Dr Heidi: “Scientist”

“Dr. Cullen, a climatologist with a doctorate from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University” gets interviewed by a self styled ‘science’ reporter for the NY Times.

I found the interview revealing: it looks very much like a poor attempt at damage control. (Emphasis mine unless otherwise noted)

Extract 1:

Q: How did the Weather Channel executives know of you?

A: I think they’d been asking around. They were hunting for a Ph.D. scientist who could explain the science behind climate news. As it happened, my doctoral thesis has a lot of relevance to current affairs. Part of it involved looking at how to use climate information to manage water resources in the Middle East. It’s often said that the next war in the Middle East will be fought over water.

For my thesis, I studied droughts and the collapse of the first Mesopotamian empire — the Akkadian civilization. I was able to show that a megadrought at roughly 2200 B.C. played a role in its demise. I found the proof by examining the sediment cores of ancient mud. When one looked at the mud from the period around the Akkadian collapse, one found a huge spike in the mineral dolomite. That substance is an indicator of drought.

Here’s a tip to those who aspire to be thought of as “scientists”. Scientists understand the difference between ‘indications’ and ‘data’ . They also know the difference between ‘evidence’ and ‘proof’. They never confuse any two of the aforementioned. And they never fail to establish bounds around their assertions or hypotheses. I’ve read the paper(PDF here) (co)authored by Dr. Cullen.

While the paper presents evidence of correlation in time between drought and collapse, there is no “proof” per se as far as I can divine*. I see lots of (quite proper) weasel words and caveats. So I would also remind Dr. Cullen that scientists can tell the difference between ‘correlation’ and ‘cause’. It appears Dr Cullen knew the difference when she authored the paper, but it isn't clear she remembers it now.

*My Caveat: I concede the obvious and non-paper-worthy observation that droughts, in all likelihood, do not make anything easier on any society or culture. Duh.

Extract 2.

Q: What’s the point of knowing this?

A: Because until recently, historians, anthropologists and archaeologists were reluctant to say that civilizations could collapse because of nature. The prevailing theories were that civilizations collapsed because of political, military or medical reasons — plagues. Climate was often factored out.

And yet, indifference to the power of nature is civilization’s Achilles’ heel. I think the events around Hurricane Katrina reminded us that Mother Nature is something we haven’t yet conquered.

O-Kaaaaaaay…..
Now, I am far more ancient than Dr. Cullen, and even I learned in school that ‘nature’ was a major factor in the disappearance of the Anasazi (although we kids just knew them as ‘cliff dwellers’ back then). Perhaps Dr. Cullen is using the term ‘recently’ in terms of a geologic scale?

I only ask, because a quick side trip to the JSTOR archives confirms my childhood memories: in scientific journals, climate/drought shows up repeatedly in the 1940s as one possible factor in the depopulation of cliff dwellings. By the 1970’s, the number of papers published identifying climate/drought as a PRIME factor was growing.

Extract 3.

Q: Rush Limbaugh accused you of Stalinism. Did you suggest that meteorologists who doubt global warming should be fired?

A: I didn’t exactly say that. I was talking about the American Meteorological Society’s seal of approval. I was saying the A.M.S. should test applicants on climate change as part of their certification process. They test on other aspects of weather science.

Wow. Leading and inflammatory question aside, Dr Cullen is doing a little Three Card Monte with the truth in her response. What she wrote (link in original):

"I'd like to take that suggestion a step further. If a meteorologist has an AMS Seal of Approval, which is used to confer legitimacy to TV meteorologists, then meteorologists have a responsibility to truly educate themselves on the science of global warming.

Using the Reasonable Man approach to his statement, what else could “confer legitimacy to TV meteorologists” mean other than “confer employability”?

Consensus Seekers Gone Normal

Instapundit links to an editorial by Anne-Marie Slaughter, Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. In her Washington Post piece, titled 'Partisans Gone Wild' Slaughter laments a lack of “bipartisanship” in the US. When I read her name, I immediately remembered my first experience with Dr. Slaughter’s intellect: she was participating in a roundtable discussion with Victor Davis Hanson and Stephen Steadman on the topic of ‘Preemptive War’ (video and audio links here). It is well worth watching the whole program.

