80 posts tagged “vox populi”
LIARS!
It has been a while since the Savannah Morning News has printed a blatant lie – they have been wrong plenty but obvious blatant lies have been thin on the ground until this week.
From the Vox:
"So an insurance company-backed study recommends to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that mammograms are not necessary until you are 50 and self exams are not beneficial? I was not aware a woman between the ages of 40 and 49 could not be stricken by this deadly disease. Blatant greed."
For those of you new to my amber waves of brain – You have a right to your opinion but you do not have the right to pollute the public discourse with false statements of fact. The above is a false statement of fact printed as opinion by an editorial staff that is apparently too lazy to check the details before they print something.
The “study” in question does not exist.
There was no study. There was a recommendation by a panel of doctors and other healthcare workers. They based that recommendation on other people’s research.
“We used 6 established models to estimate the outcomes across 20 mammography screening strategies that vary by age of initiation and cessation and by screening interval among a cohort of U.S. women. The results are intended to contribute to practice and guideline policy debates.”
The sources for the models they created were from scientific studies done primarily in socialist countries or the National Cancer Institute – not from any insurance company.
2. Nyström L, Andersson I, Bjurstam N, Frisell J, Nordenskjöld B, Rutqvist LE. Long-term effects of mammography screening: updated overview of the Swedish randomised trials. Lancet 2002;359:909-19. [PMID: 11918907]
3. Tabár L, Vitak B, Chen HH, Duffy SW, Yen MF, Chiang CF, et al. The Swedish Two-County Trial twenty years later. Updated mortality results and new insights from long-term follow-up. Radiol Clin North Am 2000;38:625-51. [PMID: 10943268]
4. Vainio H, Bianchini F, eds. Breast Cancer Screening. International Agency for Research on Cancer Handbook on Cancer Prevention, Report No. 7. Lyon, France: International Agency for Research on Cancer; 2002.
5. Moss SM, Cuckle H, Evans A, Johns L, Waller M, Bobrow L; Trial Management Group. Effect of mammographic screening from age 40 years on breast cancer mortality at 10 years' follow-up: a randomised controlled trial. Lancet 2006;368:2053-60. [PMID: 17161727]
The group making the recommendations is a pseudo governmental entity established by FEDERAL lawmakers and has no direct links to insurance companies. They also claim that cost-cutting was not their primary concern when writing their report.
The Savannah Morning News should be ashamed - printing this type of lie in the paper adds to the confusion and distrust many people already suffer when it comes to the healthcare debate. Printing lies on the topic at this pivotal time in our country is shameful.
Gentle, Genteel and Gentile readers please forgive my slackness – I have been distracted by a family matter that I may or may not share in this forum.
The result of my distraction is that not much can get my ire up right now however there were a couple of things that struck me.
See what you get when you just show up?
Recently I have had many occasions to lament the absence of the media from important meetings at which important things happened that ultimately will impact every single citizen of Savannah.
That was not the case at the most recent City Council Meeting and from that single event the Savannah Morning News has managed to milk three headline-worthy stories and gathered intel to assist them with many more stories.
So far from that single event we had actual news on
Friday 11/6 – Enmark, city to try for compromise for Hampstead station and City suspends D.I. Grill's liquor license
Thursday 11/12 - D.I. Grille can serve liquor until hearing
Sunday 11/15 – Sales tax revenue coming in short
Monday 11/16 - West Savannah neighborhood to see more improvement in 2010
While not all of these saw action at the meeting - the lagging sales tax and the West Savannah renewal plan were discussed by leaders and provided reporters with a starting point for the larger story proving once again that there is tremendous value in just showing up.
Now a couple from the Vox -
"The actors and actresses on the set of 'The Conspirator' could smile, talk to, or acknowledge the fans that are there to admire and flatter them. They should stop being snobs."
