Perhaps this kind of research isn’t done, or if it has the results are tucked away in some dark place, because the results would be too terrifying to contemplate.

Teachers “compulsory packages.”
Training Colleges Closed : Teacher, Nursing, Trades apprenticeships – .
Hospitals, NGO’s, shut down.
Special Police Units – morphed into one of illiterate Saps in abundance.
Eskom skilled technicians “packages.”
Parliament: Whites winge – welcome to leave ! SKills exit.
ANY ?
New structures : Schools, Hospitals, Dams, Roads, Universities, Power Plants and basic HUMAN NEEDS !

Old folks: Put baby against pillows, on side to break wind and any vomit will fall away. Became “old fashioned.”
“Babies must sleep on their stomachs.” “Cot Deaths” Mothers jailed for “smothering” baby. Dammit – Babies suffocate with VOMIT in the nose !

Old folks: Body knows what it needs.
Coffee, wine, oil, carbs, fat to name a few – are bad for you. ALL have since been “re-quantified” re-assessed – essential to well being. Spoil sports.
MEDITERRANEAN longevity – Oil, pasta, wine !

Old folks: Garlic is good for you; prevents disease. (Also evil spirits.) Smell offensive – avoid.
NOW? Anything bad for humans, you can name – Immune booster is Garlic !

Ja – Scientists know best and nullify everything proven over decades and centuries. Everything that is ghastly to the palate is “recommended.”
Ja – In RSA everything that can be diverted from the poor to the newly privileged, connected – will be diverted or “halted.”

It is much, much harder to deal with qualitative data, because it is that much more open to interpretation and hence manipulation by the person who does the interpreting.

I therefore have absolutely NO confidence in any statistic (quantitative, qualitative, emotive or otherwise) presented in the media or by politicians. I simply have no faith in their professional integrity (especially in the face of the absence of any review process).

They have a product to sell. And they will do anything to sell it. They all have my vote of no confidence.

Emotions are the most beautiful energy and TOOLS we have. They cannot lie like some politicians and journalists do regularly. They stay true.

I would like to think readers – and specifically commentators – of Thought Leader would expect bloggers to be meticulous in their writing, combining rhetorical skills with linguistic dexterity in pursuit of accurate meaning and try to prevent ambiguity. Besides, discombobulated has such a delightful rhythmic poetry to it?

You would be interested, of course, to know that the word also formed the root of a new word coined by British psychiatrists to describe a now-recognised mental condition characterised by feelings of acute anxiety triggered by being unable to connect to the wired world and specifically the Internet. I jest not! Research findings indicate that nearly half of all Britons report such feelings including isolation, disempowerment, fear and so on. The scientists coined the term “discomgoogolation” (http://bit.ly/5iJb7) to describe the condition.

As an obviously erudite commentator, Dick, you’d immediately recognise the oddity in referring to Google, but spelling it “googol” which, as you know, is 10 to the power of 100.

Quaint, ain’t it, mate? Ta f’readin’,'ey!