Don't tell my wife!

Discovery Channel :: News - Health :: Chocolate's Benefits Depend on its Color

Sparky really likes dark chocolate, and I say good for her, it appears to contain a lot of good stuff. I'm a milk chocolate guy myself, which while not bad for the "good" chemicals, isn't nearly as good as the dark. Woe be unto you who like the instant cocoa though:

Homemade hot chocolate made with chocolate syrup was next best, while the dry mixes provides few beneficial compounds, likely because they contain more fillers.

Floating in Africa

TheStar.com - The many moods of Zambia's `river of life'

This is a very good story about rafting the Zambezi River: known as one of the most challenging "day" stretches of river in the world. Too far to go for me: I can find plenty to challenge me locally.

Here is a video of some people rafting the Zambezi, pretty long, but pretty entertaining.

Leslie Groves North work party!

The idea here is to try to displace the non-native Cheat grass with something more indigenous. The Cheat grass has been cut down in the hopes it will germinate and then be killed with a weak application of Round-Up. Native seeds will then be planted.

That is one fine rake!

Hunting for the elusive rabbitbrush seed

The area to be resown

"I want the tarp!" "No, you can't have it!"

If you for whatever reason want a copy of any of these pictures, double click on the picture, then right click on the picture and copy it to your desktop. For more photos of this event please go here.

My bad: even things I think are original apparently aren't

US National Whitewater Center //// TAKE IT OUTSIDE !!! \\\\

Here is another whitewater park, this one in North Carolina. The other one sounds cooler, but this one has a better video:

Whitewater park in Maryland to open by spring.

Welcome to Adventure Sports Center International

This is a fairly new concept for the US: the way it will work for kayakers is pretty slick. I'm not sure if it will work for rafters as well, but it is still pretty cool.

What will happen for kayakers is that they will put in at the "top," run the whitewater section which will dump them into a holding pool at the "bottom." The whole course is "C" shaped, so the put in is very near the holding pool at the bottom. There will be a conveyor belt from the bottom pool up to the put in that the kayakers can use without even exiting their boat. So they can run the same section time after time.

The really innovative thing about this park, is that they can change the rapids very quickly: on the order of twenty minutes, so it isn't the same stretch of floating over and over.

I'm just not sure if rafts will be able to use the conveyor system, though according to their literature, they will.


Here is a video of the park while still under construction. Not too exciting, but still pretty cool.

Fallacy Friday: correlation and causation; a good working synopsis

Seed: Must We Fire the Electronic Babysitter?

When two phenomena consistently happen together or in sequence (are correlated), it is easy to assume they are causally related: that is, one causes the other.

The set of symptoms associated with autism are very often expressed initially when a child is about 18 months old. This is also the age when many children get their first vaccinations.

This has led many people to assert the vaccinations cause autism. While this causal link was plausible, it has since been shown to be simply coincidental: the vaccinations have nothing to do with the autism.

Nevertheless, the association of autism with vaccinations seems to have led many parents to stop getting vaccinations for their children. This in turn is correlated with outbreaks of diseases that have previously been well controlled.

All because of how easy it is to fool ourselves into thinking that associated events are causally related. That correlation equals causation, or coincidence equals causation.

This kind of thinking can lead to many "superstitous" behaviors. Baseball pitchers not changing socks for weeks on end to "respect the streak," is a relatively harmless, yet hygenically repulsive, instance of this kind of thinking.

This kind of thinking commits a specific kind of logical fallacy, the Non Causa Pro Causa which has several sub-categories including: Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc, "After this, therefore because of this," Cum Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc, "With this, therefore because of this," the "Texas Sharpshooter" fallacy, and the statistically playful "Regression fallacy."

Fortunately, we have at our disposal a method for avoiding these fallacies. The scientific method. By controlling for variables, doing double blind testing, performing statistical analyses of related events and using other scientific "tools," we can almost always adequately distinguish between causation and mere correlation or coincidence. But it is a lot of work.

The problem I see with this article is that I think many (albeit illogical) people will erroneously conclude this study shows that television is a cause of autism, while even the author of the study concludes that this is only the first step towards showing that kind of causation.

From the linked article:

"We're not saying we have definitive evidence, just evidence consistent with our hypothesis," he (Waldman) clarified. "Science says it is plausible, so clearly this is something doctors should be looking at. People are sort of up in arms and we're just saying look, please, doctors…We're just trying to say, look, look at it."

This is a good "scientific" answer: they have found a correlation after gathering the data, now their hypothesis needs to be tested. Controlling the variables will be difficult, but at least conceptually possible.