Yeah cause if a bunch of people came to the office, restaurant, beauty salon or Wal Mart where you work and just stood there and stared at you – you would totally be all “Hey y’all thanks for coming down here and just standing around while I work.” Ignoramus!
"The difference between liberals and conservatives is that liberals recognize the distinct strata of society and desire to address their problems. Conservatives recognize the distinct strata of society and desire to preserve them."
No – the difference between liberals and conservatives is that liberals want total control so they can tell you what you can do and conservatives want total control so they can tell you what you can’t do.
Oh… wait that really isn’t a difference is it?
A couple from the Vox:
"How is it that my house appraisal went down $30,000, yet my Chatham County taxes stayed the same?"
Because the state took away your homestead exemption.
“What this means to all Georgia homeowners who have filed for the homestead exemption is that you can expect at least a $200 hike in your property taxes for 2009.”
SMN could have easily cleared that up but of course the low-paid-under-educated individual that selected and published this Vox call probably didn’t know this. Oh, she could have looked it up but that would be too much like journalism and that is far above her pay grade.
"The board of education has frozen teacher salaries and the state furloughed us for three days, yet they want us to drive to meetings in our own vehicles with no compensation for gas or mileage. They need to look into the legalities of that."
Who is this “they” of which you speak? You should look into the legality of it and if you think you have a case go to court.
Meanwhile you could get in touch with the guys running for governor and point out to them that Governor Perdue had an option on the table last year that would have avoided most of the furloughs, pay cuts and other pain employees have been through.
It seems the State is leaving about a billion dollars on the table each year in uncollected sales taxes. That number comes from the Georgia Municipal Association by way of Savannah City Manager Michael Brown.
The number is based on how much money Alabama “found” when they switched from statewide collection of sales tax revenue to a local-level privatized collection of sales tax money.
The state’s share of that currently uncollected cash would go a long way in cutting the 1.9 billion dollar sales tax deficit.
Why wouldn’t the Governor look for savings like that instead of immediately taking out the shortfall on the backs of state employees/teachers/mental health workers?
Why would you vote for any candidate that would allow this type of ignorant and poor money management to continue?
Just so I don’ts gets too rusty, two from the Vox:
"Employees in the state of Georgia have very few rights. I work for a local bank that just canceled employee vacations for the rest of the year, and they do not have to compensate in any other way. I am not a union supporter, but would sure like to have someone negotiating for my rights."
Yeah….how do I break this to you? A vacation is not a right.
I know that, after 6 decades of unreasonable expectations, it is hard to believe but a vacation is something of a reward given to hard working employees in order to keep them hard working and happy at their job.
Nearly 25% of working people in this country receive no vacation time at all. Of course nearly 10% of the people in this country currently receive nothing but vacation time since they don’t have a job.
The idea of forcing an employer to pay you for time you are not actually working is a bit insane but really the employers have no one to blame but themselves. They are the ones that started dangling vacation time as an incentive to attract workers. What they apparently missed was the fact that humans, on the whole, are a lazy bunch of primates and if given the chance would gladly take money for nothing all day long and then gripe about how long it took you to deliver the money that they neither earned nor deserve.
Employers created the same type of unrealistic expectations with healthcare and look where we are now. It seems to take no time at all before a perk becomes an entitlement.
I expect my employer to pay my rent and buy me a car now too.
Really are we going to take this there?
I read that silly piece in the Connect that tried to make out like the folks that run these firetraps are doing so out of the goodness of their hearts. BAH!
If you were doing it out of the goodness of your heart you
would want to make it safe.
You would not have extension cords crisscrossing
the floors and the hallways would be more than 18 inches wide.
You would not have had a drug raid that alerted authorities to the unsafe conditions inside and would not now be all whingy because someone caught you making money off people by supplying them with substandard housing.
Yes that’s right lest we forget these people were not living there for free, oh no, they were charged, most in cash, for the privilege of living in what amounted to a gasoline-soaked cardboard box.
