Posts by Tony Judd
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
That the pornographers are prepared to reject proper authority is not surprising. I most likely would not. But then again I am not likely to promote something they would disapprove of...
Ummmm, I'm just guessing here, but I suspect that few pornographers share your "ban it if it isn't approved in the old testament" fundamentalistically nutty worldview. I suspect that they disapprove. As do many others born after the enlightenment.
-
Tony, it does not matter how well investigated the numbers are .. my point is that the data just isn't available in order to compare different countries with regard to mortality rates and welfare. If you could link to the poper you cited then I might be able to show what I mean.
Grant, it does matter how well the numbers are investigated. It also matters whether you know what you are talking about. My point is that experts who spend their lives studying such things have the data to compare different countries with regard to mortality rates and welfare. They have concluded that welfare programs cause a general decrease in infant mortality.
You can order a copy of the aforementioned paper from here for €13.87 or you could go to a good library and get it for free.
Generally the next argument of somebody of your ilk when confronted with this type of evidence is to accuse the experts of having fabricated the evidence in order to support their own world view (e.g. climate change denialists). So please feel free to take that tack now.
-
**If** you think that's a perfectly reasonable existence for someone working full time in the richest country in the world, then Jackie's right. Except I'd probably add 'idiotic' as a modifier.
I mostly agree, except that I'd argue that it's not a question of If... Then. Jackie's right either way.
-
Correlating welfare and infant mortality rates is statistically an impossible mission.
Unless you are prepared to use multivariate statistical control techniques as the paper I cited earlier does. Path analysis is a type of multiple regression focussed on finding causal relationships. It uses an analysis of covariance to estimate causality.
The number of factors involved that make up a society will always make any result questionable, but the most pressing concern is the lack of control to any analysis.
See above mentioned path analysis. Also see multivariate statistics for a list of associated academic fields which have found a way to deal with this issue.
I accept that countries with welfare may generally have better mortality rates, but the causal factor is more likely the lack of medical infrastructure.
Says Grant, with not a shred of evidence or the slightest hint of experience in the field.
See the earlier cited paper by experts in the field for a more detailed refutation.I'm prepared to concede that welfare states have generally lower infant mortality rates, but I am not obliged to accept that welfare is the reason for such.
You're not obliged to admit that 1 + 1 = 2 either.
-
But, Russell, so long as the children are allowed to be born Grant doesn't give a flying fruitcake whether they live to see their second birthday. If they do, more slaves for his buddies to exploit. If they don't, well, he's fulfilled his calling to ensure that abortions are banned and after that the state should just stay the hell out of everything. Kinda ironic, really. "Abortion is bad, but so long as the baby's born I don't give a damn if it lives or dies beyond that."
Ha, too true.
The countries with the lowest infant mortality rates are all welfare states.
A quick search on Google Scholar reveals a number of papers like this one:
Social epidemiologists have found a relationship between poverty and infant mortality. Welfare policy experts have found that welfare benefits affect work effort, family structure, migration, and the rate of intergenerational transmission of welfare receipt. Social epidemiologists have paid little attention to the effects of poverty policies on infant mortality. Welfare policy experts have paid little attention to the effect of welfare on infant mortality. This paper merges the concerns of social epidemiologists and welfare policy experts by examining the relationship between welfare and infant mortality. The key finding is that welfare directly and indirectly affects infant mortality rates. States with higher welfare benefit levels also have lower infant mortality rates.
Lewis, M (1999). A path analysis of the effect of welfare on infant mortality. Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare. Vol 26(3) pp 125-136 . -
Oh Tony, you're not going to give us facts are you? How intellectually arrogant of you...
heh ;)
-
Tony, this may be of interest to you..but then I'm guessing that you knew large parts of this already.
Hey thanks Simon, I hadn't seen that. It's a good collection of refutations for some of the pro-drilling claims that we hear parroted more and more stridently lately.
-
James
Massive development in Alaska, less than 16% unimpacted? Is that a joke? Have you ever been to Alaska? It is so huge its hard to describe. Do you include "impacted" as having been flown over by a plane at least once within the last 50 years.
Again, anecdotes aside, there are technical definitions of unimpacted that are used by professional ecologists. These definitions usually revolve around the percentage of original species remaining in an area. Alaska has been heavily logged over the past century and the forests have experienced an intensified fire regime and more recently a huge infestation of spruce bark beetle. All of these factors contribute to the figure of 16% unimpacted habitat in Alaska. You can see how other states compare at the federal governments National Atlas.
And btw, some of the strongest proponents of drilling in ANWAR are Alaskans themselves.
I assume that you are aware that the state pays every citizen of Alaska a dividend each year from a fund set up to collect taxes on oil company activities. The state collects so much money that there is no income tax or sales tax in Alaska. Alaskans are pro drilling because they are oil junkies. I'm not sure that I'd want oil junkies having the last word on drilling for more oil in a national park.
-
:sigh: One post, 15 responses. Two not inane. None willing to address any issues.
You'd think I had posted on a liberal forum...
As opposed, Grant, to your Bebo blog where you have posted a very revealing and quite horrifying rant which reveals you as a nasty fundamentalist homophobic misogynist.
I won't post the text here. Suffice to say, I now understand the depth of your hatefulness. I don't believe that it is possible to argue reasonably with a person whose view of the world is so clearly dictated by a blood-thirsty bronze-age desert tribe death-cult mentality.
-
I'd be more discouraged if my proclamations were consistently ignored rather than engaged with.
The problem is, even though I can see the abundant sense in "Don't Feed the Trolls", every time I read trash like Grant's posts here something inside me snaps and I have to respond with something that I hope at least approaches rationality in response.
I just can't ignore that kind of self righteous fantasy bullshit. I'm gonna have to try harder, because it really does feel a bit like wrestling a pig now and I think that I'm getting dirty."A wise man once told me never to argue with fools
because people from a distance can't tell who is who"
Jay-Z