A Drunken Madman

I was a teenager in the early 90s, at a time when the UK's rave culture was still alive and kicking, though on the wane. In those days, after police crackdowns and legal changes to suppress the culture, raves were often held at secret locations.

Sometimes, for the good ones, the location would be a warehouse, or an aircraft hangar or a farmer's barn. Often, though, the location would be a rented marquee in a muddy field two miles down a dirt road, where the best you could fervently hope for was that someone had at least made a makeshift dancefloor from stolen forklift pallets. Sometimes ravers would end up dancing in mud, soaking wet from a leaky marquee, off their tits on some random pill they'd been handed by a complete stranger in exchange for most of their money. And people, generally, lapped it up.

To get to these parties, you'd be handed, perhaps at a previous rave, or at a club, or even just in the street, a flyer on which was written a location and a time, often a carpark, layby or other anonymous spot with enough space to park a lot of cars. You'd turn up in your car, find the organiser(s) and at this point you'd either drive in convoy or be handed directions to get to the actual location of the rave. Generally, you'd hand over some cash for the privilege before leaving. As a teenager with a car in a peer group mostly without, I was drafted in for driving duty more than once*.

The idea, of course, would be that if the police didn't know where the rave was happening, they wouldn't be able to get to it and shut it down. In practical terms, the police would usually find out about it, but after a short time delay.

They would then turn up and shut the party down - usually killing the generators first, leaving ravers quite literally in the dark. Of course, by this time the money would have been collected and spirited away, the drugs would have all been taken and the organisers would be anonymised in a crowd of drug-addled dancers in a darkened tent in the middle of nowhere. A cooldown in the cells would be the most the organisers got, and when they got home, they'd have the cash. An attendee could expect similar, but without the benefit of full pockets. Usually, though, it'd just be a caution, in the name of Michael Mouse Esq, yes officer, that's really my name officer. I know, it's unusual, I always got teased at school officer. It was terrible, officer. Thank you officer, I won't do it again.

Additional benefits for the organisers, of course, included the fact that while the police had no idea where the venue was, they generally knew where the meeting place was, so no raver with half an ounce of common sense would turn up to the meetup with pre-bought drugs or anything else vaguely illegal. The chance of being searched was too high, and to take the drugs before arriving could mean they'd be worn off by the time you got to the party - which could be in another county. Ravers would have to buy their drugs at the party, meaning a captive market, hiked-up prices and a virtally guaranteed sales quota for the night. Dealers unknown to the organisers were summarily dealt with, tightening the monopoly further still. It's like a modern festival's security guards taking all food and drinks off you on entry. You have to buy warm bottled water and salmonellous felafel at mark-up prices or starve and dehydrate.

This persisted, with dodgier and dodgier operators getting in on the act, for years. Ravers were fleeced, ripped off, robbed, beaten, overdosed and abandoned in the street outside hospitals, and things looked pretty grim. People stopped attending these raves and moved back to the clubs where it was safer. Eventually, mobile phones became commonplace enough that directions could be disseminated by SMS or phone call, and a small resurgence seemed to occur as the secrecy started to break down, but the culture itself fell apart. For a while, though, there was a repeatable, reliable method of hosting a party that could get a few hundred young people reliably off their faces for a night, and put several thousand quid in the pockets of the operators, all illegally but with a surprisingly small risk.

Aaaah. Special times.

So, imagine my surprise when I saw some of the same organisational strategies emerging in the anti-vaccination movement.

 Yeah, that's right, folks. The flyer above, for an anti-vaccination seminar given by Stephanie "Marvellous Measles" Messenger. They're charging $20 per couple or $15 for a single for a talk at an undisclosed venue, the location of which will be sent out by SMS the night before. It's all very underground, don'tcherknow.

I have to wonder if there'll be loud music and flashing lights too. I don't have to wonder how many people will be completely off their heads.

There's another, similar event, likewise with the cloak-and-dagger announcement style for the venue, slated to take place in the Blue Mountains, most likely in Leura, in the next few weeks. So it's not merely a co-incidence that no venue has been specified. This is a deliberate effort, in fine early-nineties style, to evade something that might shut the event down and cost the organisers a few bucks.

And that something? Well, in part it's Stop The AVN, who have been successful in the past in shutting down these lie-fests before they even got off the ground - but it's also the local health authorities from which the antivaxers are trying to hide. Public health authorities don't generally like untrained, unqualified and unregistered practitioners giving out medical advice, especially when that advice is demonstrably false.

All of the questions on the left of the flyer have been "answered" on the AVN's facebook page in recent weeks. Every time the answer has appeared, it's been wrong. This event is nothing more than an attempt to lie unchallenged.

But I find the parallel too delicious to resist posting about it. The antivaxers are raving. Just like we always said they are.

UPDATE: Does the concept of aesthetics not penetrate the minds of these idiots?

* usually, events we tried to attend fizzled out before even getting to the end destination, but every so often...

It's "<person> and <person> commented on a post in which you were tagged"

You're welcome, Facebook. You can send me a cheque post-haste. Or some stock.

Quoth the dingbat:

Hi Jason
After a long day out yesterday, I returned to find an alert from a friend. They directed me to your blog and, it seems, the source of the 'innumerate dingbat' call.

Well, Greg, I'm not actually sure whether I originated the comment. I just liked it very much. It's so... apt.

I see you've had a go at my maths and concluded "Yes, Greg, you're an Innumerate Dingbat. You're just going to have to learn to live with it."

Well, live with it I will, Jason. After all, you seem intent on sticking with the name, and you're free to do so. I did however detect a hint of hostility in your analysis,

No shit, sherlock.

so in my response I'll be trying to 'spread the love' so to speak, which is something I think is really needed in this debate.

No, Greg. What's needed in this "debate" is a shred of intelligence, something which the antivax side is sadly lacking. Still, I'll let you continue.

The first thing I need to draw your attention to is that none of the issues you raise actually have anything to do with numeracy. Not one of them. Did you realise that? You're actually having a poke at my comprehension, not my maths. So the 'innumerate' part doesn't fit (neither does the comprehension, but we'll get to that). I just wanted to point that out.

Actually, Greg, it's very much to do with numeracy. You see, one very important foundational aspect of mathematics is knowing where to put your numerators and denominators. Another is having a decent grasp on set theory - that is how given sets of data intersect and relate - and then how to apply the mechanics of calculation to those data. And in using the figures to inform your interpretation, rather than the other way round. Also, at the start of your response, you say "I see you've had a go at my maths", seemingly admitting that I'm right? But let's not split hairs, shall we?

It doesn't mean I think you're 'illiterate' though. Perhaps you initially thought of "not-so-good-at-comprehension dingbat", but found it not rolling off the tongue as nicely. Mind you, you claimed it was all about maths... "Greg is no smarter than Meryl Dorey when it comes to numbers... The maths here are not hard at all. They're barely high-school level...". It's just that NONE of your issues were about maths, Jason.

