/…These days it`s hard to figure out whether anybody knows anything!
Last week, Toronto weather forecasters were wrong five of six days and not just slightly wrong, huge.
Rain was predicted all five days and the rain did not come, nor did the thunderstorms they predicted.
Those of us who plan weekends based on the predictions of the forecasters were told the weekend would be a drencher, so, many hopeful campers, picnickers, motorcycle enthusiasts, etc., made other plans.
The weekend weather was everything you hope for if you`re a camper etc, sunny, hot, in a word summerlicious.
Many believe the accuracy of weather forecasters has deteriorated markedly since they started using computer models!!
/…Headline in the Toronto Star, Saturday July 16th, “HOUSING DOWNTURN AHEAD,”–leading economists were quoted, along with
Canada’s five major banks.
Headline in the Toronto Star, Wednesday, August 17th, “EAGER BUYERS KEEP HOUSING HOT,” real estate experts gave their reasons.
Most readers would have preferred to hear from the economists and the pooh-bahs from the five major banks-were they misquoted
mis-informed, missing their weegee boards or just plain mistaken about the ‘housing downturn.” One of our problems as consumers is having to
decide what is fact and what is fiction because media keep passing off speculation as fact.
Sometimes the messenger should be drawn and quartered.
/…This month we were hailing another potential cancer breakthru! By genetically reprogramming immune systems, three men were said to have
been cured of late stage leukemia. According to a pair of studies published at the same time in two prominent journals, the technique transforms
blood-borne T-Cells into “serial killers that hunt down and obliterate cancer cells leaving healthy tissue unharmed.
A day earlier the Wall Street Journal darkly reported that “mistakes in scientific studies surge.” The WSJ noted that since 2001 the number
of papers published in research journals has risen 44%, while their number retracted has escalated more than 15 fold.
For instance,there were 87 retractions relating to medicine between 2001 and 2005. Between 2006 and 2010-436.
Even worse the time lag between published studies and retractions is growing. From slightly more than 5 months in 2000 to almost 32 months
in 2009. The problem goes even deeper. As the WSJ put it there was a ‘wow’ reaction to a published paper in 2003 announcing that
two popular high blood pressure drugs were found to be much better in combination than either alone! Based on that study doctors changed
their prescriptions and patients were put on the touted combination. Unfortunately, it wasn’t true!
Six and a half years later, the prestigious medical journal LANCET retracted the paper citing “serious concerns,” about the findings.
Too late!! The damage was more than collateral, it was direct. By the time the retraction found daylight 100-thousand patients had been
given the combination. Today, according the Wall Street Journal “tens of thousands” are still on the discredited dual therapy leaving them
more vulnerable to life-threatening side effects. Why the surge in papers and retractions? In many cases plain ordinary fraud.
The stakes are high–“a single paper in Lancet and you get your chair and you get your money. It’s your passport to success………………..So,
the next time you read a story or hear about about a major medical breakthrough, take it with a grain of salt-it could be subject to recall.
It’s worrisome because this dramatic increase in retractions covers many different disciplines, not just medicine. Biology, chemistry, engineering,
physics etc… Read all about it in the August 11th WSJ. It’s shocking!
/…To this point in the CFL season the Green Riders of Saskatchewan have won only one game in eight and so the coach and his offensive
co-ordinator are gone. In fact both were offensive to the devoted fans of that historic franchise. So are many of the players(offensive) but you can’t
fire the whole team. Many of that teams ardent fans are farmers and they are the first to recognize incompetence and laziness and they know
that if they ran their farms as sloppily as the Riders have been running many of their plays, the farm as a viable unit would be history.
/…whither the stock markets? Will the incredibly incompetent managers of our economic systems find a light of deliverance at the end of the tunnel,
or will it be the proverbial freight train?? Should the hoy-puloy(that’s us) hope for the best and plan for the worst. Probably!
How close are we to sackcloth and ashes? Will someone restart the engines of commerce? Will we have to start over again and actually focus
on the difference between what we think we need and what we must have to survive? So many questions, very few answers?
/…Toronto’s roly-poly mayor must be thinking, the “job is NOT QUITE AS SIMPLE as I figured .” A year ago,
Fatty Ford focused the electorate on three basic concepts, stop the gravy train, reduce the budget shortfall but not services and build subways.
Almost a year into his mandate, the Gravy train has a new conductor, the budget shortfall continues to hover between half a billion and three-quarters
of a billion with services on the endangered species list and there is no money for ill-advised subway tunnels.
Who will be asked to take the fall? The outcome remains as confusing as Who’s on first, What’s on second and I don’t know’s on third!
At least Abbott and Costello got us a laugh! A couple of days after the Mayor told one of the City Unions not to threaten him, he turns around
and threatens us with a 35% tax increase. Who in their right mind would threaten us, the taxpayers, with a 35% tax hike.
There’s more than a passing resemblance between today’s political landscape and mythology.
/…And so it would seem many of those we have talked about today are drive by the truism–
“success has a thousand fathers, failure is an orphan.”
TA from AJ
holidayatlarge 
Failure is an orphan
2011/08/21 Leave a comment
/…These days it`s hard to figure out whether anybody knows anything!
