Response to a Peter Saunders' Tweet

Yesterday in a fit of mild annoyance I tweeted the following.

#Dorries.how did she arrive at her 60k Fewer abortions? The only thing I can think is 30% with mental problems out of 200k. #stupid

To be honest I probably shouldn't have appended #stupid, but I was running out of characters, and I wanted to imply the possible reasoning I propose was daft. But I was questioning how Nadine Dorries arrived at her oft quoted statement that 60k fewer abortions will be performed after the amendment. If anyone was offended by it I apologise unreservedly.

But I am genuinely interested in how Nadine Dorries's proposed changes will stop nearly one in three women considering an abortion from going through with it. It seems a completely extraordinary claim to make without substantial, and large supporting evidence.

I actually got a reply tweet later in the day from a twitter account purporting to be from a Dr. Peter Saunders

@notjarvis #Dorries 60k fewer abortions based on differences in average european abortion rates - bit.ly/pj5D4C bit.ly/nf0mBq

The twitter account profile says  - CEO of the Christian Medical Fellowship.

Now Peter Saunders is a name that's been in the news a bit as someone who advised Nadine Dorries - the MP at the centre of the proposed amendment. I'm unsure what I've done to receive such attention, but I'll gladly respond as I see fit to the tweet (and I couldn't fit my response in a tweet so here it is).

"Based on differences between average european abortion rates"

OK? Thanks for the answer - I presume the two links you posted will lay out exactly how that figure was arrived at.
Link 1 is to this page -> http://pjsaunders.blogspot.com/2011/08/amendment-giving-women-option-of.html

It basically lays out that pjsaunders blog supports the amendment and reiterates the claim made by Nadine Dorries without any discussion of it.

 Nadine Dorries ... believes this amendment could reduce the total number of abortions by as much as a third, or 60,000 a year. 

So I'm unsure as to why the doctor included it. Maybe its as a reference point for his point of view. Anyway, that's all pretty irrelevant to any discussion of this 60,000 figure.


The second linked article disturbed me slightly to see it included in this debate. it is linked here.
http://www.cmf.org.uk/publicpolicy/early-life/abortion/informed-consent/
The article is a discussion about the use of informed consent in other countries.
It lays out some ideas about informed consent used in other countries. The informed Consent talked about in this article is this from the first line (my bold).

Abortion legislation in many countries already includes mandatory counselling for women

Already I'm a bit nervous, as Nadine Dorries has insisted again and again that the counselling she is talking about is not Mandatory.so I'm not quite sure how this article relates to her amendment.

There is actually some data at the bottom of this one in a table. it's still absolutely unclear to me how this relates to the 60,000 claim as we have already established the Informed Consent in the countries listed is totally different to what Nadine Dorries is proposing.
All I know is Dr. Saunders said to me

 60k fewer abortions based on differences in average european abortion rates

One way would be to take the headline figure of ~180000 abortions a year carried out in the UK and assume we would totally drop to "informed Consent" levels I suppose.
Average abortions / 1000 women in non-informed Consent countries = 18.1
Average abortions / 1000 women in "Informed Consent" countries = 11.9

11.9 / 18.1 = 0.657
0.657 x 180,00 is close to 12000 i.e. a 60,000 drop I suppose.

As I've already stated it's a pretty bogus comparison as Nadine repeatedly states she is not proposing Mandatory counselling, and this sample is rather directly comparing non-mandatory to mandatory counselling countries, and from the sound of it some of them rather pressure women towards not having an abortion.

If it's calculated this way , you could also argue that the effects of different pregnancy rates in different countries are not taken into account in the tables compared, so it's at very best an incredibly simplistic metric.

Another problem with the comparison is if you look at the examples of Informed Consent offered in the article, the least pressured one, that sounds most like what Nadine Dorries claims her amendment amounts to (voluntary balanced counselling) would be the French example.

Comparing the UK directly to the French is illuminating in this case I believe

Country	Counselling offered	Cooling-off period	Number of abortions	Number of women aged 15-44	Abortion Rate
France	Counselling on Alternatives	7 Days	208, 800	12,282,353	17
United Kingdom	-	-	181,600	10,682,353	17

Interestingly similar  n'est-ce pas?

