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You are here: Home / Those Aren’t The Droids You’re Looking For

Those Aren’t The Droids You’re Looking For

by John Cole|  June 9, 20059:25 am| 28 Comments

This post is in: General Stupidity

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Yesterday we discussed the fact that the White House has a oil company hack redacting and editing scientific reports, thereby ‘solving’ the global warming problem for the Bush administration.

Last night, it was reported that the Army is going to miss its recruiting goals for the fourth month in a row, this time falling short by 25 percent, but even that was artificially low because they had fudged the numbers:

The recruiting statistics appear to bear that out. Officials said Wednesday that although the Army will not release its numbers until Friday, it fell about 25 percent short of its target of signing up 6,700 recruits in May. The gap would have been even wider but for the fact that the target was lowered by 1,350.

Clearly this is a big problem, so it is no surprise that the White House and the DoD have already been working on a solution:

The Army and Marine Corps, as they struggle with recruiting shortfalls, will no longer announce their monthly recruiting numbers at the beginning of each month.

Instead, the Defense Department will approve the release of recruiting statistics for all four services.

Normally, each service releases its monthly statistics at the beginning of each month, but a spokesman for Marine Corps Recruiting Command said on Wednesday that he was no longer authorized to do so.

In April, the Corps missed its contracting goal by 260 contracts

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Previous Post: « Recruiting Woes
Next Post: Generic Good Economic News »

Reader Interactions

28Comments

  1. 1.

    Birkel

    June 9, 2005 at 10:51 am

    Have you read Tom Maguire’s efforts on the global warming story? Yeoman’s work, it seems to me.

  2. 2.

    von

    June 9, 2005 at 10:52 am

    Linked with approval at ObWi (apologies, I’m having trouble accessing the trackback feature).

  3. 3.

    John Cole

    June 9, 2005 at 11:10 am

    Yes, Birkel- I saw the patented ‘Democrats Did It First’ defense at Tom’s.

    That defense is always a crowd pleaser. Just a side note- if the Clinton’s were wrong with their hysterical reports, nothing would happen. If we are wrong with our edited science, we are fux0red.

  4. 4.

    JonBuck

    June 9, 2005 at 11:23 am

    The Bush Administration’s response to bad news is to plug its ears and hum really loud. This is not how you solve problems. This is a farce that will cost us dearly.

  5. 5.

    neil

    June 9, 2005 at 11:33 am

    Question: Are ‘Democrats Did It First’ and ‘It’s Ok If You’re A Republican’ actually two sides of the same coin?

  6. 6.

    Tom Maguire

    June 9, 2005 at 11:38 am

    Well, I don’t know if I was using the “Democrats Did It First” defense, or the “Everybody Does It”defense – the notion that scientific research and the reporting thereon just happens, in a sterile environment pure from all politics, is absurd.

    While we live in a world where there are limits on research budgets, venues for publication, and mechanisms for recognition, choices will be made about which science gets done, and people will complain that politics interfered.

    And in an update, there is at least a *possibility* that Rick Piltz, the fellow the Times is relying on, is a former Clinton/Gore staffer who moved into the USCRG in 1994.

    Quite a story – “Former Gore staffer criticizes Bush”.

    RE: Just a side note- if the Clinton’s were wrong with their hysterical reports, nothing would happen. If we are wrong with our edited science, we are fux0red.

    Are you worried that the pro-Kyoto side is not able to make its voice heard?

    And as to “nothing would happen”, isn’t that only true because Clinton himself was ignoring Kyoto and refusing to submit it for rejection?

  7. 7.

    Rick

    June 9, 2005 at 12:51 pm

    Well, *finally* a distinguished guest arrives at Balloon-Juice.

    Good to see you, Tom! You’re arrival tripled the collective IQ. And probably doubled the aggregate number of teeth.

    Cordially…

  8. 8.

    SeesThroughIt

    June 9, 2005 at 1:18 pm

    So in other words, Tom, you support selectively editing scientific reports to remove the parts that make Bush look bad? You think there’s nothing wrong with doctoring research to save face? You think the appropriate response to unsavory findings is not to correct your behavior, but to simply squelch those findings as though that actually sovles the problem?

  9. 9.

    gratefulcub

    June 9, 2005 at 1:24 pm

    Scientific reports about climate change altered by a lawyer from the oil industry. Forget about the part that he is from the oil industry………Why would a lawyer with no scientific background be qualified to change the report. I thought the GOP hated all lawyers, or is it just the democratic ones?

  10. 10.

    John Cole

    June 9, 2005 at 1:25 pm

    Tom-

    I think we both feel the same way about the way Clinton played with Global Warming.

    But I didn’t vote for Clinton. I voted for the people who claimed they were going to clean up Washington, so it isn’t ok to have a lawyer significantly editing scientific reports, even if it has always been that way.

  11. 11.

    Nash

    June 9, 2005 at 3:30 pm

    Seeing as it’s going on 9 (nine) years since the last time Tom and John “didn’t vote for Clinton”, I was wondering when the intellectual honesty of using Clinton as the foil for the better angels of our nature expires. Is it just like murder, “let the thing be pressed” at any time?

