Hi John,

Let us say I'm an attorney and I win a particularly difficult case, one that not many people could win, but none the less I follow all of the rules and I win. I would expect you to say, congratulations, that was a good win. It doesn't make me an overall terrific attorney, but it gives me one case that I won, where most people had little success.

In real life some years ago I handled arbitration cases where one insurer argues cases against another insurer. An arbitration committee reads the case materials and then decides who wins. In one year out of 99 cases I presented, I won 98.

Now let us discuss your logical thoughts. The scientists have developed a set of rules in which predictors must follow. Yours truly follows them to the letter. Yours truly makes a perfect prediction. But for some strange reason, you cannot say, "that was a good call." Or something along those lines. No, you want me to develop a track record so you can decide if overall I am a good predictor. I may well be, or not, I've had some good hits along the way, but I sure am not going to deliver one good prediction after another to be met with silence. Its a lot like hitting home runs, but there is no applause. See what I mean. Where is the encouragement to continue? I don't see it.

I suspect I don't see it because I haven't created some kind of home brew equipment or some phony computer program that I claim delivers the answers. Sure I could spice it up and say something like, "my primary indicators are up and it looks like so and so is going to happen and its looking promising so I'm saying there's a 96% chance of it occurring." But I can't do that to please people or say what they want to hear, I live by the truth and I'm not changing for you guys.

Am I annoyed, you bet I am. You make the rules and I follow them, but you can't possibly acknowledge that I did it correctly and the results are correct, can you?

So if perfect is not good enough for you, then why should I waste my time showing you more of perfect? I'll leave you to do what you enjoy the most, pointing out that some else here doesn't follow the rules and you'd rather spend time telling that person about it than giving me two minutes of your time.

So while this soap opera continues, the Sun will rise and shine and I'll be working on grocery store safety. That at least has some chance of success.

Petra