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Lies, damn lies, and...
statistics.
A friend posted a Business For Scotland piece recently that was, on the face of it, shocking.
Scotland had the lowest percentage of households in the highest earning households of GB. The Eurostat GDP data for Scotland, however, showed all but the Highlands having decent GDP, and the area around Aberdeen being in the highest band.
( Read more... ) -
Funny Censorship at the 'internet's Best Science site'
There's a climate denial blog called "Watt's Up With That" (henceforth WUWT), and in common with most denial sites it's more interested in "OMG! They're lying to us! Listen to me - I'll set you right, I'm not one of THEM!" rather than "That's an interesting point - tell me more...oh so that explains X! Good, what about Y? Oh? So that's not relevant ( Read more... ) -
Supreme Logic Fail
It appears that the Minister for Regional Development has been providing training for staff to learn Irish, if they so wish. Whilst I am not opposed to people learning Irish the rationale given by Conor Murphy is lacking in logic:
"There have also been practical benefits, as staff have been able to use their skills to assist the department to deal ( Read more... ) -
About time!
Northern Ireland launches a probe into clerical child abuse. Here's hoping it covers mental and physical abuse, and not only sexual abuse. -
Wiki Uselessness
Who would ever have guessed that Victor Gollancz has only been publishing Science Fiction from 1998 - thank you for clearing that up Wikipedia. I must now re-edit my childhood! -
Heat and Veg
I find it incomprehensible, when reading the comments in the "Watts up with that?" climate denialism site, to come across people making the claim that the increased warming being caused by greenhouse gasses will result in increased agricultural productivity - as it will apparently result in a "climate optimum ( Read more... ) -
Claudy Bombing and The Catholic Church
According to the BBC the NI Police Ombudsman has finally released his report into the police investigation of the Cluady Bombing of 1972, which killed 9 people. The basic thrust of the report is that a senior RUC Officer approached the Catholic Church and asked them to remove Father Chesney, one of the suspects in the bombing, from Northern Ireland ( Read more... ) -
Racism in Japan
“The pride of this country that has been built up by the Yamato (Japanese) race must be passed down to our children, otherwise there will be no future for the country,” said Masahito Fujikawa, 49, an LDP-backed candidate in the Aichi electoral district.
This in response to the idea that permanent residents of Japan should be able to vote in local ( Read more... ) -
Moral fail for a moral cause
There was an anti-war religious group collecting signatures in our town centre yesterday. The petition was opposing the arms trade. Now I didn't sign as I find such things misguided, however worthy the sentiment (Case in point: I have yet to come across any such group pushing to ban the AK47 - the world's foremost weapon of mass-destruction ( Read more... ) -
RIP Ronnie James Dio
One of the greats of Metal is gone - bon voyage Dio!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8685851.stm