Deinonychus antirrhopus

Dover Creationism Case

The school board in Dover PA recently has enacted a policy to teach ID in the public shools. The issue is going to trial, but there has recently be a rather surprising incident for the Creationist side. Several of the Discovery Institutes experts, William Dembksi, Stephen Meyer, and John Campbell, were removed as expert witnesses by the Thomas More Law Center (via Panda's Thumb).

This is definitely good news for those who oppose Creationism in our schools. Dembski is a very big name in the ID community loaded with more degrees than most people have shoes. Meyer is also quite eloquent and would have been a good witness. Definitely a blow to those who were hoping this would be the big case that put ID in public school classrooms.

It looks like the problem is that the Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) had taken a position that really put the Discovery Institute (DI) into a bind, as Ed Brayton at the Panda's Thumb notes,

The DI has been in a bind from the moment this case started. For the past few years, both sides in this dispute have been waiting for the case - the legal test case that would determine once and for all whether ID can be taught in public school science classrooms or whether the previous precedents against teaching "creation science" will be applied to ID in a similar manner. That's what all of the activity in this area for the last decade has been building toward. Everything that ID advocates have done during that time has been designed (yes, intelligently) to put legal distance between ID and the type of creation science that was banned from public school science classrooms in the Edwards decision. It's not by accident that the Wedge strategy was worked out by an attorney, Phillip Johnson. Johnson knew that the courts would not allow an explicitly religious idea be taught in public schools, so it was necessary to distance ID as much as possible from religion and make it appear to be religion-neutral.

This is why you hear constantly from ID proponents that the designer is not necessarily God, it could also be, for instance, aliens (never mind that this is flatly contradicted by the fact that the DI's official definition of Intelligent Design includes the claim that "certain features of the universe" are "best explained by an intelligent cause" - the makeup of the universe itself is well outside the reach of "aliens", because aliens, like humans, are part of the universe itself. No, their definition requires that the designer be outside the universe itself and hence "supernatural" because their definition combines cosmological and biological design). This is also why the DI was so upset by the discovery and release of the Wedge Document, because that document makes explicit the fact that the entire ID movement and strategy was designed as part of a larger campaign of Christian cultural renewal (which is also why the DI changed the name of its ID component from the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture to merely the Center for Science and Culture). The DI is nothing if not politically savvy and they know that these little rhetorical details make a big difference. They also know that the success or failure of a court case to determine whether ID meets constitutional muster for public school science classrooms depends largely on how well they separate ID from religion.

Of course, even putting Dembski and Meyer on the stand would have been problematic. These two both believe that the designer isn God, and nothing else. They have paper trails that pretty much confirm this and as such ID would have a very tough uphill battle in court. I imagine that in the next few months we'll be reading about the rather pathetic demise of the Dover case.

Alternative Energy Sources

One of the things we frequently hear is that we need alternative sources of energy so that we can reduce our dependency on foreign oil. The implication is that since the foreigners have the majority of the world’s oil, they can set the price and thus, the higher prices are bad for our economy. While the conclusion is right, the idea that switching to alternatives will solve this problem is dubious at best. A simple example might help.

There is a country that imports the bulk of its oil, and the cost is $10/barrel. Further, lets make this an extreme case and assume there is only one foreign exporter of oil so that the price is the monopoly price. Given that this is the monopoly price it is a price higher than the competitive price. Now, there is also an alternative source of energy, but exploiting it with the current technology results in an equivalent price of $15/barrel. Suppose the usage of oil in our little country is 100 barrels, so the total cost is $1,000. The cost for using the same amount of energy with the alternative is $1,500.

So what are our policy options at this point? We could mandate that only the alternative is used, but this would result in people reducing consumption and paying more per barrel. The total energy costs would be between $1,000 and $1,500. We could subsidize the alternative energy so that the consumer only pays $10/barrel. But this means that we’d also have to increase taxes somewhere between $0 and $500. Total costs (excluding for the moment the deadweight loss associated with taxes) would again be between $1,000 and $1,500. We could subsidize research into technology associated with the alternative fuel so that it becomes cheaper. Again, since we’d still need a tax for this and depending on how much we spent on research we’d have total costs in excess of the $1,000 we are currently spending on oil alone.