To be honest I'm still rather mystified by the whole thing. It seems extraordinary to me that an elected MP can make various hugely dramatic claims with no-one really calling her on it, and it not appearing to be based in a solid grounding of facts.. 

I'd still love to see some evidence for this number as what Dr. Peter Saunders posted to me makes little sense of it, or if it is the direct source it's a pretty obvious case of comparing Apples and Oranges, and declaring there are 60,000 pears in the banana grove.

Late Edit:
After I created this blog I tweeted a link to it to Peter Saunders's Twitter account (not sure if he's read this blog. Received another reply, I reproduce both for reference
My Tweet:

@drpetersaunders still not sure as to where this 60k comes from. The article you linked compares mandatory counsellingbit.ly/oOKkEx

His Reply appears to confirm my guesses in this blog to some extent.

@notjarvis Yes it is obviously only an estimate but compulsory counselling is unlikely to be much more effective than voluntary

This seems to me to be an extraordinary statement, especially when an elected MP is repeating this claim regularly. I replied again

 @drpetersaunders Really? I find that hard to believe without some compelling evidence. Especially in systems like Germany's is described. 

I await another reply. Out of interest (again from the Informed Consent article he linked my to),  part of the comparison to create this number is to systems like Germany's which..... (I've added bit in italics).

Germany : [Mandatory] Counselling is designed to protect the unborn life, so the counsellor is required to inform the woman that the unborn have a right to life, and to try and convince her to continue with the pregnancy. The counsellor cannot force this choice on the woman. 

We need Independent Advice for everything

There's currently some discussion in the UK parliament about abortion and the laws covering advice and counselling before abortion.

It's come as a bit of a surprise to me as I thought we in the UK were pretty relaxed about the whole issue of abortion rights etc.

Nadine Dorries MP and Frank Field MP's main current beef is that the charities which perform the procedure also provide advice on options etc. and should be stopped from doing so in favour of "Independent" services. -

Nadine Dorries has criticised the "financial incentive" of the counselling offered by abortion clinics, claiming 60,000 of the annual 200,000 terminations would not take place if women were offered the chance for counselling elsewhere.

She also said

"The important thing is that the government have highlighted and agreed that counselling by organisations that are paid to conduct the procedures is not independent [...] That's very reassuring"

And Mr. Field went as far as to say :

"It is a general principle that advice and services should be separate," [...] I have no evidence of [biased advice]. But we had no evidence of mis-selling of pensions until people investigated." (Guardian)

I suppose the implication is that the charities are pushing more women into abortions to make huge bumper profits for their charity.

Now I would never, ever, go so far as to say that an elected member of our country is smearing an entire sector with vague unsubstantiated innuendo's of downright dishonesty with no evidence.

I'm sure that may be going to far, even if I am a supporter of evidence based policy (which there appears to be not much of around here).

Therefore I'm going to take at absolute face value the suggestion that advice and services must be completely separate.

As a result I've decided to petition the government to make the rules consistent when it comes to treatments offered. As far as I can see it there are plenty of providers who currently provide advice on things that they have a hand in providing.

In order to be fair we need to make it a legal requirement for these things to be treated equally in all cases. I decided to start with dental treatment.

Heres the wording of my petition

It has recently been established in proposed amendments to the health care bill that organisations that are paid to conduct procedures are apparently not independent enough to advise on procedures.

Therefore I propose that all patients of NHS dentists have a legal right to receive counselling and advice independent of the dentist who performs the treatment, before the treatment is performed.

Indeed there is currently nothing to stop dentists proposing unnecessary treatment for patients as they receive money for each piece of dental work completed.

This makes sense and is consistent with other pieces of legislation that are currently being proposed

I think this is a completely logical extension to the proposed amendments, and I look forward to Nadine Dorries's support when the petition goes up.

In fact this should be extended to NHS treatment (performed by all willing providers) when the NHS is remodelled under the current governments NHS legislation. Doubtless, to be completely consistent Nadine and Frank will also fully support my next petition at that point.

If you wish to sign the petition - please look here  - http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/15509

:)

In Which I proclaim the Death of Satire

Tom Lehrer, was famously quoted as saying that political satire died the day Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I never thought satire could be dead, until recently.

