Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 April 21

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April 21

US attack on Syria

I ran across another claim that every one of the 105 U.S. missiles fired hit its target [1]. However, so far I have seen no images of damaged targets other than the one building at the Higher Institute for Applied Sciences and Technology in Damascus. The Russians claim that Soviet missiles in Syrian hands shot down 2/3 of the missiles. Our article says two of the unexploded missiles are currently being transported to Moscow.

With so much lying going on, such a gulf between the propaganda of the two sides, is there any way to even begin approaching the truth in this matter? Can we find evidence of the two other supposed target sites being hit? Does it make sense you need 105 missiles to destroy even three sites? Wnt (talk) 00:23, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Hence the term "gulf war". Since Russia won't let inspectors look at the sites where the alleged chemical attacks occurred, which side is your money on? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:33, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Ah, but who told you "Russia won't let inspectors look at the sites"? HiLo48 (talk) 02:22, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

When it comes to chemical weapons, I frankly would not believe anything that the Russians, Iranians, Syrians, and Hezbollah have said without external verification... AnonMoos (talk) 03:02, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Oh, I totally agree, but my list also includes the USA, the UK, France, and my own country's government, plus many others. HiLo48 (talk) 22:45, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

It does make sense, cruise missiles have small warheads (1000 pounds).
Sleigh (talk) 00:56, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

If you look at our article 2018 bombing of Damascus and Homs, there are aerial photos of the 3 attack sites from the US government. If you follow the links to the source of these photos, you can see before and after aerial photos showing damage to these 3 sites [2]. There are also aerial photos of the 3 sites from DigitalGlobe here [3] and here [4]. As for more close up photos, I don't know if these exist. Sensitive government facilities are often difficult to photograph and this applies even more to a place like Syria. From what I can tell, disputes over what sites were targetted and the number of missiles shot down aside, even the Russians and Syrians seem to agree at least 2 targets (maybe more) were hit by some missiles. Or to put it a different way, what than concentrating on there being a gulf over claims, it's helpful to actually concentrate on what the claims are and where they are in dispute. For example is there a dispute over the number of missiles? Whether they hit or were destroyed? What they hit including how many targets there were? How much damage they caused? The significance of the targets? BTW, you might want to look at the allocation of missiles. This is mentioned in at least one of the earlier sources and also others coming from the US goverrnment [5]. 76 of them were use on the Damascus facility. Nil Einne (talk) 10:43, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Interesting. So the government is making a strong case, and the media is simply not communicating it. I looked at half a dozen articles all of which showed the same single target site. Admittedly, the others don't look like much (I guess that's the point with a bunker) but at least I can see something was hit on purpose. These photos should be PD, so we should have them all in the article (I mean, before and after). Wnt (talk) 15:45, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Terminal Island - 2000 census data

The Terminal Island article says the island "had a population of 1,467 at the 2000 census", but doesn't cite a source. Can someone find the corresponding census record (I tried looking at the 90731 ZIP code entry, but that covers a larger area, and it doesn't seem that Terminal Island is a CDP). Also, it seems (per this story) that the US Census counts prisoners at their place of incarcertation - does the public information reported about this census differentiate between prisoners and other people - presumably that 1467 people includes about 900 prisoners. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 15:30, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Presumably the island is a separate piece of census geography known as a Census block group. Let's see if it's possible to find data at the block group level...the current Census Bureau Factfinder isn't as useful as the old one, and I'm not clear if it has any 2000 data. You're correct on prisoners being counted in the prison's locality; rural Forest County, Pennsylvania hovered between 6,000 and 4,000 residents in every census from 1930 to 2000, but the construction of State Correctional Institution – Forest caused the county population to grow by more than 50% in 2010, and Jenks Township, where the prison's located, saw its population almost triple. I don't know that prisoners are represented separately; the Census reports the total population and the total population living in households, and prisoners are in the not-living-in-households group, but other kinds of living situations (e.g. college students in dorms) also count as not-in-households, so you can't just assume that the population minus the population living in households equals the prison population. Nyttend (talk) 02:17, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

