Making bogus research claims, the homeopathic way
With homeopathy rearing up its ugly head in the wake of Adam Grace’s well-founded criticisms of Caroline Lucas, I think its time for something a little different here on LC – a bit of more or less pure science blogging.
To be a bit more specific, what I’m going to do here is explain one of the more common ‘tricks’ that homeopathic ‘researchers’ use to generate bogus claims for the efficacy of their ‘magic’ sugar pill and water using nothing more than the abstract of a piece of ‘research’ published only a couple of months ago in a homeopathic journal.
The paper in question carries the impressive sounding title ‘Heparin-binding epidermal growth factor expression in KATO-III cells after Helicobacter pylori stimulation under the influence of strychnos Nux vomica and Calendula officinalis‘ and comes from the journal ‘Homeopathy’, which is published by Elsevier (publisher of both The Lancet and Gray’s Anatomy) – and don’t worry if the title seems like gibberish for now, I’ll quickly explain all the salient features of the research as we go along. continue reading… »
How the Mail and Telegraph undermined children with special needs
On July 22nd I wrote a small blog entry on my website about a dodgy article in the Daily Mail about children with special educational needs.
In my entry I asked: “[a]t what point do we suppose the Daily Mail not only dislikes the inclusion of young people with special educational needs in schools, but doesn’t think special educational needs exist outside of the 2% once designated before the Warnock report of 1978.”
Of course the article in the Mail doesn’t explicitly say there is no such things as Special Needs because in doing this, not only would they be wrong (this shouldn’t phase them too much), they’d open up the grounds for a whole campaign and would alienate a large amount of people (even if those people are Mail readers).
continue reading… »
Warning: this article has a hidden agenda
Blogger and programmer Tom Scott wants articles to be more forthcoming about their agenda. So he developed a warning label system.
It seems a bit strange to me that the media carefully warn about and label any content that involves sex, violence or strong language — but there’s no similar labelling system for, say, sloppy journalism and other questionable content.
I figured it was time to fix that, so I made some stickers. I’ve been putting them on copies of the free papers that I find on the London Underground. You might want to as well.
Some of the labels:
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Our our favourite one…
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You can make your own labels from this PDF!
Ed-Mili: Labour should be liberal on liberties
Ed Miliband, in an interview with the Guardian, said yesterday that Labour should adopt a “small l liberal position” on civil liberties.
He admitted that this would involve being “in a different place from the past ten years”.
On Trident
While Miliband believes the current defence review should include Trident, he will have disappointed many Lib Dems by insisting the review should not be allowed to reconsider whether the UK needs a nuclear deterrent at all.
On AV reform
He also failed to meet the demands of political reformers for a concerted Labour campaign for a yes vote in next year’s referendum. Although he confirmed he would be supporting the proposal himself, he made it clear that, if he becomes leader, other shadow cabinet members would be allowed to take a different position.
Listen to the interview here.
Council chief: staff who resist cuts are terrorists
It has emerged that that the chief executive of a council called members of his staff who resisted cuts as “terrorists” for opposing his agenda.
Martin Kimber, chief executive of Rotherham borough council, was speaking to local charity leaders in south Yorkshire last month when he made the remarks.
Kimber explained how cuts in public spending over the next three years would impact the council and local community services. The council has already lost £6m from in revenue funding, £3m from capital funding and £100m of Building Schools for the Future capital finance.
In the Q&A, he is asked if his staff are prepared for these changes. He acknowledges that there are some staff who will reject these changes.
He says these are: “The terrorists, the resisters.”
The comments were highlighted by Sheffield Indymedia and reported by the Society Guardian, but not picked up elsewhere or made into a story.
The Society Guardian reporter asks:
But think about it: does resisting changes that will do away with your job really make you a “terrorist”? Will the Provisional TUC go about bombing Rotherham council offices?
We highly doubt it. But it’s amazing the Council chief executive made such statements and got away with them.
It’s the Sun – that’s what it does
So impressed was I by Graham Dudman’s bravura performance on Newsnight Thursday night that it was well worth being made more easily available, as I suspect most of you were spending your time more wisely than watching Newsnight in the silly season, such as by sleeping.
Not so much for what he said, which wasn’t especially controversial or scandalous, more his fairly good summation of what the Sun sets out to do (at 3:25):
“It’s the Sun, it’s a great story, we want to get people angry, it’s what we do, we like to shock and amaze on every page, and that’s what these stories are doing.”
Why Tories are attacking good governance by axing Audit Commission
by Councillor Jason Kitcat
I was astonished to learn today that Eric Pickles will be axing the Audit Commission. Or more precisely, according to the leaked memo on the FT site, the commission will be privatised. Pickles is notorious for being ideologically wedded to cuts as shown from his time as leader of Bradford Council.
