Defund Planned Parenthood</

[ghoti_mhic_uait]

Now, I'm sure it's a very worthy aim. I'm sure that the US tax dollar would be better spent on education or healthcare. However, I have to wonder about this article.

Firstly, it's overly reactive. It's playing to an audience, sure, but it's also invoking Godwin's law, which seems a stupid thing to do if you've right on your side. It's unconvicning, whereas I'm sure it could be convincing.

Secondly, do Planned Parenthood really hand out bad condoms deliberately, or do they just give out mediocre ones because they're cheaper? I know that Family Planning CLinic condoms break a lot, but noone claims they do it deliberately. I'm sure that this is a case of incompetence rather than maliciousness.

Thirdly, surely the problem with Planned Parenthood is exactly the problem with other similar organisations - they don't give out enough information? I don't really know, I just know that it's something people froth at the mouth over, but that's the impression I got. They don't say 'this has this percentage failure rate and this has these, and here are the pros and cons'. Is that not the case?

(I'm writing this here so as to get a balanced view, so please don't jump down my throat saying 'PP aren't evil! Look, they do these good works'. I'm becoming aware of that. I genuinely want to know.)

Comments

[pling.livejournal.com]

US billion = 1000 million, ie 1,000,000,000
UK billion = 1 million million, ie 1,000,000,000,000

[http://users.livejournal.com/_kent/]

This is old information. The UK adopted the short scale billion (1,000,000,000) in 1974, to be used in all official statistics. The rest of Europe uses the long scale billion (1,000,000,000,000), though France and Italy used the short scale in science since the 1600s, converted mostly over to the short scale for most purposes in the 1800s, before officially moving back to the long scale (in the 1960s for France, and the 1990s for Italy).

ones / thousands / millions / billions / trillions

[ringbark.livejournal.com]

It's not American domination that has caused a billion, pretty much globally, to be a thousand million rather than a million million, but that it's a much more useful number.
Population of the earth: approximately six billion...much more convenient than six thousand million
Assets of the C------ Building Society: approximately four billion pounds...much more convenient than four thousand million
And if some number is so large that you do need to use the other one, then you can use the "American" trillion.

Re: ones / thousands / millions / billions / trillions

[http://users.livejournal.com/_kent/]

The genesis of the "American" billion comes from Renaissance scholars in France and Italy. It is not, however, true to say that it is a matter of convenience, since the long scale contains a number equivalent to the "American" billion, the milliard.You will hear a billion refered to as a yard in money markets, as a slang term that is derived from "milliard."


Even more entertainingly a thousand long-scale billions are called a billiard.