NC Media Watch

Looking for X and finding Y

Russ Steele

Many of sciences great discoveries have been the result of looking for X and discovering Y.

Though still under construction, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole is already delivering scientific results — including an early finding about a phenomenon the telescope was not even designed to study.

This "skymap," generated in 2009 from data collected by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, shows the relative intensity of cosmic rays directed toward the Earth’s Southern Hemisphere. Researchers from UW-Madison and elsewhere identified an unusual pattern of cosmic rays, with an excess (warmer colors) detected in one part of the sky and a deficit (cooler colors) in another.

Photo: courtesy IceCube collaboration

IceCube captures signals of notoriously elusive but scientifically fascinating subatomic particles called neutrinos. The telescope focuses on high-energy neutrinos that travel through the Earth, providing information about faraway cosmic events such as supernovas and black holes in the part of space visible from the Northern Hemisphere.

However, one of the challenges of detecting these relatively rare particles is that the telescope is constantly bombarded by other particles, including many generated by cosmic rays interacting with the Earth's atmosphere over the southern half of the sky. For most IceCube neutrino physicists these particles are simply background noise, but University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers Rasha Abbasi and Paolo Desiati, with collaborator Juan Carlos Díaz-Vélez, recognized an opportunity in the cosmic ray data.

"IceCube was not built to look at cosmic rays. Cosmic rays are considered background," Abbasi says. "However, we have billions of events of background downward cosmic rays that ended up being very exciting."

Abbasi saw an unusual pattern when she looked at a "skymap" of the relative intensity of cosmic rays directed toward the Earth's Southern Hemisphere, with an excess of cosmic rays detected in one part of the sky and a deficit in another. A similar lopsidedness, called "anisotropy," has been seen from the Northern Hemisphere by previous experiments, she says, but its source is still a mystery.

More details here.

I find it interesting that some scientist speculate that high energy cosmic rays influence the amount of low cloud cover, which has an impact on global temperatures. We are waiting for the results of the CLOUD experiment at CERN, to add credence to the claim, or to disprove the connection.  Stay tuned!

H/T to Watts Up With That for this interesting bit of science news.

Here is something to ponder

Russ Steele

Writer Christan and Robbins ask an interesting and challenging question in the Investor Business Daily this morning. My question follows.

Will Washington's Failures Lead To Second American Revolution?

The Internet is a large-scale version of the "Committees of Correspondence" that led to the first American Revolution — and with Washington's failings now so obvious and awful, it may lead to another.

People are asking, "Is the government doing us more harm than good? Should we change what it does and the way it does it?"

Pruning the power of government begins with the imperial presidency.

Too many overreaching laws give the president too much discretion to make too many open-ended rules controlling too many aspects of our lives. There's no end to the harm an out-of-control president can do.

Bill Clinton lowered the culture, moral tone and strength of the nation — and left America vulnerable to attack. When it came, George W. Bush stood up for America, albeit sometimes clumsily.

Barack Obama, however, has pulled off the ultimate switcheroo: He's diminishing America from within — so far, successfully.

He may soon bankrupt us and replace our big merit-based capitalist economy with a small government-directed one of his own design.

He is undermining our constitutional traditions: The rule of law and our Anglo-Saxon concepts of private property hang in the balance. Obama may be the most "consequential" president ever.

You can be read the rest of Christan and Robbins analysis here. 

Exit Question: Why is the Tea Party is not mentioned as the potential leaders of this Second American Revolution?  The Tea Party Patriots continue to grow with 2,500 community groups now registered with the central organization? 

Enos, call your office: Angle bounces back in Mason-Dixon poll

Russ Steele

Our Nevada County liberals just love to point the finger at Tea Party declines and mistakes, especially Steve Enos. Yesterday in comment, on a local self professed middle of the road blog, he noted that Sharon Angel was falling behind Harry Reid, with some glee.

Oh, what a day makes in politics, Hot Air has the latest polls. 

Yesterday’s Rasmussen poll showed Harry Reid clinging to a two-point lead among likely voters, 45/43, which sounded better than the previous Mason-Dixon poll that showed Angle back six at 43/37.  The Rasmussen poll’s series on the race didn’t really show any movement, though, which created some skepticism about whether Angle had really rebounded.  However, today’s Mason-Dixon poll removes that doubt:

The numbers: Reid 43%, Angle 42%. The survey of likely voters has a ±4% margin of error. In the previous Mason-Dixon poll from two weeks ago, though, Reid had an even stronger lead of 44%-37%, as a result of relentless attacks on Angle’s right-wing positions and her steady stream of gaffes. The TPM Poll Average gives Reid a lead of 44.3%-42.6%.

