Turning the Tables

“Reporters whining about Palin are like kids who can’t reach the cookie jar because she keeps moving it.”
- blogger Doug Powers

I don't watch TV news anymore. I grew up with it every night as a kid with my dad but today I find it biased and more entertainment than news. There are exceptions like BBC news that report real events around the world as opposed to covering celebrities, politicians, sports stars, and natural disasters. Last Monday, Memorial Day, I was at home at 6:30 pm and CBS news came on - let's watch it, I said, to see how the new anchor, Katie Couric's replacement, is. He was OK but the story that caught my attention was Sarah Palin's bus tour.

A CBS reporter whined about how Palin was stealing attention from declared candidates like Mitt Romney. Absurd! She has no control over what CBS decides to report. They could just ignore her until she declares her candidacy. CBS is complaining that Palin is "newsworthy" and they must cover her.

An editorial in the LA Times says it best, "There is nothing the U.S. media wants more than something it thinks it can't have." Palin is not playing by the rulebook. She won't declare yes or no. She won't publish her travel itinerary. She is not courting the press to cover her. Only Fox News is invited on her bus. CBS News producer, Ryan Corsaro, claimed that the lack of travel information was endangering the dozen competing media vans trailing behind the bus. Corsaro asked a member of Palin's team if he thought it was dangerous to have reporters forced to chase her from stop to stop. "You're the ones that are trailing us," he replied. How dare Palin “make them follow” her!, quips Michelle Malkin in a clever article titled Chasing Sarah: The Boys Behind the Bus.

CBS News also claims that,

Palin's team isn't just ignoring the press; it's actively trying to misdirect reporters. Tuesday morning, for example, Palin's bus was running out in front of the hotel where she had stayed, prompting a gaggle of media to dutifully gather outside. Palin had already slipped out a side door early in the morning for a visit to the Gettysburg visitor center and battlefield.

Oh, the horror!

Bottom Line

What is Palin's response to maltreating the poor Main Stream Media who has been vicious in attacking her and her children over the years? “I don’t think I owe anything to the mainstream media."

Update

Here's an example of ridiculous and petty reporting that counts as news today. Describing a Pizza Summit between Palin and Trump at a restaurant, "Palin ate her pizza with her hands, the billionaire used a fork, it appears, in photos snapped by NBC."

The Rise of "Logical Punctuation".

“In music, the punctuation is absolutely strict, the bars and rests are absolutely defined. But our punctuation cannot be quite strict, because we have to relate it to the audience. In other words we are continually changing the
score.”
-Ralph Richardson (English actor)

Early this year I posted about Punctuation with Quotations in which I discussed the American rules of punctuating quotations. I'd like to revisit the topic since Slate.com claims the "punctuation paradigm is shifting".

For at least two centuries, it has been standard practice in the United States to place commas and periods inside of quotation marks. This rule still holds for professionally edited prose: what you'll find in Slate, [...] —almost any place adhering to Modern Language Association (MLA) or AP guidelines.

But people are realizing that the American rules are unnatural. A sentence ends with a period, not period-quote mark. The British style puts punctuation outside of quotes and it is beginning to dominate on message boards, blogs, tweets, etc. And no wonder. Since at least the 1960s a common name for the British style has been "logical punctuation."

According to Slate,

If it seems hard or even impossible to defend the American way on the merits, that's probably because it emerged from aesthetic, not logical, considerations. According to Rosemary Feal, executive director of the MLA [Modern Language Association], it was instituted in the early days of the Republic in order "to improve the appearance of the text. A comma or period that follows a closing quotation mark appears to hang off by itself and creates a gap in the line (since the space over the mark combines with the following word space)."

Bottom Line

Personally as one who favors logic, I'll stop feeling guilty about following the British Style.

P.S.
Happy Birthday to my Sister!

Potassium Iodide

"Primum non nocerum. (First do no harm)"
— attributed to Hippocrates

With Nuclear radiation leaks in Japan, bottles of Potassium Iodide have flown off the shelves of stores around the world. Recently a friend recommended that I encourage others to buy Potassium iodide. I disagreed.