Steadman’s main contribution to the discussion was to make Slaughter seem less obviously outrageous than her arguments would seem on their own. Taking away the outlier Steadman, and dealing only with arguments of Victor Davis Hanson and Anne-Marie Slaughter, it became apparent that Slaughter was incapable of differentiating between the functioning of the real and some other hypothetical organization called the United Nations.

Slaughter essentially asserts that we as a Nation we MUST gain legitimacy for our actions by always making even more attempts to gain UN imprimatur for our actions than we did in our current situation, even though she obliquely acknowledges the uselessness of doing so. Hanson, succinctly disabuses her of that silly notion.

After watching and hearing her on this subject, I concluded that Ms. Slaughter was incapable of deciding when and where to make a stand on anything, much less doing so with any reasonable chance of success: She would seek bipartisan consensus and cooperation from a free range steamroller before she would see the need to simply step out of its way and take control of it.

With the Slaughters of this world, it seems the only principle to stand on is to not stand for anything: to always keep moving the line in the sand.

As to Consensus and Bipartisianship: she is the "girl who cried wolf" too many times.

Update 2008 Hrs: Fixed obvious cut and paste errors

Walk Forrest!... Walk!

or: "A Teachable Moment"

Sort of an "Anti-War" Field Trip I Guess...

Two young Americans march across the country to make a statement. I wonder if they will learn anything? The money quote:

Casale and Israel had hoped that others who opposed the war in Iraq would join them on their 3,000-mile walk from San Francisco to Washington. But since starting off May 21, it's usually just been the two of them.

Do you think they just might pause to wonder 'why'?

It will be interesting to see if the extra press amplifies their message down the home stretch. I keep thinking of the cross-country running scenes in Forrest Gump.

Pentagon Gives Word to Power: Senator Clinton Outraged

Hillary & Co. are in a snit over hearing unpleasant truths.

[Note: I've been quiet on the 'blogging' front for a while for a lot of reasons, the least of which is I'm preparing for my final post(s) on the Air Force's self-destruction. But this was just waaay too much to let go.]

The Offense: A response from Undersecretary of Defense (Policy) Edelman to a demand by Senator Clinton that we start planning and prepare for our defeat:

"Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia,..."

The article further relays that Edelman:

...added that "such talk understandably unnerves the very same Iraqi allies we are asking to assume enormous personal risks.''

A Clinton rep (Philippe Reines) provided these comments in response to Edelman's factual statements:

"Redeploying out of Iraq with the same combination of arrogance and incompetence with which the Bush administration deployed our young men and women into Iraq is completely unacceptable, and our troops deserve far better,''

Now, there are two basic problems with the Clintonian outrage:

First, Edelman's points were factual. Reines comment was inflammatory.

Second, since according to the article, Edelman's response was 'leaked', it follows that Edelman responded in private. If Edelman and DoD wanted the correspondence to remain private, it kind of points to who might find the most benefit from having Edleman's response 'leaked' doesn't it?

Hmmmm. Who might find it most beneficial to leak Edelman's letter?

(Hint: The initials are HRC, though no doubt someone will find time to credit the genius of Karl Rove making it look like a Hillary stunt.)

Sidebar: "Now here is how you could morph Edelman's comments into something more inappropriate:

Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States [with the same combination of arrogance and incompetence demonstrated by Congress in 1975,] will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia,''

Gee, even that isn't too bad.....I suppose because it is still factual.

(Notice I didn't even comment on Kerry's two cents in the article: he STILL doesn't matter)

Let's Get Ready To Rumble

THIS is a huge development in the fight to keep the Air Transport Association from taking defacto control of future air travel and our skies. It is now formally a battle between the dinosaurs and mammals.

Will the entrenched Airline/Airport/Bureaucracy Bloc be able to stem the free market tide and prevent disruptive technology from changing air travel, or will they be forced to adapt or die?

Should be interesting to follow the PR battles.

I'm betting on the most agile in the long run: be they among the most evolved dinosaurs or the strongest mammals.

