Monday, November 7, 2005

Recommended Reading

Harper's Magazine has an interesting article up: A History of the Iraq War Told Entirely In Lies.

(For what it's worth, for reasons I'll explain at greater length here one of these days, I am not comfortable with the use of the word "lie" to describe any statement that eventually turns out to be untrue. "Lie" connotes deliberate deception and I suspect that some or all of the false assertions and reports fall into the slightly different categories of exaggeration, selective reporting, believing stuff that more competent people would have known was bogus, and encouraging others to tell you what you want to hear. None of this is wholly forgiveable, especially when it amounts to passing the buck to unnamed others who also will not be held accountable. But it's not all a matter of "lies.")

Also, over in The New Yorker, this article by Jane Mayer discusses CIA interrogation that turns into arguable murder.

• Posted at 10:11 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

Slate has up a little essay (with plenty of examples) by Chris Suellentrop on Calvin and Hobbes. A nice bit of commentary.

• Posted at 3:41 PM · LINK

Weather or Not

As I think I've mentioned, I have some interest in the science of weather forecasting and in observing how the folks who do it do it. We have a fascinating (to me) situation looming for Southern California for Tuesday into Wednesday. Here, the main method of figuring out if it's gonna rain or shine is by use of two computer models that track satellite data in various ways and project what's going to happen. One is the NAM and one is the GFS. NAM stands for "North American Mesoscale Model" and GFS stands for "Global Forecast System." Others are used but 95% of the time, those two tell the story.

Ordinarily, they are in rough agreement and as they get closer to the time period in question, they converge on one another. If the NAM says it's going to be 70 and the GFS says it's going to be 74, the forecast will generally be for 72...though sometimes, human beings look at the projections and decide that one or the other is the more accurate and will give it more weight. Usually, they're pretty close when you're looking 24-36 hours ahead.

Not this time. In a rare lack of convergence, the NAM is currently projecting a huge rain storm beginning late Tuesday and lasting into Wednesday with rainfall totals in the 1-2 inch category. That's a lot for Southern California this time of year and it would probably cause mudslides and flooding, especially in the burn areas of the mountains and outlying areas. On the other hand, the GFS is saying that the storm in question will turn into a cut-off low and remain off-shore for a few days, dumping most of its energy out there, spinning off small impulses. That would lead to a small (20-30%) chance from late Tuesday through about Friday afternoon.

To make matters more confusing, the two models have swapped points of view in the last few days. On Saturday, the GFS was projecting what the NAM now projects and vice-versa. Lately, instead of coming together, each is stubbornly sticking to its guns.

As of this moment, the National Weather Service is going with the GFS projection but cautioning other folks in the weather business that confidence is low and that a sudden change could be necessary. Let's see if they made the correct call. Despite the way we all wail and curse their profession when they're wrong, they're usually right.

• Posted at 3:17 PM · LINK

Today's Political Thought

Here are some snippets from various news stories I've read this morning. See if you can find a logical connect...

• "President Bush declares 'We do not torture.'"
• "Over White House opposition, the Senate has passed legislation banning torture."
• "With Vice President Dick Cheney as the point man, the administration is seeking an exemption for the CIA."
• "It was recently disclosed by the Washington Post that the CIA maintains a network of prisons in eastern Europe and Asia, where it holds terrorist suspects."
• "George W. Bush's administration ordered an internal inquiry into how classified data was leaked to The Washington Post and Human Rights Watch, a New York-based group."
• "The Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider a challenge to the administration's handling of military tribunals for foreign terror suspects."
• "Bush has urged swift confirmation of his nominee Samuel Alito, an appeals court judge, to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court."
• "In his lower court decisions, Alito has generally been deferential to government."

So let me see if I have this straight: We have to find out whoever it was who revealed that we do torture, but of course we don't torture but we still oppose legislation that says we can't torture...

• Posted at 9:24 AM · LINK