Sigh. See above. Also, what was that about comprehension, Greg?

There are many more problems with your piece so I suggest you get a drink. Next problem (and this is worse) is that my ONLY comment on the data was actually approved by the custodians of the data. If you think I didn't comprehend it properly then you're obviously taking issue with them. Did you realise this when you wrote your piece? Read the page again and ask yourself, where did he say that this data showed us ANYTHING about the vaccine being good or bad?

Clearly you didn't read my blog. I am not only commenting on your failure. I am commenting, also, on your dear friend Meryl Dorey's failure. If you notice the very large screenshot at the top of my blog post, you might realise that Meryl is the one explicitly stating that the vaccine is ineffective, a view which you presumably support, given that you're a regular commenter on Meryl's various fora and you haven't rebutted Meryl's interpretation once. Or were you waiting? Or didn't you notice?

Nowhere. So again, this doesn't mean I think you don't know how to read, but I wonder whether you should be commenting on someone else's comprehension. You've clearly inferred something that was not there.

Inferring something that's not there. Hmmm. Why does that sound familiar?

Now, you're possibly wondering why I didn't draw any conclusions from the data. After all, I published it. Why do that and not infer anything? Anyone familiar with my writings will know the answer to this. I don't regard notifications as valid indicators of disease incidence. Chapter 4 of my latest book goes into some detail as to my reasons for this, but you can get a small taste of them here: https://groups.google.com/group/vaccination-respectful-debate/msg/e2463b...

Thanks and all Greg, but I'm certainly not going to buy your book, though I'll read it if you send me a copy, and I consider the "respectful debate" group to be a laughable echo chamber masquerading as a forum, useful only for comedy purposes. But feel free to persist in your delusion. As for your not drawing conclusions from the data, well, your little percentages comment certainly appears to be putting forward a conclusion. I'll remind you of the wording:

Of the remaining 7082 cases whose vaccine status was known, and who were eligible to have received the vaccine, 5296 (75%) were fully vaccinated for their age. A further 986 (14%) were partly vaccinated. Only 800 (11%) were un-vaccinated.

Your wording shows that you're certainly trying to downplay the unvaccinated figure ("only 11%") and trying to emphasise the vaccinated figures. It's subtle, I'll give you that, but it certainly rallied the troops, didn't it, Greg? Even though it actually shows higher-than-expected incidence in the unvaccinated.

Why did I publish it? To generate discussion. It is of immense public interest. Reported cases of whooping cough have increased roughly 80-fold in the past 20 years, and during this time vaccination against it has also INCREASED. Ironically, this has led to damnation of unvaccinated children in the media. They are being blamed for the situation. So I acquired the data and threw it out there for discussion. And I'm indebted to you for taking it up.

Sadly, what you've done is thrown raw data to the hounds, who will do little more with it than scrabble through it to find ways of justifying their preconceptions. As we see with your dear friend Meryl, declaring, and I quote "the vaccine was completely ineffective in preventing whooping cough". This is in fact completely untrue. You're dog-whistling with data, Greg, and I think you know it - which could be why you kept your conclusions - aside from your dodgily compiled percentages - to a minimum.

If I were going to be drawn into making any meaningful comment on the data it would have to be that I'm astonished that a system which is biased toward reporting whooping cough in unvaccinated children

[citation needed]

, actually shows up so many in the vaccinated.

Could it be because, in fact, the bias you claim exists isn't actually there? SAY IT AIN'T SO, GREG, AN ANTIVAXER'S PRECONCEPTION WRONG?

The system predisposes doctors to suspecting whooping cough in children who are unvaccinated, and not suspecting it so much in the vaccinated. How much of an influence this is we don't know, but it will inevitably skew the data to some extent.

Or not.

There is of course an alternative hypothesis featuring bias, and it's one I find compelling because, well, it has some circumstantial evidence to suggest investigation is warranted. It goes like this: We know, from the public declarations of many AVN members, not the least of which is Dorey herself, that many unvaccinated kids seem to exist outside the conventional health system. Dorey, for instance, claims she treated her own kids' whooping cough with homeopathy, and has intimated on several occasionas that she uses a chiropractor as primary care physician, and won't go to conventional doctors.

This, I would suggest, ought to lower the notifications in the unvaxed and unknown groups - since if you're keeping your children away from doctors, there's no doctor to do the notifying. And in the relatively small (~63,000) unvaccinated population suggested by the 95% figure, a relatively small change in numbers could have a significant effect in percentage terms.

I have no data beyond the statements of antivaxers to suggest this is true, however. And we all know how reliable antivaxers are. (That's sarcasm, Greg)

Doctors assume the vaccine is protective,

Assumption is not needed. The figures clearly demonstrate a protective effect.

 and are therefore less likely to report the disease in the vaccinated.

Again, [citation needed]. You see, the data don't show that at all.

So, I am very surprised each time I see examples like this (and they are common) showing that such a high proportion of their reports are in the vaccinated.

Again, you're failing at interpretation. If, as antivaxers so often say, the vaccination rate is 95%, then any incidence rate significantly lower than 95% in the vaccinated population shows a protective effect. Though in your head, that's a reporting bias? How convenient that this reporting bias mirrors your preconception that the vaccine is ineffective. In fact, what we're seeing isn't that surprising. No vaccine is 100% perfect. Some individuals WILL become symptomatic. No rational person disputes this, and the figures reflect it.

It occurs to me that there could be large numbers of vaccinated kids out there, running around with whooping cough but not reported to the system because their doctor was inclined to think they had bronchitis, croup, or whatever (because they should be 'immune' to whooping cough). On the other hand there might only be a small group who fit into this category. Who knows?

Not you, apparently. Can you hear a dog-whistle?

Anyway, let's get to the details of your complaints. If I'm not wrong your concerns are focussed on the semantics of terms: unvaccinated, fully vaccinated for age, partly vaccinated for age.

That, indeed, is a huge concern. But more anon.

First, you feel kids who have been partly vaccinated, but not received the full number of doses for their age should have been included in the unvaccinated group. I have no problem with you feeling that way Jason, but the data was in three columns - fully, partially, and not. This is how it was reported, and also how my summary treated it. You want to combine the partially with the not, presumably to make things look better for the vaccine. That's OK. I didn't combine any of them. I reported them separately which is the most open approach (i.e. not trying to push a barrow).

You're not trying to push a barrow? Greg, you're wheeling your wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow, and any minute you'll start gabbling about "cockles and mussels alive alive-o". Any minute now I'll start calling you Molly. Pull the other one, it's got bells on.

