Climategate, 2

Earlier i wrote that so far the leaked, hacked material from the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU) consisted only of personal correspondences, and no actual criticisms of the data. Turns out there's more than that: climate deniers have now delved into reams of lifted model code to exhume whatever dirt they can find on the methodology. They found juicy bits that really weren't juicy at all. It's fully debunked here (gets kind of technical, you've been warned).

Since i'm officially on break now you can expect more about simple things that make this whole debate silly. Read More......

Fish Stories

Stanley Fish penned a bizarre piece appearing in today's NYT, where he reviews Sarah Palin's biography and praises, of all things, her perseverance. Huh. Sarah Palin abounds with many attributes, but perseverance is not one of them.

What struck me was Fish's underlying assumption in approaching Going Rogue:

My assessment of the book has nothing to do with the accuracy of its accounts...As I remarked in a previous column, autobiographers cannot lie because anything they say will truthfully serve their project, which, again, is not to portray the facts, but to portray themselves.

Emphasis added by me. Fish here cites a ten-year-old column written by himself, which is unsporting but not necessarily invalid. The premise is, at a very elementary level, true. Autobiography is not held to the same standards of objectivity as biography, Fish's counterpoint in the 1999 piece. The caveat is that subjective autobiographies must still conform to objective reality. The "real-life" nature of nonfiction is the primary reason why nonfiction, as a genre, generally sells better than fiction. It's why James Frey billed A Million Little Pieces as a memoir, not a based-on-a-true-story narrative of his alter ego. The integrity of the genre depends on factual accuracy, the only element of autobiography that separates it from full-on fiction.

Palin's memoir, while not riddled with falsehoods, contains a good number of them--some of which go beyond the scope of simple errors of recall. Her claim of Alaskans' libertarianism, for instance, completely ignores the fact that Alaska is the biggest state recipient of federal dollars, per capita. It has almost no basis in reality.

Almost, and here's the genius of Fish's argument. By his logic, Alaskans don't need to be libertarians, they just need to think that they are. Present it in a homey manner full of regionalisms and you've won Fish over. Even if Palin really did spend $150,000 of the RNC's money on designer clothes, as long as she scapegoats an aide convincingly, it doesn't matter. The quality of her autobiography is predicated not on how accurately she presents the facts of her life, but rather how well she sells them.

It's not as though the incentive doesn't exist for Palin to be dishonest. Frey ultimately claimed to embellish the truth because it made a better story, and the same could be said of Going Rogue: it fills the need of a certain demographic to have a representative narrative of its own. These types of 'confirmational autobiographies' contain no room for ideological nuance; their purpose is solely to validate the audiences' preconceived notions about society and, of course, their author/candidate. To take such documents at face value, without context, is to beg to be deceived.

Fish stumbles into this trap by viewing Palin's attributes in subjective isolation, established and evaluated by Palin alone. It's as if a man who slept through the 2008 election was asked to review Going Rogue; he may very well come to the conclusion that it is a masterful portrait of a virtuous politician. But we can judge Palin's traits on more than just how well she "talks the talk." Any quality autobiography must correspond to objective reality, and by omitting context Fish produced a sloppy and incomplete piece of literary criticism. Read More......

Quick hit on "Climategate"

Earlier this week, an IPCC researcher at UBC-Victoria reported that he suffered a break-in that poached a computer from the climate lab.

“They went through my desk drawers. It was bizarre and the only computer that wasn't secured was stolen. It wasn't secured because it was broken. There was nothing on it,” says Weaver.

Of course, this is all a result of the leaked e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, purporting to reveal a conspiracy of scientists perpetuating a global warming hoax. RealClimate has its take on it here:

More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.

Instead, there is a peek into how scientists actually interact and the conflicts show that the community is a far cry from the monolith that is sometimes imagined. People working constructively to improve joint publications; scientists who are friendly and agree on many of the big picture issues, disagreeing at times about details and engaging in ‘robust’ discussions; Scientists expressing frustration at the misrepresentation of their work in politicized arenas and complaining when media reports get it wrong; Scientists resenting the time they have to take out of their research to deal with over-hyped nonsense. None of this should be shocking.

What's more interesting to me is what was not taken in the first place. The hackers had access to reams of raw, unprocessed data. None of it was touched. Instead they went directly for the ad hominem, the personal correspondences. In other words, they lifted the items that have absolutely no bearing on whether or not the data show an overall warming trend since the onset of the Industrial Revolution. So far i've heard nothing that counters this observation. That's because the climate deniers have jack-shit for data. Their effectiveness is predicated solely on their ability to confuse and confound the general public, and i'm sad to say they've been doing too good of a job so far. Read More......

BEARCATS

What a game. That is all. Read More......

Weird Cincinnati: Restaurant Rivalry Gets Bloody

While it seems that i'm eternally doomed to live a block away from the local firehouse, my current living arrangements kindly put me within walking distance of three Indian restaurants: Ambar, Amol, and Apna, all within a hundred feet of each other. Ambar is by far the most popular, which didn't explain why, earlier this September, the owner was shot twice outside of the restaurant.

At the time, we joked that someone from Apna or Amol probably did it. Apparently the CPD actually thinks it could be for real.

"We don't have a rush of - or any - people shot in the face and not robbed. It just doesn't happen," said Cincinnati police Detective Paul Meyer. "I've been doing this for 37 years, and people always say 'I bet you've seen everything.' I've never seen anything like this."

Meyer said it could be "business-related."