If this place had burnt to the ground with people unable to escape because of burglar bars on the windows and unable to be rescued because the firemen couldn’t fit through the halls the city would have been right royally reamed for allowing such conditions to exist.
Okay I am officially uninspired. I blame it partially on my break-neck television viewing schedule but mainly I’m kinda happy with the world right now and therefore can’t really get my ire up enough to go off on some unsuspecting Journo or media moron.
I do however have a few thoughts about recent events…
Glaring question not answered:
In the Stimulus piece from Mr. Curl – How much did Atlanta get? It is all well and good to tell us we only got a pittance compared to the whole but that doesn’t give any perspective.
Did each county get roughly the same amount? I’m not saying that’s a proper way to distribute the money but we need something for comparison.
One from the Vox:
"Regarding the comment over boys with pants down, exposing their behinds, I am just as sick of women showing their breasts with low cut tops. It is just as disgusting."
Shut up dude! Seriously! It has taken most of my lifetime for extreme cleavage to come back in fashion. Does anybody remember the 70’s when everything just sorta hung there under a loose t-shirt? All that jiggling was just fine and dandy but it’s nice to see ‘em standing up all proud too. Leave the girls alone and pull up your damn pants.
Mitsubishi:
YAY.
Favorite Headline:
Report: 25 million-plus worldwide have dementia
It seems I know most of them.
One more from the Vox:
"Why would you wear shorts so short that you have to keep pulling them down to cover yourself?"
…I got nothin’
This one is a DRC. That’s Don’t Really Care. I will however make a plea for the free markets and say that too many cabs in Savannah means competition and will eventually drive bad operators out of business. An old-school “limited number of permits” or medallion system is just a way for large operators to take over and shove out the little guy. Meanwhile the consumer suffers with higher prices.
I’ll do a big piece on the Saint Patrick’s Day Thing eventually in the meantime please keep in mind that no matter what you read in the paper nothing about the festival or the parade will change without City Council signing off on it and they won’t change a thing until after the first of the year.
3 simple rules for not polluting the public discourse with
bad information (cautionary tales courtesy of today’s Savannah Morning News)
1.) Avoid the Misleading Headline
“Task force takes on illegal rooming houses”
“Technically” this headline is true. There is a multi-agency task force that is trying to clean up or shut down illegal rooming houses in Savannah. But this article is all about how this task force entered a rooming house in Dixon Park and did not find it was operating illegally.
“The task force determined that although the house on the 500 block of Park Avenue was operating with a valid business license and certificate of occupancy, there were several life safety violations in need of immediate attention.”
But apparently these “life safety violations” are not so dangerous that people should move out.
“None of the residents inside the home faced eviction after the inspection.”
So basically this house is now labeled as ILLEGAL when in actuality it is simply poorly run.
The misleading headline is simply bad form
2.) Don’t cast aspersions on an entire industry or class of workers
From the Vox:
"Servers generally don't report all their tips. It would be nice for most of us to have tax free, under-the-table income like that."
So ALL waiters and other restaurant and bar personnel are cheating on their taxes? This seems to be what you are telling me by putting this in print and on the internet.
There is no indication that the person who said this is in any position to actually know. There is nothing to suggest it is true but, by all means, I think we should take the paper’s word for it and just stop tipping since we are, according to this paragon of journalistic ethics, aiding and abetting a crime.
3.) Don’t speculate EVER.
“The unidentified driver of the Dodge was treated at the scene for minor injuries. He was later arrested on a drunken driving charge, Harley said.
It was unknown early Friday morning if the driver of the Dodge was involved in any gunfire.”
So, according to the reporter, there is a chance the guy in the Dodge was somehow involved in the shooting.
This little speculative tidbit comes from an article about a shooting and a car crash.
Here is how it reportedly went down.
Police are called to a report of gunfire and then get a call for a car crash nearby.
At the Crash scene, two blocks East from the shooting scene, they find a Toyota “riddled with bullets”. The driver has a gunshot wound and is unconscious.