Next, the ineligible. Many kids who became sick were too young to have been vaccinated. Again, you feel they should have been included with the unvaccinated group. And again, that's presumably to make things look better for the vaccine. But by definition, babies who are too young to have been vaccinated are in fact appropriately vaccinated for their age. Hence, they belong to both the fully vaccinated for age group, and the not vaccinated group. Although it's most appropriate to include them in the former (when comparing with a control cohort, as you did) I left them out altogether. Again, I was trying to not take sides. People can include them in whatever way they wish, as you have done.

Here's where it gets really funny, Greg. You see, there are footnotes on the image that you included in your blog post. You shrunk the image, so they're not very readable, but here's one of them:

"Ineligible equals cases coded as not applicable in NNDSS and includes all cases in less than 8 weeks of age. Those cases that were between 6 weeks and 8 weeks of age & received one dose from 2009 onwards were included in the fully vaccinated category"

All cases less than 8 weeks are ineligible. Those who received the correct does for age are in the vaccinated category. They're not fully vaccinated, but they're already included there. Didn't you accuse me of a lack of comprehension earlier, Greg? HOLY CRAP GREG, IS THAT YOUR ARSE HANGING OUT IN THE WIND??

Now, the messy part. You take the figures and compare them with the vaccination rate in the community (as a control cohort). That's a perfectly valid approach IF notifications are an accurate reflection of true incidence. In my opinion this is not likely, for the reasons I've already mentioned.

You didn't mention any reasons. Unless the reason was "I HAZ A BOOK!". Sadly for you, that's not good enough. Any nutcase can self-publish, Greg.

Also, when we get up around 90% it only takes a few percent out to completely change our assessment. But let's follow through with your approach for a moment.

The rates in the community can be found here: http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/content/cda-cdi350... (tables 1, 2, and 3)

The ~95% rate you quote is correct for 2-year-olds.

The 95% rate I quote is perfectly in context. Again, I refer you to the screenshot that graced my post. If you look carefully, it's your friend Dorey that quotes it, and I use it directly from there. I've always been suspicious of the figure when antivaxers have used it, for several reasons.

1. it's too-conveniently a round figure, meaning it's likely an estimate.

2. it's only valid for this very small subsection of the community (0-4). Overall, our rates are shocking, especially in adults. Even fully vaccinated children can have their immune reactions overwhelmed by sufficient exposure, and that's easily available in our large pool of unvaccinated adults.

3. Dorey uses it all the time, and Dorey is wrong more often than she's right

For 1-year-olds however it is 91.8%, and for 5-year-olds 89.9% (both of which put a serious dent in your calculations).

I wonder how much of a dent it actually puts in the numbers? First of all, your dataset has NOTHING to do with five-year-olds. It's clearly marked "0-4 years" of age. So we need to throw that away. But still, let's make-believe that you're correct and hypothetically imagine that there are three different figures at play in the stats. Assuming the three age-groups are roughly equal in size (a reasonable-ish assumption and about the only one we can make in the face of such poorly-defined numbers), we eventually wash out at a figure of 92.23% ((91.8+95.0+89.9)/3). That's not a very big dent. It's really not a very big dent at all, Greg. Do you want me to use the "dingbat" label again now, Greg? Because you tried to deny you were innumerate earlier.

These percentages are of "appropriately vaccinated for age". Of course the rate in the community of the ineligible group is practically zero (and you wanted to include this group in the comparison, mind you... comprehension, again). So, if the data I published were a valid representation of true incidence there is still a 'please explain' in order. Vaccine efficacy appears to be markedly lower than we've been told. If, on the other hand, there are a disproportionate number of kids in the community who had whooping cough that wasn't reported (because their doctor thought they were 'immune' to it), we have a much greater problem for the vaccine.

Anyway, as I've already stated, I didn't draw any conclusions from the data because it is of poor quality. I merely presented it. You drew conclusions, and so did Meryl. Both of them are plausible

Meryl's isn't plausible at all, and that's the one you seem to be supporting. And Meryl was just responding to your whistling, anyway, we all know that.

and of course they are opposite.

You are not the reasonable middle-ground here Greg. Just so you know you can't get away with that either.

Finally, the really interesting part. You said:

"put simply, if you're vaccinated, you can still catch an infection, but it'll be far less severe than in a non-vaccinated individual. You'll most likely recover quicker, and you'll be less likely to develop severe complications, which in the case of pertussis include death.

<>Add in that factor and who knows where the dice will fall? One thing's for sure, they won't fall in Greg Beattie's favour."

Hallelujah! Jason, I've been arguing for ages that deaths are a more valid way of estimating a vaccine's usefulness.

Bingo! You've finally put on the clown make-up and gone for the big joke. You're not just an innumerate dingbat, but also utterly clueless in epidemiology and, more worryingly, basic science. You cannot judge the effectiveness of a vaccine based on death rates alone because, for one thing, death rates are too heavily impacted by other factors. Antibiotic use, timeliness of diagnosis, complicating infections, quality of medical care, ideological objections to conventional treatment - all of these become confounding variables which alter the death rate without altering the incidence rate, and it becomes correspondingly difficult - I would say almost impossible - to tease out exactly which factor is which. This is why control of variables is so important in epidemiology, and in fact in all scientific fields. Messy datasets are datasets from which one cannot draw strong conclusions, and trying to figure out vaccine efficacy from death rates is messy.

Death data isn't perfect but it's a hell of a lot closer to perfect than notifications.

See above, dingbat. Also, the word "data" is plural. "Death data aren't perfect, but they're a hell of a lot closer...".

At the very least, it is complete. Every death is recorded. We don't have to guess how many deaths are reported... they all are! And the bonus is they're an indicator of severity also, as death is the most severe outcome.

No, it's the only outcome, at least in your proposed dataset, out of several possible outcomes you'd find in a real dataset. You can get no idea of how many people were infected but permanently damaged from a long-term complication, for example. Or whether the recovery rate was in any way aided (or otherwise) by vaccination. Or any idea of possible community reservoirs of low-impact disease. There is, in fact, a minimum of useful analysis that can be gleaned from such a dataset. About the only redeeming feature I can picture is that the mathematics are relatively simple, which I guess fits with your track record thus far.

In fact, I would go so far as to call this statement moronically idiotic. Deaths tell you nothing about incidence other than the obvious "incidence was this much or higher, most likely the latter".

You pillock.

I carried out a very thorough examination of death data in my recent book and found little if any evidence of the whooping cough vaccine saving any lives whatsoever. That's another subject, though.

