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Cacoethes Scribendi 2002 Year One |
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Blog Archives
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PROFILING (Jan. 1, 2002 )
This is the second attempt at this, since the first ended in a power outage...but that's a rant for another day!
I recently saw the Secretary of Transportation (Japanese ancestry) and the President of the US on TV complaining about detaining Arabic looking individuals at the airport based on "profiling". Their contention was that this was akin to racism. I understand where the Transport Secretary ( I think his name's Mineta) is coming from. After all, his family and he were interned at Manzanar during WWII. This you will recall was when Americans of Japanese ancestry were rounded up, stripped of most of their worldly belongings and unjustly imprisoned for the duration of the war. The Americans of German and Italian ancestry weren't treated in like-manner. Why? They were what "Americans" looked like. A fine example of state sponsored racist policy. In order to prove their patriotism, the Army divisions comprised of Japanese Americans, the 100th battalion (or the 1-puka-puka) and the 442nd battalion went on to become the most decorated divisions in American history.
...But I digress...
Profiling is a statistically based science. To properly develop a profile involves collecting statistically valid amounts of data and then analyzing this data, applying a certain confidence interval, and then listening to what this analysis tells you. The data in this case would show that a certain behavior is exhibited by a group of individuals who share common traits. In an effort to increase the probability of apprehending those individuals the authorities will target those traits when they conduct their searches. To ignore the fact that the recent terrorist attacks were committed exclusively by young Arabic- looking men because you don't want to offend Americans sense of ultra-political-correctness is ludicrous! And it really outrages me that our "leaders" are appearing on TV spouting this nonsense! I refuse to believe that it is out of ignorance that they denounce profiling. After all their own law enforcement agency, the FBI, relies heavily upon it. The Defense Department practices ethnic profiling when they award contracts to aerospace companies. Therefore the politicians must be playing "politics". Politics in the sense that since most of the voting public feels that profiling is racist, and since it isn't currently in vogue to be biased against anything at all, they need to appeal to the voters to get their votes and hence mimic their feelings. When you are searching for a tall white man with a red beard, you don't waste time by stopping old, short, Chinese women...even if they do happen to have red beards!
If America were rounding up all the Arabic-looking people and putting them in internment camps this would be the kind of righteous indignation we should expect to hear. Unfortunately, when that happens, and it might, you won't hear a peep out of the majority of our "leaders" about how wrong it is...as long as the voting public says it is the "right" thing to do.
Granted, statistics leave much room for abuse. Too often the mathematics of statistics are bastardized to say what you want them to say. ..."there's lies, damn lies, and statistics...". If applied rationally statistics and probability are a great tool for increasing the efficiency of a process, be it in determining whether a new drug is effective in treating cancer or in improving the probability of finding the terrorists before they do any damage.
The Game of Life (Jan. 3, 2002)
I have tried to define life in the most basic of terms possible. Anything else would be unnecessary detail. The variables are infinite, the tapestry is infinite, the outcome is not necessarily final.
Level 2: Players include everyone else not playing at Level 1.
Hidden Level of play: Players are exclusively Level 2 Experts.
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