Friday, June 02, 2006

"There is a likelihood..."

Cornell has now posted this Ivory-bill Project Q and A.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tom;
I can not keep up with all of your postings.

Question to the CLO:

Are you people completely out of your minds?

Thank you. The end.

Anonymous said...

From the dictionary.com thesaurus of the word "likelihood":

coin flip*, direction, even break, fair shake, fifty-fifty*, fighting chance*, good chance*, liability, likeliness, long shot*, outside chance*, plausibility, possibility, presumption, probability, prospect, reasonableness, shot at*, strong possibility, tendency, toss-up*, trend
_________

Ah, the Spin Miesters Back Dat Ting Up!

Methinks the tendency to presume the fighting chance is dependent upon the plausibility to give a fair shake to the prospect of a long shot or the possibility to trend toward the outside chance that this is a total load of poo-poo.

Please make your fully documented, fully negotiable, rock-solid checks payable to CLO, and you may presume that there is a long-shot, fifty-fifty at best, that it may allow us to further equivocate and waffle.

Anonymous said...

Cool! Won't be long now.

But I really think the real action is in Texas. Texas always has a habit of pulling the rest of the country out of its funk.

Don't ya think?

Signed,

TB

Anonymous said...

Bird Forum dot NET
You aren’t all wet
You educate the masses
And not just the asses

You have found Ivory Bills
Now you claim Imperials
Barkscrow’s Eskimo Culew
Will be easy to pursue

Because in your mind
Any bird is an easy find
Without breaking sweat
On Bird Forum dot Net

Anonymous said...

From The Q&A
In each case, the observer noted and described a single field mark: a broad band of white on the trailing edges of a flying bird (two observations) or a large white patch in the lower part of the folded wings of a perched bird. Encounters of this type (when one field mark is clearly observed) are strongly suggestive of Ivory-billed Woodpecker, but still cannot be considered definitive. Based on the search team ranking system a definitive encounter is only achieved when an observer clearly identifies at least two diagnostic field marks. No sightings are considered confirmed unless they are accompanied by photographic or video evidence. There were no definitive or confirmed visual encounters during the 2005-06 field season. The encounters from 2005-06 season are being treated as supporting evidence for the existence of ivory-bills, but not added confirmation.

____________________________

Whoa there Fitzcrow, Lamartcrow and Rosencrow et al! Doesn't this mean that you've never had even a "definative" sighting - all of the sightings in Science have only 1 field mark...

And when you say "one field mark is clearly observed" - how clearly can it be observed if the observer was unbable to see the rest of the bird you foggy-headed swindlers?

So, you create this fancy-pancy system of grading sighting, toss most out, but STILL (yes I'm yelling now) consider them "supporting evidence"? They are crap, too crappy to use really, but good enough to refer to over and over and over and ......

Oh, just spend a few moments pondering the idea that these guys are saying that 1 field mark is "strongly suggestive of IBWO" - how about suggestive of RHWO you bloody ninnies! How about PIWO you chowderheads! How about a White Ibis flying away you hush-puppy laden burbon-swilling dreamers. How about strongly suggestive of a bunch of people who feel they really really really want to save your asses and find an extinct bird?

Arghhhhhhhhhh.

BTW, they have ZERO confirmed sightings.

Anonymous said...

What's the deal with US F&WS? You can see that Fitzcrow, Barkscrow et al have painted themselves into an impossible fix. But what about US F&WS?

I mean can they really be falling for all of this? There are some good non-game biologist federal employees on that recovery team.

Is there something in the water? Is it a Stepford Wives kind of thing?

Anonymous said...

The Carpinteriö has to hand it to the latest "q&a" folks at CLO - but clearly this thing is now being led by interns and third tier types. It is a shadow of the glory days when there were NDA's and jets to ride on, visits with major league donors etc ... now the gulfstreams are giving brinkley a wide berth.

but I admire the courage of the new crew of interns ... you would think for all the ridicule that we have given them for their Ghille Suited silliness, and the lampooning the ol' bobby harrison took for sitting out in the middle of the slough with a full ghillie suit \ and ack ack gun camo drape over his whole southern fried self in NYT for heaven sake, that they would scale back on the Ghillie Gear ... or at least prevent people from taking pictures of them they way they keep cameras off the airstrip at Dover AFB but they haven't one bit - there it is right in the first picture ... a guy and his ghille going "quantity surveying".

Oh how I miss the days when Fitzcrow himself would wear the clan Ghille tartan and go a beating among the aru's for that "brass ring" ...

no matter what happens in TX it will never be that good again.

Anonymous said...

Dear Skeptics-
Yes, we ARE completely out of our minds. "Crazy like a fox," if you will. While you pathetic skeptics post frustrated anonymous messages for the amusement of your fellow IBWO haters and anti-IBWO fanatics, we have published two Science papers, an NAB paper, and an Auk commentary. And, we will continue to pad our pubs for years with "negative results" papers in prestigious journals. What have you skeptics got to show for yourselves? One flimsy Science paper authored by a bunch of self-destructive birdwatchers.
And talk about the face and name recognition that we are building on the lecture circuit- you guys obviously never heard the start gun go off and now you are so far back in the dust cloud that it's not even funny.
And how much money have you guys raised for your anti-IBWO smear campaign? Zero! Whereas we have millions rolling in because we know how to develop a massive cult following of mindless believers (and, don't forget all those lecture fees, royalties, video sales, and other merchandising).
So go ahead and snicker all you want while we are laughing all the way to the bank, fame, and glory. Bring it on! We took care of Sibley et al., and now we've put Jackson out of action. Who will be the next one to sacrifice their career going up against the IBWO machine?