Bloomberg was a Republican?

Who knew?

Better yet: who cares?

Happy Father's Day Dad

A Pic of My Dad (on the left) in 1958. This is one of the prototype (YH-40 #7) Iroquois "Hueys" on a layover at Bell Helicopter coming back from desert testing and on the way back to Fort Rucker. Dad flew on a lot of the exotic Army helos of the 'nifty-fifties', including all of the Huey prototypes, the U.S.'s first (a Boeing or Lockheed bird-I can't find the pic right now)[Correction 10/25/09- finally found the pic. it was a (should'a known)Sikorsky YH-39] and first U.S. production turbine helicopters (Kaman), and he even survived a hairy in-flight emergency on a prototype Cessna helicopter (I know, I had never heard of one either until he told me about it).

At the time of the photo, he was an 'old' Spec 2, having already done a hitch as a Navy 'plane captain' on PB-4Y anti-submarine warfare aircraft (a flying job in those days) over the Gulf of Mexico during the Korean War (looking for Russkie diesel subs, I guess-kidding! Corpus Christie was a training base) .

About two years after this photo Dad would be out of the Army (Spec 5 pay didn't cover the necessities of a family of 6-going-to-7) and shortly thereafter he would start a career as a "go-to" Tech Rep for Lycoming Gas Turbines: travelling the globe to keep food on the table for what would eventually become a family of eight. His travels included spending most of 1965-eve of '69 (my formative teen years) in Vietnam. He was home most of the time between 69-72 straightening me out. I'm sure his thumbprint is still on my back... and Thank God it is because Heaven knows I needed it.

I remember first seeing this picture a few years ago - right after my Dad passed away. As the oldest of six kids my mind's eye view of my parents is as they were when they were younger and this photo best captures how I will always remember Dad. He had two natural stances his whole life: this one and "Parade Rest".

I didn't think much about the other gentlemen in the photo until my Mom casually mentioned a month or so ago that Dad sure 'loved flying with that pilot'. Well, that got my attention fast. Dad was not too generous with praise when it came to pilots and there were very few he would ever say he 'loved' flying with, so I tried to find out more about the CWO pilot on the right.

The pilot's name is Cliff Turvey, and it was easy enough to find information about him. He was the Army Aviator of the Year in 1959 and was awarded the DFC for some of his flying on the Huey Test Program. He retired as a Major. I made contact with one of his sons, who wrote to tell me Maj. Turvey did one tour of Vietnam and was awarded a second DFC to boot. Like a lot of military pilots, after he retired, he never flew again.

I wonder now if Dad ran into him 'in-country'. I know, I know -- it was a big place and there were a lot of Helo pilots. But there were very few Lycoming Tech Reps, and Dad actually ran into a lot of guys from his early days in the Army. He was based out of wherever the biggest number of helos might be found, so he was usually living in a tent with the (and became "beloved" to him) First Air Cav, but travelled anywhere a helo powertrain might need some TLC.

IMHO, these guys are the 'original' Air Assault Troopers.

Again,

Happy Father's Day Dad!
(updated 7/19/07 to correct some poor sentence structure and clarify some points)

An Open Letter to Trent Lott

Senator Lott,

Caught your statements today on the Senate floor regarding the "Amnesty" bill.

You obviously care more about the harmony of your little "Club Senate" than perpetuating the Civilization that IS these United States.

I will be contributing to the election campaigns of only two Republicans for certain next time around. The beneficiaries will be John Cornyn and whoever runs against you in the primaries.

I will not be alone.

That is all.

Windmill Advocates Tilting at Critics

AKA Bird Cuisinarts Part II (Part 1 Here)

Hat Tip: Instapundit

The numbers below, attributed to the National Research Council have been presented as representing the breakdown of major ‘anthropogenic causes’ of bird deaths, are now flying (no pun intended) around the World Wide Web:

Domestic cats: Hundreds of millions a year
Striking high-tension lines: 130 million - 1 billion a year
Striking buildings: 97 million to 976 million a year
Cars: 80 million a year
Toxic chemicals: 72 million
Striking communications towers: 4 to 50 million a year
Wind turbines: 20,000 to 37,000

How unfortunate.