In the late 70's under President Ford, Swine Flu first became a public concern and there was a push to have everyone inoculated against it. However the 1970's swine flu shot caused serious allergic reactions in rare cases. It turned out more people died from the shot than from that occurrence of Swine flu. [This is not the case today where the shot is safer and the flu deadlier.]

Potassium Iodide is similar. Yes its benefits are amazing under certain conditions. But it has side effects and can be dangerous to infants and the elderly.

Let's start with why take Potassium Iodide and what does it do?

Dangerous levels of radiation drop off quickly with distance from the accident. In Tokyo the exposure after 36 hours was equal to eating one banana (banana are high in potassium.) We get radiation all the time from the sky, from granite, from medical X-rays, etc. Fortunately, humans can tolerate a lot of low level radiation spread evenly throughout the body. But radioactive Iodine is different - it is not spread out evenly but concentrates in one spot.

The human Thyroid collects and hoards all Iodine that enters the body. If that Iodine is radioactive, it can kill the thyroid or cause thyroid cancer. [In America the cure for hyper-thyroidism is a large does of radioactive Iodine in a pill to kill the thyroid. The patient then lives on an artificial hormone to replace the thyroid secretions.] Often in the years after nuclear accidents, the only cancer to spike or become epidemic is Thyroid cancer. 

A Potassium Iodide pill blocks radioactive Iodine for 24 hours. The pill must be taken BEFORE radiation exposure to fill up the Thyroid so it has no room to absorb the bad Iodine, allowing the bad Iodine to be excreted from the body. It is VERY effective at preventing Thyroid cancer if taken immediately.

So why not pop a Potassium Iodide pill every day, just in case? The pill also shuts the Thyroid down temporarily. In the very young (under one month) this can affect brain development. Potassium Iodide can reach infants in the womb and newborns through mother's milk.

Adults can be affected in two ways. First - unlikely but serious side effects include: burning mouth/throat, sore teeth/gums, swelling inside the mouth, increased saliva, eye irritation/swollen eyelids, severe headache, swelling of the front of the neck/throat (goiter), confusion, numbness/tingling/pain/weakness of the hands/feet. Rare but very serious side effects include: chest pain, black stools, vomit that looks like coffee grounds, bloody diarrhea.

Second - a Potassium Iodide pill is good for 24 hours and is only meant to be taken once (or at most a few days if advised by emergency authorities). It's a buffer of protection as you evacuate a contaminated area. It is not meant for long term protection. When used repeatedly signs of decreased thyroid gland function include weight gain, cold intolerance, slow/irregular heartbeat, constipation, and unusual tiredness.

Bottom Line

While Potassium Iodide (KI) is very useful when properly used I have many objections to recommending that everyone buy it.

1. The news media is terrible at reporting radiation and loves to scare the public with stories like, "Radiation found in Milk in Massachusetts." This causes panic and results in people taking the KI pills when the risks of the pills outweigh the risks of radiation. You should only take the pills when public health authorities (not the media) recommend it.

2 The pill only works prior to exposure and is dangerous if used long term.

3. The dosage of KI is age dependent. Read the bottle carefully. Taking extra dosage does NOT help and can be dangerous. Adults older than 40 years should not take KI unless public health or emergency management officials say that contamination with a very large dose of radioactive iodine is expected.

4. Ask your doctor before buying to see if you or a family member has a condition that puts you in danger from Potassium Iodide. Also talk to a doctor if you are pregnant or nursing.

5. Lastly - KI is not 100% protection from radiation. It protects only the Thyroid and does nothing for high levels of ration which destroy the entire body. It protect only against radioactive Iodine found in Nuclear accidents. It does not against alpha/beta/gamma radiation of dirty bombs, or nuclear explosions.

If you live near (say 100 miles as the wind blows) a Nuclear Plant, AND you understand the risks of Potassium Iodide AND when to use it, then buy a bottle. Otherwise don't.