Mind you, if children aren't allowed to watch television, it is unlikely that there will be any negative side effects. While not getting children vaccinated has a large downside for both the children and for society as a whole, not letting children watch television may actually have a large upside, even though the positive effect would be for the wrong reason.

BLM plans for wild and scenic designations

American Whitewater - Comments Needed on BLM Idaho Plan

The BLM office in Cottonwood ID, has historically been very even handed in balancing the needs and wants of the people who utilize BLM land, and it appears that they are doing their best to "do right" by everyone again.

They have kept the Lower Salmon "self-permitted" to allow access for floaters unable to get permits through the lottery system despite pressure from some sectors to restrict access. They have done what they could to keep the river corridor relatively undeveloped to make for a more "wilderness" like trip, including access easments and life-leases.

Now they need our help to get more sections of rivers in Idaho designated "wild and scenic." This designation gives a section of river protection under the law that really helps keep the river corridor from being degraded for short term gain by people whether through logging, grazing, or developing.

In my opinion this is a worthwhile effort. Follow the link to the American Whitewater page for more information about how you can help.

Freaky creepy, but on the other hand, it is Tacoma.

United Press International - NewsTrack - Washington man charged with bestiality

The part of this amazingly repulsive story that I wanted to point out is:

McPhail is the first person to be charged under the new law, which makes bestiality a Class C felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Which seems to imply that playing poker online and bestiality are comparable crimes. Whether that means poker is worse than I think it is, or bestiality less serious, I just don't know.

October 23rd, a day of special significance for many

First, for the geek readers, it is national Mole day.

Not to be confused with...


It is also, according to the bishop of Ussher, the 6010th birthday of the earth. Which is too bad, as noted by Ed Brayton.

The earth seems to be like a vain woman: claiming to be younger than she appears. And the young earth creationists (YECs) believe her. In this case, she claims to be 6010 years old while looking like 4.5 billion. In the YECs defense, maybe the earth is a heavy smoker.

and finally, this is the day I found out that I don't live in the United States...

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 0 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Please don't call the INS.

Fallacy Friday Bonus! More (but not fun) Amphiboly

About a week and a half ago, a local used car dealership apparently ran an ad for a black Cadillac "Escalade," that read "Basic Black People Mover -- Not!" I have not been able to find a copy of the original ad.

Subsequently, some people have read this to be a racist statement. Their claim is that Escalades are a popular car with African Americans and what this statement meant was, "This car is not a basic mover of black people." Indeed it can be interpreted that way. But only because of the Amphiboly present in the statement.

The problem stems from ambiguity about what the "Not" refers to.

If the "Not" refers to "Black People," as the letter writer asserts, then the statement is in fact racist. But if "Black" merely refers to the color of the Escalade, and the "Not" refers to "Basic People Mover," then it clearly isn't racist.

This is an example of an amazingly poorly worded advertisement. But was it intended to be racist? I doubt it. But the ambiguity that so easily creeps into our discourse makes it sometimes hard to tell what is exactly meant. We should be careful.

The bigger question for me is why do some people seem to have this need to find things about which to get upset? Do people feel better when they are upset? I know I don't.

Bill O'Reilly makes an apparently great living manufacturing things for people to get upset about. "War on Christmas?" In the country where every branch of the federal government is controlled by "evangelical christians?" The guy must be nuts.

But people lap it up like a Great Dane on a bowl of yogurt. Perhaps these people just feel more "alive" when they are outraged: their outrage directs their personal disdain externally and lifts them from the mundane minutae that dominates their lives giving them a sense of purpose that their religion apparently doesn't. Or maybe not.

Regardless, there are plenty of things that really are happening in the world to get upset about without fabricating unnecessary instances. Like caricatures of the prophet Mohammed. Thats got to be worth killing somebody about.

Fallacy Friday: Don't bet on it!

Sometimes, especially when you feel like you've been having a run of bad luck, you start thinking, "I'm due for something good to happen."

While it may be the case that in fact you are "due," what you really need to know to be certain is whether or not the events you feel unlucky about in your life are "statistically independent," or "statistically related."

Two events are statistically independent if the probability of one happening is completely separate from the probability of the other. If you flip a "fair" coin, the probability of the coin coming up "heads" is .5 or 1/2. If you flip the coin again, the probability of it coming up heads is again 1/2. The two events are independent: no matter how many times the coin flip produces a "head," the probability that the next flip will be "heads" is always 1/2.