Unfortunate, because at first look these numbers could be nothing more than, in a word, “crap”. It is particularly unfortunate because to realize they are crap, all one has to do is to simply cogitate for a moment on the numbers as they are presented:

Doesn’t the first number (‘Domestic Cats’) appear particularly vague to the reader? It looks very much like “somebody’s” obvious WAG (Wild A** Guess). Think about it. The expression used represents any number between 200,000,000 and 999,999,999 dead birds. Isn’t that a little ‘broad’ of a number to have come from any meaningful and conclusive research?

About the second, third, and sixth (Striking High-Tension Lines, Buildings, and Communications Towers) numbers : see anything perplexing about the ranges offered? Exactly what should one conclude about any estimate that spans an entire order of magnitude? Think about it - there is enough uncertainty in the numbers provided to consider the very high probability that whoever gathered this ‘information’ didn’t have enough data to actually determine the real numbers. Heck, they couldn’t even determine the scale of the deaths due to these causes.

The fourth ‘cause’ listed is suspect given the weapon (Cars) and the geographical size of the ‘crime scene’ (Roads). Accepting the 80 Million number as a convenient ‘round-off’, how was the data collected and estimate formed? There’s an awfully lot of cars to follow, with thousands and thousands of miles of roads cutting through untold numbers of different ecosystems and bird populations to factor into any estimate. Full Disclosure: I admit I may have been a little more skeptical than some concerning this number, due to my exposure to my Grandfather’s stirring tales of observing and auditing game bird population survey lunacies in Jackson County, Oregon.

Toxic Chemicals. Hmmph.
Nice number. 72 million. Not 70, not 75. Seventy Two.

Fairly specific for a causality :

1. that doesn’t always kill at the point of exposure,
2. with a victim that for what must be an overwhelmingly large, yet unquantifiable percentage of the time probably isn’t even found or subject to a post mortem,
3. with a verifiable sample population that has the cause of death assessed by someone who might be in their line of work due to their inspiration by Rachael Carlson. (my personal skepticism coming out here)

There's not enough evidence to throw out this number without further review by a long-shot I know, but it is definitely a number I would want to investigate before I accepted it much less repeated.

Wind Turbines. A realistic ‘appearing’ range anyway, but from my anecdotal experience it seems..ahem… low. Also given the ‘study’ purpose, might the research have just a 'slight' windmill bias?

Don’t Take My Word For It -- Take the Source's Word For It.
Well I know these numbers are crap, and normally I wouldn’t even bother to investigate how the crap was created in the first place. I would just take the position that if someone else thought I was wrong, then they could go try and prove it. But this information was easy enough get: it comes from the ‘study’ that provided it in the first place. From Pages 50 and 51:


The authors immediately after this admission attempt to make a case that the numbers are still meaningful, but their logic is severely undercut by their own later descriptions of what they see as needed for future research and by what is in their summary at the end. Also, if anyone bothers to read this report/study they should note the authors devote a lot of attention to the far less cute but no less threatened bats. For some reason, there is not just the same outcry over that equally important part of the ecosystem.

So, why don’t we just build us some nice clean nuclear power plants, instead of clogging up our landscapes and seascapes with these ugly windmills, hmmmm?

On a personal note:
1. I’m still waiting for somebody to do an in-depth analysis of the Wind Energy industry’s waste stream.
2. It chaps my cheeks to be on the same side as Teddy Kennedy on any subject, even if he’s on the right side for the wrong reasons.

Associated Press Smearing the Military

Willful Sloppiness: Is That Anything Like Reckless Disregard?

AP Story Lead: “Military veterans in prison are more than twice as likely to have been convicted for sex offenses as nonveteran inmates, federal researchers say. They cannot say why.”

I found this AP article via James Taranto at “Best of the Web Today”. He is all over the study’s so-called ‘findings’ already (eighth item) and it is worth the trip just to read his debunking.

