TomAiello

Even if they have little pieces of paper declaring them to be official "scientists"? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

It gets even more confusing if you happen to have ancestors who were both slaves and slave owners. Then you have to pay reparations to yourself. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

How many people are you putting on a Cessna? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Did we ever resolve if the Otter or the Cessna is more fuel efficient on a per-jumper basis? If it took more fuel per jumper to get the Otter to altitude, would you insist on taking the Cessna, even though it's less convenient? Or would your convenience trump your concern for the planet? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

No, all that matters is that the test returned a result with a racial disparity and that that disparity could be caused by an aspect of the test which doesn't directly test skills needed for the job. "Could be" or "was"? You're saying that if there was any chance at all that the test was biased, then we must assume it was? Even though the overwhelming evidence is that the test was unbiased? Did the minority ever point out any "aspect of the test which doesn't directly test skills needed for the job?" Or can you point out such an aspect? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

What stops the DZO? Would he do it for you if you paid for 22 tickets, even if you were the only one on board the plane? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

So, people might break the law (by drinking)? And our solution is to create another law (about carrying in the bar)? Because people who are willing to break the one are going to be stopped by the other? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Which is exactly the minority position, and what the debate is about. Does it matter if the test was biased? Majority says "yes." If the test was unbiased, that matters. Minority says "no." It doesn't matter if the test was biased or not--all that matters is that it gave a result "we don't like" (i.e. that is not consistent with our social engineering goals). -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Perhaps I'm dense, but I'm not seeing where she says the test was biased. Can you point that out, specifically? Thanks. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

You said that you were ok violating a Constitutional Right so long as a judge signed off on it. You gave the specific example of another hurricane Katrina. You went on to mention chain gangs in the context of such denial of rights. I put those things together to infer that you'd be ok with denying people's constitutional right not to be enslaved on a chain gang, if it was necessary to clean up "another Katrina" and approved by a judge. I guess I misunderstood what you were saying. Can you explain what you meant? Specifically, under what circumstances it's ok to violate Constitutional Rights, whether a pressing public need justifies it, whether a judges approval justifies it, and if there are some rights that are deserving of more protection than others, in your view. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Negative. The debate on the court is over whether #2 matters at all. The majority argues that it's ok to have #1, because the test was unbiased. The minority argues that #1 is not allowable--even though the test was unbiased. The debate is not over whether the test was biased or not--it is basically agreed that it was not biased. The debate is over whether an unbiased test matters, if the results don't square up to the preconceived notion about the outcome. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Yep. And this test only examined job related skills. There is absolutely no indication to the contrary. The minority here doesn't argue that the test was biased--they concede that it was fair. They are arguing that regardless of the test's fairness, it failed to achieve a specific social engineering goal, and that it's failure to achieve that goal is sufficient grounds to invalidate it. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Please explain what relevance this example has to the case at hand. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Yes, but it wasn't. Despite your repeated efforts to draw some kind of parallel between this weird 80 year old test you dredged up and this modern, unbiased examination, there is none. This exam wasn't biased. No one aside from you is saying that it was. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

And it would be ok to press innocent people into them in order to clean up another Katrina? So long as an impartial judge signed off on it? Really? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Actually, you can. You're just responsible for any negative outcome. There's a difference between assigning responsibility after the fact and engaging in prior restraint. Wow. Just wow. Really? Would it also be ok to engage in just a little slavery, as long as an impartial judge signed off on it? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Because someone disagrees with you, they aren't thinking for themself? So, if we just all agreed that your word was gospel and we'd all agree with you, then we'd be thinking independently and critically? ??? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Can you show me where those justices thought the test itself was biased? It looked to me like they were saying that the disparate impact was the issue, regardless of the bias, or lack thereof, in the process. Tom, you're getting bogged down in the semantics of layman's terms "slanted", "biased", etc. Stick to the meat. I don't think I am. Here's the thing. It looks to me like no one has seriously argued that the examination itself, the method of it's creation, it's administration, or it's grading was racially biased. The point that it was basically a fair and unbiased examination is basically conceded. The real question under consideration is this: "Even though the exam was totally fair, it has failed to yield a result consistent with our social engineering goals. Do we let the results stand, or insist on an exam that is biased in the other direction, in order to further pursue our social engineering agenda?" The real fact is that the sample size (the number of people taking the exam) is not large enough to give us a statistically relevant result with regards to racial balance. The fact that the results appear to be racially slanted isn't terribly relevant with the small sample size. If we could enlarge the sample to hundreds of thousands of firefighters, maybe (in fact, probably) we'd see a different result. In other words, we're crying "racism" when the evidence of it is extremely thin, and the evidence to the contrary is thick on the ground. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Do you have a reference for that? My understanding was that they had frozen all promotions pending the outcome of the litigation. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Can you show me where those justices thought the test itself was biased? It looked to me like they were saying that the disparate impact was the issue, regardless of the bias, or lack thereof, in the process. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

8 judges thought one way, and 5 judges thought the other. Do you honestly believe there is only one universally correct answer to the question? Yes, I do. You are incorrect in saying that 8 judges thought that the exam was slanted. Those 8 judges thought that it had a disparate impact--that's different from a disparate process. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Yep. Look at how it was created and graded. If anything, that would create a system slanted toward minorities. Or are you postulating that the minority examiners, and the minorities polled to create the material were, in fact, themselves biased against minorities? After a while, you just kind of have to accept that there's no real bias there, and that sometimes you're going to see different results for other reasons (like studying harder). -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Are you absolutely certain of that? Articles like this one suggest that given sufficient resources devoted to the issue, we can, in fact, find ways to increase production. It's just a matter of cost--how important is it to generate more oil? Your implicit contention that society would collapse without oil means that we ought to be willing to give it a lot of attention. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Did you read how this test was created and graded? From the decision: ***After reviewing bids from various consultants, the City hired Industrial/Organizational Solutions, Inc. (IOS) to develop and administer the examinations, at a cost to the City of $100,000. IOS is an Illinois company that specializes in designing entry-level and promotional examinations for fire and police departments. In order to fit the examinations to the New Haven Department, IOS began the test-design process by performing job analyses to identify the tasks, knowledge, skills, and abilities that are essential for the lieutenant and captain positions. IOS representatives interviewed incumbent captains and lieutenants and their supervisors. They rode with and observed other on-duty officers. Using information from those interviews and ride-alongs, IOS wrote job-analysis questionnaires and administered them to most of the incumbent battalion chiefs, captains, and lieutenants in the Department. At every stage of the job analyses, IOS, by deliberate choice, oversampled minority firefighters to ensure that the results—which IOS would use to develop the examinations—would not unintentionally favor white candidates. With the job-analysis information in hand, IOS developed the written examinations to measure the candidates’ job-related knowledge. For each test, IOS compiled a list of training manuals, Department procedures, and other materials to use as sources for the test questions. IOS presented the proposed sources to the New Haven fire chief and assistant fire chief for their approval. Then, using the approved sources, IOS drafted a multiple-choice test for each position. Each test had 100 questions, as required by SB rules, and was written below a 10th-grade reading level. After IOS prepared the tests, the City opened a 3-month study period. It gave candidates a list that identified the source material for the questions, including the specific chapters from which the questions were taken. IOS developed the oral examinations as well. These concentrated on job skills and abilities. Using the job analysis information, IOS wrote hypothetical situations to test incident-command skills, firefighting tactics, interpersonal skills, leadership, and management ability, among other things. Candidates would be presented with these hypotheticals and asked to respond before a panel of three assessors. IOS assembled a pool of 30 assessors who were superior in rank to the positions being tested. At the City’s insistence (because of controversy surrounding previous examinations), all the assessors came from outside Connecticut. IOS submitted the assessors’ resumes to City officials for approval. They were battalion chiefs, assistant chiefs, and chiefs from departments of similar sizes to New Haven’s throughout the country. Sixty-six percent of the panelists were minorities, and each of the nine three-member assessment panels contained two minority members. IOS trained the panelists for several hours on the day before it administered the examinations, teaching them how to score the candidates’ responses consistently using checklists of desired criteria. (all emphasis added by me) Do you honestly believe that this examination was slanted against minority candidates? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Failing to take something away from people is favoring them?