It's no news that there's a rivalry between the Indian restaurants. I mean, shit, there are no fewer than eight Indian restaurants (all Punjabi) in the Clifton/University Heights area. Tuesday's TNR gives more details:

“Yes, there’s a competition,” Singh said. “There have been times when I brought in really good chefs from India, helped them get situated legally, you know, just really tried to help them. But then other restaurants would offer my chefs more money to work for them once they got here.”

Prior to the shooting, Singh said his restaurant only endured small-scale crime: one of his employees was robbed at the an ATM inside the restaurant, the building was vandalized and a small fight once broke out between one of his employees and employees from a neighboring restaurant.

Of course, the other eating establishments are keeping mum:

Other restaurants declined to comment on the situation.

“There’s no competition,” said the manager of Apna India.

Likewise, the manager of Amol India said “No, we don’t have any competition.”

Riiight. Anyway, for the time being i'm going to assume Apna and Amol are free of blame, since Apna has a great buffet deal and Amol makes a samosa chaat to die for. They can't beat Ambar's tandoori chicken, which is the best i've had Stateside, hands down. Read More......

Trees

Jeffrey Pine in the Hoover Wilderness.

Quaking Aspen. Aspens are capable of clonal reproduction, spreading through the root system (like grass). A colony of ~47,000 aspens in Utah is often considered to be the largest (by mass), and one of the oldest, organisms on earth. Read More......

Devil's Postpile

In recapping last summer i last left off in Yosemite, at Cathedral Peak. Going backwards in time, el grupo took a day to visit Devil's Postpile National Monument: a geological double-whammy, in that it combines columnar-jointed basalt with glacial striations.

Columnar jointing occurs when a body of magma (molten rock) cools at a generally uniform rate. When things cool they contract, and if they cool uniformly, cracks (joints) will form in a regular, typically hexagonal pattern. The Postpile is right close to Mammoth Mountain, a volcano--there's your magma source.

At a later date a glacier scraped off the top of the columns. Rock fragments embedded in glacier ice can etch "claw marks" on underlying bedrock, and this is how your glacial striations form. Read More......

Cincinnati news, 20 November 2009

- This is a start: Ohio Sues Credit Rating Agencies, "asserting that they provided misleading credit ratings that led to hundreds of millions of dollars in losses for state funds."

- Starbursts! is in Cincinnati (Norwood) to sign her book.

- "The laughter of little children echoed through a Hamilton County courtroom Friday," in what passes for local news 'round these parts nowadays. You can also vote for your favorite turkey, or take the Twilight Quiz.

- More seriously, the Cincinnati Police Department shows it finally knows how to handle shooting someone. Meanwhile, in the comments, Cincinnatians manage to simultaneously place blame on political correctness, African Americans, tasers, the CPD, the media, Welfare, "society," "Godless society," and women. Read More......

Cincinnati Football Roundup

Am writing from Lexington, KY, in the Common Grounds Coffee House. Judging by the difficulty finding legal parking, they're currently locked in a pretty intense parking war with the surrounding businesses. Esteban's a few minutes north, in Georgetown, getting his motorcycle license. The above picture is further southeast in the Red River Gorge, taken two springs ago during a climbing trip. This particular camp ground is accessible only via a two-pitch trad route, and features hundred-foot drop offs on all sides. Definitely solves the noisy neighbor problem.

Last night the blimp was out for the Cincinnati-WVU game. The defensive game was a step up from last week's fracas, which is still pretty troubling, but our offense was damn scary. That Pead call...wow, we got lucky. Pitt's going to be an interesting game, at the very least. Their offensive line doesn't have the sheer weight advantage that UConn used very effectively to batter UC last week, but both UConn and WVU have found a pretty good way to box in our offense and run out our defense. I'm certain Pitt's paying attention.

The rest of this weekend looks pretty uninspiring. Cue the annual collective groan at the BCS' shortcomings.

Speaking of Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, the Bengals-Steelers game this weekend will be one to watch. Since i tend to forget about the NFL, it was a bit of a shock to find the Bengals actually winning games back in October. This game might very well decide the rest of the regular season, and it'll be close. Read More......

2008 Revisited: Stripping delegates! Haircut planting!

Well this is interesting:

Remember the mess that was Florida, Michigan and the earliest Iowa caucus in history?

Turns out some of the complications were orchestrated by the Obama campaign.

In his new book "The Audacity to Win" Obama campaign manager David Plouffe confesses they tried to "box in" Clinton after the Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee decided to strip Florida and Michigan of their delegates as punishment for holding primaries earlier than allowed.

Waaay back in the day i wrote an editorial in the Round Table about this. I don't think i kept a copy, unfortunately. At the time, i wrote things that were pretty much in line with what Plouffe now discloses: Michigan and Florida's delegate-strippings (sounds dirty, doesn't it?) were politically-motivated punishments against DNC bylaws, and worked in favor of Obama to the detriment of Clinton. Both Florida and Michigan favored Clinton, so by excluding them Obama's campaign got a huge boost.

As TPM notes, none of this is "earth-shattering." In hindsight i'm still a bit upset, but not unreasonably so, because Obama is still a politician and what he did is good politics. There are some revelations, however, that really skirt the bizarre:

Among the juiciest [bits] is another Plouffe confession that Obama researchers planted the Edwards $400 haircut story with Politico.

Of that old editorial, i do remember promising not to vote for Obama in the 2008 election. Definitely ate those words. Read More......