Resources:
http://emergency.cdc.gov/radiation/ki.asp
http://pediatrics.about.com/b/2011/03/16/potassium-iodide-pills.htm
http://blogs.webmd.com/breaking-news/2011/03/potassium-iodide-pills-can-they-protect-you-from-radiation-exposure.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_iodide

The Value of Free Goods

"We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we will always be free."
Ronald Reagan

Today I came across several instances of the value of "Free" at Techdirt.com,  a website offering "insight into news stories about changes in government policy, technology and legal issues that affect companies ability to innovate and grow."  The site itself is an example of what it preaches. The blog is free, with no registration required, and an interesting daily read. The owner of the site hopes that you'll recognize his analytic skills and hire his company for personalized news and advice.

Google is another example of free (but with a twist). Originally Google hoped you'd be impressed by their free search engine and hire them to provide searches on your company documents and email. Now I wonder if they don't make more money from the ads shown while you google. Also Google's algorithms watch what you search for and what you pick from the list and they use this to improve future searches. So in essence you're doing work for google for free.

Anyhow, the first Techdirt story was about the TED Conference. The annual meetings on Technology, Entertainment and Design used to be by invite only and very secretive with non-disclosures signed by attendees. Only the rich and famous and powerful knew about it. Now you can watch past presentations for free at Ted.com. Instead of weakening the product this has created a HUGE surge in attendance, higher prices for seats, and sister conferences around the world.

The second story is about a Swedish truck company that discovered knock-offs of their trucks being made in China. They knew a lawsuit would be pointless so instead they worked with the Chinese company to help it find a truck design of their own that would sell and not be a knock-off. This is a classic Covey Win-Win story where free advice helped everyone.

Bottom Line

Free samples at stores. A free test drive of a car. A free download of trial software. A small free giveaway can lead to read dollar purchases of something larger.

Food Prices Rising

Grocery prices "have risen significantly over the past year or so."
Sarah Palin, Sunday, November 7th, 2010

When Sarah Palin made the statement above last November, she was derided by an economics blogger at the Wall Street Journal who said she was clearly wrong because governement statistics for 2010 showed little change in the consumer price index. She countered with "That's odd, because just last Thursday, November 4, I read an article in Mr. Reddy's own Wall Street Journal titled 'Food Sellers Grit Teeth, Raise Prices: Packagers and Supermarkets Pressured to Pass Along Rising Costs, Even as Consumers Pinch Pennies.'"  Blogger Reddy countered with yet more government statistics. For a detailed account see Politifact.com which credits both sides and gives Palin a "Barely True" rating since "risen significantly" was more perceptual than factual last November.

What a difference a few months make. Every few days I see stories of rising food prices and dangers of global food shortages. If Palin had simply said, "Prices are begining to rise," she would have been spot on. Saddly the media is way too eager to examine every word Palin says with a microscope to find mistakes instead of looking at the intent behind the words. The quote above was part of a speech urging the Treasury Department NOT to encourage inflation. Inflation is good for national debt as it decreases the value of the debt. But inflation is not good for families and Palin was pointing to rising food prices as an example. Was this a good example? Not really. The price of some food was impacted by the price of oil and by crop shortages, but not by inflation. This is what an intelligent and thinking media should have pointed out instead of using the CPI to claim prices were not rising at all.

Can we trust the government's Consumer Price Index? The answer may be no in the UK (Official statistics hide true increase in cost of living). The US CPI may be equally misleading. U.S. Economy: Consumer Prices Rise More Than Forecast.  Just look at recent headlines.

"Kraft says more price increases ahead, Kraft's 4Q price increases weren't enough"
 Kraft is feeling the pinch from higher costs for wheat, corn, sugar and other commodities.

World Bank: Food prices at "dangerous levels"
Global food prices have hit "dangerous levels" that could contribute to political instability, push millions of people into poverty and raise the cost of groceries, according to a new report from the World Bank.

U.N. Food Agency Issues Warning on China Drought
A severe drought was threatening the wheat crop in China, the world’s largest wheat producer.

