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bobchemist

Listed below are comments made by bobchemist between Monday, 14th July 2008 and Friday, 30th October 2009.

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Nutt gets the sack 6:46pm on 30 Oct 2009 So advisers are not allowed to lobby for a change in government policy? Then what's the point of having expert advisers in the first place? I was in two minds about voting labour at the next election but this has sealed it for me. Alan Johnson's arrogance is terrifying and I'm looking forward to help vote him out of office next summer.
Does the BBC give you value for money? 12:09pm on 30 Oct 2008 The BBC is good in that it allows commercial free broadcasting on the internet, radio and TV.

However, it is annoying that we are forced to pay for it in the form of the TV licence.

£12 a month is alot to pay for what you get, but again it comes down to the advertising revenues that it just doesn't have. If the scheme were made voluntary or only BBC users were made to pay then the BBC would collapse.

I like the BBC (mainly the website and radio) so let's keep it even if it does mean threatening to put anyone with a TV in prison to keep it running.
Palin disaster, Powell endorsement 6:01pm on 20 Oct 2008 I actually enjoyed Sarah Palin's performance on SNL. I'm quite a big fan of the show (although it's always hit and miss and being british I miss a lot of the references) and especially Tina Fey's portrayal. To see the two of them on the same show was hilarious and the scene with Alec Baldwin was sheer joy.

I think the insults hurled at her apparent ignorance and stupidity are holding a bit too much weight. Sure she doesn't know much about foreign affairs but neither did George Bush. Back off her a bit, is the risk of her becoming president really that terrible and it is after all not guaranteed (John McCain isn't certain to die in the next 4 years).

Having said all that, I still like Obama (he has so much obamarisma and obamacharm it actually frightens me - just look at the democratic primary poll tracker on this website when he went from being 55%-25% down to turn over a victory).

I just think people are dissing Palin more than she really deserves.
Crime: Lies and statistics 5:30pm on 18 Jul 2008 Nice one Theresonly1soupey

It's interesting to see people still banging on about police not reporting crimes when THE BRITISH CRIME SURVEY, WHICH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE POLICE STILL SHOWS THAT CRIME HAS FALLEN.

However, I don't blame them. Endless media reports are always going to beat one yearly gathered statistic no matter how robust. I'm just waiting for the press to get bored of reporting stabbings so I don't have to skip reading them in the paper.
Crime: Lies and statistics 12:25pm on 18 Jul 2008 Mattexe

I think you've got it bang on. The BCS has nothing to do with the police and according to Mark Easton's report correlates with it pretty well. This means that all the comments about police not recording crime properly or reclassifying crimes are blown out of the water.

Sorry guys but the numbers, while not perfect will always be better than any one person's perception.
Crime: Lies and statistics 6:37pm on 17 Jul 2008 MonkeyBot5000

That is a chilling correlation and I hope it's not causal. The idea of giving the poorest in society access to abortion to reduce crime is terrifying. Well... to me anyway.

I am of the opinion that crime is falling but most of the people I know or hear talking won't share that view. A lot of people won't trust statistics regardless of where they come from. They just dismiss it as government spin. Even the comments here of people who've read your article still mirror the perpetual state of mistrust of statistics, which I thought your report answered pretty well.

Good work Mark, even if most people don't appreciate it.
Pollution problem 4:29pm on 16 Jul 2008 a_briton

(note to zickyyy and bobchemist: If the air pollution is rampant on the day of the Marathon running, for example, no amount of appeal to the 'annual mean', is going to mean anything. This story, or blog if you will, is about whether the Chinese can reach their goal of clear air in time for the Olympics!)

The point is that a PM-10 level in one place at one time (300 or whatever) is not covered under WHO guidelines as their guidelines specifically stipulate an annual mean. The issue I have with this report is that it is directly comparing Annual mean guidelines with snapshots and saying that they are "bad" when actually it could be fine.

Imagine I was doing a study on global warming much like James Reynolds' study. I take readings of the temperature in the centre of Hyde Park in July for 10 days at midday. I could hypothetically get results as follows:

3rd July : 16 C
4th July : 20 C
5th July : 15 C
6th July : 17 C
7th July : 18 C
8th July : 5 C
9th July : 15 C
10th July: 23 C
11th July: 25 C
12th July: 23 C

(not unreasonable you would think)

According to the met office the average annual temperature for London was 5 - 8.7 C between 1971 and 2000.

Using James Reynolds' logic, London was between 10 and 20 degrees hotter on 9 out of 10 days and only within the average limit for 1 of the days. Conclusion: Global warming is out of control in London. But hang on, what about night time and winter. Never mind that, just look at the figures, I'll even make a graph if you'd like to see how bad it is.

That is how logical James Reynolds' study is and that is why some of the posters here keep banging on about the annual mean.

I'm not saying there isn't a pollution problem in Beijing, I'm just saying you can't keep comparing these results with the WHO guidelines.

(Just a quick note: I'm not suggesting there is less pollution at night or in winter as I have no idea, I'm just demonstrating the flaws in James Reynolds' logic)
Pollution problem 1:03pm on 15 Jul 2008 It's not just important to say your measurements are a snapshot, it's important to say that the WHO guidelines are for A 24 HOUR MEAN.

You have not taken measurements over a 24 hour mean (you've taken them for 10 minutes a day) and therefore your data and the accompanying barage of articles based on them are MEANINGLESS.

If you take readings over 24 hours for just one day then that will still be better than the measurements you've taken so far.

Take measurements every hour or even every three hours for one day and at least then you'll have one piece of useful data that can be verified by repeats.
Testing pollution levels 6:05pm on 14 Jul 2008 Why is the BBC continuing to use this misleading data.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7501756.stm

In the report above, the story states that the levels are tested for 10 minutes everyday and then later on the vice president of the British Lung foundation is quoted as saying:

"it was important to measure air pollution over 24 hours because it can be affected by rush hour traffic or weather conditions"

and then:

"But if the 24-hour average for PM10 is 100 or 150, it is unacceptably high and it would be highly undesirable for people to be doing marathons with that level of pollution."

So the BBC obviously realise that the data is not being collected properly and are still spinning the story about bad air pollution.

If you know you are doing sonething wrong, then do it right instead of writing stories based on bad figures. It is misleading, lazy and leads people into thinking you have some kind of political hate agenda.

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