On the other hand, the odds of pulling an "Ace" out of a shuffled full deck of cards is 1/13. But if you pull cards from a deck without replacing them, the odds that the next card pulled being an Ace gets better with every pull. On the first pull, the odds are 1/13. If you didn't get an Ace and don't stick the card back in the deck, the odds of the next card pulled being an Ace is 4/51. If that card isn't an Ace and you don't put it back in the deck, the chances of the third card pulled being an Ace becomes 2/25. And so on. These events aren't independent, they're related.

Casinos make a lot of money from the confusion people have between the probabilities of independent and related events.

Roulette is a classic game of chance, where each spin of the wheel is an independent event: the odds of the ball landing on "black" is the same regardless of what color has come up in the past.

We as a species seem to sometimes recognize patterns and connections where there aren't in fact patterns or connections.

The problem that people have with the distinction between independent and related probabilities seems to not only be a matter of statistical incompetence, it appears to be a bias that is actually hardwired into our brains. This tendency or cognitive bias is called "Apophenia."

It appears as if pretty much everyone "suffers" from this cognitive bias to some degree, and though pattern recognition can be quite advantageous, it can also become a problem, as illustrated in the movie "A Beautiful Mind."

Quick pattern recognition can be advantageous when it allows a person to predict future events like "The last two times I stuck my tongue in the light socket, it really hurt: I don't think I'll do it again." Pattern recognition is one of the main ways we "learn." But there can be too much of a good thing.

Conspiracy theorists seem to see patterns that aren't really there, and again, to assess the validity of a conspiracy claim, you have to be able to distinguish between independent and related phenomena.

With roulette, if the ball has landed on "black" five times in a row, we tend to see this as a pattern rather than a series of random independent events. Whether you then reason, "it is due to land on red," or "it is on a roll; it will keep landing on black," you are committing a fallacy.

In this case the fallacies are either "The Gambler's Fallacy," or "The Reverse Gambler's Fallacy."

Of course the ball will land on "black" just under 50% of the time no matter what has happened before (assuming the game isn't rigged of course).

In this sense, informal logic and a good working knowledge of statistics and probability are tools that we can use to help us not fool ourselves.

What peeves us makes us stronger

Good Math, Bad Math : The Cranky Book Meme

Some folk on the web are asking the question,

What authors have you given up on for good? And why?

Seeing as how you don't actually "read" porn, I'm not sure I am in a position to provide any kind of thoughtful response, but here is my attempt.

Orson Scott Card:
Even in the "Ender" series, he went from nice tight prose to self-indulgent "shark jumping" in the span of three books.

The Dune series:
When Frank Herbert wrote the original three, the characters, even the ones you weren't supposed to like were at least engaging. Now that his son has taken over the series, not only are the characters lacking in dimension, the plotlines are even more unrealistic, to the point where my ability to "suspend disbelief" has become nearly impossible.

Tom Clancy:
Since getting famous and presumably obtaining more editorial license, his books have gotten longer and more far-fetched to the point I don't even want to start them, much less finish them. Kind of like Stephen King.

Debate at the Cato Institute?

There was a "debate" between former evangelical christian Michael Shermer and current follower of the Rev Sun Myung Moon, Jonathan Wells at the Cato Institute on October 12th, concerning evolution and ID.

Shermer is the founder of Skeptic Magazine and a supporter of science and the theory of evolution, Wells is a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle and a supporter of the idea of "intelligent design."

Shermer's opening statement is quite good, but both men seemed to have problems in the question and answer portion actually driving home their points. Most of the time, they simply talked at cross-purposes: neither one defining their terms well enough to actually engage the other in substantive discourse.

Listen here if you would like to hear it for yourself.

Big SETI announcement!

Press Releases - SETI Institute

"CARL SAGAN CENTER FORMED TO STUDY LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE"

This is the "big" announcement? Puleeze.

OK, I have a "big" announcement: I have to go to work now. Don't miss me...

No difference between Dems and Reps or Libs on the important issues.

Arizona Daily Sun

In the election of the House Representative from the Arizona district where Flagstaff lies, it becomes clear that a politician is a politician is a politician. While they may differ on the issues that in the long run just don't matter much: abortion, the war in Iraq, gay marriage, etc, on the really important stuff, they are all the same.

Renzi, Libertarian candidate David Schlosser and Democratic candidate Ellen Simon agree on keeping motorized commercial rafting in the Grand Canyon,

Talk about short sighted! Motorized rafting is expedient, it is easy, it considerably shortens trip times, but so what? They are loud, smelly, and in the end, make the GC more like a carnival side show than a world class wilderness adventure.