  12. 12.

    Rick

    June 9, 2005 at 3:47 pm

    Prolly later than for Reagan, Carter, Nixon, Johnson, FDR and Hoover.

    Show some respect for tradition, man!

    Cordially…

  13. 13.

    Nash

    June 9, 2005 at 3:53 pm

    Okay, thanks. Just checkin’

  14. 14.

    PaulB

    June 9, 2005 at 3:59 pm

    Why would someone bother to sign their posts “cordially,” when their words are the exact opposite of cordial?

    “You keep using that word; I do not think it means what you think it means.” – Inigo Montoya

  15. 15.

    PaulB

    June 9, 2005 at 4:01 pm

    Back on topic: they get away with this crap for one simple reason: they can. And they will keep getting away with it for as long as they are allowed to do so by an overly-compliant media, an overly-obsequious opposition, and an overly-complacent population. Absent some sort of penalty for this action, there is absolutely no incentive to change.

  16. 16.

    Nash

    June 9, 2005 at 4:15 pm

    BTW, Tom, from the playbook, goes after Piltz’s credibility.

    And in an update, there is at least a *possibility* that Rick Piltz, the fellow the Times is relying on, is a former Clinton/Gore staffer who moved into the USCRG in 1994.

    Quite a story – “Former Gore staffer criticizes Bush”.

    But that’s a red herring. The least noticed sentence in the NYT piece is probably the most indicting and it doesn’t involve Piltz in any fashion:

    In places where uncertainties in climate research were described, Mr. Cooney added qualifiers like “significant” and “fundamental.”

    The “significance” of this may be lost on non-scientists, but we scientists are particular and possessive about the proper connotation of a qualifier such as “significant” as applied to enumerated or even qualitative data.

    No one is challenging that Cooney made changes like this nor, after his edits, that the results were not subsequently reviewed. It doesn’t require Piltz to be an umimpeachable part of the discussion to know that changes to qualifiers such as these can misrepresent, falsify and/or reverse the meaning of statements made in a scientific discussion.

    On this alone, Cooney stands fairly accused of wrong-doing, Tom, whether you want to see it or not. That’s why it’s we scientists who are up in arms. He is unqualified to mess with our words.

  17. 17.

    Rick

    June 9, 2005 at 5:00 pm

    Why would someone bother to sign their posts “cordially,” when their words are the exact opposite of cordial?

    The exact opposite of cordial would be, for example: Show some respect for tradition, dipwad!

    Cordially…

  18. 18.

    Tom Maguire

    June 9, 2005 at 6:14 pm

    Tom, you support selectively editing scientific reports to remove the parts that make Bush look bad?

    Only after I have finished beating my wife.

    There seem to be separate issues here.

    First, John C thinks that, as a matter of policy, Bush ought to get on the global warming train. Fine, others may disagree.

    However, others are insisting that, in a unique corruption of the scientific process, the party that won the election is actually exerting editorial control over government reports.

    In summarizing their indictment, the Times said this:

    The dozens of changes, while sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase “significant and fundamental” before the word “uncertainties,” tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust.

    Tend to produce an air of doubt about something that most (but not all) think is robust? Doesn’t that mean that some *don’t* think it is robust? In which case, is Cooney really ruining science by saying so?

    Here is a reviewer talking about the problem with an IPCC summary that was a bit *more* gung-ho about global warming than the underlying research it purported to summarize:

    After analysis, the committee finds that the conclusions presented in the SPM and the Technical Summary (TS) are consistent with the main body of the report. There are, however, differences. The primary differences reflect the manner in which uncertainties are communicated in the SPM. The SPM frequently uses terms (e.g. likely, very likely, unlikely) that convey levels of uncertainty; however, the text less frequently includes either their basis or caveats. This difference is perhaps understandable in terms of a process in which the SPM attempts to underline the major areas of concern associated with a human-induced climate change. However, a thorough understanding of the uncertainties is essential to the development of good policy decisions.

    Yada, yada.

    My point is not that “Clinton did it first” – my point is that, in a process with a political element like this, there will always be disagreements, and no one will be thrilled with every word in the final draft.

    If anyone is seriously arguing that the global warming crowd is having trouble being heard over the din created by the insertion of words like “significant”, well, carry on.

    Rick Piltz, who is launching this complaint, is committed to a particular viewpoint. Good for him, and I am sure he is a great American.

    But that doesn’t mean that he is is right about everything, or that the Bush people (who were elected as well known bearers of a more skeptical viewpoint) should not have a hand in the final government report.

  19. 19.

    Nash

    June 9, 2005 at 6:22 pm

    Lame misdirection, that.

  20. 20.

    John Cole

    June 9, 2005 at 6:30 pm

    Most (but not all) scientists believe there may be something to evolutionary theory. Perhaps we should throw it out because some believe in divine design?