Now one could look at the above and say, “Gee, no policy looks good other than doing nothing.” Which ironically is a policy option, but one that politicians almost never ever talk about since what politician wants to be seen as literally doing nothing. The last one does have a possibility of having some benefit to it. If the technological research develops enough so that switching to the alternative makes sense, then it is likely that as technology continues to improve we’d end up paying less and no longer paying the monopoly price. Thus, the last solution does have some possible positive benefits associated with it. However, it could also be argued that such research is better left to the private sector.

But short of that, most of the current arguments for “reducing our dependency on foreign oil” for economic reasons are just baloney. When politicians open their mouths and start blabbering on about the economic costs of being dependent on OPEC and foreign oil, they are just spouting jingoistic nonsense. And this is what we see with most of the President's energy bill, that and pork, nice yummy corporate pork. It has tax incentives for hybrid cars, drilling in ANWR, subsidies for ethanol, and subsidies for biodiesel are all examples of spreadign the pork around.

[Caveats: The above does not consider the external costs associated with oil, it could be that in reality the external costs of oil consumption actually make the alternatives, or more use of alternatives a reasonable policy. However, this is not the rhetoric that is used for switching to alternatives. Also, there could be other reasons for switching to alternatives. For example, if one or more of the countries selling the oil is using the revenue to fund our enemies.]

Peak Energy: A Reply to Kevin Drum, Part 4

First, before continuing with my response to Kevin's series on peak oil, I just want to point out quite clearly I think that the Hubbert curve/peak oil is a valid concept. My complaints are that the hubbert curve is problematic for use in policy making, and that the model is lacking to be a truly predictive model. As for peak oil my view is that "running out" of oil does not have to be a catastrophe. Now I want readers to look at that last sentence a couple of more times. Note that I am not ruling out the possibility of a catastrophe, but that I don't think the depletion of oil has to be bad.

Now that that is out of the way, lets move on to the fourth post in Kevin's series. In the fourth post Kevin looks at the issue of pumping capacity and says that it is also bad. It is bad because we are running out of spare capacity.

Does the precise date of peak oil really matter? To some extent, of course it does: if production has already peaked, the world economy is in big trouble and there's no time to prepare for it. If it peaks in 30 years, there are plenty of things we can do in the meantime. Even ten years is better than nothing.

But in another sense it doesn't, because something has already happened that's equally important: the world has run out of spare pumping capacity.

In discussing spare capacity Kevin writes that the 1973 embargo was a big event. However, was it the embargo or the fact that there was a cartel? The purpose of a cartel is to obtain the monopoly outcome when there are only a few suppliers. That is, you can't have monopoly pricing (and profits) if you have two or more firms/suppliers competing. The price (and profits) are lower. A cartel on the other hand restricts output and thereby raises the price and profits. Notice the emphasized portion of the last sentence. The natural thing for a functioning cartel to do is reduce output.

Further, givent that there is a world market for oil and the refusal of the OPEC countries to sell to directly to the U.S. would have only a slight effect on the price of oil. The reason is that other countries would be willing to sell to the U.S. Moreover, since this is true for each country that can buy from OPEC there would be sufficient competition to minimize the effects of the oil embargo. So was it the embargo or was it the natural operation of a cartel which is to reduce output which does impact the price in an unambiguous manner?

Kevin's claim that Iran offset the impact of the oil embargo by increasing production is also not all that surprising either. After all, the biggest problem facing a cartel is that the cartel members will each have an incentive to cheat on the production agreements (i.e. chisel). For a cartel to function--i.e. raise the price--the cartel must get each member to reduce output, but since the firms/members are already maximizing profits they are producing at the point where marginal cost is equal to marginal revenue. Hence, the level of production necessary for the cartel to raise prices has to fall. But this means that each firm is giving up profits in that if all other members of the cartel produce at the cartel mandated levels and the cheater increases production the cheater can achieve even higher profits.

Still, even with these oversights there is still a problem with the declining spare production capacity. It will mean more volatile prices. But is Kevin right that this problem is permanent? Maybe, but I think there is reason to be doubtful of Kevin's claims,

This is why prices are increasing now even though there's been no oil shock. It's not because of a sudden disruption, it's because demand is now bumping up against supply. What's more, this is a permanent condition: new capacity takes years to develop, so even in the best case supply will only barely keep up with future growth in demand. There's not much margin for error.

