ABSTRACT
AN OLD JOKE about the supposedly inept weather forecaster never ceases making the rounds in one form or another. I recall one version that appeared shortly after Harry Truman, against all predictions except his own, had defeated Thomas Dewey for the presidency of the United States in 1948. It was a cartoon showing an applicant at a Weather Bureau employment office, and the interviewer was saying to him, “You worked for a public-opinion poll? I think we could use you.”
