Weary of the Hype

I'm all tuckered out today.

I blame nuclear fallout!

Nearly a week of breathless reporting on the Japanese reactor situation has taken it's toll on the ol' psyche!

Here's the antidote: Fear the Media Meltdown, Not the Nuclear One

And a second dose for the truly frightened: Going Bananas Over Radiation

OK, now everyone can relax!

Diggin Out

the DaveCave that is!

I have a full-blown two day weekend this week. All chores Monday...still have some tech stuff to complete before bedtime.

In the calm between the storms, I finally got my front porch thawed enough to chip away the last couple of storms-worth  of pack ice...I kept expecting a polar bear to stake it's territory on the darn thing. Chipping away with the heavy Mutt felt good...as did the sun on my face...a welcomed warm sunny afternoon!

Tuesday morning, I watched the unfolding story of the chairlift derailment at Sugarloaf in Maine on FoxNews...as is typical of the 24/7 cable news of today, the "reporting" was long on hype and short on details. Would it hurt to name the manufacturer of the chairlift?

FoxNews did report that it's the oldest chair on the mountain...and when they finally got a live link to a hospital spokesperson, said spokesperson gave no specifics, failed to play along with the anchor's speculative questions, and was generally useless as a source! During the over four hours of the story, no Sugarloaf spokesman was aired.

The best I could glean was 6-7 injuries after five chairs fell about 30-35 ft after a gust of wind hit just as the chair was restarted.

FoxNews cited a Maine newspaper in saying Sugarloaf wanted to replace the stricken chair with a "heavier chair that would withstand wind better" in a story from earlier this year.

None of the injuries were labeled life-threatening.

Finally I found a Sugarloaf Press Release that answered most of my questions.

Changes Afoot

Change is coming to the High Sierra this weekend. The Reno AFD promises a much cooler and wetter regime is due in for Saturday night. Snow levels will be above pass levels, but the rain and cold will set the table for the Snowmakers. Tuesday the system moves south and the Tahoe Sierra warms a little.

It looks like snow for Halloween is gonna be a tough ticket. I looked at Boreal's mountain webcam this afternoon...it still looks a lot like summertime...the forecast says thunderstorms are likely as the system arrives. Sounds like a good time is on it's way!

There may be lingering high cloudiness after the fun is over...that would set up warming, humid conditions...they'll need clear skies before the temps drop enough to blow any man-made snow...enter the ballgame metaphor...it'll be great spectating. 

Media Catches Up...Maybe
A headline posted at Watts' Up With That caught my eye: "BBC told to ensure balance on climate change" Another case of pendulum swing? I think so...I hope so...

Forty years from the founding of the modern environmental movement, it's well past time for the pendulum to begin it's return swing. After forty years of agitating that we "Do Something" about climate change, the data are just beginning to catch up with the debate. Newly published papers have showed an amazing wealth of new connections between naturally occurring ocean cycles, solar cycles, glacier advance and retreat and continental weather in Europe. Similar mechanisms are at work closer to home in the Pacific. Eventually I believe the connections will be demonstrated Pacific-wide, too.

Concurrently, science's ability to measure, understand and correct historical data degradation is improving along the same path as computer speed and power increases do. Increasing computing power is shedding new light on climate and weather, and Man's diminishing role in Global Warming. I hope the news will begin to see the light of day Stateside. This is good news coming down the pike these days...

Good news for Gaia...has a nice ring to it...don'tcha think?

Early Snow

Beaver Creek

...right on schedule!

I saw the notice today. Ski Magazine let fly in their Twitter feed...as I was watching the Noon News' weatherman tout the "return of Summer Weather" for the beginning of the week. After the news, I clicked through to Ski Magazine's Early Snow Photos. All the action is in the Rockies and Banff-Lake Louise BC Canada. Dusting around 10K ft in Colorado, eight inches Tuesday in Banff!

The Banff photo was paired with a note that Mt. Norquay plans to open Halloween weekend!

The weather here in the Inland Valley, and in the Big Valley, and the High Sierra is warming a little Thursday, and the Big High moves in for the weekend bringing offshore winds, warming air and a chance of Red Flag Fire Warnings.

Maybe it's just my sunny disposition giving me this little attack of the giggles...perhaps (as I prefer to think) it's my highly evolved sense of irony, growing my snarky smirk.

