NC Media Watch

Water, water every where but still in a drought

Russ Steele

California Department of Water Resources has completed their final snow survey of the year and the results are stunning, when compared to previous yeas, especially the very dry spring of 2007.

The DWR announced that the water content stored in the Sierra snow is 143 percent of normal for this time of the year. In the Northern Sierra the water content was 188 percent, in the central region 121 percent, and 139 percent in the southern reaches of the Sierra. Those figures are more than double the levels of the past two years, and are up to seven times as much as survey team found in the dry spring of 2007.

Why are we still in a drought?  Same reason that we have global warming where none exist -- politics.  Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a water bond  to rebuild California's crumbling water system. The Governor knows that he faces big hurdles in persuading Californians they should vote for the $11 billion measure come November.  With no drought, getting the voters to toady up $11 million tax burden is highly unlikely, so regardless of all the water in the Sierra, we are in a politically sponsored drought.

Gold fever, is it real or a miners ploy

Russ Steele

This story appeared in The Union today: Eureka! 9-POUND NUGGET TIP OF THE ICEBERG?

Jim Sander a San Francisco business man found a 9 lb gold nugget on his property in Nevada County. He refused to identify the location. 

For security reasons, Sanders and The Union agreed to not divulge the exact location of his land. In addition, he asked that photos for this story did not show his face.

It looks to me like some of the hydraulic  placer mining areas near the Malikoff Diggings State Park.

This picture accompanied the story.

  Take a close look at the trees and bushes in the photo on the left.

Now look at this photos of the Malikoff Photo on the right Looks at the similar trees and bushes characteristic of this area of Nevada County.  

.Now, to the issue is it real?  There was gold in the diggings when the State of California shut down hydraulic mining with the Sawyer Decision. This decision shut down the North Bloomfield Gravel Mining Company which became the first environmental ruling in California and the Nation.

On January 7, 1884, after two years of litigation in the case of Woodruff  vs. North Bloomfield Gravel Mining Company and over 2,000 witnesses with 20,000 pages of written testimony taken during the trial, Judge Lorenzo Sawyer's decision was handed down.  This decision did not stop miners from using the big water cannons but it did prohibit the discharge of debris in the Sierra Nevada regions.  It imposed strict laws regarding any debris sent downstream and it did close all loop-holes.  In essence the ruling stated that "all tailings must stop." 

This ruling essentially shut down the mining operations as the only means of removing the overburden covering the gold was high pressure water cannons, which produced tailings.

Today miners have hydraulic operated backhoes and bulldozers to remove the overburden and metal detectors to find the nuggets. Finding the flower gold flakes in the gravel will require water washing or leaching  operations.  Both an anathema to local environmental groups. 

Is this a real find and could mining operations start up on the Sanders property?  A real find yes. Chance of opening a mining operation, slim to none if our local environmental groups have any say in the matter. Any successful mine, producing real economic recovery, might lead to more mining and more economic recover, and they cannot have that threat to their green economy myths.

Our local environmental groups will use existing laws and the courts to keep any mining operations from starting up in the County, lest gold fever take over the local community which is seeking real economic development. Real economic development that might impede local going green economic visions.

AB32 Update: California Jobs Initiative captures enough signatures

Russ Steele

The Sac Bee Capitol Alert has the story:

Drive to suspend AB 32 will submit voter signatures Monday

Leaders of a drive to suspend California's landmark greenhouse gas emissions law claim they will submit enough voter signatures Monday to place the issue before voters.

The California Jobs Initiative Campaign will submit more than the required 435,000 voter signatures to qualify for the November ballot, spokeswoman Anita Mangels said.

Read more here.  I need to get the rest of the signatures that I have collected in, just in case some get thrown out.  Of all the people I approached not one refused to sign.  

CABPRO Column: Off the Top of My Head is on the racks.

Russ Steele

The May California Association of Business, Property and Resource Owners (CABPRO) News is on the racks at selected business in and around Nevada City and Grass Valley.

The May issue has my first Off the Top of My Head column. The subject is Green Technology Development in Nevada County.  It will be posted on the CABPRO Report blog in the coming weeks, according the Editor.  I will provide a link when that happens.

Glenn Beck - Focus now on more thinking and less entertainment

Russ Steele

A local blogger gleefully recounts the decline of Glenn Beck’s Fox News audience. Being a long time viewer since Glenn joined Fox’s Cable News Network, I would like to provide some perspective.  About a month ago, Glenn change his format content, reducing the entertainment factor and increased the educational factor of his program. Fewer sight gags and more blackboard talks, more insightful guests and more thoughtful analysis. With this programing content switch, requiring more thinking on the audience’s part, the audience has declined. Go figure!

Today's program will focus on John Samuel Adam's role in the formation of our nation, bring your notepad.  

Here is a recent blackboard talk that links far left foundations, carbon trading, global warming regulations, Al Gore making millions and Goldman Sachs role in the scam. It is long, but worth your time. You will learn something important about why there will be a cap and trade bill regardless of the fake science. Follow the money!

