The stark reality

last checkup i had was within the last 2 years, and apparently all was normal, so my anemia is in remission perhaps. kidney stones sounds awful, but if it's due to excess hemoglobin, i hope you're spared application of leeches.

let me add a postscript to my last comment. this particular exercise in "quibbling" had an entertainment value for me as well--i did receive an email today from Dr. Harter denying authorship, and even if the piece was a well-known hoax, i at least spotted it independently.

the problem with fortune is that it tends to be cyclic. if it's general trend is upward, i'd just as soon it went in a straight line, rather than an upward trending zigzag.

Lekatt, throughout my childhood & adolescence, my mother & i were the poorest people i personally knew of. so i appreciate my current good fortune and support efforts to help the needy. however, if a cause is important, it seems to me that it's best served by conscientiously gathering & presenting the best available data to demonstrate the gravity of the situation that needs to be addressed.

yitwail, I believe you missed the point. It is not about statistics, it is about being grateful.

When I was in the Navy many years ago, my ship visited a port in South America. The country was extremely poor by our standards. We sailors were met at the dock by dozens of children begging for money. Being young I had not seen the disparity of the rich and poor. After giving away all my change the children, many of them hungry, and dirty kept on asking. I remarked "I am not rich, I don't have a lot of money." One of the children looked up at me, I will never forget those eyes, and said: "You are an American, you rich." That chance event has stayed with me for 50 years. The point is we have a lot to be thankful for and we need to help others at every opportunity.

Love

Lekatt wrote:

yitwail, I believe you missed the point. It is not about statistics, it is about being grateful.

When I was in the Navy many years ago, my ship visited a port in South America. The country was extremely poor by our standards. We sailors were met at the dock by dozens of children begging for money. Being young I had not seen the disparity of the rich and poor. After giving away all my change the children, many of them hungry, and dirty kept on asking. I remarked "I am not rich, I don't have a lot of money." One of the children looked up at me, I will never forget those eyes, and said: "You are an American, you rich." That chance event has stayed with me for 50 years. The point is we have a lot to be thankful for and we need to help others at every opportunity.

Love

By the way Lekatt...I have a cousin who currently volunteers for Doctors without borders and through the grapevine of the family hear almost endless stories that could pierce the most hardened of hearts.

Some of the people who are helped are convinced that my cousin and the like are actual angels from heaven sent by God.

Reminds me of a short story where a rather blessed man was in deep despair over the suffering that people endure on this planet and questioning whether there was a God of any kind. Asking and pleading with this seemingly distant and unmoved God to send help for the people who he saw suffering daily.

One day God answered and told the man "I did send someone to help and guide others"!

Who? said the man.

God says......I sent you. I gave you the heart to do it and.....that's all you need to begin. What are ye waiting for?

yitwail wrote:

In your opinion....what would constitute the 'best' available data yitwail? This question cannot be taken lightly if one is to successfully "demonstrate the gravity of any situation that needs addressed".

Would data that was independantly collected by a number of unassociated sources that tend to agree with one another suffice or by some other standard or measure?

Please be as clear and concise as you can be.

Many times I see sources of all varieties where one person would claim their source and data to be superior over another (to be the best) and have no clue how they came to such a conclusion.

It often times ends up looking like the person who claims 'their' source and data is superior and more accurate is... merely because it helps to support the persons claims or diminishes the claims or stats of another.

Anyone else ever get that feeling? Call me a skeptic.

excellent question, bartikus. i think it's mainly a question of so-called intellectual honesty. in the case where evidence is gathered in support of a controversial conclusion, the main arguments against one's conclusion need to be addressed and ideally refuted, or else one needs to at least demonstrate that a vast preponderance of evidence supports one's position. in less controversial cases, i think doing one's homework, by verifying data firsthand with original sources and using the best available sources, is good practice. if several independent sources agree, that strengthens the finding; if sources are in disagreement, then the data should not be used, unless there's convincing reason to choose one source over another.

i don't want to evade the question of what makes one source more reliable than another, but i have to give it more thought before i can give an answer that seems adequate to me. still, i'll mention one example that comes to mind. all things being equal, i would choose recent data over older data. in particular, if the recent data were gathered in response to the older findings, in order to address some discrepancy that the older data suggested, then i personally would use the newer data.

I'm glad to hear of your good fortune yitwail. I hope it remains with you and multiplies. If you continue to have a heart for the needy and help when you can.....I believe your fortune will multiply.

We can only decide for ourselves whether our lives are better or worse than the majority living today by personal analysis.

no, i have not had the privilege of taking a course in statistics. i am aware that statistical figures frequently have a sampling error associated with them. i was mainly trying to point out as diplomatically as i could that citing statistics from a possibly reliable source is preferable to inventing them out of thin air.

i haven't yet ventured a definition of what a reliable source is, but what is your definition? since you don't take Icke seriously, he is perhaps unreliable in some aspect?

FYI, wikipedia has a nice long article on Reliable Sources. perhaps you should read it and critique it. but if it suits you, it would be redundant for me to attempt my own definition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:RS

at this point, i wouldn't mind it if you didn't take me so seriously, either. as diligently as you respond to what i post, it appears that my views matter to you, but if they're mainly a source of amusement for you, perhaps you can find another source of amusement.