- adapted from Douglas Adams
Gone but not forgotten
(or catharsis from the past)
and back into history...
Blogs that take my mind to better places
Adrift at SeaAeolian dissonance
A Rain of Frogs
Meanwhile across town
Lette's blog
The Pomo circus is in town
This is nothing, you should hear me play piano
Places that it is my pleasure to take you
MellaflusiaTiger's bites - a recipe site
Alberg 29's - sailing!
Lies, damned lies, and those who interpret statistics · 230 days ago
I am so tired of the misuse, abuse indeed, of research and statistics. “An increasing number of cannabis users seeking treatment” becomes “Cannabis ‘abuse’ rates rising”. A lack of research into a topic becomes “Researchers have found no evidence proving a link between rising hormone levels in meat and behavioural problems in children”, or “there is no evidence that genetically modified crops contaminate their surrounding environment”. When will people realise that such statements only lose them credibility? When will the powers that be realise that treating people like children, and stupid ones at that, loses them 10-fold the respect they fail to give?
Charities like SANE should be well aware that the connection between cannabis and schizophrenia is as likely to be due to mentally ill people self-medicating, as it is a causative link. The evidence thus far cannot answer that question, after all the most relevant experiments (supplying individuals with cannabis or placebo and watching the results), would be far from ethically sound. But instead they use the lack of evidence as a platform from which to tout their own party line.
Authorities should have learned from the fiasco in the early days of the BSE crisis. That infamous moment where, in the face of a “lack of evidence” (read ‘research’) John Selwyn Gummer fed his unfortunate child a hamburger. That was a moment that haunted the conservative party for a very long time, and that far overshadows Mr Gummer’s great environmental successes. And yet still, “lack of evidence” is cited whenever an end is to be served; statistics are used to support the most convenient conclusion.
Science is rapidly losing the sheen its lofty impenetrability once provided. And along with that, politicians and charities their credibility.
Comment [4]
Shapeless · 451 days ago
Did you ever try on clothing that once,
you really thought was the bees knees,
but now you don’t think looks good at all…
Did it always look that way?
Was it ever the bees knees?
What did you look like for all that time?
Comment [8]
Judgement · 464 days ago
I’m not one for posting the work of others on my blog, but I’ve never seen this put better:
“Judging yourself is pointless. Judging others is half-witted. Whatever you achieve, someone else will always do better. However bad you are, others are worse. Since you can tell neither what’s best nor what’s worst, how can you place yourself correctly between them? Judging others is foolish since you cannot know all the facts, cannot create a reliable or objective scale, have no means of knowing whether your criteria match anyone else’s, and cannot have more than a limited and extremely partial view of the other person. Who cares about your opinion anyway?”
From lifehack.org
Comment [2]
Just some scribblings · 519 days ago
For completeness, and to keep them somewhere, I’m including the other couple of things I wrote at my brief writing seminar. No motif this time, rather an exercise in using 8 words. Can you pick them out?
—————————————
She gazed at the candle, almost hypnotised by its halo. Her mind began to spin as memories of that day intruded. Just impressions really. The crack of the ladder as it broke, the silence where his whistle had been a moment before. She knew she was fishing for a reason, yet the answer eluded her.
—————————————
She smashed her fist against the wall, imagining the luster of his pupil as he smiled at her, so superior, so patronizing. She was tired of always being the juggler, smiling so politely as this violet-faced giant bombarded her with his lessons, his artillery piercing her heart every time.