Thanks to all of you who commented and sent me emails over the last couple of days on my last Grey Man teaser. I do want to get a book out that you folks will actually be interested in reading, and to do that, it helps to actually get things ‘right’ or as right as I can, in the scope of the books.
I are not an Engrish major, nor have I ever said I was one… I spent way too many years writing technical documents, and other things were grammar and punctuation weren’t necessarily as important as they are in actual books…
So I do value your input, and at 80K words, I’m in the closing chapters of book 4 now. I also what to thank you for your patience, as the surgery, the move and getting settled in a new location have impacted my time to write, and honestly my ability to write…
Trust me, the stuff I wrote while on pain meds was useless, and worse… Hell, ‘I’ wasn’t even sure what I was trying to do…LOL
I’m hoping to have the draft out to alpha readers by the end of the month.
In other news, with all the gun control people sighting all the various studies about how gun laws reduce gun crimes, like this years set of reports in Epidemiologic Reviews a leading review journal in public health. HERE.
Why, you ask? Because we all know figures lie and liars figure! Here is one excerpt from one abstract…
Firearms account for a substantial proportion of external causes of death, injury, and disability across the world. Legislation to regulate firearms has often been passed with the intent of reducing problems related to their use. However, lack of clarity around which interventions are effective remains a major challenge for policy development. Aiming to meet this challenge, we systematically reviewed studies exploring the associations between firearm-related laws and firearm homicides, suicides, and unintentional injuries/deaths. We restricted our search to studies published from 1950 to 2014. Evidence from 130 studies in 10 countries suggests that in certain nations the simultaneous implementation of laws targeting multiple firearms restrictions is associated with reductions in firearm deaths.
With all the gun control people sighting all the various studies about how gun laws reduce gun crimes, like this years set of reports in Epidemiologic Reviews a leading review journal in public health. HERE.
But if you want a real time sink, let me offer this one, Spurious Correlations…
So you can correlate damn near anything you want to anything ELSE you want if you’re willing to do enough searching…
Do you mean to say I’m too old to be Miss America?
*sob*
Book four close to completion? Monday just got a huge bunch better!
I will head back to the Spurious Correlations website later today.
Years and years ago, I read “How To Lie With Statistics.” Quite an eye opener.
They reviewed 130 studies and the “evidence suggests that in certain nations”…..We call those “weasel words”. What they mean is they found nothing. Was this a peer reviewed journal? If so, they accept anything.
Hey Old NFO;
I will be tacky…they can push all the gun control laws they want…I ain’t gonna obey any of them…No bravado…just the reality of the situation.
+1.
Are any of the studies really true and accurate? Now that is the question. Gun control activists give me a headache. Let’s shoot them all. Nah. Just kidding.
And btw the captch wanted me to click on all pictures of grass. I did none of them because I didn’t see any MJ. What is up with the super secret lock down lately? Blogger is so random.
Bingo!
This is just a way to abstract the results of poorly designed “studies” using flawed “research” with manufactured pre-ordained results into something that never has to face the fact that the originals were unmitigated crap.
“We don’t have to provide raw data or methodologies, or allow peer review, because we studied studies, not actual, you know, facts.”
Ah, statistics!
gfa
I felt bad about not commenting on your last Grey Man teaser, but didn’t think I was qualified to offer opinions on how to write more realistic feminine dialogue. Enjoyed the chapter, though.
Re: the weaselly article(s), I just ignore ’em anyway.
JMI- Sorry ’bout that! 😀
John- Thanks, and have fun with that site!
PE- Of course… sigh
Bob- You’re not the only one…
Fargo- THAT in a nutshell, is the real question! 🙂
gfa- Yep… sigh
Rev- LOL, and agree on the ignore!
“Firearms account for a substantial proportion of external causes of death, injury, and disability across the world.”
Probably because most wars are fought nowadays with guns instead of bow and arrows and/or spears…whadda think? Bet the reviewers didn’t weed out the deaths related to all the “wars” from the Koran Conflict through Syria et al.
Weasely words and numbers!!
I think the “gun grabbers” need to go get another hobby…
What I think is interesting is that deaths from steam dropped off mid 2008 while Miss Americas got much older…wonder why? Lol.
Happy to hear you are approaching the end of Book 4!!:) As far as the grammar goes, just tell folks that this is your character’s voice…after all few of us speak grammatically correct English…as long as it is clear what you are trying to say. And we are all happy to let you know if a section isn’t punctuated correctly…;)
Suz
Suz- Agreed!!! Oh, ‘thank’ you for the grammar/punctuation comment…LOL
I firmly agree with the theory that less guns equates to fewer gun deaths. What they won’t tell you is that less guns does NOT equate to fewer violent crimes. Exactly the opposite. In every developed country that enacted a firearms ban in the past 2 decades, violent crime spiked. In England, it got so bad that the police were told to stop reporting the crimes because the numbers were making the politicians look bad.
You can look at all the studies you want and correlate to your little hearts content. It won’t change the reality of the situation.
Ray- Great point!
+1 Bob