From the Telegraph’s one-sided report you’d think the Commission were a bunch of no-good layabouts responsible for, among other things, the terror of the fortnightly bin collection which keeps all good Tories awake at night.
No doubt mistakes have been made by the Commission at times, and they have overpaid some top staff – but which public or private sector organisation hasn’t in recent times?
continue reading… »
How Woolas sang from BNP hymn-sheet in May
This is a leaflet by Labour MP Phil Woolas that he used during the election. It has come to light only now because it’s been uploaded by the Straight Choice site and has started circulating on Twitter and other blogs.
So in a leaflet attacking Libdems for their stance on asylum amnesty for illegal immigrants (which incidentally only applied to people who hadn’t broken the law) – Woolas equates with Muslim extremists.
As Labour blog Political Scrapbook points out:
Having been an MP for the area at the time, it surely cannot have escaped Woolas’ notice that there were race riots in Oldham nine years ago. Violence errupted in May 2001 after a gang of white men threw a brick through the window of an Asian household in the Glodwick area of Woolas’ constituency. Days later that the home of his Labour colleague, the Asian Deputy Mayor of Oldham, was fire bombed.
Perhaps Woolas should have a rummage around his constituency office for a copy of the Ritchie Report into the disturbances. He’d do well to look at point 3.17 on page 10:
The BNP has exacerbated problems and undoubtedly by distribution of crude leaflets and other activity done much to stir up tensions. The mainstream political parties have a big role to play in countering this threat, as do churches and other organisations
– Ritchie Report
Woolas is one seriously despicable individual. In this case he’s singing straight from the BNP hymnsheet.
War with Iran would bring the biggest pile of corpses since 1945
The Iran-Iraq war was horrifically brutal. At least a million Iranians and a quarter of a million Iraqis died and Iranians continue to die as a result of Iraq’s use of chemical weapons. It dragged on for 8 long years.
You do not conquer Iran or subjugate Iranians easily. Yet some neocon fantasists in the US are planning something like that, as Sunny Hundal highlights.
Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic predicts what will happens if the US doesn’t take action against Iran, quite simply the Israelis will instead…
continue reading… »
Save the NHS: new campaign launched
The NHS Support Federation, an independent campaign to improve the NHS, has launched a campaign to protect the health service.
The group is worried that the NHS is “being dismantled while the public sleep”.
The campaign group launched a national petition this week to “save the NHS”, and published a briefing paper outlining their concerns.
Under [the government's] plans no hospital, no clinic, no district nursing service or mental health centre will be part of that one organisation. They will all be separated, converted into independent “social enterprises” called foundation trusts.
No doctors, no nurses and no therapists will work for the NHS. They will be transferred, made into employees of their particular institution. All their hard-earned national pay deals and pensions are under threat.
Many NHS managers will lose their jobs and their roles outsourced. Primary care trusts and strategic health authorities will be abolished. Now all the unpopular decisions will be made by unaccountable “commissioning consortia” and private management consultants.
They say there is an urgent need to raise public awareness.
A mailout to supporters this week said:
We want to bring the public together with NHS staff to oppose the harmful proposals in the new NHS White Paper and are working with NHS staff unions on ways to campaign against it. As a first step, supported by UNISON and UNITE, we are launching a national petition for the public and NHS staff to show their concern. We are also approaching a range of other organisations and individuals for their support.
They say supporters of the NHS can help in three ways:
1. Sign our national e-petition
2. Spread the word
“You could write to your MP or, better still, attend one of their local surgeries and ask them to contact Health Secretary Andrew Lansley about your concerns. This will help as politicians rely on their postbag and their constituency meetings to tell them which issues the public really care about. You could also write to your local paper – the letters page is widely read! You could ask politicians, health staff or local celebrities to co-sign your letter, making it become local news in its own right. More help and ideas are available on our website.”
3. Make a donation
“Our recent report revealed the true extent of GP privatisation that has already taken place – something which many patients were unaware of. To help us continue investigating the hidden dismantling of the NHS, and to campaign and communicate critical issues to the media and wider public, we rely on the generous help of NHS supporters.”
The website for the NHS Support Federation is here: www.nhscampaign.org
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» The real agenda behind Telegraph’s abortion investigation
» How Scotland Yard monitors prying bloggers and journalists
» When disabled people want to work – employers can hold the back
» Revealed: the reality behind Workfare and why it doesn’t work
» Job snob? No, I’ve got the T-shirt
» Why country-by-country reporting matters to our wellbeing
» If Unions want to become stronger, they need to modernise
» Why work “reforms” in Spain are a warning for workers across Europe
» Five things you need to know about the NHS bill
» Bigger. Fatter. Gypsier. More Racist.
» Laziness levels in Britain getting lazier, wails government
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