Tag: data

Why I Appreciate (and Support($)) True Researchers

Holding the UN accountable is _____? Yeah, no official body of any government really holds anyone accountable for the numbers they generate .. out of thin air.

This is where Moon of Alabama and others like this website are willing to spend hours to get down in the weeds and validate (or invalidate) the claims of these bureaucracies:

Neither the OCHA map nor the UN report explain how, when or why 164,000-171,000 people are supposed to have moved the few miles towards the Israel occupied Golan Heights. There is no evidence that this claimed movement of IDPs, who may or may not exist, happened at all.

Where does the OCHA claim come from?

The nearly unreadable fine-print of the OCHA map says about the “Map Data Source(s)”:

The data of this map has a limited number of sources, including parties of the conflict. The data has not been independently verified and is subject to error or omission, deliberate or otherwise, by the various sources.

There is the explanation for the unbelievable high refugee numbers the UN is peddling around. They are based on claims made by the Islamic State, the al-Qaeda offshoot Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and various other sectarian “rebel” groups and their propaganda outlets. These claims have not be verified at all. Whoever made up that map did not even ask if the numbers were plausible or made any sense. They obviously don’t.

It is irresponsible that UN spokespersons come out and make claims of an extreme refugee flow when only some dubious ‘rebel’ sources say that these happened and no reasonable explanation exists why such a movement might have taken place at all.

There has so far only been moderate fighting during the three weeks of the Daraa campaign. Most of the affected towns reconciled with the  Syrian army without any fight. The real recent refugee flow in the whole Daraa governorate is thus more likely in the order of ten-thousands than in the order of hundred-thousands.

The UN must stop to distribute such alarming numbers that evidently can not be backed up at all. Otherwise its credibility and long term efficiency will be severely damaged.

Yeah, it has come to the point where EVER government and/or international organization is going to give data that supports their agenda but never gives the people the truth. You probably already support a government (and UN indirectly) with your tax money .. why not search out true researchers and support them as well?

Correlation or Causation – That is the Question

As a scientist, when you look at the data, you can’t just jump to the first thing that comes to your mind. Research is key, the data might be suspect as well as the initial conclusions.

In the case below, the SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center) suggests the following based on their data shown here:

The diagram … graphs the number of Confederate statues erected between 1870 and 1980. Since the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) compiled the data, they suggest the memorials were most frequently put in place during periods of flagrant anti-black sentiment in the South. In short they imply that racism was the prime motive for Confederate monument-building. In truth, however, more compelling reasons are as obvious as cow patties on a snow bank to the thinking person.

Quotes above and below are from Abbeville Institute

If you have never seen cow patties on a snow bank, you have missed a major lesson in direct cause and effect. I am pretty certain, no one at the SPLC has seen this as that organization that has long been adamant in its refusal to hire blacks and pay them a lot of money. The SPLC’s new tax form lists its 11 highest paid employees: they are still all white!

“Watching the Watchdogs” stated in 2017 that ” .. the Senior Executive Staff of the SPLC is all white, just as it has been every single year since the company opened for business in 1971… “.. but I digress.

So the SPLC has some major errors when it comes to their research:

The SPLC implies that the first wave was due to “lynchings, ‘Lost Cause Mythology,’ and  a resurgent KKK.” Facts, however, don’t support their conclusion. First, the KKK’s resurgence was in the 1920s, which was at least five-to-ten years after the first peak had already past. Moreover, the state with the most KKK members during the 1920s was Indiana, a Northern state. Second, the number of lynchings were steadily dropping during the 1900-to-1915 period. Third, “Lost Cause Mythology” was a strong influence until at least 1950 and by no means concentrated in the 1900-to-1915 period.

Oops .. busted. Pretty sure someone with an agenda can easily make a mistake .. true researchers don’t do this. Fake news #1. So what is the real news?:

Contrary to the SPLC’s imaginings three factors were the chief cause of the first surge from 1900-to-1915. First, the old soldiers were dying and survivors wanted to honor their memories. A twenty-one year old who joined the Rebel army at the start of the war was sixty years old in 1900 and seventy-five in 1915 when life expectancies were shorter than today. Second, post-war impoverished Southerners generally did not have enough money to even begin erecting memorials to fallen Confederates until the turn of the century. The region did not even recover to its level of pre-war economic activity until 1900, which was thirty-five years after the war had ended.* Third, until at least 1890 the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was hostile to any display of Confederate iconography. The GAR was a Union veterans organization that held considerable political power until at least 1900. By 1893, for example, they so successfully lobbied for retirement benefits that their pensions totaled nearly 40% of the federal budget.

Ouch .. obvious as cow patties on a snow bank. Too bad the ‘researchers’ at SPLC have yet to have life lessons from nature. On to peak #2:

As for the second surge between 1957 and 1965, the SPLC predictably attributes it to Southern resentment over public school integration and the 1960s civil rights movement. Nonetheless, it was more likely due to initiatives that celebrated the Civil War Centennial.

Yeah, another one that the cow patties might have helped with.

Something tells me that this organization just likes to stir the pot and spin fake news like a cow does after eating .. ah .. never mind.