If they allow motorized rafts, I think they should let all aircraft back in below the rim of the canyon. I think they should allow water skiers and "personal watercraft" to ply the canyon. Why aren't they allowed? Too loud? Disrupts the wildlife? And motorized rafts don't?

The bottom line for me is, if you can't manuever your craft with the mechanical advantage provided by oars, you shouldn't be there.

Vote Taint!

When civi rights turn stupid

Civil rights lawyer sentenced to prison - Yahoo! News

The judge said Stewart was guilty of smuggling messages between her client and his followers that could have "potentially lethal consequences." He called the crimes "extraordinarily severe criminal conduct."

Where does one person's civil rights end? Definitely before passing messages that could get someone else killed. This person's behavior seems ludicrous to me: defending the rights of a client is one thing, "smuggling messages" is clearly illicit.

One other thing I have to take exception with:

Stewart was diagnosed with breast cancer last year, and her lawyer Elizabeth Fink had warned in a plea to the judge: "If you send her to prison, she's going to die. It's as simple as that."

Can you say "Appeal to Pity?" This seems irrelevant to the facts of the case. Besides the fact that for the majority of Americans, the health care provided by the prison system is superior to what is available on the outside.

Xenophobes rejoice!

Bad Astronomy Blog � SETI has not yet found aliens

SETI has scheduled a big "announcement" for tomorrow, which owing to what they do, many are assuming means they have found evidence of ET's. According to Phil Plait however, the big announcement is something else, but he is being coy and claiming he can't say what it is.

What a putz.

Badger Mountain trail blazing

Sparky and I were able to do a little volunteer trail building in association with the "Washington Trails Asociation" and "Friends of Badger Mountain" on Saturday. In our workgroup, there were about 40 people, and at least by my standards, we made quite a bit of progress. Also represented was a local cycling club "Chinook," and the staff association from the "Pacific Northwest National Lab."

The multi-use trail when it is completely finished will be 2.25 miles long. The trail itself has was completed this weekend, but a layer of gravel still needs to be put down to help prevent erosion. This will be a great addition to the local Tri-Cities trail system, providing a plethora of wide views of the Columbia and Yakima river valleys.

Special thanks to REI and Subway for providing waterbottles and food to keep the voluteers moving.

Here we all are before starting at 8:00 am. At this point we are all offically without hats.

This is the orientation and skills training. Now we all have our safety helmets, and are learning exactly how to use a shovel. The sun is barely over the ridge, so it is quite cool.

This is a long line of folk working the trail.

Apparently, some of the area will be developed.

Nice view looking west over some orchards.

This is Matt the WTA representative who actually determined the route of the trail.

This is a volunteer WTA representative: she knew the score.

This is spread put out by the Friends of Badger Mountain in conjunction with Subway, REI and some other unspecified sponsors.

The refreshment pavilion.

Sparky and I were only able to help out on Saturday, and then only for half the day. If possible we will help out with the gravel spreading phase too.

More commercial rafting carnage

YouTube - RiverRun Bonus

This time on the Ottawa river with a commercial company called "River Run." Lots of fun.

Allegations of rafting impropriety

Feds investigate Kolbe's '96 camping trip with pages

It makes me wince to see stories linking rafting with impropriety of any sort. This is the kind of thing you come to expect from kayakers, but I think rafters hold themselves to a higher standard.

The facts in this story are so thin: an "unspecified allegation," an investigation that "is very preliminary in nature, and we're looking to determine whether an investigation can even move forward." If the elections weren't coming up in less than a month, I doubt this would be considered news. Yet.

Maybe when the investigation is complete there will be something to report, but as of now, this only serves to besmirch the good reputation of rafting.

Via "The Lippard Blog."

Fallacy Friday: Read it or else!

Reading about the nuclear test performed by North Korea and the following rhetoric from both sides of the Pacific this week, I was reminded of an odd kind of fallacy, known as the "Argumentum ad Baculum" or the "appeal to force."

It is an "odd" fallacy because it isn't really a fallacy at all. Fallacies are logical traps or pitfalls, where an argument appears cogent, but the conclusion doesn't in fact follow from the premises.

The Argumentum ad Baculum, on the other hand is not an argument, but rather a threat. When you say, "I'm right, and I'll beat you up if you say otherwise," isn't an argument because you have abandoned reason. It isn't even good rhetoric, since the goal of rhetoric is to persuade, not cow.

When the DPRK (North Korea) says, "it may drop its plan to test its first atomic bomb if the United States holds bilateral talks," it is threatening, not attempting to logically (or even rhetorically) persuade.