Based on your last couple of sentences, I wouldn't trust you to do a thorough examination of a plate of food, Greg

All the best, and thanks for your comments.
Greg Beattie

Greg, that was kinda fun, but kinda not. So I've done you a favour. They say that you shouldn't get into an ass-kicking contest with a centipede. I have no idea who "they" are in this case, but it allows me to say, as a reprise, "never get into a number crunching fight with a computer programmer". I took the little tale that you published, and I wrote a simple little interpreter for it, and I named it after you. You can go there and fool with the figures, and tweak the assumptions, to your heart's content. You will never, and I mean never, come out with figures that suggest the pertussis vaccination has no effect. I do this to save you from more tedious, turgid writing in order to crawl out of the hole you've already dug yourself. I might even update it to allow you to tweak the vaccination rate a bit, though not for five-year-olds, Greg. And I've even done it in javascript, so the code can be examined for jiggery-pokery by a competent individual. If you can find one.

You're welcome, Greg. You're welcome.

Footnote: It's late. I can't be bothered tweaking the post any more, so I'm publishing it. I might update this post tomorrow. Who knows?

I've written before on the topic of percentages, and more specifically the inability of many people to correctly employ, disseminate and understand them. A striking example of this failure has cropped up recently on the Australian Vaccination Network's Facebook page, a well-known venue for such failures.

This post links to an article on the website of one Greg Beattie, an antivax parent who tried, and failed, to take on the Australian Human Rights and Opportunities Commission, on the topic of the right to refuse non-vaccinated children admission to childcare. Greg is no smarter than Meryl Dorey when it comes to numbers

It appears that Beattie has petitioned the Department of Health and Ageing for permission to post pertussis notification data for 2008-2010, and is trumpeting the data as proof that the pertussis vaccine is ineffective. This is one of Dorey's regular catchcries, and like Dorey, Beattie is unable to correctly interpret the data he claims supports his position.

So let's take it on critically, shall we?

Beattie's claim is as follows (quoted from his site under fair use doctrine)

For the years 2008-2010, there were a total of 9333 cases of whooping cough reported in children aged 0-4 years. Among them were 754 who were either too young or otherwise not eligible to have been vaccinated, and 1497 for whom vaccine status was not known.

Of the remaining 7082 cases whose vaccine status was known, and who were eligible to have received the vaccine, 5296 (75%) were fully vaccinated for their age. A further 986 (14%) were partly vaccinated. Only 800 (11%) were un-vaccinated.

This data is for a cohort with, as Dopey Dorey notes in her Facebook post, a ~95% vaccination rate.

So what does this tell us? Well, first, let's define what we'd expect to see if the vaccine was really ineffective. Given that 95% are vaccinated, and therefore 5% are not, an ineffective vaccine should give us roughly equivalent numbers - 95% of cases would be in the vaccinated group, and 5% in the non-vaccinated. All clear so far?

Well, is this what we see?

No. What we see, even by Beattie's numbers (of which more criticisms anon) is a rate of 11% for the unvaccinated population, or a little over twice what we'd expect to see if in fact Greg and Meryl's "vaccine doesn't work" assertion was correct.

Remember, these are Beattie's own numbers that show this.

So it doesn't look good for Meryl's interpretation so far. It looks, in fact, like the vaccine *does* in fact have a preventative effect, with roughly twice the likelyhood of acquiring an infection in the unvaxed group that we'd expect to see in the hypothetical scenario.

But wait, there's more. Beattie's wording also mentions the partly vaccinated, a group which, by definition, are not part of the fully vaccinated group. This adds another 14% to the notifications here, giving us a neat 25%. So an individual without complete vax coverage is actually more like five times more likely to contract an infection than we hypothetically expect. Remember, the 95% figure for vaccination quoted in this group is for complete vaccination. The incompletes are part of the five percent, and they concomitantly drive up the figures here.

But there's even more. Beattie has excluded the population who are unable to receive the vaccine. These people are, by definition, part of the 5% unvaccinated population. This adds yet another 754 cases to the five percent bucket. This drives up the figures even further - and Beattie has dishonestly (or incompetently) excluded these cases from his calculations.

In fact, the only cases which should be excluded from calculations are the unknown vaccination status cases.

This gives us an overall case pool of 7836 cases to play with, NOT Beattie's claimed pool of 7082. So we have to recalculate everything. So let's re-iterate.

• 7836 pertusis cases for whom vaccination status can be determined
• 5296 in the fully vaccinated population (95% of population)
• 986 partly vaxed
• 800 unvaxed
• 754 ineligible (these last three categories form the 5% population)
  • total cases outside the fully vaxed population - 2450

We can already see that the unvax group comprises far more than the 5% of the cases that we'd expect to occur if, in fact, the vaccine was ineffective. In fact, cases in the unvaccinated group form 31.2% of notifications, a rate over six times what we'd expect for an ineffective vaccine. In fact, it falls fairly neatly between six and seven times more likely to contract an infection than they'd be if the vaccine really didn't work.

And Greg Beattie marvels that he's been called out as an "innumerate dingbat".

The maths here are not hard at all. They're barely high-school level, but they do require a little care, and Beattie has not taken that care any more than Dorey did when she declared the vaccine ineffective based upon them. Remember, we've just seen that unvaccinated or incompletely vaccinated individuals are more than six times more likely to contract symptomatic, lab-confirmed pertussis than we'd expect given the population figures.

For a vaccine, I'd call that fairly effective. Not perfect, but nothing is.

And we haven't even drilled into severity of infection - a factor which these numbers cannot reveal, but which is shown by strong studies to be reduced by vaccination - put simply, if you're vaccinated, you can still catch an infection, but it'll be far less severe than in a non-vaccinated individual. You'll most likely recover quicker, and you'll be less likely to develop severe complications, which in the case of pertussis include death.

Add in that factor and who knows where the dice will fall? One thing's for sure, they won't fall in Greg Beattie's favour.

Yes, Greg, you're an Innumerate Dingbat. You're just going to have to learn to live with it.

[10.29pm: I've updated some of the wording because I was not clear enough in stating that comparisons are against the hypothetical non-working vaccine scenario that Dorey and Beattie are spruiking]

[Update 10:47am the next day: THANKS REDDIT for a delicious couple of thousand page views]

[Update 8th Feb 10:25am: The dingbat has responded, so I've added a new post explaining why he's still a dingbat]

Have a quick look at this pair of tweets

These are emblematic of a major problem in the world of vaccine/antivaccine. We're dealing with genuine cases of harm and death. Over here on the pro-vaccine side, we try hard to be sensitive to grief, not always successfully, but occasionally something like this crops up and it's very hard to fight back because of a societal taboo against intruding on the grief of others.

Of course, this doesn't seem to apply in the case of Meryl Dorey, whose activities around Dana McCaffery's tragic death are well documented, however this case is slightly different.

The person above has asserted that a loved one died of "vaccine injury" at the same time as admitting to an official diagnosis of "cot death" (more likely to be officially recorded as SIDS, though in this case it's unclear). This assertion is clearly based in the fallacy of Post-hoc Ergo Propter Hoc, but it is difficult to challenge, due to the aforementioned societal taboo.

