Month: December 2000

Shame on the BBC

For the most part, I find the BBC’s news web site far superior to American fare such as CNN or any of the American news networks, especially for coverage of international news. Unfortunately with its coverage of the horrific shooting of 7 people in Massachussetts, the BBC seems more than willing to emulate the shoddy reporting so common to American media.

In, Terror in the Workplace, for example, the BBC claims,

The shooting of seven people at an Internet company in Wakefield Massachusetts is the latest reminder that workplace killings are depressingly common in the US.

The only problem is that the BBC doesn’t bother to back this claim up. It lists a grand total of 12 incidents involving violence in the work place dating back to 1997 as if a mere enumeration of anecdotes is more than enough to prove that “workplace killings are depressingly common in the US.”

Lets gets some facts in here, courtsey of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which visited this topic in 1998’s “Workplace Violence, 1992-96.”

  • There are approximately 2 million acts of violence or threats of violence against Americans in the workplace each year.
  • Almost all of those are directed against people who work with the public. Retail sales clerks, law enforcement personnel, teachers, medical personnel, transportation personnel (cab drivers, bus drivers, etc.), and private security forces bear the brunt of workplace violence.
  • Although the BBC is hitting the gun angle heavily, guns are used in workplace assaults only about 7.5 percent of the time, with knives, clubs, bottles, and other weapons being 12 percent of the time. Eighty percent of the deaths from workplace assaults, however, were caused by guns, with the other 20 percent being caused by knives and other weapons.
  • Based on 1992 to 1996 data, the killing in Massachussetts was atypical. From 1992 to 1996 about 1,000 people were murdered on the job. Of those, about 760 each year were murdered as part of a robbery attempt. Only about 11 percent of workplace murders were the result of assaults by co-workers and/or legitimate customers.
  • Workplace violence, like violence in general in the United States, is declining. Workplace homicides fell 13 percent from 1992 to 1996, and have almost certainly fell even further over the last four years. What hasn’t fallen is media hyperpublicity over such events.

Human Trials of Canine Paralysis Treatment to Begin

Human trials will begin shortly on an implantable device that successfully promoted nerve regrowth in dogs and may be able to increase nerve regeneration in people who suffer from some forms of spinal cord injury.

In experiments with dogs, the device stimulated regrowth of nerve cells if the device was implanted within two weeks after certain spinal cord injuries. The device emits a very weak electrical field of about 600 microvolts per millimeter which mimics the electrical field present during rapid nerve growth in human and animal embryos.

In canine trials, about 85 percent of the injured animals showed improvements in bodily functions, including a few who regained the ability to walk after being paralyzed. Whether or not such results will translate to human beings remains to be seen.

“Something will happen,” neurosurgeon Scott Shapiro told the Associated Press. “The question is how robust the response will be. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

As Naomi Kleitman, education director for the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, told the Associated Press,

The fact that they’re going to a clinical trial in Indianapolis is very exciting and it’s good evidence that the field has made progress, but obviously we have to be realistic. There’s no guarantee any of this will work in humans.

But, of course, it is important to go ahead and try, regardless of the outcome.

Source:

Trials begin for paralysis patients. Rick Callahan, The Associated Press, December 10, 2000.

Nostradamus Quote Appears to be A Hoax

I’ve received a number of e-mails and seen several web sites carrying the following text, which is obviously supposed to refer to George W. Bush (this is from Adam Curry’s web site,

The quote below is one of Nostradamus’ quatrains.
In 1555, Nostradamus wrote:
“Come the millennium, month 12,
In the home of greatest power,
The village idiot will come forth
To be acclaimed the leader.”

I was suspicious because Nostradamus’ “prophecies” usually have to be tweaked much more than that to fit a given circumstance, and so visited several sites that reprint accept translations of Nostradamus’ prophecies.

I could not find the above quatrain in any of the different sites that reproduce all of Nostradamus’ brief prophetic writings, and so concluded that the passage is likely a hoax.

And if you’re really curious, Nostradamus made quite a few predictions which true believers think describe the year 2000 and none of them came remotely close to being fulfilled, except for this one,

The old roads will all be improved,
One will procedd on them to the modern Memphis:
The great Mercury of Hercules fleur-de-lys,
Causing to tremble lands, sea and country.

The great Mercury? The modern Memphis? Causing lands and sea to tremble?

The only possible interpretation here is that Nostradamus predicted the incredible rise of Eddie George and the Tennessee Titans, and that he foresaw them winning the Superbowl this year. Stay tuned to find out if he was right.

A Good Example of Anti-Religious Bigotry

Cleaning out my e-mail inbox today, I noticed an online acquaintance who is what I like to call an atheist fundamentalist sent me a link to this anti-religious page. The page puts forth several claims that religion is, in fact, a negative influence, but simply demonstrate’s the author’s complete lack of understanding basic principles of logic and of statistics (assuming any of these claims are even based on real studies — and given the lack of documentation, that’s a doubtful proposition).

Reading this page I am reminded of a classic way of pointing out a statistical/logical fallacy — namely that cities that have large numbers of churches also have very high numbers of arrests for crimes such as prostitution. Of course the real variable being measured by this comparison is population. The author of the anti-religious page has also mistaken correlation for causation and committed numerous other errors as well.

Ark Trust: It's All The Media's Fault

One of the more amusing things about radical political movements, such as the animal rights movement, is just how seriously they take themselves. In a press release announcing its annual list of media “foe-paws” (who thought that up), Ark Trust’s Gretchen Weiler goes on about the supposed overwhelming influence of the media,

In our role as media watchdog, we must be ever-vigilant and speak out about negative as well as positive messages. Either from ignorance or insensitivity, these movies, television shows, magazines and newspapers communicate messages that desensitize the public toward animal suffering and are deserving of a “Foe Paw,” our end-of-year dishonor roll.

What images in the popular media “desensitize the public toward animal suffering”? Here’s a sample.

  • Unsurprisingly, 20/20’s John Stossel gets a prominent mention for a segment on that show that criticized the animal rights movement. As the Ark Trust recognizes, the last thing in the world the animal rights movement can stand is any criticism, because it is modeled on philosophical premises that the overwhelming majority of Americans reject.
  • The film, The Wonder Boys, gets a “foe paw” for its black comedy treatment of a professor who shoots a dog and puts it in the trunk of his car.
  • CBS’ “Survivor” television show obviously comes in for criticism for advancing the bizarre notion that human beings might use fish, chickens, and even rats as a food source. Oddly, Ark Trust says, “We’d rather watch “Gilligan’s Island” — but didn’t that show frequently use non-human primates for some of its more amusing episodes?
  • “The Today Show” earns a “foe paw” for “glorifying” the use of animals in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
  • All of the sports shows on TNN, ESPN, and ESPN2 earned “foe paws.”
  • Jay Leno receive Ark Trust’s enmity for a skit in which Leno put a toy puppy in a wok and said the dish was a favorite in Korea. Bad taste, perhaps, and a bit inaccurate, but obviously it hasn’t done much to desensitize Americans as there have been no reported cases of people trying to fry up dogs in the United States.

Source:

The dirty dozen doesn’t save the day. Ark Trust, Press Release, December 11, 2000.