Six things Americans should know about mass shootings

Posted on 2016-06-19 by arjaybe

Here’s an article written last December by Professor Frederic Lemieux, then updated this June after the worst mass shooting yet in US history.  In it he discusses six misconceptions and misdirections associated with these shootings, and gives us the straight facts about them.  The original article is not too long and is written in plain, clear language.  Follow the link below and read it for yourself.

… mass shootings and gun ownership rates are highly correlated. The higher the gun ownership rate, the more a country is susceptible to experiencing mass shooting incidents.

The type of gun law adopted has important impacts. Countries with more restrictive gun licensing laws show fewer deaths by firearms and a lower gun ownership rate.

Source: Six things Americans should know about mass shootings

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Write a Review

Posted on 2016-06-14 by arjaybe

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This is awkward, asking for help when you’ve already done so much. You’ve already helped me more than you know just by downloading my books, and even more by all the encouragement you’ve given me. Some of you have even gone to the trouble of dropping a comment on the Green Comet website. So, thank you, and you should feel no obligation to do any more.

Even so, it might be the case that some of you wanted to do more, but didn’t know how. Or it might not have occurred to you that there was anything you could do. If that is the case, then I should be letting you know that there is something. In the years I’ve been doing this experiment — writing stories and giving them away to see what happens — I’ve learned a few things. I’ve learned that people expect a nice cover. They expect some extra information around the story, like blurbs and synopses, and even something about the author. I’ve gradually done all that and it’s getting better all the time.

There’s one thing I can’t do for myself, though. I’ve learned that people also expect reviews. Of course, there is some of that on my own website, and there is one review on the Green Comet page at Internet Archive. But there’s nothing on the sites where the book was uploaded by Pronoun. (If you go there you will see that I was required to set a price for the book. I also made sure to point out that it’s Creative Commons, though.) So, if you want to help me even more, and you have the time and inclination, you could go to one or more of these sites and post a review. It will help the book look more legitimate. Even a one-liner would be enough.

Thank you for all you’ve done, and I certainly don’t expect any more. But if that is your wish, then here are the sites.

Amazon
iTunes
Barnes and Noble
Google Play
Kobo Books

rjb

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X Times More

Posted on 2016-06-08 by arjaybe

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Grammar of the Day – X Times More

Here’s another one that bothers me: people saying X times more when they mean X times as many/much. For instance, if I have ten cherries (Mmm. Cherries) and they have thirty cherries, they’ll say, “I have three times more than you.” No. They have two times more. If they had three times more then they’d have forty cherries. That would be ten plus three times more equals forty.

I understand the logic of the error. Thirty is more than ten and thirty is three times ten, therefore thirty is three times more than ten. It’s an easy mistake to make. But let’s change the numbers and see what happens. Let’s say I have ten cherries and they have fifteen. Do they have one and a half times more? What if I have ten and they have ten. Do they have one time more? How about if I have ten and they have five? Does that mean they have one half more? By their logic less would equal more. The language leads to confusion.

They have an out, though. They just change the language at equality. At ten they say “same as,” and below ten they say “less than.” But they have to do some mental gymnastics to do it. They might say that five is one half less than ten, but then why wouldn’t they say that fifteen is one half more? Or they might say that five is one half as much, but then why wouldn’t they say that fifteen is one and a half times as much?

The inconsistency and the potential for confusion bother me, but I don’t see much hope for a return to good language. It’s too ingrained by now. You see it everywhere. I’ll just have to adapt to stay out of trouble. When my bicycle tire is at twenty PSI and they say I need two times more, I’ll have to remember to pump it up to forty PSI and not sixty.

rjb

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