Well fuck that. I'm not putting up with it. I tweeted an enquiry to @emmiluvsjaeda asking who exactly gave this diagnosis. This bullshit cannot be allowed to continue. As of the time of writing, I have had no reply, but I suspect that whatever comes back will be more than interesting. I predict either no reply, or an indignant "how dare you?". Either would speak volumes.

I found it quite difficult to compose the response. It initially felt as though I was rubbing salt into a wound. Then I thought of Meryl Dorey's behaviour leading to the formation of Stop The AVN, and realised that this is too important to let my own squeamishness get in the way. This person is gullible, as her other tweets demonstrate - but she is not immune to scrutiny merely because she held up the death of a sibling as a talisman and shield. There is no evidence that this "vaccine injury" is anything but a made-up assertion. Children die of vaccine preventable diseases, and fictional deaths do not deserve the same arena.

I'm certainly not scoffing at the death. Any death is tragic, but to deliberately misattribute a death to an untrue cause is abhorrent, and does more to tarnish the memory of the loved one than I could ever do.

I'll keep you posted of any answer that arrives.

UPDATE 3 Feb 2012: The responses are in.

I have a couple of observations to make here.

First of all, there's absolutely no way to verify this version of events. The official diagnosis, as has been shown twice now, is SIDS. An assertion that the doctor really thought it was the vaccine is unverifiable and largely meaningless. We have to go with the official course of events here. To do otherwise would be to take a faith position and accept an assertion at face value - and I don't generally do faith positions.

Maybe it's true. Maybe the doctor really did say it was a vaccine complication. This doesn't get us as far as the truth of the matter being a vaccine complication - though it may be grounds for an investigation into this doctor's conduct.

And maybe it actually was a vaccine complicaiton. It's a long shot, but maybe - in which case the doctor in question has knowingly signed a death certificate with an incorrect cause of death - again, grounds for an investigation and one that's accompanied by genuine penalties.

Or it could be a mere assertion by a family member - the most likely reason and one that's not entirely unforgivable. I know from bitter experience that during a traumatic event like a death or serious illness, you're not really listening and taking in everything that's said. It could well be that the half-listened and half-remembered details have been coloured somewhat by a post-hoc rationalisation. If it makes @emmieluvsjaeda more comfortable to think it was a conspiracy, then in her mind a conspiracy it shall be.

Secondly, I can't think of a single "legal reason" why a diagnosis of vaccine complication shouldn't have been proffered if that was in fact the case. I'm not a lawyer and I'm certainly not a medical specialist, and I'd love it if someone in one of these fields could enlighten me, but it strikes me that this is either another hole in the story or another reason to investigate the doctor in question. I think, though, that it's the former.

My opinion, then, is that this looks even more like a post-hoc rationalisation than before.

And one final pic

The "eulogy" comment is a striking example of the armour of grief being hastily donned with the underclothes of a martyr complex left showing. It is utterly irrelevant to the verifiability of the story. Though the autopsy report would shed light, I would not be asking for that, either. The holes in the story are enough to mark it out as a rationalisation, and the following "I was there" tweet shows the signature antivaxer position of personal experience being able to trump all objective evidence. There's really nothing to go on here.

So, was I right in asking the question? I think I was. I don't mind being demonised by antivaxers - their opinion is worth naught anyway - and we've at least established that there's no objective evidence to support the original assertions.

Sometimes you just have to ask what planet antivaxers live on. Take for instance, this post over at the AVN Facebook page, a letter from "CC", which illustrates the archetypal introspection-free hypocrisy and glaring inconsistency of the antivax lobby. Here's the bit I'd like to highlight first:

OK, well, if that's true, that would be a bad thing. After all, the pro-vaccination side in this debate prides itself on rational analysis of the facts and figures, and regularly calls out the antivax side for its emotion-based, gut-feeling mode of thought*

So imagine my surprise when reading on, I started to see appeals to emotion lurching forward from the page like the zombies I'd expected all along

 It's certainly a shitty analogy if it's meant to support an antivax position, but it's also a glaring emotional argument. THINK OF TEH CHILDRENS, it screams, in barely coherent, guilt-trip laden english.

And then just below this

 Another very shitty analogy, couched in emotional language. In fact, the pool analogy is bad because there's a known prophylaxis for pool deaths - solid fencing, education and vigilance - which are actually quite a good analogy for vaccination in and of themselves.

There's a danger - the pool. There's a way of preventing it harming your kids - a fence, some education and some vigilance.

Likewise, there's a danger - harm from transmissible disease - and there's a way of preventing it - vaccination, education and vigilance 

Then, of course, we get the icing on the cake:

 Now there's a textbook piece of emotional argumentation, coupled with strawman descriptions of the pro-vaccine position, and some hyperbole for luck. And so far I've seen not a single piece of research, fact, figure, graph or statistic. Just assertion and emotion.

What was that bit earlier in the letter?

 Oh yeah.

 Wow.

It must be free-for-all day over in opposite world today. And I'll remind you, Meryl Dorey said of this letter

"I had to share this one with you though as I think the writer is not only brilliant in the way she has presented the argument, she also goes right to the heart of why debate on this issue MUST be preserved."

So this is the acme, the pinnacle, if you will, of the antivax argument du jour. We are at war with Eastasia. We have always been at war with Eastasia. And pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

But what really did it for me was the responses. Unable to grasp what "CC" was attempting to assert about the contrasting styles of argument between the two conflicting camps, AVN acolytes posted the following emotionally-motivated responses, without evident irony (all names left unredacted because idiots need exposure)

So it made you cry, but antivaxers only ever present research, facts and information? Wow, your attachment to concrete data borders on the creepy. I mean, I'm a nerd, but I don't usually cry about research, facts and information. 

This next one has a person speechless at all the research, facts and information, and another who manages to present research, facts and information (definitely not hyperbole, totally not) about how people think antivaxers are evil or neglectful.

This one has trouble putting her research, facts and information into words without getting too emotional. I never knew cold hard evidence could inspire such responses.

And here's a wait, what? moment:

Wow, Meryl. You can afford to give people jobs now? I thought you'd recently laid off your part-time office staff due to hard times. Did you find some cash under the mattress? Oh, hang on. You don't mean job, you mean job, right? Like as in making Meryl Money on a volunteer basis. It's OK, I see now. Carry on.

Wow. A tear or FIVE? Surely you jest, because if you're really all about research, facts and information, you should be expressing this as "three tears +/- 2 tears" and offering notes on your data collection methodology. I mean, that would be more facty, right? And non-emotional.

And then there's this idiot

Oh, for fuck's sake.