The thing that everybody should immediately ask themselves is, "Well how did we get all that spare capacity to begin with?" It wasn't always there, so it seems that over a long enough horizion capacity is a variable concept. Could it be that capacity was built back during the last energy crisis and not anticipating the decline in consumption due to high prices the Saudi and others overbuilt? For Kevin's claim to be true it has to be the case that new capacity will only be added to keep up with demand. Forever. And that demand will always stay at capacity. Forever.

Kevin also writes the following,

In the short term, this doesn't mean much: prices will most likely continue to bounce around based on inventory levels and seasonal/regional demand. In the longer term, however, prices are likely to rise steadily and become far more sensitive to supply problems. With Saudi Arabia now pumping at very close to its maximum capacity, even a moderate oil shock somewhere in the world will make $50 per barrel oil seem like a bargain.

This makes no sense. If prices in the future are going to rise, why not right now? Is everybody in the oil industry stupid save for Kevin Drum? If this is the way things are going to evolve then purchasing current cheap oil and holding it for the future should start to drive up prices now. Also, if this is true are futures prices going up? Seems to me they should be.

This potential for instability is far more dangerous than mere expensive oil. The economy can adjust to high oil prices, and to the extent that high prices reduce consumption and spur innovation, they can even be positively beneficial. But as we saw above, wildly fluctuating oil prices are a different, and far more damaging, story. What's worse, future oil shocks are likely to be fairly frequent since it will take only a small disruption to remove a few million barrels a day from the world market. Venezuela's production dropped by 2 million bpd for a few months in 2003 just because their oil workers went on strike, for example. With Saudi Arabia already pumping at capacity, we can't expect them to bail us out when stuff like this happens in the future.

There is some truth here, but it is also true that people don't like volatility in their energy prices. One response to volatile/increasing energy prices is to cut back consumption whenever possible. Are people doing this? Well the demand for SUVs is declining (link, link, link). So the dire prediction of oil at $50/barrel one day and $200/barrel the next strikes me a bordering on the hysterical (or at the very least Kevin should be going whole hog on oil futures and strike it rich).

Kevin also references this chart to support his argument that which way oil price growth goes so goes the economy.

The chart on the right, courtesy of GlobalSecurity.org, plots both oil prices (in constant 2000 dollars) and economic growth over the past 35 years. I've extended it to 2005, and you'll see that over that time there have been four periods in which oil prices have spiked suddenly (i.e., risen more than 50% in less than 18 months): 1973, 1979-81, 1989-90, and 1999-2000.

There have also been four periods of recession during that time: 1974-75, 1980-82 (a double dip), 1991, and 2001. This can't be written off as a coincidence.

What Kevin doesn't tell you is that these amazing coincidents also correspond with other events. Prior to the 1980 and the 1981/82 recessions also corresponds to high interest rates. The Fed Funds Rate in 1980 was over 17%. Granted higher oil prices would result in rising price levels, but that is only part of the picture, IMO. Changes in price levels are not driven solely by the price of oil. Another factor was the failed notion that the economy could be managed via the inflation rate (increase the inflation rate and you get a decrease in the unemployment rate; this view hinges on people suffering from money illusion). Also, there were the large Reagan tax cuts in 1981/82. Could that demand stimulus have been part of the reason that the Fed Funds Rate went over 19%? The people who say it was only the oil price want you to believe that there was nothing other than oil prices in causing price level changes which lead to the increase in interest rates which was what actually caused the recession. Further, if we look at a graph of the Fed Funds Rate we see that the rate also went up right around the time of each of the past recessions. So is it only oil that matters for the economy? No, that answer strikes me as just too simplisitic. Is it a factor? Sure. Is the price of oil important? Sure. Is it the only thing in the world that matters? No.

Does spare capacity matter? Sure. Is it bad that there isn't much left? Yes. Does it have to be permanent or does it mean we have to "do something"? I am far from convinced. The problem is that "doing something" with Kevin usually means "government doing something" and that something usually entails distorting market signals. Is that what we really want to do? Try to hide the fact that gasoline and oil prices might be getting more volatile or increasing? Seems like that is a sure fire way to ensure that we are always vulnerable to the problems of volatile/increasing oil prices. Consider the situation where one week you fill up your SUV for $30 and then the next week it costs $57 and then back down, then back up. Might such fluctuations induce people to move towards more fuel efficient cars? If the answer is yes, then perhaps letting the price signals come through unadulterated is what we should do.