The car that our bullet riddled Toyota hit was two blocks away and heading west toward the shooting at the time of the crash.
Why in the world, when presented with these facts, would any thinking person believe that the guy in the Dodge had something to do with the shooting?
But now, thanks the Savannah Morning News, we are left wondering if this was a vast conspiracy where the guy in the Dodge shot up the other car then drove several blocks East turned around and started heading West in hopes that he could follow up his shooting spree with a head on collision.
Just avoid the speculation on facts not in evidence. Kay?
Just a few quickies from the VOX (now that I’ve actually figured out how to find the Vox on the new site)
“The city of Savannah is making all bartenders pay $50 dollars to take an eight-hour test? Why can’t the restaurants recoup that cost? Does Savannah know how much servers get paid an hour and how depressed this economy is? City of Savannah, please think about these frivolous tests before you make bartenders take them.”
The fifty dollars should make you think about what you are
doing behind the bar. Perhaps if it hits you in your wallet you will think
twice about serving alcohol to underage individuals. Serving alcoholic
beverages is a privilege not a right and that privilege now comes with a price. BTW the last time I worked behind the bar I cleared about $250 a night so...
“It’s that time of the year again when WTOC clogs the airwaves with Fabulous Football Fridays. I don’t understand how the other news channels can fit all the high school football scores into their half-hour but WTOC needs a separate 45-minute show.”
Because they can sell a full 20 minutes of advertising within that show at a higher rate than they would otherwise get for a regular news show. Your viewing pleasure is not their main concern.
“If the city wants us to enjoy downtown they need to work out the parking rates in Whitaker garage. We came for an evening drink and appetizer and paid four dollars for an hour and a half. That is asinine. Stop ripping us off.”
Was there no sign explaining the price at the entrance to the garage? I haven’t been inside it in a while but the last time I was in there the prices were clearly marked. If you made a choice as a consumer without knowing the price how is that the city’s problem?
Stupid Sunday in the Vox:
I guess I can’t blame this person for being misinformed since all Savannah Morning News has done on the issue is bitchbitchbitch.
"So Savannah has no money with which to improve drainage? Maybe Otis and friends should quit giving so much taxpayer money away to their pet social programs and use it to provide basic infrastructure to this community."
Shall we refresh our memories on this one?
Savannah doesn’t actually flood anymore.
Shocked by that statement? Then you have a very short memory.
In 1994 more than 1400 Savannah homes flooded.
In 1999 910 Savannah buildings were inundated with flood waters.
Since 2008 – Savannah has had NO STRUCURAL FLOODING REPORTED.
How did we get from boating through Wilshire to dealing with nothing more than very large puddles on Victory and Habersham and that everynowandthen lake under the bridge on Henry? The city spent a boatload of our money that’s how.
$170 million spread over about 10 years has largely removed the threat of actually damaging flooding.
Will you continue to be inconvenienced by water in the streets?
Yes.
Will you have to buy new furniture after every serious storm?
No.
This is because the City of Savannah has worked its collective bureaucratic bottom off to protect your homes even though you choose to live in flood prone areas.
Show some friggin gratitude for a job well done and quit your bitching!
Seriously, people haven’t been paying attention and have no clue what is actually happening with the economy. Of course the Savannah Morning News reinforces this lack of understanding by putting it front and center.
"People need to remember we've been in a recession since 2007. That is why unemployment is up 10 percent."
To be fair SMN isn’t the only source of misinformation about the economy, it seems no one in the media has one ounce of understanding about how the economy works or what the words that are coming out of their mouths actually mean.
First let us deal with the recently revised definition of “recession”. For as long as they have been keeping records the big brains that determined such things defined a recession as a period of at least two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. Then the process became politicized in the 90’s and somehow slow growth counts as negative growth which makes not one jot of sense to me.
I tend to go with the original definition of words since modern interpretations tend to lead one down the rabbit hole into an Orwellian newspeaking bureaucratic hell.