I've been trying to think of something vaguely satirical to write on this blog recently, and I failed miserably as I couldn't satirise the ridiculousness of the truth. I think I'm going to have to declare the end of satire as I know it.

Here comes a few examples, of things I tried to think of something funny to think of, but failed miserably as they are far too absurd to start with (apologies in advance as these are a bit UK centric).

1. "Big Society" Tsar quits, as he doesn't have the free time.
   Explanation may be needed here for foreigners and other weirdos. "The Big Society" is the current government's key idea, basically for voluntary organisations and people in general to take more part in helping their local society etc. Which is fine as far as it goes, except most people see it as a thinly veiled way to stop providing local services in the hope people do it for free. And it's generally been an utter failure as people worry more about their jobs than about how they can give back more....
   In a society where people work more than ever before, this is found funny. The fact a person who was championing this idea, had to quit as he didn't have the free time is deeply hilarious.
   
2. ATOS Get's contract to run IT for Paralympic games.
   The IT company ATOS has been in the news here (in the UK) recently as it has been the administrator of "Work Capability" assessments, which are an software based test for determining whether a person claiming Incapacity Benefit is capable of going back to work. (Incapacity benefit is a benefit that goes to people incapable of work, largely through disability, but also possible through severe injury, long term illness etc.)
   The test has been roundly criticised, by many in the press, users of the service, and MPS. Not least because 40% of it's
   decisions are overturned if people appeal.
   Indeed an MP said in Parliament ATOS assessments cause "Fear and Loathing" in claimants.
   
   The absurdity that they are put in charge of a key part of an event that is intended to portray disability in a positive light is quite staggering....
3. Mcdonalds, Pepsico and Diageo take a key role in UK Health policy
   Yup, those bastions of healthy eating form part of the government advisory groups on obesity, and alcohol problems......
   
4. Catholic Church Child protection officer is paedophile....
   I can imagine the conversation in head office before appointing him
   "After the damage that paedophilia scandal has done to the church's image, we'd better appoint a child protection officer to make sure it never happens again.
   Shouldn't we check that he's not a paedophile first?
   A paedophile in the Catholic church? How likely is that?"
   
5. Tory Government Advisor declares (in the midst of recession) that most people have never had it so good.
   Now many people down the years have characterised members of the Tory party as a little out of touch with the common man, being a little posh, or rich. Often this is satirised.............but who needs to when peers like this prat talk utter rubbish.
   
6. Sacked News of the Screws Executives get offered jobs in Siberia
   For your crimes against Journalism Carole Malone, You are being sent to Gulag
7. Of Course it must be noted that Iran recently tried to make their own entry into the satirical comment market when it declared that it wished to send human rights observers to the UK in response to the recent protests. (Although I'm not sure if that should count as I suspect the schadenfreude was strong with this one)

Bad Sci FI

A recent discussion about good sci-fi made me think about the opposite. What blunders have I seen put out on TV which really should have been left behind in the production meeting.