As Eric Kleefeld reports at TPM, the bleeding stopped because Angle got on the air and started responding to the massive wave of attack ads Harry Reid launched after the primaries.  Angle has begun running her ads in Nevada and making her case.  Reid apparently can only get so far by going negative, and that limit is around the 43-45% mark.

Read the rest  of the post on Hot Air here.

“Our Climate” App now available for iPhone and iTouch

Russ Steele

Thanks to the fine work of developer, Paul of Aeris Systems and support of climate scientist and skeptics around the world: Lubos Motl, Willie Soon, Richard Lindzen, Roy Spencer, Fred Singer, Henrik Svensmark, Will Happer, Bob Carter, Craig Idso, Paul Reiter, Joanne Nova, Lord Christopher Monckton, and Anthony Watts, there is now a Climate App for your iPhone and iPod Touch.

This apps provides the latest climate change graphs and blog information. It can help you win pub, cocktail party, and water cooler climate change debates with lots of pictures, graphs and more. More details on the development and features of this app can be found at Watts Up With That and the Our Climate webs site. There are links to the Apple iPhone Store at both sites.

Tea Party Patriot Update: Glenn Beck to Feature Tea Party on Friday July 30th.

Russ Steele

Even though we are on a camping trip, our DVR is programed to capture this important Glenn Beck program on the Tea Party. We have set our DVR to record at 2pm Pacific Time Daylight Time, Friday the 30th, on Dish Network Channel 205, Fox News, Glenn Beck.   

The entire show will focus on the current state of the Tea Party movement. Jenny Beth Martin of the Tea Party Patriots along with other Tea Party groups will be on the program, including Nevada County’s own Mark Meckler.

Could this also be true in Nevada County?

Russ Steele

Consider this from the Power Line blog by Paul Mirengoff:

A newly released Fox News poll of registered voters shows the Republicans ahead in the generic ballot by 11%. Bill Otis, who brought this poll to my attention, says that if it accurately reflects how people will vote in November, "Republicans will take the Senate as well as the House; indeed, we will have our biggest House majority since 1946."

A local left leaning blogger and his Democrat fellow travelers claim the county is going purple, shifting from a strong conservative county to one leaning left, citing the increase in “decline to state” registrations as proof.  But, are the political winds shifting in Nevada County like they are nationally?

Exit Question:  Could this shift to the right be true in Nevada County?  In California?

An economic observation from the RV

Russ Steele

Over the years we have camped through out California, Nevada, Idaho and Oregon every summer. Some of our favorite State Park camp grounds sell out in only hours after the reservation go online six months in advance. This is especially true for Sierra camp site reservations in July and August, when the valley is very hot.

However, this year walking around the camp ground at Sugar Pine Point State Park near Lake Tahoe and McArthury-Burney Falls  State Park we found many open camp sites during the week. More visitor in the weekends, but still open sites on the weekend. This would not have been possible in past years, when all the camp sites booked up in hours after reservations opened.
 
Most of the visitors at Sugar Pine Point and McArthury-Burney Falls appeared to be middle income families with children, if the high-end family vehicles and RVs with bike racks on the back are accurate indicators.   

 At Diamond Lakes in Oregon, we found the RV park was turning away travelers. Across the road from the RV Park is a National Forest camp ground with much better lake views and access to the water, however no power, water or sewer services, that are essentially empty. Many of the low cost and mid-range cost camp sites are going un-used.

On the other hand the higher-end RV parks in Oregon, with full service connections, are full to overflowing with older folks and older international travelers in rented RVs.  Several traveling with what appear to be grandchildren. One can conclude that retired folks are spending their nest egg and folks who are still working are harboring theirs by staying close to home.

We stayed one night at the Hereford Ranch RV park at Hat Creek. Many of the campers were from the upper Sacramento Valley, who had come to the Sierra to  escape the valley heat for two weeks.  Not going too far from home.