I think he was actually being kind, because he probably could have gone further in his critique. I base this observation on what the reader will find buried towards the end of the original article:

The study found that veterans in prison were older, more educated, more likely to have been married and more likely than nonveterans to be incarcerated for violent crimes or offenses against women or children.

Many of those findings can be explained simply by age demographics, Colby College sociologist Alec Campbell said.

Crime tends to decrease with age so older inmates are more likely serving lengthy sentences. Veterans as a group are older than the general population, so Campbell said it is not surprising to see a higher percentage of veterans imprisoned for violent crimes, which carry longer prison sentences.

Ahem…..
How many of these incarcerated ‘older’ veterans became veterans courtesy of their local draft board?

It seems to me that if one tries to establish differences between the character of veteran and non-veteran populations, one should also establish whether or not there are differences between those who are in one population by choice and those who are compelled to be in the same population only through the force of law.

A quote from Taranto helps to perform a further analysis:

What's more, it's very easy to make the sex-crime disparity vanish.

The sex-crime incarceration rate for veterans is 23% of 630 per 100,000, or 145 per 100,000. The sex-crime incarceration rate for nonveterans is 9% of 1,390 per 100,000, or 125 per 100,000. The veteran rate is only 16% higher than the nonveteran rate.

Thus, if just 20 of those 145 per 100,000 veterans (under 14% of the incarcerated Vets) were draftees, ALL differences between the two groups would disappear.

From what we see in the article, and without further detailed analysis of the prison population, the Vet/NonVet categorization and ‘disparity’ is no more relevant than categorization by eye color.

However, I suspect a more detailed analysis would reveal a story that might never get reported in today’s environment – that those who have served in today’s modern all-volunteer force trend towards much lower percentages for all types of offenders in the prison population – ESPECIALLY if you filter for fraudulent enlistments by bad actors who get past the system (hopefully not as bad a problem today as in my day).

Sloppy by Design

Taranto closes his piece with:

Probably the AP was just being sloppy, but the result was to smear Americans who have served their country in uniform.

As it appears to me, that much sloppiness in one place can only occur as part of a willful act.
The AP didn’t even care to think about the meaningfulness (or meaninglessness) of the data – It was:

1. a headline they wanted,
2. on a subject they wanted to publish, and
3. wanted to publish from a certain angle.

The proof is in how the title: "Study: Imprisoned Military Vets More Likely to Have Sex Crime Convictions Than Others" contrasts with the complete and total of quotes from an author of the study in the article:

"We couldn't come to any definite conclusion as to why,"

"I don't want people to come away from this thinking veterans are crazed sex offenders.

"I want them to understand that veterans are less likely to be in prison in the first place."

IMHO the AP owes veterans yet another apology

Q: Why Stealth? A: IADS & SAM Traps

Exhibit A

Defense Tech has a great new post up with a video clip showing a SAM Trap back during the Desert Storm days.

Life is far more pleasant when it is hard for your enemy to find you and see you.

JASSM: Son of TSSAM

Dang it! TSSAM is still getting me in hot water.

I'm going to catch heck from my fellow TSSAM Alums for mistyping TSSAM as TASSM over at Defense Tech . My bad, but I claim extenuating circumstances of fatigue and phonetics: We used to pronounce the acronym as either "T-Sam" or "TAZ'em".

By way of amends, and as a partial explanation, here's some rarely seen (but not rarest) TSSAM patches, and I throw myself at the mercy of the TSSAMers.

(Note to the general public: Trust me, that is all one can do. Flight/Weapons Testers eat their young.)

Kettering & Logic vs. Goldberg & Kitsch

"Breath of the Beast" has a great post up - a little bit of history with a lot of common sense.

We Win They Lose

What a great concept!

Now, where else did I see this strategy recently? Hmmmm....Oh Yeah - Here

Godspeed, Robert Rosenthal

"Robert Rosenthal, a World War II bomber pilot who twice survived being shot down in raids over Europe and later served on the U.S. legal team that prosecuted Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg, has died at age 89."

Deep in the Obituary:

"A human being has to look out for other human beings or there's no civilization..."

Rest in Peace Sir. A lot of people still feel that way.