PS, Finlay, the links at the bottom of Census block group and Census tract may well answer your question, but for some reason my computer's having trouble loading them...can you try them yourself? I was hoping for a useful national map ("click here and the map will show you information about the census geography of your choice") but haven't found one yet. Nyttend (talk) 02:32, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Is 9800.31 what you're looking for [6] (from Californian government but going die in 8 days and I'm not sure if this means archived but still there or completely taken down) [7] [8] [9] (last one is from federal government but has no map) [10]/[11] (from census themselves but no map). I found this using the map here [12] linked from the above linked Census tract "If you know only the street address, you can look up tract code number here by street address". I tried the address of the prison, and later a fire station I found on Google Maps but neither seemed to find anything so I have up and just worked out where it was from Google Maps and found the same location in the government map. (I suspect you can probably get a census tract overlay on Google Maps, at least on Google Earth somehow. Likewise Bing etc.) BTW, I don't see how you can know the people in prison from any of this info I found, maybe you need to find other data. Nil Einne (talk) 07:37, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Ah I found [13]. While it's not perfect, it does list the "Civilian noninstitutionalized population". I'm assuming there are no rest homes, mental hospitals or military barracks, and the population below 16 is very low [14] so you can estimate from these estimates that most of the population by far is probably in prison. This is from ACS2016, I'm still trying to figure out how to get any data from 2000. Nil Einne (talk) 08:08, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

And I worked out the problem with 2000. The area is in a different tract, from this [15] it seems to be tract 2961. This gives [16] 1434 so I don't know where the above number comes from. This BTW is the census map for 2010 [17]. I noticed from these the Fort MacArthur base is in the nearby area. According to our article, I think it's out of both census tracts but while looking in to it I realised there are Coast Guard facilities there, which is also mentioned in our article above, so I withdraw my comment above. Nil Einne (talk) 08:47, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

While there is of course data for the civilian population and armed forces which you could use to continue down the earlier track [18], I realised while searching for this I was being stupid and so found [19]/[20] which has info on the imprisoned population. To ensure proper comparison, this is the general data for the same datasets [21]/[22]. (As I understand [23], there should be no difference in the data between SF1 and SF2 for this level.) For 2000 I think it's this [24] and [25] is equivalent data for the whole population. BTW there doesn't seem to be a way to provide direct links to search queries. But from 2000 to 2009 data, limit place to 'Census Tract 2961, Los Angeles County, California'. And for 2010 until 2019 (or possibly further) data, limit place to 'Census Tract 9800.31, Los Angeles County, California' in this search [26]. You can then further limit by year etc. Alternatively open one of my data links and click on the back to advanced search link. This should limit you the the geographical location it was for. Also as a word of caution, when opening the data links, open a link and let it load before opening another. If you mass open them, you may get unexpected results since the way the page works, the info provided to get it to load the right data may disrupt each other. Nil Einne (talk) 09:46, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

I still don't know where the figure in our article came from. I don't know the definition of Terminal Island very well, so maybe someone included population from some other area. But 2971.20 has a very high population [27] and I think the ones above likewise (and it also seems a little weird to include them [28]). 5756 does have a fairly low population [29], but 46+1434 is 1480 not 1467. My assumption is there is no real way to geographically subdivide a census tract without those with access to the original data doing so (since that's the point) so you can't have part of a census tract in Terminal Island and part not if you are using the census data for your figures. I wonder if the most likely scenario is that someone took one of the ACS estimates instead or some weirdness with wherever the data came from. Nil Einne (talk) 10:20, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Ooops again I didn't read properly before commenting. Reading census tract, the US also has Census block groups and then Census blocks. So it would nominally be possible to make up a Terminal Island figure using census block groups or census blocks that are part of different census tracts to get the 1467 figure. I don't know how this is done though. Also I just noticed that 5756 is part of a different CCD although I appreciate CCDs may not necessarily correlate with local norms. Is the definition of Terminal Island coming from somewhere like the government of California or of Los Angeles and then this definition then being used to get the data for census block groups or census blocks and come up with a figure? This seems a quite an involved process and would need a good source. I've asked the editor who added it for clarification (User talk:Backspace#Source for census claim in Terminal Island although they haven't edited since 2016 Special:Contributions/Backspace, but they seem to edit sporadically so maybe they will be back. Nil Einne (talk) 11:01, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

For anyone interested, these are the 2000 Census block maps for the area. (Well really I probably included too much.) Either by whole of LA [30] [31][32][33][34] [35] [36] or by CCD [37][38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45]. Nil Einne (talk) 11:40, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

The prison seems to be in block 2006 in the 2000 census BTW [46]. For searching you may want All Blocks within Census Tract 2961, Los Angeles County, California etc. Block level data would seem to provide info that could be linked to individuals in a number of cases. I understand sample data (I presume from ACS or the old long form) which includes economic status, job etc is restricted to block groups for privacy reasons (and I presume further restricted in cases where the block groups are very small). I never realised the US provides the very basic data which gives info on race, age groups, relationship status, at a level which could potentially be tied to individuals. Nil Einne (talk) 12:27, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Wow, thanks, that's so much information. And indeed none really matches what's in the article. The "terminal island" block does seem to contain more than just the actual island - but it's still mostly industrial areas - except for a large marina. I wonder if some people habitually live in the marina, and so get counted there. I've spent some time poring over the area in Google's satellite view, and there's certainly no evidence now of any real residential accomodation - but admittedly that's 18 years after the 2000 census, so things may have changed. Right now the only non-prison accomodation that's evident is some housing for the Coast Guard station (south of the prison), which has 10 or so large-ish houses and a couple of buildings that may be barracks. It's certainly not just for actual CG personel, as there's a kiddie's playground with a seesaw, roundabout, and a jungle-gym (so there must be some CG family accomodation). But no sign of remotely enough for 500 or so non-prison people. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 22:05, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