Peak Energy: A Reply to Kevin Drum, Part 3

This is part three in the series of posts that points out some of the problems with the current fad Peak Oil (parts 1 and 2 are here and here). Kevin's third post deals with the issue of how much oil is left and can we get it to the surface as fast as we need it.

There isn't much here that I quibble with. I accept that basic premise that someday oil will not be a major source of energy. I think Hubbert's idea is fundamentally correct, but that there are problems in determining exactly how much oil is left and thus, exactly when the peak will be. If the predictions for the total number barrels that recoverable are too low, then the peak shifts back. If they are too low then the peak shifts forward. Toss into this mix the fact that as prices rise people will respond by curtailing usage you get a real iffy forecast for the peak of oil production, IMO.

With regards to that last point some argue that the peak oil analysis using the Hubbert curve takes this into consideration. This is incorrect. The Hubbert curve is determined by the following function,

Notice that price is not in there anywhere. Further, neither are the prices of the goods that are derived from oil. For the most part we don't like oil because it is oil, but what we can use it for. One obvious product derived from oil is gasoline, and gasoline prices here in the U.S. are...unstable to say the least. This instability of gasoline prices is not solely a function of oil, but of our own making. There are a small number of gasoline refineries in the U.S. and various regions of the U.S. have their own requirements for the blends of gasoline. These two factors make the price of gasoline highly volatile. One refinery shuts down and the next thing you know gasoline prices have jumped $0.25/gallon. I think it is fair to say that without these kinds of things we might have already passed the peak in oil production. After all cheaper means that we use more.

Another statement by Kevin that is made out of thin air with nothing to support it is this.

However, there are no miracle breakthroughs on the horizon, and we have a pretty good idea of what existing advanced technology can do: it can reduce the decline of old fields, but it can't prevent them from peaking in the first place. There's no magic bullet here.

At first it looks pretty impressive...but how often are technological breakthroughs visible on the horizon before they are needed? At least some historical context would be nice. Maybe Kevin is right, but we have no way of knowing it since he can't bother himself to look at various instances of technological breakthroughs. My usual example is the kerosene lamp which helped bring about the end of the whale oil trade. Did anybody foresee that replacing whale oil lamps prior to the Titusville well? Did anybody forsee the internet becoming what it is today back when it was first being suggested/discussed? What about cell phones, were those on the horizon? Did anybody see that coming? I'm sure there are other instances of miraculous breakthroughs and I'm curious...did anybody see them on the horizon 4,5 or even 10 years before they actually "broke through"? How about the polio vaccines? Did anybody see those 4 years before it happened?

Kevin also presents some impressive data on new discoveries of oil. At one point Kevin makes the following comment,

Will market forces and technology save us in the future? Maybe. But prices skyrocketed during the 70s and the rate of new discoveries fell anyway. Likewise, new technology has been put to ever increasing use during the past two decades, and that didn't stop the decline in new discoveries either. Nothing has stopped the decline, probably because there's just not that much new oil left to be found.

Okay, fine. However, we have a similar result for Hubbert cycles. We have not gone through a complete Hubbert cycle for a non-renewable resource, ever. But peak oil is "serious", why because what Kevin accepts as the truth in one instance (declining oil discoveries) is not even really acknowledged in the second (that we have yet to go through a complete Hubbert cycle).

Part 1

Part 2

Peak Energy: A Reply to Kevin Drum, Part 2

This is the second part of the my response to Kevin's Peak Oil posts. This looks at Part 2 of Kevin's series.

In this part of his series Kevin looks at the work of M. King Hubbert and his Hubbert curve and why Hubbert has it, basically right. Hubbert's idea, which later became known as the Hubbert curve, was first outlined in this paper.

I am not going to dispute Kevin's statements on the problems/issues with extracting oil, but what I am going to take some exceptions to are his portrayal of Hubbert's article and ideas. First it Hubbert's successful forecast of oil production for the lower continental U.S. One of Hubbert's forecasts (there were two) was that oil production would peak in 1970. That prediction was correct. However, Hubbert's other forecast was obviously wrong, and another interesting bit of information in the article is Hubbert's prediction for world wide oil production. That peak was to be in 2000. You don't usually hear to many people talk about this.