This unfortunately makes rational negotiations with DPRK very problematic. As anyone who has ever tried to argue with an irrationally violent person knows, logic doesn't affect their decision making, and you must first and foremost be prepared to use your own "Baculum" to protect yourself from transgression. It puts you in a position where the ideal of rational discourse is a secondary consideration instead of the primary as it should be in civilzed societies.

Great trick!

500-billion-year-old embryos give up their secrets - life - 12 October 2006 - New Scientist

500 billion year old embryos? In a 13.5 billion year old universe? Neat trick. Unless this is a case of amphiboly: that is 500 embryos that are a billion years old. But it isn't even that cool, it is just a typo: they meant 500 million years old. Still and interesting article though.

Sage advice

The ambiguity here is too self-evident: I bow to whoever made this sign, inadvertant or not.

Midweek Rant: CFS vs. Gauge height

The USGS has a great resource available on the web which allows anyone anywhere in the world to get real-time approximations of the flow in pretty much every major river drainage in the U.S.

This information comes in two forms; either gauge height, or cubic feet per second (CFS).

I have a problem with describing how a river is flowing in terms of "gauge height."

Gauge height is an arbitrary measurement which tells you nothing by itself. If a kayaker tells you, "The Lochsa is running six feet!" (aside from the fact that you should never trust a kayaker) even if you know a whole lot about the Lochsa, its gradient, its relative width, etc, you still know nothing useful about how it is flowing unless you know about that specific gauge.

Every guage on every river is different, so in addition to all the other objective criteria like gradient you need to know, you need to memorize what a certain "guage height" means on every stretch of river you run.

On the other hand, CFS is an objective measure. Even if you know nothing else about a river, if you know what it is flowing in CFS, you actually know something.

Mind you, unless you know the gradient and approximate "size" of the river, you still don't know enough. If the Lower Salmon is running at 20,000 cfs, it is not in any way unusual or dangerous. But if the steeper and narrower White Salmon is running at 20,000 cfs, a person would have to be pretty much nuts to run it.

Know the CFS, the gradient, and the "size" of the river, and you can make an educated guess about the runnability of that river. Know the gauge height, gradient and size, you got nothing.

So knowing the flow in CFS for any hunk of river by itself isn't enough to know how it is running, but in my esteemed opinion, it is at least something that can be informative.

Scoping out the upper Yaak and Yaak Falls

Sparky and I went rock hounding this past weekend: looking for nice rocks to use as stepping stones in our back yard (less area to mow). We ended up on the Yaak river in Montana, and so while there decided to check out the put in for the upper Yaak, as a possible nice summer float. We've rafted the lower Yaak, and it is very challenging, but the upper is supposed to be much more mild. There wasn't much water in the river so it is hard to say what it will be like when there is, but it was definitely worth the look.

Afterwards, we took a long look at Yaak Falls; it's hard to say with so little water, but the lower falls at least looks runnable. Kind of like a 50 degree water slide. It will take some doing to get Sparky to try it, but I think as long as you have some reasonable safety set up, it wouldn't be a problem. The upper falls looks nasty, but we'll have to see when there is more water.

This is a Forest Service map of the area (click on it for a larger view). The road at the bottom left of the map is Highway 2 which runs from Bonners Ferry ID to Troy MT. There are places to put on the upper Yaak both at Spread Creek for a 16 mile float to Yaak Falls, or there is a nice place to put on the river at Meadow Creek to make it an 11 mile float.

This is the put in at Meadow Creek: nice eddy, easy access to the river, and a pit-toilet to boot, with a Bad Brown Dog ruining the picture.

This is looking downstream from the Meadow Creek put in.

These are a couple of pictures of upper Yaak Falls. The water is pretty low, so I'm not sure what would be the best line here, but the biggest problem if you swam here would be going over lower Yaak Falls without a big rubber cushion around you.



This is lower Yaak Falls: when the water is a little higher, it should be possible to run the left side of the falls, which is dewatered here.

Here are a couple of pictures of kayakers running the upper falls and the lower falls, with not much more water than we saw this weekend.

Empirical reality wins out in Michigan

Evolution wins out in Mich. curriculum - Yahoo! News

Fans of science heave a collective sigh of relief, the Michigan State school board hasn't been fooled.

In my opinion, it isn't so much that ID isn't science; it is that like astrology or homeopathy, ID is amazingly poor science.

Science is nothing if not pragmatic: if a scientific theory doesn't work, it is quickly discarded. By "work" I mean it makes accurate predictions, it passes tests, it accounts for observed phenomena.