I was wondering where the non prison people were living as well. I don't think it's the Coast Guard facilities as no one shows up as being in the armed forces [47]. This was based on sampling [48], still I would assume it would still have picked it up if it was a fair few. In any case, I don't think it can be military quarters, these should show up as group homes together with prisons. (And this is based on the 100% data.) I realised the previous link was less clear on the other sorts of group quarters. This one shows the most detail [49], the only other group quarters is a small number on maritime vessels. The number outside prison did go down in 2010, but it was still 200+ suggesting 8 years ago there were still a fair few living in the area outside prison. In 2000 (also IIRC 2010) there were a bunch of couples and families with kids [50]. I guess it's possible it's civilian coast guard personnel living in more traditional homes and these aren't counted as military quarters, but there's also no one employed by the government in the sampling data [51]. Also at least some of the homes are 'owner-occupied', I would assume they even civilians never actually own homes in coast guard facilities. The earlier data on jobs and also this family income [52]. There is no family less than US$35k and although we are talking about LA here I suspect this still makes it seem unlikely that it's people illegally living in industrial facilities. There's also a bunch earning $100k-149k. Admittedly the numbers are small enough that I think we're only looking at 2 households, 2 households and 3 households, multiplied by 6. (I think this is excluding anyone in prison even if that prison evidently requires people to work.) It's possible some are living on ships in the marina (I'm assuming this is mostly what you were thinking of?) but there are also a bunch of vacant housing units, and also a bunch of households were rented. I wouldn't think a boat, even an empty boat, counts as a vacant housing unit and it seems a little weird to live on a rented boat. (Unless this is crew on a rich person's yatch. I'm not sure if that would count as maritime vessel group quarters or not. I'm not sure if any of the economic data suggest this either although I'm also not sure how well this would be sampled.) Nil Einne (talk) 11:34, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

It occurred to me this is one area where the block level data is quite useful. From the earlier link [53] I found the populations block:

1000 - 173, the 2000 government map seems quite different from the 2018 Google Map. This seems to be the area which is now the south west end of New Dock Street. The group quarters data reveals that this is where all the maritime vessel people are 'located'. Still that's only 30. There are a total of 32 families here most of them married with no children. There is a ~2 to 1 male bias and for males the age tends to be quite old most at least 35 with the 45 to 69 age range the highest and even a few 70 to 84. (For females 35 to 59 and 65 to 66 with to above 85.) Sort of suggests to me people in their own boats. Most of the non family households are one person. There are some renter occupied, this may be those on maritime vessels and perhaps some yatchs or similar where the owner wasn't living there?

1009 - 11, not that far from 1000 again the map differences make it difficult to know what was here.

2000 - 4

2002 - 1

2006 - 1125 this is obviously the prison although interesting there are a number here who don't count as living in group quarters

2009 to 2020 - between 2 to 14 in each, this is the area where Wharf Street, Cannery Street, down to the end of Barracuda Street on the left side nowadays. Too many for easy analysis, I did notice families including some with kids. Some are owner-occupied some renter. I was wondering if these were boats but I don't get why they'd count in many of these areas.

2022 - 43 not really sure what this is, I was wondering if they are boats, there are families including some with children although most of them are renter occupied. I guess it could be any sort of boat where the living arrangements aren't counted as group quarters.

9001 - 5

9005 - 4

The data I used: families [54], age and sex [55], tenure status [56], household type [57], group quarters type (couldn't get as detailed) [58] or [59]

This map [60] seems to show all blocks although you'll have to work out where that fits in if you're using Google Maps or whatever.

Nil Einne (talk) 13:03, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

P.S. One thing which just occurred to me, is it possible some people who are 'renter-occupied' could be on a charted yachts and the like and they happened to be in harbour during the census? I assume renting/chartering a yacht long term while mostly staying at the harbour e.g. if you're working is relatively rare but this seems like it's something which may happen. What does the census count if you're living on a boat for say a year and moving around so don't have any fixed geographical dwelling for a long time? The maritime vessel group quarter (and also military) sort of makes me think they could count these people. Nil Einne (talk) 13:25, 23 April 2018 (UTC)