Daily Archives: February 19, 2005

KidSafe Playhouses – Safety First.

Edward, a friend who builds Kidsafe Playhouses for Children, had this to say about his playhouses (scroll down for pictures):

Children need a place for imaginative play. It develops creativity, socialization and encourages exploration of ideas. If that place is unsafe and a child gets hurt they will not want to use it (and thus money wasted). Furthermore, play is most developmental if it is interactive with other children. A safe playhouse means a child can invite friends over and all parents can rest easy. Developing friendships and interaction involved is a major stepping stone in the development of the child. My playhouses also encourage parents and grandparents to participate in the play since all are built with an adult door. It is hard to come for “tea” if the only entrance is 4ft tall and only 18 inches wide.

Properly constructed playhouses can be used for many, many years. With the adult door it can be used for winter storage. As the child grows it can be a quiet place for a teen to study. When the child finally out grows it, as a young adult, it can become a potting shed, a sewing room or even just a place to display a collection. In fact the dressing up of the playhouse can occur though out its use by children. Imagine a spooky haunted house, or place to hold a child’s thanksgiving feast suitably decorated with corn stalks, Indian Corn, Squash and anything else the parent and child can think of. Maybe Santa’s workshop for a Christmas theme, at 8 x 10 feet (and low to the ground) two strings of holiday lights will do all of the roof edges, windows doors and maybe more. Valentines Day, St Patties and Easter are also possible with in the attention span of child given the small size of the playhouse.

However none of this means anything if the playhouse is not designed for children or worse yet not safe for them.

Click here for an article Edward wrote for the July 24, 2004 issue of Construction Guide (reprinted here with the Author’s permission).

If you are interested in the KidSafe Playhouses, leave an email address in the comments and Edward will get back to you.

Welcome G as in Good H as in Happy Readers. Belated welcome Anchoress readers.


Playhouse


Safe Corner Detail


Loft Detail

8/18/05 – new pictures here

The Left's Failure to Acknowlege the Dangers of the False Negative

Most of us have heard of false negatives and false positives in the context of medical diagnoses. Diagnostic tests are never fool proof and determining which side a test should err on is often the most crucial factor. For instance a false negative in an HIV test can have devastating consequences. If the test is negative, but is wrong, the patient goes on to infect potentially countless others. On the other hand a false positive no doubt will leave the patient terrified for awhile, but the consequences pale in comparison.

Now consider “diagnosing” international threats to the US based on the best available intelligence. The discourse from the left following the Iraq war was focused exclusively on Bush being “wrong” about Saddam posessing WMDs at the time of the invasion. Forget for the moment the argument that Jack the Ripper isn’t any less dangerous simply because he tosses his dagger in the trash bin. Blinded by partisan politics and comforted by the wisdom of hindsight, the left has completely ignored the dangers of the false negative Bush was forced to confront before he decided to attack. The false negative results in the unthinkable. So the left chose not to think about it.

Rather than engaging in meaningful debate regarding the degree to which we should err on the side of the false positive and the level of proof required to make the decision to use force, the left was content to sit back and accuse Bush of dishonesty. The left also dipped into their trusty bag of utopian tricks and side stepped the issue by creating the UN magic bullet. As for how much evidence the Democrats say we would have needed to make the tough call we will never know. We only know that whatever evidence Bush (and Clinton, Putin and the rest of the world’s intelligence community for that matter) had, it wasn’t enough.

Why is this relevant now? After all, that’s water under the bridge. Unfortunately the dangerous waters keep flowing and again we’re faced with the very real potential of a terrorist-sponsoring state – Iran – developing nuclear weapons. No matter how much the intelligence gathering is improved it will never be fool proof. It will be wrong again. For now Bush appears willing to acquiesce to calls for the UN magic bullet. However, the time may once again come when a tough decision must be made. Should the left again engage in partisan hackery instead of serious, meaninful debate and Bush is forced to make the decision alone, at least we can take comfort in the fact that he will err the right way.

You Think That's Bad??

Hearing Kos and other lefty blogs expressing outrage and demanding Brit Hume’s resignation over Hume’s take on Roosevelt’s vision of Social Security shows just how cushy those on the left have had it in their nice comfy liberal media cocoon. It’s debatable whether Hume even misquoted him, yet some on the left find this single statement intolerable, even calling Hume a “liar”. Update: Bill at INDC Journal also has a good analysis of the alleged misquote.

It brings to mind the standard war movie scene where the fresh faced soldier, wincing at every sound of distant gunfire, is juxtaposed to the battle hardened sergeant who walks across the battlefield unflinching as bombs go off within yards of him.

You think that was a misleading statement son? C’mon man, pull yourself together. You’ll never last out here if you melt down over something like that. We see stuff worse than that each and every day. Why back a couple of months ago we were facing a real tough battle. One of our boys Rumsfeld was taken down pretty hard. They quoted two sentences from a lengthy statement of his and completely turned it around on him. Worse yet, he was taking multiple hits from all sides. Over and over and over again, the same misquote just kept coming in. Yup, Rummy hung tough and made it through though. We were mad as hell, but did you hear us whining about resignations.

Heck if everybody who participated in that one resigned, we’d have no mainstream media left. Now there’s a thought.

mm-5