Comments on: Lies, damn lies and lawyers’ use of statistics

By: Jezery

Jezery — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 01:24:14 +0000

I was impressed with this headline from NT News
Sensational shooting sees Dyer crowned king of NT Queens

Wtf? Gay Politics Killer On Loose?

Oh dear, as a member of the Darwin Rifle Club, I can’t let that one pass without some explanation.

Queen Victoria in 1860 inaugurated the Queens Prize in an attempt to raise the standard of marksmanship following the Crimean War. In Australia, the states formed individual Rifle Associations soon afterwards, with each hosting their own Queens Prize.

The 2008 NT Queen’s Prize shoot was held from 5-9 June. Bob Dyer is a veteran shooter who performed extremely well to beat competitors from every state in Australia and from New Zealand. As well as Bob winning A grade, Darwin shooters also took out B grade and C grade, so as a club, we’re all pretty pleased with ourselves.

(My own performance was less than remarkable – I only just missed out on the wooden spoon in my division to a man who is legally blind)

By: Pappinbarra Fox

Pappinbarra Fox — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 06:13:40 +0000

If you had included a picture of a crcodile that might have improved your chances of being printed.

By: NPOV

NPOV — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:02:55 +0000

I doubt it’s an issue of keeping attention away from what governments are doing – apathy already does that job quite nicely. I suspect it’s just political reality that fear is about the greatest vote-changer. What governments need is for people to vote for them, hence more often than not the most successful political parties are the ones that best play to people’s fears.

By: Woodsy

Woodsy — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:08:31 +0000

I have a theory that all governments want the plebs to live in fear – fear of terrorists, fear of disease, fear of local gangs – anything to keep attention away from what governments (of all complexions and persuasions) are actually doing. The media contribute by focussing on trivia (petrol prices, meaningless statistics, celebrities) and exacerbating the problem by not printing anything using polysyllabic words and not understood by anyone with a reading age below nine. I thought for a brief moment about sending my response to the discussion paper on climate change but, on reflection, being rejected by the NT News editors (because they couldn’t understand anything that doesn’t contain the word ‘basically’) is too awful to contemplate.

By: FDB

FDB — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 06:25:01 +0000

Moderated.

Also, forgot to warn about my link being to a .pdf – sorry!

By: FDB

FDB — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 06:22:47 +0000

From Jacques' link: "Unfortunately we had one a few weeks ago but even with that unfortunate incident we're still historically the lowest period we're probably ever had as far as I can remember." So he can't remember 2003 or 2004?

By: Jacques Chester

Jacques Chester — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:39:55 +0000

I reckon the NTG will try to take credit for the falling murder rate in Alice Springs. Except that ...

By: rf

rf — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:38:43 +0000

Premier Rests on Laurels While Labrador Puppies Strangled

Thanks FDB, I just snorted my lunch through my nose!

By: NPOV

NPOV — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:05:03 +0000

I thought Giuliani took a fair bit of the credit for the fairly dramatic reduction in NY crime in the late 90′s – and reasonably deservedly, it would seem.

By: Francis Xavier Holden

Francis Xavier Holden — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 03:58:17 +0000

I was impressed with this headline fro mNT News Sensational shooting sees Dyer crowned king of NT Queen's Wtf? Gay Politics Killer On Loose?

By: FDB

FDB — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:29:34 +0000

Also of course it’s the “you can always do more”… “any crime is too much crime”… blah blah blah

Well yeah, but you can always do less, too. Should we do more? This must be coherently argued and the benefits weighed against the costs. Much easier to mouth whatever platitudes come to mind about defenseless grannies and binge drinking youths, and quietly go about the business of running an adequate police force as best you can (with the exceptions, caveats and bribery that will always entail).

By: FDB

FDB — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:24:25 +0000

“What amazes me is that no politician wants to take credit for this, anywhere!”

That’s the way crime works though SL. Nobody wants to say “crime’s not a huge problem” because there WILL be a horrible crime committed in the day or so following, and they’ll look heartless.

“Premier Rests on Laurels While Labrador Puppies Strangled”

By: Francis Xavier Holden

Francis Xavier Holden — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:09:28 +0000

Tony Delroy ABC local does a whip around of the state newspapers each night around midnight. The Territory paper is notable for the way the reporters woodenly read out the articles word for word, making for a very stilted radio presentation.

Last night the usual whip around from the states covered headline stories such as vehicle manufacturing, fuel prices, fraud, politics, nuclear free etc etc .

Then we get to NT. Lead stories only two. One is the story of a snake in a bike shop – nothing happened. Then a story of a cane toad who survived being eaten by a dog. End of major news in NT.

I can hardly wait until my trip to Darwin in early August to experience the excitement and sophistication first hand.

By: Ken Parish

Ken Parish — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 10:29:48 +0000

The DOJ figures are at the bottom of the post. The Lawrence article was never online AFAIK (and Peter Murphy’s column also isn’t put online AFAIK).

By: Chris lloyd

Chris lloyd — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 10:20:19 +0000

Thanx Ken, Any chance of a link to the Lawrence article as well as the NT Department of Justice figures?

BTW: I am currently involved in a project measuring the effectiveness of in-house legal teams. Call it a statistician’s revenge.

By: skepticlawyer

skepticlawyer — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 09:25:32 +0000

Crime rates have been falling all over the developed world since about the mid-90s. Maybe the NT was a bit behind the global trend but I’m not sure. What amazes me is that no politician wants to take credit for this, anywhere! They still keep running on ‘Laura Norder’ platforms and inducing moral panics about rising crime despite the fact that the opposite holds true.

I hope your letter gets a proper run, but like Jacques, I think you’ll be lucky if it does.

By: Jacques Chester

Jacques Chester — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 08:58:50 +0000

Good luck with that, but don’t hold your breath. The best-case scenario is that they’ll ask you to expand this into an op-ed to fill up space in the Sunday Territorian. Most likely they’ll butcher your prose and argument into something unrecognisable and print it in letters on Thursday.