1. Space Precinct - perhaps the ropiest TV show ever. Ropey models. Worse acting. Personal relationships taken from the Big Book of TV/Movie Cliches. I can find little to recommend.
2. Lexx - Perhaps the most innuendo-tastic sexual referenced Sci-Fi (that isn't on the pron shelves). I mean the spaceship looks like a giant Phallus - you know you are off to an innuendo filled start. Most of the plots involved Lust in some form or another. Just felt weird....and was always late night viewing over here. Worth watching while drunk....
3. Tekwar - another ropey production based on a bunch of hacky Sci-fi books supposedly written by William Shatner. I mean - who the $#@! has a Hero called Jake Cardigan. Cardigan??? You may as well have called him Jake Knitwear... The show itself is some rehashed sort of fluffy cyberpunk-esque near-ish future stuff. Nothing particularly inspiring.
4. Robocop the TV series. Yup - it's Robocop for Kids. Seriously - they replaced all his guns with Net shooting weapons and stuff. Was practically unredeemable, except for the OCP adverts that popped up in each episode - they were sometimes funny.
5. Then we've got Alien Nation. A morality play a week 80's TV series about aliens coming down and moving into earth culture. The key characters are two TV cops, who basically, through investigating alien/human crime explore various social ills etc. About as "Right-on" a sci fi series as was ever made IMO. With the possible exception of the next entry.
6. V - the TV series - So many parallels to Naziism it's not funny. Should have really been called "Nazi Lizards from space". Anyone know if the new remake was any good? It's only a couple of quid in the local supermarket.....
7. Not sure if this counts as Sci-Fi - But Dark Skies was a sort of Sub X-files storylined program which dragged every 1970s conspiracy theory into an unholy mess. Got boring quite quickly IMO. Reedemed slightly by the fact it Had Jeri Ryan in it..(7 of 9 from voyager)
8. Highlander The series. Yup a series about that quintessentially 80's film Highlander. Plot (virtually every week). Duncan Mcleod (for he is the central character) has some angst with girlfriend/friend/fact he is immortal. Another immortal turns up who appears hard to defeat. Duncan chats to his confidant (They change through the series). Duncan kills immortal. One wonders why people continued to watch it. At least it wasn't as bad as the Highlander II film I suppose...
9. ALF. Again - I'm not entirely sure if you will class this as Sci - fi, but since the central concept was about an alien living with your Average US family - it counts. It was just an awful run of the mill sitcom. Don't think i'm going to dignify it with more words..
10. Babylon 5 Crusade. I wanted to like this - I really did. But it's overreliance on character development to the exclusion of meaningful plot developments made it pretty boring for. Throw in the poor TV movies he's done, and I I hope J Michael stays away from babylon5 for a while.

Just missing out - War of The Worlds The TV series

Gah.
Sad as I am I will still watch these when they are repeated on TV. Mostly in the hope that they have improved with age - like a fine wine......

While researching this blog I found this excellent bit about the lifetime of Sci-fi shows and why they go bad. It fits X-files and Star Trek TNG to a T - I must say....

The True Face of BP

After reading about how BP aided terrorism. And how its' recklessness spread evil tentacles around the coast. And how BP created the Iraq war...
And how BP led to the creation of the axis of evil.

I thought I'd do some of my own research into BP's evil, to see what other shenanigans they've been up to. So I spent recent weeks comb statements and interviewing literally dozens of people in an attempt to get to the bottom of just how evil BP is, and what other pies they have their hands in. Many people were unwilling to talk to me at all. Others seemed visibly scared and denied everything. Eventually I found a few hardy souls, willing to be quoted on the record, as long as they remain anonymous, as they fear reprisals by BP hit squads (known as the slickest operators in the business).

My first brave source seems to imply the hand of BP behind local UK events

Well. I was waiting for the bus outside Durham prison a couple of weeks ago when I saw a slightly shifty man with curly hair hanging around the gates. It appeared a prisoner was released, and the waiting man hurried over to him. I heard a rather loud whispered conversation involving the words "policeman", "Girlfriend". Then the waiting man handed the Ex-prisoner a long package.

It was only when I saw the news later that I recognised the prisoner as Raoul Moat. And while watching another segment realised the waiting man was actually Tony Hayward - The BP chief executive. There is no doubt in my mind that BP viciously caused these shootings, probably to increase the amount of petrol used by the police during the massive manhunt.

It seems BP have been active internationally too, and have attempted to influence international air travel. I have no idea as to the reasons.....

A few months ago, I was on a long strictly business trip to Iceland, when I had a free weekend, and decided to go camping halfway up the side of a mountain. At the time I did not know it was a volcano.
We were woken in the middle of the night by the sound of a helicopter. My secretary poked her head out of the tent and said there was a helicopter flying over the top of the mountain, and dropping things into it. I took a look, and read the words "beyond petroleum" on the side.

Later when I got home, I saw the volcano Eyehavealolkill (sic.) erupted, causing travel chaos across northern Europe. I knew BP had caused it. For what nefarious purpose, I have no idea.

The last source willing to talk was a professor I have been talking to on and off for years. he had just returned from an expedition to the holy land, and wanted to share his findings with us.... I have cunningly changed the name of the university he works at in order to respect his anonymity......

