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dr_pretentiousWhen I saw that collision of headlines in the subject line of an email, my first thought was, "It must have been one really noisy bird species." I was almost disappointed to notice that only a news aggregator's carelessly used comma created the appearance of a causal relationship.
Only later, when I glanced at my email on my laptop (my Droid had cut off the long subject line before it rambled to its conclusion), did I realize that the full sequence was: "Improving Monday Mornings, Bird Goes Extinct in Madagascar, Acupuncture Study Shows Scientific Reason for Effectiveness." So then I got to amuse myself by imagining the experimental group, all spiky with acupuncture needles, subjected to recordings of the extinct bird's jarring morning song only on Monday mornings, while the control group had to undergo the same ordeal on other days of the week.
Why, no, I haven't read the actual articles that go with those headlines. I like my version better.
Only later, when I glanced at my email on my laptop (my Droid had cut off the long subject line before it rambled to its conclusion), did I realize that the full sequence was: "Improving Monday Mornings, Bird Goes Extinct in Madagascar, Acupuncture Study Shows Scientific Reason for Effectiveness." So then I got to amuse myself by imagining the experimental group, all spiky with acupuncture needles, subjected to recordings of the extinct bird's jarring morning song only on Monday mornings, while the control group had to undergo the same ordeal on other days of the week.
Why, no, I haven't read the actual articles that go with those headlines. I like my version better.
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Date: 2010-06-08 04:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 07:47 pm (UTC)I like your version, although I think that the control group might instead have Monday morning acupuncture without the jarring bird song. This way Monday morning acupuncture can be directly compared to Monday morning acupuncture (with the jarring birdsong being the variable). How much does acupuncture improve a Monday morning anyway? I'd believe it improves a Monday morning quite a bit.
In further news...
Date: 2010-06-15 03:33 am (UTC)While surfing for odd news (I occasionally do this when bored or seriously procrastinating), I came across the above headline from USAToday and was reminded of your tales of the Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump from back in the days of yore.... It wasn't juxtaposed with anything, but the reminder made me chuckle.