Stupid Headlines

Ticker: 'Law & Order' star bashes NYC, Giuliani

This was the headline on a CNN story link about Fred Thompson commenting on how stupid it was that our friend Rudy was talking up what a great mayor he had been.

Now, I don't know about you but I think that is just stupid. Granted old Fred isn't exactly setting the world on fire as a candidate but don't they think that just maybe they should identify him as "Thompson" or "Fred" or even "other candidates" in the link text? I honest to god thought it was going to be something about Sam Waterston.

To be fair, the actual article had a sensible headline but that isn't what got me to click through now is it?

I am not sure why this pissed me off when I saw it given all the really egregious crap that goes on in the world but it did.

Rudy Giuliani Relies on Innumeracy

Specifically, The Commonwealth Fund report features a chart showing that, in 1997, the incidence of prostate cancer in the U.S. was 136 per 100,000 males and the mortality rate (death rate) was 26 per 100,000 males. By comparison, in the U.K. the prostate cancer incidence was 49 per 100,000 and the death rate was 28 deaths per 100,000. (The prostate cancer incidence rate—which is the number of men diagnosed with the disease in a given year—in the U.S. is thought to be higher because prostate cancer screening is much more common in this country.)

The Giuliani campaign dishonestly uses the above information to calculate survival rates. It is my belief that he is relying on the fact that the average american thinks that math is hard and so won't look behind the numbers. What I do for a living relies on me explaining complicated numbers in a clear and concise manner. What Giuliani is doing here is simply misusing the numbers and, to my mind, willfully lying.

I know that I shouldn't be shocked that this asshole lies about something but this is such a basic thing and such an easily checked thing that I have to hope that every single male in the media will call him on it.

Then there is this recent article from the cbc

So what would you do if you found out that several of the top prostate cancer doctors think the disease is being over-diagnosed and over-treated?

Take Toronto medical oncologist Dr. Ian Tannock. "I absolutely refuse to be screened. I don’t know my PSA [prostate-specific antigen level]. I think it’s overdone and men are having surgery they don’t need. Even the most gung-ho urologist would admit a lot of men are having prostatectomies [prostate removal] that weren’t going to die of it. The real challenge is picking up the men who would benefit."

His thoughts are echoed by one of the top prostate cancer researchers in the United States, Dr. James Talcott of Massachusetts General Hospital.

"You’re certainly more likely to be harmed than helped by being screened and diagnosed," Dr. Talcott says. "With immediate treatment you pay the price right away in terms of sexual dysfunction and other problems. There’s no question the prostate cancer mortality rate would be zero if we took out the prostate of every 25-year-old man, but at what price?"

And from the National Cancer Institute

A complicating feature of any analysis of survival after treatment of prostate cancer and comparison of the various treatment strategies is the evidence of increasing diagnosis of nonlethal tumors as diagnostic methods have changed over time. Nonrandomized comparisons of treatments may therefore be confounded not only by patient-selection factors but also by time trends. For example, a population-based study in Sweden showed that from 1960 to the late 1980s, before the use of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) for screening purposes, long-term relative survival rates after the diagnosis of prostate cancer improved substantially as more sensitive methods of diagnosis were introduced. This occurred despite the use of watchful waiting or palliative hormonal treatment as the most common treatment strategies for localized prostate cancer during the entire era (<150 radical prostatectomies per year were performed in Sweden during the late 1980s). The investigators estimated that if all cancers diagnosed between 1960 and 1964 were of the lethal variety, then at least 33% of cancers diagnosed between 1980 and 1984 were of the nonlethal variety.[3][Level of evidence: 3iB] With the advent of PSA screening, the ability to diagnose nonlethal prostate cancers may increase further.

What that means is that when you use PSA to screen you are picking up more cancers that would NEVER KILL YOU ANYWAY. There is an old saying that you are more likely to die with Prostate Cancer than of it. This is something to bear in mind when someone trots out the "ooooo scary cancer" BS about this particular disease. All cancers are not created equal and the diagnosis of Prostate Cancer is not a death sentence either here or in any other country in the world.

The press release from the COmmonwealth Fund can be found here

Giuliani-related Domains For Sale

I have owned the domain names Dontjoinrudy2008.com and dontjoinrudy2008.org for about a year. I bought them when I still thought that it was a complete joke that this fool was running for president. However, he really is and my cats are looking for new litter boxes so........ they are for sale.

And if no one wants them ... well I will have to do something interesting with them I guess but there are far more talented folks than myself out there.

Go on over and make me an offer.

Stuff I Blog about

A friend recently asked me why I only write about upsetting things in my blog. It is a valid question I think.

I guess I could write about my cats.


Or I could write about my daughter.


Or I could write about Bif Naked


Or I could write about the fact that my company has helped to recover 146 missing kids.


And all of those things would be great stuff to blog about. But for the most part I do tend to talk about stuff that pisses me off


or confuses me


or just makes me go "what the fuck was that"


because that is what gets me engaged enough to start typing.

More Giuliani Strangeness

From the NYT

''And quite honestly, since Sept. 11, most of the time when we get on a plane, we talk to each other and just reaffirm the fact that we love each other,'' he said.

Although, I think that it is important to remember that he was actually married to someone else at that point. I know that they weren't "together" but can this guy be any more full of shit? Does he go out of his way to remind people that he is currently on his 3rd marriage and that his kids hate him?

I have a theory that Giuliani is pretty confident that he will get the GOP nod and he is trying to inoculate himself against the attacks that are sure to come in the general election by just putting all the stupid shit he has done out there so that when the Dems try to beat him with it he can point to year old articles (and blog posts) and say "that is old news and was investigated and no one cares".

This is why he scares the shit out of me.
h/t to Crooks and Liars

Rudy Giuliani -- least informed Presidential candidate on foreign policy?

Moderator Tim Russert of NBC News asked about Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani's pledge to set back Iran by eight to 10 years if it tries to gain nuclear standing.

Biden flashed anger at the mention of the former New York mayor. "Rudy Giuliani doesn't know what the heck he's talking about," said the Delaware senator, who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"He's the most uninformed person on foreign policy that's now running for president."

Given the competition (cough Fred Thompson cough) on the GOP side I think that is a questionable statement but it made me pleased to see that the gloves are starting to come off for some folks and the endless line of bullshit that comes out of Rudy's mouth might get challenged from time to time.