While ID does the last quite well ("it happened by magic" can adequately account for any observation), it doesn't make any meaningful predictions beyond "there are things that can't be explained naturalistically," for it's predictive power. That isn't a very insightful prediction.

The major knock against ID, in my opinion, is that it is unclear exactly how one would test it. While it is at least conceptually possible to test individual instances of "Irreducible Complexity" (biological systems that IDists claim are impossible to occur naturalistically), merely showing the blood clotting cascade isn't for instance irreducibly complex, doesn't falsify the idea of ID.

As long as there is some biological system that hasn't been explained in naturalistic terms, then the IDist can point to that as "evidence" for ID. Unfortunately, it is merely evidence of ignorance, not impossibility.

For ID to ever be considered "good" science, it will need to show how at least in principle how it can be falsified like a scientific theory.

Don't hold your breath.

As an aside, this is the same problem that "string theory" is currently facing in theoretical physics: it is not at all clear how it can be falsified, though its problems stem more from experimental limitations, not conceptual limitations as with ID.

Good stuff from the Gauley

YouTube - river rage"06" (4)

I found this on YouTube, put out by an employee of a commercial company called "Songer." It is pretty long, but shows a lot of good rafting carnage. If you follow the link, you'll find several related videos. Enjoy:

Finding Fault

OutdoorsPro has rightfully called me out for saying that the outfitter in this story didn't use his best judgement when doing a trip that resulted in a customer dying. I don't want to claim it is the outfitter's fault... at least not based on the information presented in the newspaper article. As the Outdoors Pro correctly points out, there are many factors that we can't know from the article that need to be taken into account before any blame can be assessed.

Based on the information in the article, I don't think the outfitter used his (or her) "best judgement." But the evidence presented in the article is insufficient to make even that weak an assertion. My personal presumption is to think that once an outfitter or guide "puts on" a river with a group of customers, that outfitter or guide has agreed to take responsibility for the safety of those people.

Other than freak acts of nature, which do occur, I think if a passenger is hurt or dies, it is primarily the fault of the outfitter or guide. Sometimes there may be extenuating circumstances like the passenger(s) being non-obviously drunk, but those are the exception, not the rule. So I view all river accidents as being the fault of the outfitter/guide/trip leader until proven otherwise.

Maybe not innocent until proven guilty, but this is my admitted bias.

I've been trying to find more information on the incident, but so far have found very little. The American Whitewater Affiliation, which generally tries to keep track of such things doesn't have an incident report on it. I also haven't been able to find any mention of a drowning in any of the West Virginia papers that I've found that have searchable archives.

What I have found out about the river that day is from the USGS site. According to their records, the water was quite high, and actually reached it's highest point of the year that day (44,500 cfs). USGS historical data records that the river went from an average flow of 2370 cfs on the 28th of September up to an average flow of 36,400 cfs on the 30th, when the accident occurred.

This may seem like a lot of water (and it is) but the Shenandoah river has had runoff exceeding 100,000 cfs, so it is not in any way unprecedented. The Riggins stretch of the Salmon River in Idaho typically has a flow range exceeding that and is (relatively) safe to run.

The key as far as any negligence is concerned, as pointed out by the OutdoorsPro, is what constitutes "dangerously high" for the Shenandoah river. This is also information that I can't seem to find.

One of the other recorded drownings on the Shenandoah documented on the AW site called 22,000 cfs "High," but doesn't say if that is considered dangerously high.

As an aside, this is a civil not a criminal case, so "innocent until proven guilty" doesn't apply here. In civil suits, both parties are responsible for providing evidence to support their claim, so in this case, legally, the outfitter does not have the protection afforded by the presumption of innocence. This is how "OJ" was successfully sued by the parents of his ex-wife for wrongful death, even though he was found innocent in the criminal proceedings.

The judge (or jury) will make a determination of liability on a percentage basis: that the outfitter was a certain percentage at fault. Assuming the outfitter's insurance company doesn't cave in and settle beforehand of course. I think that is what the "loss of consortium" claimants are hoping for anyway.

When all is said and done, in my opinion, the only person who even in theory should be bringing suit here is the wife of the man who died. Even if the outfitter is proved negligent, unless there were some other unreported serious physical injuries, I'm having a real problem with the "survivors" bringing suit, especially the "loss of consortium" claims.

While dying is not, in my opinion, generally part of the risk assumed by commercial raft passengers, flipping and taking a swim is. So again, unless there were serious injuries that were unreported in the article, I for one hope the suit brought by the "survivors" is thrown out of court.

