffered the indignity of having a heart doctor poke her and say condescendingly, 'My you are a big woman aren't you?' Hopefully the next time she does that to someone the person might reply, 'Ah yes, all the better to survive a heart attack.'

"A U.S. federal judge ordered tobacco companies Thursday to admit they lied about the harmful effects of smoking cigarettes."
Ok, the judge ordered tobacco companies to admit they lied. I think the wording of this report neatly side-steps the issues. I'm not saying the article is badly written, far from it, I think that is probably something quite near to what the judge said. How does a tobacco company say anything? How does a company lie? The company here is held to be something more or other than the people in it. Because the bottom line is, people, actual people conspired to lie to the public. Somewhere and at some time, a bunch of suits sat down and all decided that in order to protect their profits, they would endeavour to deceive the public and therefore place their lives at risk. Now I only know what American law I see on TV, but I'm pretty sure that deliberately placing someone's life at risk, and very serious risk at that, or conspiring to do so, is illegal. And yet the 'companies' are having their wrists slapped. No-one will be held accountable for this in any way other than being told to clean-up their act and not do it again.

Truth, if there be any, is in the details.