Lies, Damn Lies & Statistics

I've blogged about my concerns regarding climate change before. Now a recent incident involving the Climate Research Unit located at the University of East Anglia has revealed to the world that the data and methodology used by that institution to create reports intended inform policymakers was corrupt, spurious and deeply flawed - as were the conclusions in those reports.

I was tipped to this by John Gormely on his radio show today where he was interviewing Kate McMillan, author of the weblog "Small Dead Animals". Kate has done a superb job of gathering the most useful links in this emerging story under the ongoing title - "The Sound of All Hell Breaking Loose". If you care at all about the Earth and our economic and political future you need to read up on this - and then remember it at the next election, and the one after that, and the one after that.

The real tragedy in all of this will be the huge damage done to the scientific community in general. If it results in a "cry wolf" response from the public world-wide (as I suspect it will) then I can safely predict humanity will fall victim to a true catastrophe soon - even though we will likely be warned about it. We just won't believe the messenger.

The image linked to this post is not the property of the author and is used without permission with purely illustrative intent and with no intent to defraud or injure the original owner.

To Debate or Not To Debate

Simply put, I do not believe what we will experience in the so-called "leaders debate" will be of any use to anyone, except the TV networks and their advertising departments. If the debate is 1 hr (with commercials) that means we will see 44 minutes with 5 candidates (8.8 minutes per candidate). Even without commercials it will only allow 12 minutes per person, but we all know that what we will get will be an hour of poorly controlled mayhem. No one uses dictionaries anymore - we're just like Lewis Carroll's caterpillar, "When I use a word it means what I choose it to mean." "Debate" indeed!

At the risk of offending - I'm not quite sure who - neither M. Duceppe nor Ms. Mays has any business being in a national leaders debate. I'll not go into depth here, but I cannot vote for a candidate from either party in my riding (as far as I know at this time) so they are, in the strictest sense of this word, irrelevant.

Our political system has devolved into a media circus that can only communicate in 5 second sound bytes. Watch the debate if you want - I suggest taking two Excedrin beforehand to ward off the inevitable migraine it will produce - but remember this, the media has absolutely no interest in providing you with anything in the way of useful information. They just want you there to watch the ads and prop up their market share numbers.

As Liam Neeson said to Clint Eastwood in "The Dead Pool", "Bums on seats, luv. That's what it's all about."

Kicking Glass

I took a picture today of about a dozen glass containers sitting on the ground beside a Loraas recycling bin. I can't post it because my personal computer is "in the shop", but rest assured dear reader, (if you exist) I will post it soon. It is an image that should be used to indite and shame our provincial politicians.

Glass manufacturers have been recycling their product since the 1600's or even much earlier but we can't do that in Saskatchewan unless the containers we do deal with once contained either sugar-loaded drinks or alcoholic beverages.

Saskatchewan.
Can't.
Recycle.
Glass.

Morons can recycle glass - but not Saskatchewanites. We have 2 BILLION excess dollars in our provincial coffers that have not been budgeted to be spent on anything yet and we still can't recycle pickle jars. And our provincial members of the Fourth and Fifth Estates should also be ashamed because they are saying NOTHING about this.

If I even hear ONE person say anything about how it isn't "economically viable" to recycle general glass products at this time I'll go ballistic!. That is exactly the kind of thinking that has gotten us to the ecological crisis we now face. If we can't do the right thing because we can't AFFORD to do the right thing then we are officially screwed to a wholly breathtakingly new and frightening level.

So John Gormley et.al., before you claim to be "holding the politician's feet to the fire" let me hear you get our provincial Minister of the Environment on you radio show and ask him a couple of hardball questions about glass. And Premier Wall, before you go off spouting about how great we are in Flatland and how we're ready to move into the future let's see if you and your cabinet can figure out how to do something Europeans have been doing since before Samuel de Champlain discovered how bad the black flies were in northern Ontario.

'Nuff said.

Follow Up Release

Hot on the heels of my outrageously inaccessible debut CD we are offering an equally unavailable follow-up release guaranteed to generate at least as much spurious interest as any non-event you have never witnessed.

Due to purely speculative creative differences between my id and super-ego I/we were forced to rename the group while imaginary yet concretely expensive solicitors hash out the contract disputes in a Kangaroo court located (conveniently) in Perth, Australia.


p-y method

for the new metaphors

Remember - We're Incognito Records - you can't find us because we don't want to be found.

Lost in Translation

No doubt you were aware earlier this year of the publication of the “Gospel of Judas”(Please note: I am always suspicious of any Wikipedia article and you should be too, but the core facts in this linked article are accurate as far as I can determine.) by the National Geographic Society. The practical upshot of the publication of this recently discovered Gnostic gospel was that it purported to portray Judas in a favorable light. The spin went as far as to suggest he was a misunderstood saint, acting out of loving compassion and not at all the sinful tool of those who bore ill will towards Jesus.

Now an acclaimed academic language scholar has put her considerable skills to the task of translating the text and has found that the National Geographic scholars may have not only been rushed in their work to meet publishing deadlines, but may also have been coerced into rendering a translation that produced a much more palatable and thus marketable book. The story of this twisted translation is presented in an article in this weeks’ issue of MacLeans’ magazine.

The following is an excerpt from the article:

“It wasn't long before there was no joy at all in the effort. NG's provocative gospel turns on a handful of phrases, all of which DeConick translated differently. Judas, for example, was not a "spirit" destined for heaven, as NG would have it, but a "demon" with a far different ultimate destination; Judas would "exceed" the other apostles, DeConick agreed, although not in his reward, as NG states, but in the wickedness of his actions. Judas, in fact, was as evil as ever. The Gnostic Christians who wrote the gospel were bitterly opposed to what was already emerging as a core theological concept in Christianity's dominant tradition: the doctrine of the Atonement, whereby God so loved the world he gave his only son for its redemption. To the Gnostics the idea was repellent, no better than child sacrifice. It certainly could not have been God's plan. Judas could only have been acting for the forces of evil.
"I didn't want to write this book," DeConick says. "Some of the NG people are personal friends of mine. But when I mentioned my concerns to another expert, his reaction was 'Oh my God, me too!' The more I talked about what I was doing, I found all this underground support." So how did the eminent scholars on the NG team go off the rails?”

Well I guess MacLeans’ has more than justified my renewing my subscription. As for National Geographic, I’ll be sending them an email and I’m not sure yet whether or not I’ll re-subscribe next year. You might want to send them an email, too. They at least owe us an explanation as to why their scholars’ translation differs so very distinctly from one of their respected peers.

Shalom

*The label "Made in a Hurry" is NEVER a sign of quality or reliability. - BJM*