So…we kickin it oldschool up in this trailer.
Recession = 2 Consecutive Quarters of NEGATIVE GDP
By that measure the US entered recession in the third quarter of 2008 through the first quarter of 2009 and has remained in recession ever since.
Deal with it.
The only reason people are pointing to 2007 is because that marked the end of the housing bubble. The only reason they now date the last recession to 2001 is because that marked the end of the Internet bubble. In reality the economy never saw two consecutive periods of negative growth during that “recession”.
So…in 2007 the housing market tanks.
Then in the fall of 2008 the banks that were all wrapped up in investing in the housing market tank and, without even the courtesy of a wraparound, they take the rest of us down.
Then the Government assumes the role of ECONOMY GOD and decides who lives and who dies.
Goldman/Sachs you get to live.
Lehman Bros you die.
AIG lives
WaMu Dies
Of course if you have a conspiratorial bent you begin to notice that the companies that have profited most from this conspiracy are all connected to Goldman/Sachs and the Government’s financial Caesars giving the thumbs down to Goldman/Sachs’ competitors are all friends or former employees of Goldman/Sachs.
I digress.
We were not in a recession until everyone realized that a big o’ chunk of the US economy had been built on a feverdream of overpriced and overleveraged real estate. Trillions of dollars were invested in a hallucination. So, when someone finally took a minute and closely examined our paper moon economy, it simply disappeared.
Want to know why we'll see 10% unemployment? Because the Economy that generated most of those jobs was imaginary. The Economy is returning to where it would have been if the rich kids hadn’t started playing makebelieve with all the money.
Dudes! You guys are supposed to keep up with what is happening in Savannah.
Why don’t you do that?
“LAST OCTOBER, Savannah City Manager Michael Brown told City Council he was taking a "surgical" approach to chronic flooding problems in the mid-town.
So when does the operation begin? At what point does the lack of action at City Hall become bureaucratic malpractice?”
They are bitching because a recent storm turned that low spot along Habersham and 60-something Streets into a pond for a little while. The paragons of perfection want it FIXED NOW! They want to know why it ain’t been FIXED YET.
This is a pet peeve of mine.
You live in Savannah.
Most of Savannah is below sea level.
Savannah will flood.
It’s a fact.
The fact that every single house in every single neighborhood doesn’t flood every time it rains is a triumph of determination, ingenuity and engineering. BE THANKFUL!
DUDE! The 2009 City of Savannah Capital Improvement Budget does not include any money for the improvements they are talking about. Anybody that claims to follow and report on local government should know this because the budget has been on file since November of last year.
Here’s the only Drainage Improvement listed in the 2009 budget:
The $10,000,000 allocation for drainage improvements will support the Bilbo Outfall improvement project that will serve the South Historic Beach, Beach Institute, Hitch Village/Fred Wessels Homes, Eastside, Dixon Park, east Victorian District, West Victorian District, and East TAD District neighborhoods.”
For those who are not aware, the Bilbo Basin is north and east of downtown.
For those who may have forgotten, the city has less money this year. This is something they predicted and also included in their budget plan that, again, has been on file since November.
“As a budget balancing strategy, the capital plan does not include funding for General Fund projects in 2009.”
So here’s what I want to know:
Are the editors at the Savannah Morning News so ignorant as to be unaware of which projects have been budgeted for and which ones have not?
OR
Are the editors so irresponsible as to attempt to make political points based on false information and unrealistic expectations?
If you wonder what happens when the Savannah Morning News
fails to cover significant stories like the tax digest update they missed two
weeks ago; take a look at Wednesday's Vox:
"It's strange that Savannah is the only city without falling property values. It must be due to the stellar city and county officials."
I can’t tell if the folk over to the paper are simply unaware that the overall value of existing property in the city tax digest went down or if they are aware but choose to print false information anyway.
Chances are they don’t care or the truth doesn’t fit their agenda.