Going Green is killing jobs in California

Russ Steele

Spain adopted going green as an economic strategy before California, and Spain's unemployment is now 20% according to recent reports. Looking to Europe for inspiration Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger promoted and signed AB32, Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. Dennis Avery, from the Hudson Institute writes in Center for Global Food Issues.

“California has created only 48,000 “green jobs” over the 13 years from 1995 to 2008. Green jobs still make up only 1 percent of California’s economy. Worse, says State Senator Bob Dutton, the high energy taxes needed to create those few green jobs are at the same time killing millions of jobs in all sorts of industries across the state. California’s unemployment has soared from less than 5 percent to more than 12 percent since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the California Global Warming Solutions Act three years ago.

The governor promised that the global warming tax would “create a whole new industry to pump up our economy, a clean-tech industry that creates jobs, sparks new cutting-edge technology and will be a model for the rest of the nation and the rest of the world.” Instead, the global warming taxes will drive up the prices of all non-renewable energy—as they were intended to do.

California taxpayers will now pay for wind turbines and solar panels made in China, while California has lost more than 600,000 manufacturing jobs. Business relocation specialist Joseph Vranich says he’s working full time to help companies flee California’s rising costs and restrictions. He warns that no one is calling about moving into the Golden State.  …

It is time for California voters to suspend AB32 and create more jobs in California. The first step is to sign the California Jobs Initiative and then vote yes once the petition is on the ballot. Get your copy of the petition HERE or HERE.

H/T to Heliogenic Climate Change

The ClimateGate Scandals: What has been revealed and what does it mean?

Russ Steele

With the liberal press and blogs trying to whitewash the ClimateGate scandal, it is time to take a closer look at what the e-mail revealed and what was really taking place at CRU/NASA/NOAA to torture the data until it revealed their version of reality - human caused global warming.

Global warming.org has a video of a Heritage Foundation presentation by Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies, Cato Institute and Joseph D’Aleo, Executive Director, ICECAP, and Consulting Meteorologist.

The scientific case for catastrophic global warming was already showing signs of weakening when the Climategate scientific fraud scandal broke in November 2009.  This release of thousands of computer files and emails between leading global warming scientists showed evidence of data manipulation, flouting of freedom of information laws, and attempts to suppress publication of research that disagreed with the alarmist “consensus.”

Climategate has raised many questions about the reliability of key temperature records as well as the objectivity of the researchers and institutions involved, but it is far from the only global warming-related controversy.  It has been followed by revelations that some of the most attention-grabbing claims in the 2007 UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report - the supposed gold standard of climate science - were simply made up.  Before laws regulating energy use are enacted that could well cost trillions of dollars, it is crucial to understand the extent to which the alleged scientific consensus supporting global warming alarmism has been discredited by these scandals. 

If you really want to understand the significance of ClimateGate and the scientific case that can be made in the suit against the EPA's "Endangerment Finding" please take the time to view this video.

AB32 Update: Nevada City Chamber declines to support CA Jobs Initiative

Russ Steele

The Nevada City Chamber Board of Directors refused to support the California Jobs Initiative. They have decided to let each Chamber Member decide if they will support the Initiative, protecting business from AB32 regulations and mandates.

I think this demonstrates the lack of economic leadership in Nevada City, being politically correct is more important that protecting jobs from creeping government regulations.  Go figure, this was Nevada City the most liberal city in the County and the city with the second highest unemployment in the County.  

This action is contrary to the actions of a number of minority sponsored Chambers of Commerce in the State, details here.

A little disclosure is required

Russ Steele

The Union and a local blogger, Jeff “I am a Centrist” Pelline, are locking heads over the local elections, especially for the Clerk-Recorder race.  The latest is this post claiming that Pat Wynne has nailed what is going on in local politics here. 

Did a longtimer here nail what’s going on in the “nonpartisan” clerk-recorder’s race?

I think that it is important to know that Pat Wynne is a member of the Democratic Central Committee.  I suggest that you take all this back of the napkin political analysis, by Wynne and Pelline, with a grain or two of salt that they have spilled on the table.

The local liberals/progressives/Democrats will be disappointed come the next election cycle as the Obama surge created by Independent voters is gone and will not return.  During the next election cycle Nevada County should return to its past voting patterns, with more Republican registered than Democrats.  If you combine this numeric disparity with the Tea Party’s growing energy, and it’s appeal to disaffected Independents and Democrats, we will not see the voting pattern changes predicted by Wynne and  Pelline.  Their analysis is just a lot of wish full thinking.

Update #1(04-29-10, 21:10): I was not trying to discredit Pat Wynne because she is a Democrat, I just wanted readers at Jeff Pelline's blog to know she was one of of Nevada County's hard core Democrats.  

No local significant Nevada County population changes for 2009

Russ Steele

According to the latest population report released today by the California Department of Finance California added 393,000 new residents in 2009, putting the state’s January 1st population total at 38,648,000.

There were no significant changes in Nevada County’s population figures. We are no longer growing. Most of the local General Plans have a 1-2% population growth factor build into anticipate future needs. The last time that Nevada County experienced a significant increase was 1,149 in 2005.(Click for larger image.)


Full report here.