These reactions are to the climate research I've been reading this week in the wake of my visit to My Mountain, where the first of this season's "What's in store for this Winter discussions" took place.

A little welcomed warming on the West Coast after seven months of below normal temps is the buzz of the weather reporters' world...against an under reported slew of climate papers and datasets that are all cold, cold, cold.

Just today I saw the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences' peer reviewed paper on Arctic Sea Ice Extant that concludes that current Arctic sea ice is more extensive than most of the last 9000 years!

     "A peer-reviewed paper published in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences finds that Arctic sea ice extent at the end of the 20th century was more extensive than most of the past 9000 years. The paper also finds that Arctic sea ice extent was on a declining trend over the past 9000 years, but recovered beginning sometime over the past 1000 years and has been relatively stable and extensive since.
Although it seems like a day doesn’t go by without an alarmist headline or blog posting obsessing over the daily Arctic sea ice statistics (and never about Antarctic sea ice extent which reached a record high this year), this paleo-climate perspective takes all the wind out of alarmist sails. Satellite assessment of sea ice conditions is only available beginning in 1979 (around the time the global cooling scare ended), with only sparse data available prior to 1979. The alarmists at the NRDC fraudulently claim in a new video that due to “climate destruction,” Arctic sea ice reached the lowest in history in 2010 (actually the low since 1979 was in 2007 and 2010 was the 3rd or 4th lowest depending on the source). Probably wouldn’t bring in many donations if they mentioned the truth: the 21st century has some of the highest annual Arctic sea ice extents over the past 9000 years."

I wonder if the authors will get any time on "Sixty Minutes" or "The Weather Channel"? Big Media is the gatekeeper now for the Nanny State's "Grow Government Movement"...The Mainstream Media are "managing the narrative" now, not reporting "just the facts, Ma'm"....somehow I think you'll have to go find the paper yourselves...*Start Here*

"While I was enjoying the animated weatherfolks enjoying their jobs, I perused the Reno AFD. The forecasters promise hot days just short of last year's record highs. Could be a bit of the Ol' "Indian Summer"

Moving On

One More Train Wreck
At the risk of driving CorduroyPlanet into a ditch beside the Information Superhighway, and becoming a Train Wreck myself...I have one more thought on the subject of Train Wrecks...Big Media Division.

This morning I was listening to Armstrong and Getty, the Sacramento based Radio Talk Show. I'm a regular listener, and frequently start my day chortling away at their funny mix of comedy, culture, and political observation. They don't hit you over the head with the Politics, rather they mine that rich vein for the hypocrisy...all the better to highlight the hilarity therein.

The Set-Up
Tuesday, Americans in twelve states went to the polls, to choose in Primary Elections, who would run in November for various State and Federal Offices. Most of the Political Coverage on TV has been trumpeting the "Anti-Incumbent Ferver" supposedly sweeping the country. Armstrong and Getty addressed the subject by playing clips from the Cable TV's Comedy Central show, "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart. Stewart's hilarious take on the Primaries and more pointedly, his take on Big Media's Anti-Incumbent Narrative can be viewed here. The bit begins about a minute into the show and runs about five minutes. Can't watch at work, or prefer to listen? You can hear Armstrong and Getty's show here. Stewart's bit begins around 30 minutes into the podcast.

Hitting the high points for those who are too busy to watch the clip, Stewart's bit began with clips of many Talking Heads referencing the Anti-Incumbent mood of the Electorate. Stewart then lowered the boom on the media citing these results:

In 84 Major Races with Incumbents...82 Incumbents won. Of the two who didn't win, one was forced into a Runoff Election. There was ONE incumbent who lost, Nevada's Republican Governor, who began losing his re-election bid almost from the first day of his term.

While serving his first term, Governor Gibbons was accused first of "using State Resources to pursue an extramarital affair", then sued for sexual harassment, then accused of "impeding an ongoing criminal investigation", and finally endured a bitter divorce battle. This in a state of Fiercely Independent Westerners who voted 53% for Barack Obama in 2008.

My take home from Stewart's bit was this: Big Media was more concerned with maintaining their Anti-Incumbent Voter Narrative! Radio funnymen, Armstrong and Getty this morning said that among all of Big Media's News Outlets, only the Daily Show reported that 82 of the 84 Incumbents did not lose their re-election bids! Stewart did a fine and funny job of skewering Big Media for it!