AP Video on rising food prices: http://www.woh.rr.com/video/1784460599

Bottom Line

I expect food prices to continue to rise. Just about everything affects the price of food - bad weather, rising oil prices, government monetary policy, national debt, global population growth, etc. It would be wonderful to have a 2nd green revolution where science saves the day and creates cheaper food but don't count on it. Modern advances with genetically modified food are called "Frakenfood" and shunned by the public.

Stock up on affordable items and take advantage of sales and discounts. Food storage is a hedge against inflation. 

The Return of Duck and Cover

“If you asked me to name the three scariest threats facing the human race, I would give the same answer that most people would: nuclear war, global warming and [Microsoft] Windows.”
- comedian Dave Barry

Last month the New York Times published a Science article on the US strategy for surviving a nuclear attack.

Suppose the unthinkable happened, and terrorists struck New York or another big city with an atom bomb. What should people there do? The government has a surprising new message: Do not flee. Get inside any stable building and don’t come out till officials say it’s safe.

What amazes me is that a NYT science writer should consider this "surprising" and "new". There is no mention in the article of the Duck and Cover campaign of the 1950's where school children (and adults) were taught to get under cover immediately. Fortunately the layout editors have longer memories. The media accompanying the story include a 1950's photo of office workers heading for a basement shelter, a family in the 1960's running to there backyard fallout shelter, and a graphic that is labeled "Duck and Cover".

The advice is based on recent scientific analyses showing that a nuclear attack is much more survivable if you immediately shield yourself from the lethal radiation that follows a blast, a simple tactic seen as saving hundreds of thousands of lives. Even staying in a car, the studies show, would reduce casualties by more than 50 percent; hunkering down in a basement would be better by far.

Again this is old news. There are many ways to die in a nuclear blast and sheltering helps protect against each:
- Poisoned by Radiation
- Burned by the Heat Flash
- Pierced by shrapnel in the explosive wind of the blast
- Struck by falling objects as buildings collapse

A serious but non-lethal danger is blindness - DO NOT look at the blast!

Administration officials argue that the cold war created an unrealistic sense of fatalism about a terrorist nuclear attack. “It’s more survivable than most people think,” said an official deeply involved in the planning, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “The key is avoiding nuclear fallout.”

The important thing is to be informed and not panic. The Instapundit notes that, "Even back in the 1960s there were Civil Defense debates on whether [or not] to give warning in case of an attack, based on studies that showed more people would be sheltered by where they happened to be than would benefit from a warning, since many people would immediately either try to flee, or to return to their homes, winding up in more exposed positions when the bomb went off."

Bottom Line

Again from the Instapundit, "I find that my law students — effectively post-Cold War generation — know next to nothing about nuclear weapons, fallout, and basic civil-defense stuff that most people knew back when I was a kid. So education is warranted."

Here's a 2 page summary by Homeland Security, Planning for a Nuclear Detonation

And a new 135 page report called Planning Guidance for Response to a Nuclear Detonation

Emergency Alerts

“Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised” - Denis Waitley

When a disaster happens how will you become informed of Emergency and Disaster Warnings?

1. The Emergency Alert System
   You’ve heard this an TV and radio as “This is a test of the National Emergency Alert System, this is only a test….BEEEEEEEP” During an actual emergency the BEEP would be followed by instructions on what to do.


2. TV & Radio Coverage (after the emergency)
   Many emergencies will knock out the power so it’s useful to have a solar powered or hand crank radio to follow the new reports and broadcasts by officials to learn what to do after the disaster has struck. When is the power coming back? What roads are closed? Is it safe to go outdoors?


3. Warning Sirens
   Many towns have sirens to warn of tornadoes, fires, nuclear power plant melt-downs, etc. My blog posting, Emergency Sirens, talks about the importance of understanding what your town sirens mean – is there an all clear signal or just danger signals? One signal or many? Continuous or repeating?


4. Residential Alerts
   Sometimes the police will drive through neighborhoods using their public address system to issue evacuation alerts, see Fire at Night.