Yeah, we're out of our minds alright.....

signed Team Cornell (and don't forget "Cornell on the Bayou")

Anonymous said...

CLO says:

"Ivory-billed Woodpeckers are very few in number and range over very large areas."

So few, and ranging so broadly in fact, that a mere zero birds cover the entire globe, Texas and Tibet included... amazing... It's going to be a long search.

Marcus Benkarkis said...

Poster states: "What's the deal with US F&WS? You can see that Fitzcrow, Barkscrow et al have painted themselves into an impossible fix. But what about US F&WS?

I mean can they really be falling for all of this? There are some good non-game biologist federal employees on that recovery team.

Is there something in the water? Is it a Stepford Wives kind of thing?"

ANSWER: Check out the US FW&S Web Site. There are 100's of powerful educational/environmental groups lined up behind the "Corridor of Hope" and the Recovery Team.

No GS-15 bureaucrat is going to stand up to that pressure or a "meesley" GS-9 biologist. It is easier to get along and go along. Federal Employees in general are Risk Adverse; they do not ruin their future careers and fall on the sword. Jon Andrew was and is riding a high prestige gravy train. Jon Andrew is not going to scuttle his own ship.

Eventually (let's say in 5 years) the money and jobs will disappear when there are no confirmed sitings. As long as the money flows into the Arkansas FW&S budget and the high paying jobs -- Nothing will change.

____________________________________

Anonymous said...

”Is it a Stepford Wives kind of thing?”

Sure it is! That’s why “Every good clone starts with CLO”. How do you think they got 17 authors on the “rediscovery” paper? Other than the Fitzcrow and the good old boys in canoes, isn’t there a sense of sameness to the remainder of the CLO/TNC functionaries? Don’t they appear to have been all produced by some factory in the Midwest (or Ithaca) that grinds out white-upper-middle-class conservation bureaucrats who are apparently more earnest than scientific? Do you think Fitz could have really gotten that many un-indicted co-conspirators without a bit of CLOning?

Anonymous said...

Ok, I know what you guys are saying about US F&WS but I just can't believe it to be all true.

Even Jon Andrew is a fellow that has spent time in non-game jobs trying to get funding for them. He's a nice guy. A good guy. He's not just some dufus lost in the Arkansas woods.

I just don't get it. But maybe there is hope yet. Have you noticed that on US F&WS Ivory-billed website that there have not been any updates since Jan 17? And, of course, they stopped the nonsense about closing the lands to the public.

Is this their way of saying "ADIOS AMIGOS. We're closing it down."? Last one here please turn off the light? Please leave your Ghillie suits, we can use them for duck hunting?

Marcus Benkarkis said...

I am sure Jon Andrew is a smart, nice guy. Sincerely.

Just try to understand that giant bureaucracies typically overwhelm any individual. FWS is made up of human beings. Some people seem to think that the Govt is smarter or objective or less swayed by personal belief. It ain't.

Nobody in a bureaucracy wants to look foolish, to stand out in the crowd. Is Jon Andrew going to tell the TNC, CLO, Audubon, ad infinitum, et al that they screwed up; especially after the Secretary of Interior gave her blessing. I don't think so.

Slowly and surely the wheels of common sense will begin to turn. With the Government it could take a very long time.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous wrote: "Have you noticed that on US F&WS Ivory-billed website that there have not been any updates since Jan 17?"

They've ALSO removed the link and any mention of Ivorybills from their main page http://www.fws.gov/ivorybill/.
This has been done in the last few days, since the link is still there on the Google cache version taken on 27th May.

Anonymous said...

Well there is it folks ... Cornell has handed this whole thing to a group of interns, look at the photos it is all newly minted wildlife tech types who are on the cuircuit ... no more big names. Harrison won't go out with them any more since they scare the birds. F&WS has folded up the "flagship status" of the whole thing - gone are the praise for the private landowners and hunters who have safeguarded this thing for decades ...

Skepticos, you have been a wonderful group of poets, cynics and true friends.

Viva los carpenterio Ivory, Viva los carpenterios real.

THE CARPINTERIO REAL

Anonymous said...

Carpinterio -

Is your moniker "The Real Woodpecker" in English or does "real" mean something else?

Anonymous said...

I think they guy is making a play on the word "RAY-al" which is a spanish coin - from the latin word meaning King - Rex. It is also a play on a local mexican name for the cousin of the Ivory Bill the Imperial Woodpecker.

He might mean "real" woodpecker like "not fake" however his comments have been a little too refined for the use of the word "real" to not be meant as a play on the whole thing ...

Viva the Carpinterio ...

Anonymous said...

Thanks, I'll vote for the Royal Woodpecker. My spanish in laws said that "real" is either Royal or real. If that makes sense.

Anonymous said...

Yes Amigos you have to roll your R when you say RAY-al, as in "Car peen tarry E O RAY al"