So, in 2010's America it's come to this...Given today's media landscape, if you want Hard News you need to watch a Talk Show on a Cable TV Comedy Network, or listen to a Comedy Talk Radio Program! The Daily Show actually won two Peabody Awards for TV Journalism for their coverage of the 2000 and 2004 Elections!

Is it any wonder that Big Media continues to run off the rails?

Big Media's slavish flogging of their precious narrative instead of just reporting the facts is exactly why Big Media is an ongoing Train Wreck! Americans won't pay to be lied to! They've been voting with their feet for a number of years...witness the cratering of Newspaper Circulation, and Network TV Viewership, as well as the crashing stock prices of former Blue Chip Media Companies. Even the New York Times, "America's Newspaper of Record" is selling off assets before they become worthless!

Is it just a coincidence that the sources I cite here are "New Media" sources? No, it is The Story!

I want to know what is really going on in my country, my neighborhood, and around the world. Sadly, like millions of other former customers of the Legacy Media, I've had to search out Alternative Sources to get the News every day.

"Alternative Media" or "New Media" is already well on it's way to becoming the new "Mainstream Media"

In the Marketplace the "Consumer is King." Media who report the facts will prevail...unless reckless bureaucrats decide that Big Media is "Too Big To Fail"

Should that come to pass...well, that is a whole different story.

Train Wrecks

"Train wrecks" are everywhere I look lately...

The Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
Whatta mess! What makes this a Train Wreck in my estimation, is even though A Roman Legion's-Worth of various Governments' First Responders have had 40+ days to get up to speed, there's still this awful tar and oil washing up on clean beaches in several states! Were these Public Servants surprised that the mess would find the beaches nearly six weeks after the spill became the Lead Story on each and every TV Newscast? Were they "going by the book" for the sake of the sugar sand beaches...or their damn book?

The trick to staying on top of this disaster is to fight it before it comes ashore. Keep it off the beaches and out of the Salt Marshes, Wetlands, and Estuaries. Dispatch ALL of the Corps of Engineers' dredges to the Gulf Shores and build a temporary Seawall of sand to protect the barrier islands, and the above cited environmental treasures. Worry about the Permits after the fact!

TV News Teases
Over my weekend, I was writing an extra blog about the Heavy Winter/Bad Fire Season Connection. I had the SF Giant's Game on the TV, though I was more engrossed in writing than watching. What caught my ear was a TV News Tease asking: Does our long, cold, wet Spring herald a Dangerous Fire Season? I swear Steam came out of my ears! I understand that Local Television Stations' business is attracting and keeping Viewers. However, given the historical record cited in the newspaper article that spawned the Monday Extra Blog, I found the alarmist tone of the News Tease disgraceful, and said so.

This leads to another ongoing Train Wreck...

Newspaper Circulation Plummets
(And it's handmaiden, Network TV News losing viewers) Hardly a week goes by where I don't hear or read another lament about our Mainstream Media's shrinking customer base. Most often this is spun as "Free Internet News hurts the Real Journalist's Broadcasts and Broadsheets" Scornful journalists hear this and think "Pajama-clad 30-something bloggers living in their parent's basements" without a Real Editor, or Guidelines are stealing our viewers/readers!

Remember the 80's? Alternative Music" propelled by qualities that made for good sales numbers, grew to become Mainstream Music. Most of those former readers and viewers of the "Mainstream Media" now get their news from the "New Media", also known as "Alternative Media" The same thing that happened in the music business in the 80's is happening now to Big Media. News Consumers want the News...un-spun, unbiased, and without being talked down to, when it's still new enough to be called "News"

My Neighborhood Oil Spill
Today's News came to @CorduroyPlanet via Twitter. Remember the "Tipped Over Truck" that closed Interstate 80 on the Donner Summit during the last big Snowstorm just before the Memorial Day Weekend? A semi jack-knifed, tipped over, and spilled 3000 gallons of diesel fuel into the freeway median and a culvert that led to Summit Creek, which in turn empties into Donner Lake. Fortunately, most of the 3000 gallons is still in the soil of the median. Clean-up of the soil began today, and will continue until Thursday. The Eastbound fast lane will be closed during clean-up operations. No fuel was detected in Summit Creek today, and clean-up continues all the way down to Donner Lake. Quick deployment of booms obviated any Holiday Closures on Donner Lake.