Hello. I am the emeritus professor of antiquities and archaeology at the University of West Anglia. A recent find in the middle east has been brought to my attention. Digging in the old city in Jerusalem has uncovered new papyrus claiming to be the original book of genesis. In all aspects it is the same as the well known first book of the bible, however it has an addition of two versus in the story of eden, which I will relate to you.Gen.3

[1]Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, `You shall not eat of any tree of the garden'?"

[2] And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden;
[3] but God said, `You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'"
[4] But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die.
[5] For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
[6] Which the serpent followed with "And if you shall eat this fruit, you shall be rewarded with stock options, in the company of BP"
[7] "Furthermore, you shall have a place on the BP board in perpetuity, and the profits ye shall reap will be huge. yeah more massive than the greatest tree in this eden"
[8] So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate.

Authenticity of this document is still unclear, but it seems to imply the reach of BP's evil is greater than previously supposed.

Disclaimer. The article above is intended to be (vaguely) humorous and is entirely fictional. This does not detract from the fact the BP oil spill and explosion is an absolute tragedy, both anenvironmental tragedy and a very human one. The aim of the humour in this post is the hysterical over-reaction to BP in particular since this incident. While I hold no candle at all for BP, I hate hysterical media overreaction.
Disclaimer 2: The other incidents described in this post are only referred to in passing, and in a satirical fashion. Please do not be offended by their inclusion.

also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt617zYAbng...feature=related

Older Internet Humour. Still funny

It has come to my attention that many old humour websites and miscellanea have been missed by much of the the nubile among you. So in an small attempt to enlighten the young and callow in the internets things that made NotJarvis laugh back when he himself was Callow - he has decided to share....

Humour Vids.

• Strindberg and Helium - Miiiiisssseeeerrrrryyyyyy!!!
• Sigh - the Llama song - However, searching for this the other day led me to the awesome Llamas in hats - a couple of short videos which made me giggle.....
• Don Hertzfeldts amazing Rejected, is always worth watching all the way through....
• The stuff on http://www.rathergood.com is always pretty good - but I've always had a soft spot for joel veitch's early "Frightened Boy" animation....
• How the devil did I forget Zefrank? really? Awesomeness throughout, but my favourite vid was the one about the department of homeland security.
• Sigh - to go with the Llama song - check out the badger song. And the football version in time for the world cup.....
• William Shatner sings Common People. (the song by Pulp). Frankly I'd forgot how truly insane this was.... Watch it here....

Blogs/Newsletters

• http://www.b3ta.com/ - B3ta has been going for years. The newsletter is often worth looking through for funny stuff, and their image challenge entries are frequently ripped off for other stuff.

Emails

• Australopithecus spiff-arino. Need any more be said...
• The worlds worst hacker.....
• P-P-P-Powerbook. Thanks Backtrak for linking this gem. I hadn't seen it before......

Uncategorizable

• Amazon Reviews of "Looking For..... The best of David Hasselhoff". This kept me amused as I read ironic comment after ironic comment. A lot of very funny people have reviewed this CD....

Silly Games

• Sometimes you just need the release - so Spank the Monkey...

This Makes No Sense!

I was unfortunate enough to watch The little Polar Bear with my kids this morning. And while they enjoyed the cutesy animations, I found myself nitpicking to the Nth degree about how retarded the plot is, things such as Penguins? At the north pole?, or the fact that the eponymous polar bear at one point floats off on a Iceberg then a barrel and arrives on a tropical island - wait what????!!!

I've since spent the rest of my day musing over retarded children's films, and how they clearly teach our kids about some insane world far divorced from our reality. So without further ado I unveil the

Notjarvis' list of Top Five kids films that contain insultingly stupid plots/devices.....

1. Barnyard - the film. Where a Male Cow trys to get it on with a female cow and.....Wait What???!!!
2. Bee movie - Where the Bees have been able to talk to humans all along, but we just haven't realised yet.....
3. GI Joe - For older kids. At the end of the film the blow up the ice flow which then sinks and kills their base, cos like Ice sinks ya'know?
4. Ice age 3 - Mammoths running around with dinosaurs. Nuff said.
5. The little Polar Bear (discussed above).

Any suggestions for more?

God I'm anal about these things...... :lol: