Chinese Supercarrier Killer

Here's the latest variable for our geopolitical calculus...

The Dong Feng 21D is an Anti Ship Ballistic Missile (ASBM), the first of its kind.  Fired from a hard to track, and even harder to target, road-mobile launch vehicle the DF-21D (CSS-5 Mod-4) is intended to strike a moving aircraft carrier nearly 2000 miles distant.  Defense analysts surmise a non-nuclear penetrating warhead is housed in its Maneuverable Reentry Vehicle (MaRV) which uses terminal guidance information provided by a new series of Chinese spy satellites and UAVs.

So what is this neat, new technological marvel going to be used for?  Why, to kill, or threaten to kill, American supercarriers operating within a couple thousand miles of the Chinese coast line, of course.  Why would they ever want to do a thing like that?  The Chinese have some very specific interests within their regional sphere of influence.  These interests might be frustrated by the presence of U.S. combat forces in the neighborhood.  Creating the ability to deny the U.S. Navy carrier battle groups access to the Taiwan Strait is the most likely purpose of  this latest iteration of the very adaptable Dong Feng 21 (which has also been used as a Submarine-Launched Ballistic nuclear Missile, a Medium Range Ballistic Missile - with a conventional, chemical, or nuclear warhead, and as part of an anti-satellite weapon system).

An operational Chinese ASBM is a game changer unless and until the U.S. Navy comes up with some effective countermeasures or a new way to project power in the region.  Between the polite strangle hold (err...leverage) the Chinese have on the U.S. economy and an ability to to influence, if not reshape, American naval doctrine - without resorting to nuclear weapons - perhaps Taiwan had better give some thought to its eventual reintegration into the People's Republic.

UPDATED TO ADD: Here's an interesting article by Stuart Koehl at the Weekly Standard which evaluates the threat of the DF-21 differently.  Notably, Koehl is confident that the U.S. Navy will retain it's power projection advantage despite China's growing technological prowess and a home field advantage.  Of course, such a view would seem to be in alignment with the Standard's conservative outlook.

More Drivetime Podcasts

I've thinned out my podcast listening list so there's room to try a few more...

Caravaggio's "The Incredulity of Saint Thomas" courtesy of wikimedia commons

Righteous Indignation "is the weekly UK based podcast that aims to critically examine extraordinary claims and the people who surround them. These include ideas related to conspiracy, the paranormal, the occult and attempts to redefine the boundaries of science and current understanding." Their website is here.

Token Skeptic is an Australian skeptical weekly that looks at "superstition, paranormal belief and the science behind it all. The podcast covers a range of ideas and issues, stemming from psychology, philosophy and ethics, science, critical thinking, literacy and education." Created by Kylie Sturgess who also blogs at PodBlack Cat, writing on science, superstitions and skeptical life.

[UPDATE: Ms. Sturgess wrote to politely inform me she's Australian, not British...Oops.  If I'd paid closer attention I'd have recognized her name (but apparently not her accent) from the work she did at The Skeptic Zone, another Australian podcast I've tried in the past.  While taking a closer look at Kylie's blog I'm interested to see she writes about skepticism from a female perspective as well as the role of skeptical inquiry in education.  She also writes the Curiouser and Curiouser column for CSI.  I look forward to studying her work.]

America's Evolutionary Evangelists, Evolving Faith, Inspiring Naturalism are three podcasts feature husband and wife traveling eduation team of Michael Dowd - the minister, and Connie Barlow - the science writer, who also operate The Great Story website.

[UPDATE: Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow's various offerings are taking some getting used to.  Their pro-science, pro-evolution, moderate atheist but vaguely pantheistic message is delivered in a woo-colored, evangelical-flavored wrapper.  Interesting, but weird.]

Unbelievable, hosted by Justin Brierley.  A podcast of the weekly religious radio programme aired by Premier Radio in the UK.  The show is unabashedly promoting an evangelical biblical worldview but they address a variety of topics discussed or defended by non-evangelical Christians, believers from other traditions, and even nonbelievers, so I'm giving them a try.

A Rush to Judgement?

The workplace violence tragedy that shattered Hartford Distributors in Manchester, Connecticut, this week has attracted much attention...

image courtesy wikimedia commons

Those of in the security trade have worked to prevent all forms of workplace violence, including homicide, for ages.  The great majority of homicides at work - 75% or so - are routinely committed during armed robberies.  In the 1980s a different sort of workplace homicide captured the public imagination - workplace mass murder.  In 1986 postal worker Patrick Sherrill single-handedly inspired the unfortunate phrase "going postal" when he murdered 14 co-workers.  Then in 1988 Richard Farley shocked the world, perhaps especially those of us living and working in the "Silicon Valley," when he went on his infamous rampage at ESL.  Since then there have been mass killings at other businesses, on commuter trains, in schools, and even on military bases.  While much less common than other sorts of workplace  killings, workplace mass murder committed by a disgruntled employee grabs the 24 hour news cycle by the throat every time it occurs.

This week Caroline Hamilton wrote about killings perpetrated by Omar Thornton at Hartford Distributors on her Riskwatch blog. 