Swimming Pool fences offer a false sense of security? How, exactly? How exactly does that work? This piece of research shows that fencing reduces death by 50% or more, and that 68% of drownings are in pools without isolation fencing. I recommend you read the whole thing, not just take my percentages at face value, but I quote:

 Installation of isolation fencing around outdoor pools, which separates the pool from the remaining yard and house, has been shown in some studies to decrease the number of drownings and near-drownings by more than 50% (Pearn & Nixon, 1977; Milliner et al., 1980; Present, 1987). In Australia, Blum & Shield (2000) found that in the childhood drowning that they studied, no child had gained unaided access to a pool fitted with a fully functional gate and fence that met the Australian standard. A systematic review of studies (Thompson & Rivara, 2000) examining the effectiveness of pool fencing indicated that pool fencing significantly reduced the risk of drowning, with isolation fencing (enclosing the pool only) being superior to perimeter fencing (enclosing the pool and the property). The results of the review are supported by Stevenson et al. (2003). This study, conducted in Australia, found that during a 12-year period 50 children under the age of five drowned in domestic swimming pools and 68% of the drownings occurred in pools that did not have isolation fencing

 Oh, wait, surely I'm cheating by offering research, facts and information? Isn't that what the antivaxers are meant to do?

 I guess that claim doesn't really hold water after all, huh? But the personal attacks bit? Yeah, I do that. Fuck you.

UPDATE: Here's Dorey's blog on the subject. I'm particularly fond of SK's comparison of pro-vaccine text to Adolf Hitler's Nuremberg speeches. Oh, and watch out for the Web Of Trust warning on that site

UPDATE 2: Dorey's call to the flying monkeys has produced some gems. Reasonable Hank pointed me to this glaring footbullet. Oh mercy.

* yes, I know, stretching the term and all that

I've been riding my bike a lot lately. This is partly because I want to regain some lost fitness, and partly because Esther has simultaneously challenged and bribed me to lose a few kilos, and partly because I'd forgotten how much I enjoy riding.

I've dropped about five kilos in the last couple of weeks, putting me two kilos away from the first level of bribery. That level ought to see me acquiring a new bike to complement the old, probably a Fuel EX5 or EX6. Mmmm.... nice. There are other levels to follow that, but they may be quite a few weeks away at current rates.

Anyway, I'm now becoming very familiar with the Bay To Bay cycleway, which runs from Homebush Bay in Sydney's West down to Botany Bay in the South, via the Cooks River and Brighton Le Sands cycleways. One thing I've noticed here, though, is that the pedestrians of these areas don't appear to know their left from their right.

There's a rule on the cycleways which promotes co-existence. It asks pedestrians not to take up the whole path, and for cyclists to give way to pedestrians when necessary. For the most part, this harmony is observed, aside from in some special cases, where a blissful couple or happy family has decided to take up the whole cycleway for themselves, line abreast.

Local councils recommend the application of a bell in these cases, but I much prefer to call out, in a jolly fashion, "move to the left please!", and then say "thank you!" as I ride past.

This doesn't always work.

One couple in particular took so long to realise what was left and what was right that I ended up bouncing off the side of the path after shouting "Move left please! No, left. No, other left. SERIOUSLY, LEFT. Oh for fuck's sake. [thump rumble thump thump clonk]".

And apparently I was the "fucking idiot". Get a grip, The Inner West. Left and right are taught as basic lessons in very early childhood. How come you can't grasp the difference?

<--- LEFT IS OVER THERE.       

AND RIGHT IS OVER THERE --->

The other problem is that Brighton Le Sands portion of the ride, passing as it does through a popular beachfront suburb. I pass through after sundown, equipped with pretty good lights I admit, but it does seem that Brighton has quite a lot of drunken 20-something women who like to partake of excessive alcopops then waddle down to the beachfront in large, unsteady, giggling packs. These packs are a lost cause on the left/right thing and I just have to deal with that as it comes. So far I haven't run any over, but I think it may be a matter of time. Occasionally they utter shrieks of surprise as I jet past, which at least shows a degree of awareness, I suppose.

 Anyway, I did a 60km run last night, in a bit over three hours, out almost to Kurnell on the tip of Botany Bay NP, turning round at the 30km mark not far from Cronulla Sharkies Leagues Club, and it was marvellous. So marvellous, in fact, that I've decided to take it upon myself to work on updating Wikipedia's Bike Paths In Sydney article, which may take a while and many more kilometres. And I'd like to invite any readers of this blog to suggest paths, trails and notable cycling destinations around the area for inclusion. There's a contact link somewhere on the page, or just comment below. Or hit me up on Wikipedia, where I am user: StopThatAstronaut

 Oh, and here's the flyby of last night's ride:

There's a notice on the intranet here at work, which reads as follows:

Lock it or lose it!
75% of theft from motor vehicles happens to unlocked cars

It's annoying me. It's been annoying me for a while.

Why?

Because it's emblematic of a common theme in the presentation and usage of statistics. In the absence of other essential data - in the absence, indeed, of context - the 75% figure is largely useless.

To really evaluate what it means, we have to know at what rate cars are left unlocked. If, for example, 85-90% of cars are left unlocked, then to have 75% of theft happen from locked cars would mean that it's less likely that an unlocked car will be stolen from. And we'd also like to know at what rate from-car thefts happen per car per year full stop, as well as "does the ratio vary with the value of goods stolen?". Without these kinds of figures, that magic 75% doesn't tell me anything useful.

Yes, I know that on the topic of thefts from cars common knowledge states that a large majority of cars are in fact left locked when unattended, and are relatively rarely broken into anyway. But what about in the case of less commonly understood statistics, where this absurd present-the-percentage-and-hang-the-context reporting takes place too?

Take, for example, anti-vaccine campaigner Meryl Dorey of the Australian Vaccination Network.

A veteran liar-with-statistics-she-doesn't-understand, Meryl Dorey has fold us that 80% of pertussis cases happen in the vaccinated population, as if to suggest that the vaccinated are somehow, illogically, more likely to contract whooping cough than the unvaccinated. This we know is not the case - the vaccine is shown to have a good - though not by any means perfect - efficacy rate in preventing infection. This still doesn't stop Meryl throwing the percentage out there in support of her topsy-turvy world view.

Still, so what if 80% of cases are in the vaccinated? The important question is whether you're more or less likely to contract an infection if vaccinated, and for that you need to know rates of vaccination versus rates of infection with a solid contextual basis. From Meryl's 80% claim alone, it is impossible to tell - and therefore the assertion is useless, as well as being flat-out wrong.

Dorey also, oddly enough, tries to state that our national pertussis vaccination rate is 95%, sometimes in conjunction with the 80% lie, sometimes not. This, again, is a bad statistic, cherry-picked as it is from a small subset of the overall population. 95% of young children in a given year were vaccinated. This does not hold true for an older cohort, or indeed for adults, where the rate is down around 11.3% (see link above). Again, percentages prove utterly useless in the absence of more basic questions - such as "is this figure from the population as a whole and does it hold true over time?" and "does the status 'vaccinated' line up with the status 'produced antibodies in response to vaccination'?", and "since population profiles vary widely, what use is a single blanket percentage anyway?"