Fallacy Friday: the Black or White Fallacy

Over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars, you can often find people accusing Ed Brayton of being both a liberal, and a conservative (generally not at the same time though). How can he be both?

The answer lies in the tendency that people have to think in terms of "either or."

When he argues against a liberal position, people assume he must be a conservative, and visa versa.

Ed of course is neither, he would most likely describe himself as a Libertarian.

We tend to like things to be "black and white": it makes things very simple and clear. Either you support the president, or you hate america. Unless that president happens to be getting a hummer of course. Either or. Black or white.

When we think in these terms, we open ourselves to committing the black and white fallacy, sometimes called the "false dilemma."

For most people the problem comes from not distinguishing between "contrary" assertions, and "contradictory" assertions.

If there are two contradictory assertions, only one can possibly be true: Either Walt Disney is dead, or he is alive. Despite the possibility of cryogenic regeneration, this is a true either/or proposition.

On the other hand, many assertions are only "contrary." Between two contrary assertions, at most only one will be true, but both may be false.

In the classic movie "Dodgeball," a running joke dealt with whether one of the female characters was either hetero or homo sexual. When she kisses another female character, it is asserted that she is a lesbian. This assumes that those are the only two possible orientations: that heterosexuality and homosexuality are in fact contradictory. But of course while they are contrary, there is at least one other possibility, which she asserted when she said she was a bi-sexual.




Personally, I blame this completely on Aristotle: his logic, which permeates "Western" thought, is predicated on the axiom "A or not A."

Suit filed against oufitter for poor judgement

West Virginia Record | Twenty-one sue over rafting accident

This story reminds me somewhat of the plot of a old HBO movie called the "White Mile," that was based on a true story. In the movie an ad executive played by Alan Alda bullies a Canadian outfitter into doing a raft trip that ends in a couple of guys getting killed on the river.

During the wrongful death trial, Alan Alda maintained it wasn't his fault, and the outfitter insisted it wasn't his fault. The jury ruled that it was Alda's fault.

Personally, I've always thought it was the outfitters fault: Alda badgered him into doing a one raft trip (dangerous in itself) on a class V stretch of river (look at the definition), with an overloaded boat of neophyte rafters.

I'm sorry, but I wouldn't let someone else dictate how to run my already risk laden business for me. Especially not in areas relating to safety.

In the West Virginia case, I don't know exactly what happened, but it sounds like the outfitter for whatever reason didn't use his best judgement.

People use outfitters and guides because they (in theory) have better judgement and training regarding whitewater. If you are a guide or an outfitter, that judgement is your most important attribute.

I admit I had to look up "loss of consortium." Take my word for it, it is something you don't want.

Story on the new Grand Canyon Lottery

Hit the lottery and win a rafting permit - 10/04/06 - The Detroit News Online

Certainly an improvement over the old system, the new lottery should be much more equitable for getting permits.

Next summer, commercial launches are expected to outnumber self-guided trips by more than 2 to 1. That's a smaller ratio than in the past, but it's still a sore point with four nonprofit environmental groups that sued the park service over the Colorado River Management Plan, which generated the lottery.

I don't want to beat a dead monkey, but while I think there should definitely be opportunities for private permits for floaters on the GC, and by far, most private boaters who float the GC are good responsible folk, the GC in my opinion is a place where the majority of the floaters should be commercial.

It again gets back to commercial outfitters and guides caring more for and taking better care of the resource. From an enviromentalist perspective, I would think they would prefer the commercial trips: at least they have the semblence of experienced people running a trip who can actually be held responsible for their actions.

Cause trouble as an outfitter? Lose your livelyhood. Cause trouble as a private boater? Get an unenforceable citation and fine.

Of course I think all motors should be banned from the GC: nothing says wilderness trip to me like the sound and smell of outboard motors. So if I were in charge, I would be getting heat from both sides.

House ethics panel? More like "House spin panel."

House ethics panel looks into sex scandal�|�Top News�|�Reuters.com

From the article:

With polls beginning to show the public is taking notice, the political firestorm has rocked the Congress and buoyed Democratic hopes they can take back control of the House as well as the Senate in next month's elections.

The democrats are making an issue of this so they can take control of the House and Senate? The republicans are in damage control mode so as not to lose power? All this on the basis of new "poll" numbers. This is not what representative government is supposed to "be about."

Why not address the issue because what happened was a reprehensible crime? Because it was wrong? Not because it is a chance to sway a particularly idiotic voting block.