Last week, Toronto weather forecasters were wrong five of six days and not just slightly wrong, huge.
Rain was predicted all five days and the rain did not come, nor did the thunderstorms they predicted.
Those of us who plan weekends based on the predictions of the forecasters were told the weekend would be a drencher, so, many hopeful campers, picnickers, motorcycle enthusiasts, etc., made other plans.
The weekend weather was everything you hope for if you`re a camper etc, sunny, hot, in a word summerlicious.
Many believe the accuracy of weather forecasters has deteriorated markedly since they started using computer models!!
/…Headline in the Toronto Star, Saturday July 16th, “HOUSING DOWNTURN AHEAD,”–leading economists were quoted, along with
Canada’s five major banks.
Headline in the Toronto Star, Wednesday, August 17th, “EAGER BUYERS KEEP HOUSING HOT,” real estate experts gave their reasons.
Most readers would have preferred to hear from the economists and the pooh-bahs from the five major banks-were they misquoted
mis-informed, missing their weegee boards or just plain mistaken about the ‘housing downturn.” One of our problems as consumers is having to
decide what is fact and what is fiction because media keep passing off speculation as fact.
Sometimes the messenger should be drawn and quartered.
/…This month we were hailing another potential cancer breakthru! By genetically reprogramming immune systems, three men were said to have
been cured of late stage leukemia. According to a pair of studies published at the same time in two prominent journals, the technique transforms
blood-borne T-Cells into “serial killers that hunt down and obliterate cancer cells leaving healthy tissue unharmed.
A day earlier the Wall Street Journal darkly reported that “mistakes in scientific studies surge.” The WSJ noted that since 2001 the number
of papers published in research journals has risen 44%, while their number retracted has escalated more than 15 fold.
For instance,there were 87 retractions relating to medicine between 2001 and 2005. Between 2006 and 2010-436.
Even worse the time lag between published studies and retractions is growing. From slightly more than 5 months in 2000 to almost 32 months
in 2009. The problem goes even deeper. As the WSJ put it there was a ‘wow’ reaction to a published paper in 2003 announcing that
two popular high blood pressure drugs were found to be much better in combination than either alone! Based on that study doctors changed
their prescriptions and patients were put on the touted combination. Unfortunately, it wasn’t true!
Six and a half years later, the prestigious medical journal LANCET retracted the paper citing “serious concerns,” about the findings.
Too late!! The damage was more than collateral, it was direct. By the time the retraction found daylight 100-thousand patients had been
given the combination. Today, according the Wall Street Journal “tens of thousands” are still on the discredited dual therapy leaving them
more vulnerable to life-threatening side effects. Why the surge in papers and retractions? In many cases plain ordinary fraud.
The stakes are high–“a single paper in Lancet and you get your chair and you get your money. It’s your passport to success………………..So,
the next time you read a story or hear about about a major medical breakthrough, take it with a grain of salt-it could be subject to recall.
It’s worrisome because this dramatic increase in retractions covers many different disciplines, not just medicine. Biology, chemistry, engineering,
physics etc… Read all about it in the August 11th WSJ. It’s shocking!
/…To this point in the CFL season the Green Riders of Saskatchewan have won only one game in eight and so the coach and his offensive
co-ordinator are gone. In fact both were offensive to the devoted fans of that historic franchise. So are many of the players(offensive) but you can’t
fire the whole team. Many of that teams ardent fans are farmers and they are the first to recognize incompetence and laziness and they know
that if they ran their farms as sloppily as the Riders have been running many of their plays, the farm as a viable unit would be history.
/…whither the stock markets? Will the incredibly incompetent managers of our economic systems find a light of deliverance at the end of the tunnel,
or will it be the proverbial freight train?? Should the hoy-puloy(that’s us) hope for the best and plan for the worst. Probably!
How close are we to sackcloth and ashes? Will someone restart the engines of commerce? Will we have to start over again and actually focus
on the difference between what we think we need and what we must have to survive? So many questions, very few answers?
/…Toronto’s roly-poly mayor must be thinking, the “job is NOT QUITE AS SIMPLE as I figured .” A year ago,
Fatty Ford focused the electorate on three basic concepts, stop the gravy train, reduce the budget shortfall but not services and build subways.
Almost a year into his mandate, the Gravy train has a new conductor, the budget shortfall continues to hover between half a billion and three-quarters
of a billion with services on the endangered species list and there is no money for ill-advised subway tunnels.
Who will be asked to take the fall? The outcome remains as confusing as Who’s on first, What’s on second and I don’t know’s on third!
At least Abbott and Costello got us a laugh! A couple of days after the Mayor told one of the City Unions not to threaten him, he turns around
and threatens us with a 35% tax increase. Who in their right mind would threaten us, the taxpayers, with a 35% tax hike.
There’s more than a passing resemblance between today’s political landscape and mythology.
/…And so it would seem many of those we have talked about today are drive by the truism–
“success has a thousand fathers, failure is an orphan.”
TA from AJ
Filed under daily comments Tagged with Abbott and Costello, Green-riders, motorcycles, Wall street Journal, weather, wee-gee boards