Now, the problem is noted by Hubbert himself. If the ultimate world production in greater than 1,250 billion barrels then the peak is moved back. So this does not disprove Hubbert in the sense that his model is wrong, but that he didn't use the best guess/estimate when constructing it. But it does raise a number of possible problems with using the Hubbert curve as a predictive tool, IMO.

The first is that as the price for an exhaustable resource goes up, there will be more exploration to find new sources of the exhaustable resource. Granted this cannot go on indefinitely, but it does make using the Hubbert curve as a predictive tool problematic. Second, Hubbert himself noted this one, is that new recovery processes might improve the situation also pushing back the date of the peak. Third, there is the economics that is overlooked. Another thing that many Hubbert enthusiasts wont tell you about is that they often have to use more than one curve (i.e., more than one local maxima) to get a good fit to the data. You see, there was a problem around 1980 or so when production peaked and then declined for a number of years (you can see it here). So how many peaks will we actually go through before we get to the last one? Hubbert is silent on that point since he and all of those who have followed him have no way of actually knowing this. Right now, the number of peaks is two, but it could be three or even four. Granted the more peaks the less likely the scenario, but it isn't impossible.

Now, this does not make Hubbert and his curve incorrect in theory. Let me repeat that; this does not make Hubbert and his curve incorrect in theory. However, it does make the Hubbert curve questionable tool for policy analysis. It strikes me alot like the Laffer curve in economics and many, Kevin included, love to heap scorn on that idea. The theory behind the Laffer curve is 100% sound and correct. The problem is in empirical/practical application. We know that at a 0% tax rate there is zero tax revenue. We also know that at a 100% tax rate there is zero tax revenue. Thus, our domain is what a mathematician calls a compact set. The function (tax revenues as a function of tax rates) is continuous, and any continuous function on a closed and bounded set has a maximum (see corollary 6.7.3 in Lewin and Lewin, An Introduction to Real Analysis, Random House, 1988 p 119). If we move away from that maximum then the value of the function (in this case tax revenue falls). The problem is that nobody knows what the Laffer curve looks like other than at the end points. So its use for policy purposes is problematic.

Further, Hubbert himself was not a pessimist when it came to energy outlook, which is really what the topic should be (after all we don't like oil because it is oil, but because is a cheap and useful source of energy). Hubbert himself suggested a switch over to nuclear as a solution to the eventual decline in the production/availability of oil. And we are now seeing some companies starting to look towards that option. As I noted some firms are testing the NRC's new permitting policy.

Finally let me address yet again this common complaint.

I just love these guys’ arguments. “Something’s always come along in time…” OK. What?

So, what will Rueben be doing in 10 years? Don't know, well he must be dead in 10 years. What job will he have in 5 years? Not sure? Then he must be unemployed. Will he be in the same living quarters he is now? Oh, he must be homeless then. I hope the point is clear, simply because the solution is not obvious years before a change takes place does not mean there is no solution. It semed inexorable that Malthus' numbers were going to lead to massive world wide starvation and misery...didn't happen. Did anybody see the solution (improvements in technology) when Malthus put forth is theory? My guess is no. Many people thought Ehrlichs views on feeding humanity were inescapable, but he was totally and completely wrong. The Club of Rome figured millions would die as we ran out of resources, but they too were wrong. Now none of this means that the Hubbert/Peak Oil/End of the World believers have to be wrong. But do you want to bet they are right? The doom-n-gloomers have a poor track record, but hey, maybe this will be the big success for them.

Part 1

Peak Energy: A Reply to Kevin Drum, Part 1

Kevin Drum has posted a sequence of 5 posts on peak oil and appears to all intents and purposes to be a Hubbert curve believer, or more accurately a believer in the doom-n-gloom predictions of many who use the Hubbert curve. I'll look at each of his five posts and comment on each one. This post looks at part 1.

First up in Kevin's post is this graph.

The first problem is Kevin's interpretation of this graph,

Basically, it's Exxon's view of how much oil the world can produce on a daily basis.

Actually, according to the website where the graph is found, it is the demand for liquids on a daily basis, not necessarily production. Granted in a market that is equilibrium the supply (production in this case) is equal to demand, but that does not really tell us about how much other than what is happening in equilibrium. In other words, production is in part dependent on both what is physically capable of being extracted and what the demand is. A change in either one will change what we observe in equilibrium. To take these numbers as something cast in stone is not a good idea.