5. NOAA Weather Bulletins
   Make sure your emergency radio or HAM radio can pick up the National Weather Service channel for 24 news and alerts. You can also buy alarm clocks or special devices to wake you in the middle of the night if there is a NOAA alert.

Bottom Line

Keep in mind that most emergency operations suffer from terrible communication. Don’t rely solely on news from officials. Use common sense also!

During the East coast blackout, I listened to NYC emergency center radio reports at my office for news when railroad service would be restored. (Electric trains were stuck and needed to be moved out of the way) I slept overnight at my office. The next morning my wife called to say a friend could see trains moving so I should ignore the radio and get to the train station. Sure enough diesel engines were running and I got home.

My first hint of 9-11 after getting off the commuter train in NYC was a crowd of people staring at TVs in a bank’s display window (my first thought –was, Oh no, a stock market collapse). Nothing was said on the train or at the train station about the World Trade Center. No sirens in midtown Manhattan. I got to work and about an hour later was told that all non-essential personnel should go home because Rockefeller Center could be a target. While walking south back to Grand Central Station I passed hordes of people all walking north along Madison Ave. I had no clue why. (Turns out the mayor had evacuated the entire southern region of Manhattan) Next I’m fortunate to be on one of the last trains out of the city before the lines are shut down. It wasn’t until I got home and watched TV that things started to make sense.

What Are the Odds of That?

"I'm very well acquainted too with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot of news...
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse."
- Gilbert and Sullivan, The Pirates of Penzance

As a mathematician by training I've always loved the song quote above. You don't find many songs about mathematics or rhymes for the word "hypotenuse". Sadly my appreciation for math is in the minority. Most people hated the subject in school and dread even the simple task of balancing the checkbook. (My wife is amazed that I keep our check book balanced to the penny.)

One place that you can find an almost complete lack of mathematics is in journalism. There are two reasons for this.

1. Journalists have a love for words, not numbers
2. Publishers want to sell the news and are less concerned about accuracy or reality.

Papers and news shows draw an audience by emphasising the dangerous and the deadly; sometimes causing panics as a result. The table below gives the odds various types of death and disease. You can see that cancer and travel accidents are high on the list and do get some media coverage. But what do the media headlines really focus on? Mad cow disease with a 1 in 40 million chance catching in any year. The SARS disease with a 1 in 100 million chance of dying in the US. You are far more likely to be killed by lightning (1 in 6 million annually) than by Mad Cow, SARS, West Nile virus or many of the other topics covered by journalists.

Looking at this another way, there are 300 million people in America. Divide by the odds and you get the expectation that in a given year 7 or 8 people in the US might contract Mad Cow and 3 could die from SARS. Compare this to the nearly 50,000 Americans that will die in transportation accidents each year. Car accidents are so common they are not "newsworthy".

All odds are LIFETIME odds
Death by cancer	7 to 1
Dying from an accidental injury	55 to 1
Death by transportation accident	79 to 1
Dying from any kind of fall	194 to 1
Having your identity stolen	200 to 1
Being murdered	210 to 1
Dying from a car accident	261 to 1
Dying from exposure to smoke, fire, and flames	1,192 to 1
Dying from choking on food	4,411 to 1
Dying in an airplane accident	6,460 to 1
Being killed by lightning	79,400 to 1

Bottom Line

Take anything you hear on the news with a grain of salt. They want to scare you because a frightened person will stay glued to the news for more information. Recently we wanted our cub scout pack to collect insects in the woods. But the boys were initially reluctant to enter the woods - they were worried about ticks and Lyme disease. Yes Lyme is a reality - I've had it, my wife has had it twice, our dog caught it. But you can take preventative measures and do a tick check after being outside. If caught early, Lyme is easily cured. Don't let warnings of dangers keep you from enjoying life.

Know what the REAL risks are and where the real dangers in life occur. Check out the following tables for more details:

http://www.nsc.org/research/odds.aspx (the official source of most odds)

http://www.funny2.com/odds.htm

http://www.livescience.com/environment/050106_odds_of_dying.html

http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2008/03/odds-of-dying-in-us.html