Instead it becomes a political talking point for all.

Foley is an asshole. Pure and simple. He should be out (and is). But if his being an asshole is the reason you vote democratic, then you are an idiot, which is what both sides are counting on.

The apparent republican cover-up of the impropriety is a separate issue.

Join the Taints!

Russell Fork releases

Appalachian News Express

If you happen to be around the Virginia/Kentucky border with a small raft or kayak, this would be great time to boat the Russell Fork.

In October, the Corps of Engineers dumps water from a reservoir to leave room for the winter rains. This means good boating every weekend in October.

This article is from a Kentucky newspaper, and has one thing that seems incongrous to me:

“This is one of the cleanest rivers in Kentucky,” Thompson said, describing the river as one of the last remaining wild rivers.

"Wild" river? It's dammed. Maybe it flows through a wilderness-like gorge, but I have a hard time calling any river with a dam "wild." Maybe it provides a "wild" ride, but if you define "wild" as "untamed" then dammed rivers don't fit the bill.

The Idaho Salmon is "wild," the Illinois river in Oregon is "wild." The Snake river through Hell's Canyon? Not so wild.

Hr 2679: a more complete analysis

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: Roy Moore on HR 2679

Ed, over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars, explains the rationale against HR2679 in a post deconstructing a statement by Roy Moore. If you are interested in separation issues, this is a much more comprehensive analysis than I could produce.

I guess it depends on your definition of "mental health"

CNN.com - How thin�do you slice your pi? - Oct 4, 2006

A Japanese mental health counselor recited pi to 100,000 decimal places from memory on Wednesday,

Sounds more like a mental health patient.

From the VP to congress

No Se Nada: When I see things like this, I get more and more Lib every day

Even Kevin Vranes is leaning Libertarian.

I'm no fan of gambling, online or not, but legislating personal morality is not the hallmark of a "free" state. To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, "If it neither busts my chops, nor snakes my gravy, why should I sweat it?" Or something like that.

I need to start my own political party. The "Taints." We aren't dicks, pussies, or assholes, we're something in between.

Good thing we don't live in a fascist state

Man Sues Secret Service Agent Over Arrest After Approaching Cheney and Denouncing War - New York Times

Though the charges were later dropped, apparently, even saying something unflattering to Dick Cheney can get a person arrested. You would think even the Secret Service would have heard of the First Ammendment.

If this administration and congress doesn't turn every thinking Republican into a Libertarian, I don't see how they can call themselves "thinking" Republicans.

Nice story from the perspective of a customer

Now I know how the clothes in the dryer feel… � this biochemical life

Very good rafting story about a perceived "near death" experience. While it may have been possibly fatal, in my experience looking out from the bottom of a hole, it is typically much more scary than it is dangerous. I have been fortunate to only have been in relatively benign holes though.

Wipeout - Kiteboarding

Wipeout - Kiteboarding

Remind me not to do this: gravity is a harsh mistress.

Great idea!

� AO Gives Our Most-Frequent Floaters a Chance to Get To Know Each Other The All-Outdoors Whitewater Rafting California River Blog Blog Archive

All Outdoors rafting blogged about a "special" trip they did this past summer for some of their "frequent floaters." I think this is a great idea for commercial businesses: it gets the customers you like best coming back, meeting each other, and making them feel special.

This could be a great marketing tool, but I wonder what the customers who don't get an invite feel about it if in fact they find out about it. Granted, these may be customers you don't particularly want back, but I'm not sure the market for guiding services is big enough to alienate anyone.

Cold day in Index

Here are a few pictures of a trip I took down the North Fork of the Skykomish, several years back. Notice the snow on the banks. I don't know if I still have the drive to get out there and boat when it is that cold.

This is a rapid called "El Nino," nominally a class IV rapid, but on this day with class V consequences due to the cold. This was a good trip, and I stayed somewhat warmer than most probably since I stayed drier than most. Because I "cheat."

There are very few rapids I've come across that I can't "cheat" when rowing a small raft like this: Lava Falls, Lochsa Falls (at all but the highest water), the Slide on the Lower Salmon at high water. There are others on smaller rivers I can't cheat, but these are the ones that I both can't cheat and really need to cheat.

I think I can!

Power of Persistence on Wetdawg.com

A very nice article on the power of persistence that relates it to outdoor experiences. Very inspirational.

Using the metaphor of the "ball of knotted string," (at my house we refer to the "Box O' X-mas lights") they talk about they way people approach obstacles, and how even seemingly intractable problems like the ball of string can be solved with persistence and patience.