U.S. Unemployment History

There is a lot of discussion in the American presidential campaign about unemployment rates and the state of the economy.  The graph below is from a government source. Now let’s compare the statistics to the dates for the terms of Republican and Democrat presidents.  Remember that presidential terms are from a January to January. First [...]

How Dead Is Dead? -Part Two

Several weeks ago I posted an entry which suggested that he criteria for medical death may be somewhat ambiguous and may be inappropriately influenced by the circumstances around organ harvesting from donors.  The article suggested that the criteria may be expedient to facilitate organ harvesting, simplifying the standards for “death” and possibly ignoring some of [...]

Cancer Cure Found? Two Years Ago???

Here’s a reputable CTV news report talking about a very real lead on a cheap drug to treat or cure cancer.  Whether or not it pans out, the significant point in the story is that we may never know because big pharma companies will never consider testing it.  The reporter says that she knows of [...]

The True Cost of Piracy

I’m fully aware that this entry might be interpreted as a rationalization of piracy.  The facts, however, shed some interesting light on the claims that the media industries and the lawmakers want us to believe.  Whatever the ultimate judgement on the issue of piracy, it is clear that there is a lot of information in [...]

South Carolina Exit Polls – Between The Lines

We never get political Reality TV like this in Canada. By far the most interesting and revealing analysis of last night’s S. Carolina Primary can be found in the CNN exit polls.  Certainly exit polls are not perfectly accurate (although the predictions seemed to be pretty bang on last night), but nowhere else can you [...]

If You Say Something Often Enough People Will Believe Anything

Case in point, the current Republican nominee claims about the Obama government.  Expedience trumps truth. But it is just as evident in our own Canadian government, or at least would be if parliamentarians ever did or said anything interesting.

The Vegetarian Myth

A very different view of vegetarian and vegan values and motives from Lierre Keith who was a vegetarian for over twenty years.  Looking at the arguments about personal health and destructive agriculture, she comes to the conclusion that vegetarianism is not what it pretends to be.  I’m not sure about all her facts, but she [...]

American Anti-Intellectualism

I just gleaned a few bits of interesting information from PZ Meyers’ Pharyngula Blog.  For those of you who don’t believe in the danger of the religious right, check this out. Do you like the David Attenborough programs such as Planet Earth and Life?  They’re amazing and a true testimony to the wonders of science.  [...]

Conservative Crime Bill

Ken Wilber defines the difference between the Left and the Right by the way they approach human suffering.  The Right tends to assign the responsibility for human suffering to the faults of the individual.  The Left tends to claim that the individual is a product/victim of his/her society.  In a previous post I expanded on [...]

Debunking Hudak’s “Changebook”

As I used to tell my students all the time, Mark Twain said that there were three kinds of lies;  Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics. When looking for data on Ontario debt I stumbled on this brilliant paper by an economist, analyzing the graphs in Hudak’s Changebook document.  It doesn’t fare well.  If I was [...]

Canadian Debt Stats

OK, so I found this graph, which supports the pattern: When comparing, remember that the colours are reversed in Canadian politics.

The Statistical Lies of Cuts and Spending

This is from the Treasury Department, not some partisan, bias source.  But it is far from straight forward.  At first look, the stats look fairly clear; the Republican party, supporters of cuts and fiscal restraint, seem to have the worst record when you look at the facts.  A lot of that comes from military spending [...]