Tag: statistics

Senseless Tragedy

Time: Sunday, July 21, roughly 7:30 AM

Place: Driving on US Hwy 95, headed north out of Las Vegas and towards Mount Charleston

This is a summary of the conversation and not a verbatim transcript.

Me: I sure am glad the Carpenter 1 fire is under control.

Him: Well, only 95% under control, but they can’t get to where it is and it can’t get out either. I wonder if we are going to see any burned areas.

Me: I don’t think so. It jumped Kyle Canyon Road, but it never got as far as Lee Canyon Road.

Him: It’s going to take a long time to get back to normal. Mary Jane Falls is probably going to be closed for months.

Me: What about Cathedral Rock? I heard the fire got very close.

Him: Yeah, that too. But Mary Jane Falls is a better hike. Harder, and very rocky, but worth it.

Me: So I was watching the news the other day. They were pointing out that up on the mountain, you should be careful in burned areas because trees might fall and ash might cover places you could fall.

Him: Yeah, we were told that in the meeting Friday too.

Time: Monday, July 22, roughly 9 PM

Place: Mary Jane Falls

A hiker — not the gentleman in the first part of our story — is stranded on a cliff. The only way to rescue him is by helicopter. In the process, a police officer from an elite search and rescue team falls to his death.

Aftermath

I wasn’t going to cover this as it is mostly “local interest,” but CNN thought it was newsworthy so here we are.

There are a lot of great places to hike around the Las Vegas Valley, and Mount Charleston is a favorite in the middle of summer because it’s substantially cooler up there. In the winter, there is even skiing.

So the short version. This hiker knew or should have known the following:

  • Mary Jane Falls is a tough hike in good conditions, and conditions were not good.
  • It was well publicized that thanks to the recent forest fire, hikers need to be extra vigilant about hazards on the trails.
  • It turns out my companion was mistaken and the trail was open, but extra caution was still in order. I had been going to make a rather tasteless joke about how, like the character in Clerks, he shouldn’t even have been there.
  • I am going to assume the hiker started during daylight, because it would have been incredibly stupid to hike potentially dangerous terrain with an awesome view at night.

Go ahead and come hike around Las Vegas. But for pity sake, use your head. Don’t be like this guy, who got a cop killed rescuing him.

In Closing: Nate Silver; interpreting stats on research papers; read it all before letting your knee get all jerky; glad somebody in the administration has balls; and yoga with cats.

The Shorties Exorcism

Where Have You Been?: Playing Black Ops. CODBO or BLOPS if you prefer. No zombies.

Daddy Says So, and That’s That!: Jeb is not running for President in 2012. Even though Daddy admits that “he’s a good man, he performed as governor, he’s well-spoken, he’s not an extremist, he’s not a wild guy that attributes bad motives to those that disagree with him, and he’s good. And people that know him and hear him say the same thing.” In other words, all the stuff Dubya isn’t.

Totally Silly Acronym: It turns out that TSA screeners don’t like to touch your junk either. Mostly. But even though nobody finds the current system acceptable, the Boss says it’s not changing. Now, one thing that surprised me being trapped at an unexpected layover in Tucson is that the color-coded alerts are still in effect (“orange,” if you were wondering). Well, maybe not for long. Oh, and Ms. Napolitano thinks that nudie scanners should be installed for other mass transit as well! Way to kill any hope of relieving traffic congestion! The idea is that “terrorists are looking for vulnerabilities.” Then I got news for you, the mall is the next target. It’s soft, it’s easy to get in and out, and it’s full of people who aren’t thinking of security beyond “where’s my wallet”.

“What About My Options?”: Sharron Angle thinks she has political options. My neighbors think otherwise:

Lying With Statistics: Oh No! The Regulations!! They’re choking small businesses! Ok maybe not.

Ded body, snding pix: 911 may get upgrades allowing them to receive text messages and even video of emergencies in progress.

Meditation for Healthy Cells: Could be!

The Truth: Just Do It.

Think beyond the Infomercial: Tony Horton is.

Live From Sesame Street, It’s Saturday Night!:

That’s all folks. Happy Thanksgiving.

Shorties Lake

Latte Economy Revisited: It turns out that more Americans think it is important to create jobs — and specifically manufacturing jobs — than worry about the deficit. Dave doesn’t think we have a Latte Economy; he thinks we have a “Cake or Death” economy.

Education Researchers Don’t Need Statistics: A real scientist looks at the “good kindergarten teachers will help your kids earn more money” study. Unfortunately the figures don’t add up.

Left of Center, Maybe: Great quotes. “If we were a right-of-center nation, you could win an election by saying you planned to eliminate Medicare and Social Security. After all, this would be an effortless way of leaving the unprecedentedly bloated defense budget intact while still cutting big ‘gubment.’ Instead such a proposal is grounds for getting you burned in effigy.” Also, “The reality: the majority of Americans are actually progressive whether or not they call themselves that. Poll after poll finds when Americans are asked how they feel about issues like the minimum wage, protecting the environment, gay rights and even gun control – the majority agrees with the Left.”

Follow up: Dipak Desai’s competency hearings are beginning.

You’ve got to read this and pass it on!: Ok, if you’ve been reading me for a while you probably know all this, but MoveOn’s got the top 5 Social Security myths. And they’re delightfully blunt about the motives of the people who keep spouting them.

Speaking of which, talk to Granny about where she gets her information on the health insurance reform bill: It turns out that a lot of senior citizens are very misinformed.

Funny Thing, Most of Us Get Fired for Not Doing Our Jobs: Five years ago I said “If you have moral problems with doing your job, you must quit. Today. Otherwise, you are saying your morals only matter when they inconvenience others. A vegan waitress knows she will have to serve meat unless she works in a vegetarian restaurant; a recovering alcoholic realizes he should probably not go to bartender’s school; pacifists normally don’t enlist in the armed forces.” This week a judge said yeah, you don’t have a right to only do the parts of your job that you like, and you don’t have the right to re-write your professional guidelines to suit your moral qualms.

It had been months since I linked Pandagon and now I’m doing it twice in one post: Some conservatives are in a tizzy that President Obama is sitting down to an interview with Barbara Walters and a few of her friends… on her daytime show aimed at a mostly SAHM audience. Here’s a little secret — it turns out that women have had the ability to vote since 1920, and the sort of women who can take the time to watch daytime TV have the time to get to the polls.

Fine, how do YOU want to measure it??: 10 key indicators show that yes, global climate change is real. That’s what most scientists call global warming these days so freak snow doesn’t confuse the small-minded.

It sure would have been nice for someone, like say the news media, to have pointed this out in 2002: Hans Blix on the fact that he found no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq because there were none.

How nice for somebody, I guess: Health insurer Aetna made more money last quarter — even though they had less revenue — because of lower costs (that is to say, less paying for actual health care).

And finally: an interview with Isaiah Mustafa, “The Old Spice Guy.” Turns out he’s got some acting parts that involve wearing a shirt. Also turns out he’s a P90X guy.