For example, later in the post Kevin asks the following question:

Which leaves us with a disturbing question: can OPEC do it? If we accept the fact that the rest of the world has reached (or very nearly reached) its production peak, it would be nice to know if OPEC is up to the job of continuing to pump out ever increasing amounts of crude. And since Saudi Arabia is where most of this extra OPEC oil is supposed to come from, it would be really nice to know if Saudi Arabia can increase its production by 5 or 10 million bpd in the next decade or so. Because if it turns out they've peaked too, we're screwed.

The for Kevin and many other "peak oil = doom" believers is that as the price rises there will be no change in behavior by consumers, firms, etc. This has always struck me as the Achilles Heel of the peak oil doomsters. That no matter how high the price of crude oil gets people are not going to respond to that price change other than to curtail spending in other areas (i.e. in economics lingo this would be a demand curve with only an income effect and no subsitution effect possible, but unlikely).

And as for the view that peak oil believers are cranks; the reason for this is that so far there has not been a single case of any commodity going through a complete Hubbert cycle in the sense that we don't switch to something else. There have been peaks in the production of a great many commodities many of which are finite in the same sense that crude oil is finite. Yet the end of the world has not occured. One reason is that as the price goes up for whatever good is being used up, the price of previously uneconomical substitutes becomes relatively cheaper. Also, looking for subsitutes becomes relatively cheaper as well. For example, whale oil in the mid 1800's had a price (in current dollars) that makes oil look like an unbelievable bargain. Then the kerosene lamp was invented and the impact on the whaling industry was almost immediate. By 1860 at least 30 kerosene plants were in production in the U.S. and whale oil was eventually driven off the market.

Some say that this kind of thing is just dumb luck. Really? What about the replacement of labor on farms by machinery? Granted it isn't a classic Hubbert curve example, but it has many of the same characteristics in that people tend to get all bent out of shape and wring their hands, "What are all those unemployed people going to do?!" If it were to happen today there would be calls for a national strategy (much like the current clamoring for a national energy strategy), there would be talk of soup kitchens, massive unemployment, dogs and cats mating, and it would be a sure fire sign of the End Times. Back then people went looking for other jobs...manufacturing jobs. And incidentally we do have something like this going on today except we call it offshoring/outsourcing.

Crossposted at Outside the Beltway.

The Koranic Follies

Well, so they didn't actually flush it down the toilet military interrogators only,

...interrogators kicked the holy book, got copies wet, stood on a Koran during an interrogation and inadvertently sprayed urine on another copy.

I suppose the Left will use this as an excuse to excoriate those who heaped abuse on Newsweek. All the while the actual issue will be lost in the partisan sniping: That certain members of a religious group become homicidal at even an alleged damaging of a pile of paper.

Lets see, if a group of people crapped on the Bible what would happen? Would there be a riot where people were killed? My guess is no. Would there be destruction of property of people who were in noway responsible for this instance of desecration? Probably not. Would Pat Robertson insert his foot into his mouth? Probably. So at worse some of the blowhards in this country would do what they do best, spout off.

A muslim on the other hand orders a used Koran and when it arrives with hate messages on some of the pages and the reaction is,

"I was taken back to after September 11 and my fear of even leaving my apartment," Basarudin told a news conference. The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) said Basarudin brought the matter to them about two weeks ago. The Council contacted Amazon.com who have apologized to Basarudin, refunded her money, sent out a new copy of the Koran and issued her a gift certificate.

Amazon said it had also suspended Pennsylvania-based Bellwether Books, which packaged and mailed the Koran in question, from selling the Koran and had asked for an internal investigation. But the MPAC said it wanted Amazon to issue a public apology and condemnation and establish a zero-tolerance policy toward sellers and employees.

Muslims burn the American flag, and the reaction is? Nothing. Apparently the Saudi government routinely destroys copies of the Bible. The reaction? Nothing.

The real issue here is that there is a group of people who fly into a murderous rage when papers they have deemed holy are damaged. And nobody actually has the wherewithall to bring this issue up until a major news magazine gets caught printing unsubstantiated allegations. Now, with reports that Koran's really were mishandled the real issue will be lost.