    Most (but not all) scientists think smoking is bad for you. Should we get rid of the warning labels on cigarette packs.

    I am not firmly on the global warming bandwagon, because, quite simply, I don’t have the expertise to evaluate the evidence fairly. Neither do oil industry lawyers with no scientific training.

    So, despite the hysterics of the Clinton administration reports and the obvious saturation of the marketplace of ideas by Global Warming proponents, I still submit that having non-scientists editing and redacting government scientific reports for purely political reasons is wrong.

    And that goes for Democrats and Republican administrations.

  21. 21.

    TM Lutas

    June 9, 2005 at 10:44 pm

    I used to read and comment on realclimate.org, the group blog that’s run by Mann et al, the group that brought us the hockey stick. If you were a global warming fan, you could say the most outrageous things and were only corrected by the moderators when a skeptic protested. If you were a skeptic that went a little over what the evidence could prove, the moderators landed on you with both feet without any prompting from the advocates.

    There is something of a double standard going on inside the climate research community. Scientists are padding their words and letting their advocacy get past the science. This is something I’ve seen with my own eyes over at realclimate.org.

    There is nothing in the NYT article that demonstrates that the science reporting was playing it straight down the middle prior to administration editing. If they were as slanted/biased as the realclimate.org community, correcting their language was and is a public service.

  22. 22.

    Nash

    June 10, 2005 at 9:08 am

    Tom not-so Terrific:If anyone is seriously arguing that the global warming crowd is having trouble being heard over the din created by the insertion of words like “significant”, well, carry on.

    The more I consider this smug, sarcastic crap, the more I realize how intellectually dishonest the esteemed Tom is being.

    You can make fun of “significant” all you want, putz, but until you demonstrate some ability to understand the language of scientific discussion, you are nothing but in way over your head.

    It is absolutely true that some of the pro-Warmers play politics with the discussion. But, until you understand that their hypocrisy is NOT a defense for your own, your words are hot (excuse me, warm) air. Until you understand that the weaknesses in the way some of their claims have been framed doesn’t mean all their claims are wrong, you have no place telling anyone here off.

    Though the pro-Warmers certainly have a voice in this debate, the anti-Warmer PC police have been ascendant for at least several years in setting the public terms of the debate. I should think you’d be satisfied that the public (as opposed to the scientific) discussion has long morphed from “how bad” to “as if”.

    Someone explain to me again why anyone respects this guy?

    This is exactly correct:

    JC: So, despite the hysterics of the Clinton administration reports and the obvious saturation of the marketplace of ideas by Global Warming proponents, I still submit that having non-scientists editing and redacting government scientific reports for purely political reasons is wrong.

    And that goes for Democrats and Republican administrations.

  23. 23.

    Nash

    June 10, 2005 at 9:16 am

    Lutas points out quite accurately:

    There is nothing in the NYT article that demonstrates that the science reporting was playing it straight down the middle prior to administration editing

    In other Lutas Logic News:

    –Officials at the Louvre have failed to prove that a 747 can fly.

    –The goalie for the MetroStars failed to sing mezzosoprano at the Kennedy Center last night.

  24. 24.

    SeesThroughIt

    June 10, 2005 at 11:45 am

    So you do support the government rewriting of scientific reports to make them fall in line with said government’s policy goals. At least I know where you stand now and not to take you seriously. Resume beating your wife, I guess.

  25. 25.

    Darrell

    June 10, 2005 at 12:55 pm

    Most (but not all) scientists think smoking is bad for you. Should we get rid of the warning labels on cigarette packs.

    I would think there would be near unanimity among medical scientists that smoking is bad for you. Global warming and climate change have no where near that level of unanimity, and that makes all the difference in the world.

    And since when are EPA and other govt reports unbiased? Posters here pretend that the climate change debate has been settled by science, and that is a damn lie. Hence our problem.

    I note the the Dems who are having a hissy fit over the editing didn’t say a peep when the Clinton administration was doing the same exact thing which shows what hypocrites they are.

    Does anyone know whether Cooney sought and received council from other scientists before editing these reports? No? More transparency and debate on these reports and their edits is needed and it’s fair to demand it. But what’s laughable is how these edits “proves” how the Bush admin. is less honest and less transparent than previous administrations which did the same and probably worse

  26. 26.

    Sojourner

    June 10, 2005 at 1:25 pm

    Hey Darrell:

    The earth is flat and was created in seven days, right?

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks

  1. Bring It On says:
    June 10, 2005 at 1:53 am

    Global Warming – The Watered Down Version

    OK, first the Downing Street Memo, now this. How many times does this administration have to get caught either deceiving or down right manipulating information before somebody calls for a hearing? Oh wait, John Conyers already has. Now maybe we

  2. Balloon Juice says:
    July 27, 2005 at 10:33 am

    […] The NY Times still seems willing to play along that the June goal was actually met, but you and I know what happened there. With all of our military committment, it is not off the wall to wonder if recruiting shortfalls be the end of the ban on open homosexuality in the military? The SLDN thinks so: […]

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