studying studies

As far as determining what news is false and what isn't, the simple answer is the crucible. What is the evidence?  Does it make sense?  What is the source?  The news I follow most closely is of course politics, and I think what I hear is pretty accurate.  Not that the politicians are telling the truth but I believe it when they say like Dump was in Nashville yesterday and he said blah blah blah I am the greatest.  World news is a little tougher because the press gets interested about something that happens in Yemen and we hear all about it and then something happens in Sudan and we hear about that, but no more about Yemen and no more about Sudan when the next thing comes up.

I can see Old Dog right now ready to bring up the Economist, and it is true, The Economist will keep you up with everything that is happening in the world.  The problem is it takes about a week to read an issue and it comes out every week.  Maybe that is to keep you from boring everybody at cocktail parties because you have no time to go to them because you are busy reading The Economist.  The BBC is pretty good too, CPR used to broadcast a lot of BBC but not so much anymore.

Food is a religion to some people who put a garden of good and evil on their plate at every meal, salt evil, kale good, potatoes good or bad depending on how and where they were grown,  I like eating but I find it pretty boring to talk about,  That food news where like eggs are good, no they're bad, no, now they are good again, is a waste of time.

The main idea of the republicans on medical care is the free market.  The free market is not such a system for them as it is a religion.  If things go to hell following free market ideology that's not important as long as you are on the True Path.  Their main idea is that there will be a free market of insurers who will be scrambling for customers and undercutting each other and that will bring the cost of health care down.  But the insurers don't produce medical care, they have to pay the providers who know everybody has to have it and charge what they please, so no insurance company can bid under what they have to pay.

Next to the free market what republicans like most is survival of the fittest, they don't talk about that too much because it's sometimes called the law of the jungle, and that doesn't go so well with, well the New Testament, which they pretend to champion to keep that loyal ten or twenty percent voting for them.  So anyway they are not bothered by all those folks who will lose their insurance because clearly they are not the fittest.  Well not quite the fittest because it is not an even playing field.  Those that start out the richest remain the richest, so what it is really about is survival of the richest.

A thousand bucks to pull a hook from a finger sounds like an awful lot.  What if the guy fishing next to Beagles was a wastrel or merely unfortunate, but in any case had no dough and also got a hook in his finger?  Would Beagles have him turned away because he couldn't pay the bill?

Wow, trudging the frozen waste with Old Betsy and the hounds with wife and child trudging behind (Why were they along?  Recreation?  To carry the kill?).  How much did you bag on these excursions?  Enough to fill the larder until spring?


How do we learn anything without doing studies?  But then can't anybody do a study that proves whatever they want it to prove?  Well there are rules for doing a study.  If you follow them your results should be pretty accurate.  But it's kind of a complicated thing to study, and most people citing studies don't give even a reference to what study they are citing, just recent studies show.  It's a problem.

Is it really sugar that is making people fat these days?  Ever since I asked my third graders what they were going to do on the upcoming Pulaski day three day weekend and the overwhelming response was play video games I have thought that was the main factor.  I wonder if we are eating more fat and sugar than we did fifty years ago, video games are the new factor.  Somebody should do a study on that, maybe the video game people who would conclude that the problem is we don't play enough video games.  And maybe the brewers should do a study on why people are confused by all the news they are flooded with these days and the answer would be because we are not drinking enough beer.

I think Old Dog is assuming that Dump leaked his 2005 taxes on purpose.  I don't think he is that smart.  Rachel Maddow is getting a lot of flack on this.  I suppose she is on my side and all but I have never cared that much for her or her cohorts on MSNBC.  Too smug.  It is not a good look for us liberals.