I responded:

As we come to grips with the tragedy at Hartford Distributors it’s important not to conflate injuries due to workplace violence, workplace homicide, and workplace mass murder.

Most INJURIES due to workplace violence occur in hospitals, specifically in mental health care settings.

The great majority of workplace HOMICIDES occur during robberies of retail establishments – especially at night, and of service providers – especially cab drivers. Of the 7606 persons killed at work between 1997 and 2008, 5809 were killed by “robbers or other assailants.”

We should be careful not to let lurid media coverage of these tragedies give us a false impression as to their frequency or severity. Depending on whose numbers you choose the number of workplace homicide between 1980 and 2008 seem to have remained relatively constant (Over the same interval the working population has increased which might be expected to reduce the rate).

1980-1989: 7603 total (760 per yr)
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/updates/94-101.html


1980-1992: 9937 total (764 per yr)
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/violhomi.html


1993-2002: 8148 total (815 per yr)
http://www.caepv.org/membercenter/files/workplace_homicide_trends_ajim.pdf


1997-2008: 7606 total (633 per yr)
http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/work_hom.pdf

Remember, year to year 75% of all these killings occurred during robberies. The balance was perpetrated by work associates, relatives, and other personal acquaintances.

Your statement “It makes me wonder if the workplace violence statistics from 2008 until now may be such a large increase, that has been either underreported or even held from publication!” strikes me as alarmist. Federally provided numbers regarding such incidents routinely lag a year or two due to the realities of data collection and publication. We need not attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by our federal bureaucracies.

As for Patrick Fiel’s opinions, unless he has inside knowledge of the precise situation and decision-making process at Hartford Distributors I respectfully submit it is premature for him to comment on the situation, or be quoted as an authority in this case.

Mr. Fiel’s suggestion that terminations should be conducted somewhere other than the office is an interesting notion. In over 30 years of work experience most employees receive corrective action, participate in disciplinary hearings, or are terminated, in the building (or on the campus) where they work. Of course it goes without saying all but the smallest fraction of these actions are completed without incident.

Fiel states as fact “Obviously this company didn’t have a crisis plan in place, and hadn’t done a risk assessment for the facility. A simple assessment might have saved nine lives by setting up procedures for the termination; and additionally, by making sure employees knew what to do when he did draw his gun.” While every business should have an active workplace violence prevention program in place, having a crisis plan and successfully averting a disaster is not one in the same. Unless and until the details of this horrible tragedy are revealed we will not know what happened. Why the rush to judgment?

Today Security Management Daily linked to an article written August 5, 2010, by James Allen Fox on his Crime and Punishment blog at the Boston Globe titled "Workplace homicide: What is the risk?"  Good reading.  Professor Fox has done the math on the sort of statistics I hastily assembled for my reply to Ms. Hamilton. I look forward to following the rest of his series on this topic.

Workplace violence and its prevention and mitigation is a complex issue that will call for all of us to do our best work.

The Problem with Atheism

I've been intrigued by Sam Harris, especially the differences between him and the other horsemen of the new atheist apocalypse - Dawkins, Hitchens, and Dennett, for some time now...

image from wikimedia commons

I really enjoyed Sam Harris' first book The End of Faith, at least until he slipped away sounding like a crypto-Buddhist in the closing chapters (an issue he has since clarified to my satisfaction).  I did not read his brief Letter to a Christian Nation but have learned the gist of it from a variety of presentations Harris made during his book tour for that slim volume.  He has a new book coming out, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, which appears to expand on ideas he discussed in a recent TED talk.

In 2007 Harris gave a very interesting lecture at the Atheist Alliance conference title "The Problem with Atheism," in which he questioned the self-applied label of "atheist," equating it to the nonsensical labels "non-astrologer" or "non-racist."

"We should not call ourselves 'atheists.' We should not call ourselves 'secularists." We should not call ourselves 'humanists,' or 'secular humanists,' or 'naturalists,' or 'skeptics,' or 'rationalists,' or 'freethinkers,' or 'brights.' We should not call ourselves anything...we should be decent, responsible people who destroy bad ideas wherever we find them."

Harris has taken much abuse and suffered some disavowal from the hard core atheist community but takes advantage of such opportunities to express his views further and with greater clarity in a variety of essays.

His views impact an idea I hope to write on one of these days.  Until then there's much to read and watch at his website.

Some Wicked Quackcasts This Way Come

A review of Supplements, Complimentary and Alternative Medicine (SCAMs)...

I've mentioned Mark Crislip's Quackcast in previous posts.  His podcasts #48 and #49 posted on iTunes 24 July 2010 were refreshingly acerbic.  The first skewers Harvard medical school for sponsoring a $6,650 course on acupuncture.  In the second he takes to task the pharmaceutical industry's practice of paying for CME.

"While we are at let's have McDonald's be responsible for teaching nutrition, Nintendo teach us about fitness, lobbiests determine the congressional voting, and tobacco companies provide research into cancer, and oil companies to tell us the cause of global warming."

Funny, with a bite.