What allows Dorey to lie this easily? People don't understand statistics. They don't even understand simple percentages and the limitations thereof.

Still, Dorey's innumeracy can result in some funny moments, when her own made-up figures are used to disprove her own made-up assertions:

So anyway, that's why the car theft banner annoys me, and why everyone should stop using ungrounded, unsubstantiated, context-free percentages right now, unless you actually understand how they work and how to present them correctly.

Thank you.

Posted by Meryl Dorey over at Australian Vaccination Network HQ:

Paraphrased: "Waaaah. Me not know how to a SEO. Therefores anyone who does must by an criminal. Kew E Dee. Also what are an wiki?".

Of course, reading comprehension levels over at the AVN are primary-school level at best, so it's no surprise they think this article by Krelnik is about censorship. It's not. It's about improving search results to bring factual information into searches which may return a large quantity of misinformation - something that is actually the core business of a search engine.

And of course Meryl is very sore about WoT, because her site's rating on it is abysmal, and was even before SAVN caught on to it. She has to tell her acolytes to ignore the warning every time she provides a link, which is frankly hilarious to watch.

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN. BUY MY STUFF. OBEY HYPNOMERYL.

Oh, the lulz. Oh, the huge manatee.

Meryl Dorey is fond of claiming that she is not anti-vaccine, but is in fact pro-choice. How can we sort out this seeming dichotomy?

Well, obviously, in the way all the greatest fights are settled - Googlefight.

Well. I think that's settled. Stop The AVN are right after all.

Today, despite thrashing rain and thunderstorm warnings, I took my bike for a bit of a ride.

Driving out to the Blue Mountains in driving rain - and a couple of scary aquaplaning moments - I questioned the wisdom of doing the ride at all. There was a lot of rain on the radar, and thunderstorm chances were high, but arriving at Katoomba things looked dry-ish

So, off I went. The first potential mistake happened when I parked on Cliff Drive. The start there is, I have subsequently discovered, at the top of a category 5 climb. Lovely on the way down, pretty harsh on the way back up. However I digress.

The rain was minimal as I started, but within three minutes, as I arrived at the sensible riders' parking spot, the rain was battering down.

I had second thoughts. For about two minutes. Rain doesn't bother me in and of itself. The effects of rain do, but more anon.

The official start of the track is a little further along, past some steep tarred road, and though there is a small descent immediately after the gate, you're looking at another 5-6kms of on-off climbing, until the really good bit starts.

And it's the final half of the outbound ride that really makes the day. Raining insanely as it was, I found the lesser inclines welcoming, and the surrounding forest began to open out, leading to a long descent to the lookout at the far end of Narrowneck, where I caught up with three riders I'd be trailing behind for most of the way

Which is where this happened

Oh Lawdy. Thunder.

Shortly before that, I'd seen a perfectly straight, single bolt of lightning between the valley floor and a point in the clouds below where I was standing. I was slightly worried about running the last 12-13km back along an exposed ridgeline, on a metal contraption, with that storm heading my way.

So I started to head back.

It was during this run back, which if anything was easier than the ride out, that I rediscovered some old habits. Such as conversing with my own legs. They tend not to answer directly, but they seem to at least respond somewhat, though the climbs became walks in short order. And the rain continued.

Additionally, I realised that the sandy soil of the Blue Mountains, when mixed with water, becomes a grinding paste. The sandy mud is probably less of a problem for a modern, disc-brake equipped bike, but my bike is early-90s vintage and still runs cantilever brakes, grinding sandy mud against my expensive-back-when-I-bought-them rims.

My wheels are in trouble. If I ride these trails much more, I'm going to have to buy new wheels three times a year.

Still, I was almost back to the car. With only a very large descent - and then that cat 5 climb - to go. And on the descent I discovered that I'm rubbish at judging corners whe I have no glasses on. And the tree I crashed into (non-injuriously) was probably as surprised as I was. Still, it was nice to get the heart racing (more) before the final climb.

I slogged hard but still ended up pushing the last section, though when the riders I'd met earlier drove past me, they gave me a hearty "great effort" for my work.

Verdict on the route: Fantastic, would get 5 stars in dry conditions. So I'll be back, obviously.

Now, give me more beer.

Quoth the Dorey:

Let's leave aside the (somewhat disrespectful) red herring of "anti-choicers" for a moment, and examine the rest of this absurd tweet.

In Australia, there is an entitlement meant to encourage vaccination, which was recently revised. You are only entitled to this if you completely vaccinate, or have a valid reason that excludes you from vaccinating.

Do you get this, Meryl? It is an incentive to vaccinate.

Therefore you're only entitled to it if you vaccinate.

Imagine for a moment, a government incentive to insulate your property. A fine idea, and one which benefits everyone (except perhaps the power companies) in these environmentally conscious times.

Should you be entitled to receive the insulation incentive if you don't insulate?

Should you Meryl?

Come on Meryl, should you be entitled to receive an isulation incentive if you don't insulate?

And if so, what the fuck is the point of the incentive in the first place? You don't have to be an economist to realise that offering an incentive - in order to to encourage people to take action - is useless if you do not make the incentive contingent upon that action. If you arrived in economics 101 without having an inkling of this, you'd be laughed out of the opening lecture.

Are you really this stupid, Dorey? Are you really?

I'll just leave this here

It's like Meryl's decided she wants to do our job for us, it really is.

Over the last day or so, The Australian Skeptics Facebook Group has played unwilling host to a group of 11/9* Troofers, desperate, yet hilariously unable, to convince the skeptics of their hypothesis that the World Trade Center attacks were in fact a deliberate demolition job orchestrated as a false-flag operation.

Sigh

I normally steer clear of this nonsense, but since the troofers have been such obnoxious arseclowns, I feel I have to beat them up a little in a blog post, even if it is in a cursory manner.

Their hypothesis, in a nutshell, is that the buildings were deliberately demolished using nano-thermite charges on the core columns, presumably by skilled demolition experts in the employ of the US government. Or, knowing the kind of cranks we're talking about, the shadow government - by which of course we don't mean Tony Abbott's Federal Opposition.

On the other hand, the skeptics, in a nutshell, are relatively content to believe the official story that nineteen hijackers boarded four commercial flights, hijacked them, and crashed them, three hitting their (presumably) intended targets. The buildings then fell from a combination of direct structural damage and uncontrolled burning.

Sure, there are details that may never be known. The buildings, after all, were relatively unique and now non-existent. Many of the people who could have supplied detail are dead. The hijackers themselves are likewise dead. The financiers and chain of command are either dead or in hiding.  There are many avenues of enquiry closed off. However, that doesn't mean we lack the evidence required to guide us to the essentials of the issue - that nineteen hijackers crashed planes into three buildings and a field, resulting directly in the collapse of two of those buildings and indirectly in the collapse of another.

The troofers are stunningly incapable of evaluating probabilities and possibilities, so as an illustration, let's do a little thought experiment.

We'll concentrate on access to the point of action.

• In the official story, the key physical location is a point just outside the flight-deck door on a commercial flight. Once access is gained to the flight-deck, the rest is cake. You need to be within  three metres of the door with a member of cabin staff close enough that you can call them over. Doing this on four flights would be good, but even one would be considered a limited success.
• In the "unofficial" story, the key physical location is the core steel columns on sufficient floors of three steel-cored high-rise buildings, the tallest two of which are 110 stories high. You need to be at the columns on, say, alternate floors, with sufficient time to attach thermite charges and run the cabling required to trigger them. But let's be charitable and say you just have to reach them and sign your name in spray paint, once on each column, on alternating floors. Then get out, undetected. If you're detected, the whole game is up.

We'll give 20 hypothetical skeptics a budget of $10,000. We'll give 20 hypothetical troofers the same.

The aim is to get access to their targets.

Who's going to get there first?

And there's one of the things. Commercial airliners are essentially public access, whereas the structural areas of large office buildings aren't. You can buy a ticket on a commercial flight for a few hundred dollars, and join a few hundred other people in filing onto the plane, at which point the 'target' is a matter of a few metres away. You can get up, walk over to a member of cabin staff, take them aside as if to ask a question and you've completed the test. It's a low-cost, low-technology, low-complexity vector of attack, and in pre-11/9 aviation, it was simplicity itself to get there. These days it's a bit more inconvenient, and it's harder to smuggle a dual-use weapon into the cabin, but it remains a relatively simple operation.

Whereas getting access to the structural columns of a building? Well. try it. Pick an office building and look at the access control measures. These are NOT public places. You have locked doors to get past. You have access control technology such as swipe card entry, as well as conventional locks on maintenance zones. You have mantraps which are designed to funnel intruders into fire stairs and lobbies rather than operational areas. You have thousands of people working nearby, any of whom may ask inconvenient questions. If you work in one of these buildings, try getting in without your usual ID card. Then try getting to the core columns.

You also have security guards and cameras. In the US particularly, you have armed response measures which means you may be shot if you're trespassing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sure, airports have security guards and cameras too, but you're bypassing them using the simple fact that you're meant to be there. You're catching a flight.

Seriously, try getting into an office building and gaining access to the maintenance ducts and the liftwell. You need a high-complexity and possibly high-technology solution. The risk of failure is high. To overcome these restrictions, you need a complex plan of attack, by highly skilled operatives. Remember, you have more than five hundred columns** to which you need access, and you'll be doing it while the buildings are occupied - not necessarily during the daytime, but you can't cause too much disruption or the tenants will kick up a fuss. And you need to do this in a short time-window, so the sabotage won't be discovered.

So let's double the budget. Easier? Not really. Let's double it again. Let's keep doubling it. Does it get any easier as the budget rises? Not really. And the more money you spend, the more of a trail you leave. A higher budget will become a liability here. Large sums of money are easy to trace, especially in the US where there is mandatory reporting for large transactions. Bribing guards to turn a blind eye, or buying your way into a maintenance contract are both possible, but easily spotted, methods with a high risk of failure.

Let's add more people. Does that help? Well it might, but the more people you add, the less likely it is that you're going to keep it secret - and secrecy, remember, is key. You're also going to have skill shortages, given that we're talking about demolition experts here. 

There are plenty of scenarioes you can try in your mind. Trying to figure them out is, of course, an exercise to the reader. The point though is this: how likely is it, really, that the troofers' absurd spy-novel scenario is remotely true? The chances of pulling it off are astronomical and while each step in the chain may be possible it's also a long way from plausible. Whereas getting within spitting distance of the cockpit on a commercial flight is easy. Or was, pre-2001

To be a skeptic is not to automatically question every conventional explanation for a given phenomenon. To be a skeptic is to know how to evaluate evidence and probability, to see flaws in reasoning and to guard against cognitive biases that lead to comfortable - but wrong - answers.

In this case, the real answer is that a low-tech but audacious plan succeeded, where a high-tech, high-complexity solution would be incredibly difficult to mount and with near-certain risk of failure. To think otherwise is to mark yourself as a credulous and desperate idiot willing to waste brainpower on absurdly far-fetched nonsense in the pursuit of... what exactly? Why would you want to believe something so far-fetched? What is so important that you could bend the rules of logic so close to breaking point?

Sigh. Again.

So anyway, now we've settled the access question, we can move on to "which is easier to obtain, flight training or demolitions training?". Then "which is easier to obtain, nano-thermite or box-cutters?". 

Occam's razor should already be furnishing answers to these questions, if you've any experience wielding it.

I won't run these scenarios though, because it gets tedious and troofers are boring, but at least I've got this post out there. Now, let's see how long it takes until I have to close comments on this post because of gabbling troofer clowns, shall we?

* we're in Australia. 11/9 it is.
** a generously low estimate based on an assumption that four columns per floor on alternating floors of three buildings is sufficient. Perhaps you'd need more. Perhaps you'd need less.

... I'm covering another Northern English band which heavily influenced my formative years.

The Wedding Present

This time round, it's "Blue Eyes", track one from the Hit Parade albums, which open the intriguing possibility of covering all twelve hit parade singles in order, if I can muster the dedication required to arrange and learn all twelve tracks.

As is traditional at the moment, the cover was played on my Cordoba tenor ukulele, my aNueNue concert banjulele and my MusicMan Stingray electric bass - with support of Roland amplification - into my Yamaha USB mixer via a Behringer Condenser mic and thence to Audacity, in what I've come to think of as my "low complexity" setup. One mic for everything means less mucking around by far, though the sound quality can suffer a bit (especially with a fan running in the room at the same time as a high-sensitivity microphone).

I'm threatening to add some accordion to this track. Be warned.

UPDATE: declared "ukuleletastic" by David Gedge himself. Which made my fucking weekend, I can tell you.

Nominate Stop the AVN for a social media award in the Shorty Awards

Yes, it's that time again. Time for the Shorty Awards.

This year, I'm supporting and promoting a Shorty for @StopAVN in the #Activism category.

If you have an existing, active twitter account, please join me in voting for @StopAVN., and help out by promoting this initiative to your followers, the more the better.

Of course, shenanigans have happened before (see the comments trail here), so I'll be following any responses from the antivax side with interest, and I've started a wiki hub page here. Let me know if you see dodgy behaviour from any side.