Hope and Change has modified the lifestyle of many family campers, but has not had a significant impact on retired folks with their big RVs.  Yes, we all wince at the fuel pump, but that only results in one less dinner out opting for more meat on the grill at the RV, and and fewer bottles of $15.00 California wine. Australian wines are a real bargain at $5.00 a bottle and are quite good with a steak or grilled trout.  

Also, as we traveled though multiple rural small towns in California and Oregon, and we saw many closed business and restaurants, perhaps as many as 1/4 of the business on a street.  Not an encouraging sight.

Exit Question: When will the economy turn around, restoring confidence in our political leaders?  Oh!

Prop 23 Update: PPIC Poll skews reality

Russ Steele

Public Policy Institute of California's poll results, released last night, found that roughly two-thirds of Californians ( and 61 percent of likely voters) support AB 32, the 2006 law mandating that California drop its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. That figure remains consistent with support in past years.

However, going over the poll questions, they were never framed to examine the economic issues created by AB32, only asking the daisy talk questions about reducing green house emissions. Never asking how much those polled were will to pay to reduce those greenhouse emissions. 

The Sac Bee AM Alert on the poll has this quote:

But the Yes on Prop 23 campaign dismissed the findings, saying the questions were unfairly centered on global warming, not the economic impacts of AB 32.

"Folks instinctively will say we should reduce emissions related to global warming," Jack Stewart, president of the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, said in a statement. "Poll after poll shows that jobs and the economy are voters' top priority. At the end of the day, Californians will be unwilling to spend billions and risk over a million jobs for a global warming law that will do nothing to reduce global warming."

After reviewing poll questions, I have to agree with the above statement. It is also interesting to note that 54% of those polled has never heard of the AB32 Cap and Trade scheme which is going to raise the price of energy for our homes and drive up the price of motor fuel by 20-30%.

Read more about the poll at the AM Alert. Down load the poll questions:  Download S_710MBS

Faster, bigger, better than yours

Russ Steele

Remember back in grade schools when you compared lunch with your friends, my apple is bigger than yours. Then in high school it was who had the fastest car challenge for the guys, and for the girls who had the biggest breasts at the moment. In college it was ... well lets not go there.  Now in the information age the school ground challenge is who has the most blog traffic. 

This morning Mr Pelline takes up the school yard challenge and writes here:

For the record, the traffic here is breaking new records every single month. I’ve been kind of astounded myself.

•Could it be that the “left” is comprised of the “left” as well as “moderates” — that is, a majority of us — in a county that voted for Obama, Charlie Brown, Terry Lamphier and Greg Diaz (not Barry Pruett, John Spencer, Tom McClintock) in recent years. Could it be that the county is going “purple”?
•Could it be that the so-called conservative bloggers (Rebane, Steele, CABPRO and Pruett) speak for the far right but not moderates?
•Could it be that they are out of touch with their own party members? Could it be that the local Republican Central Committee also is out of touch with its own party members?
•Could it be that the dominant local media (The Union and KNCO) is biased to the right, so the left doesn’t have much of a “voice” there? KVMR and Yubanet are humming along.
•Could it be that the posts here discuss a diverse range of topics (halibut fishing and San Francisco private equity firms) rather than being a “one trick political pony”?

OK, let compare, I see from Alexa that over the past month traffic at both sites traffic is down by over 20% for NCMW and 60% for Mr Pelline.  I found when on a trip and I can cannot post several times a day, my overall traffic drops. So let's just look at the bigger picture(click on graphic for a larger view):




Now, the claim will be that Alexa is not a good measuring tool. Yet we are using the same imperfect tool to measure both sites for a one-on-one comparison.  Note all past claims of rapid growth by Mr Pelline have never been supported by any real numbers. Wordpress, used by Mr Pelline, has some excellent built in analysis tools, including graphics to show viewer trends.  How do we know it is faster, bigger, better with out some data? 

Exit Question: Where are the numbers?

LIes, more lies, and one really big lie

Russ Steele

Jerry Brown. the current Attorney General of California, is running for Governor and has published his latest environmental plan available here. He had this to say about global warming in California:

Climate disruption and rising temperatures threaten serious harm to California by increasing the number and intensity of forest fires, severe flooding, water shortages, coastal erosion and air pollution. Climate scientists are virtually unanimous in calling for significant reductions in greenhouse gases. . . .

Lets us examine the each one of the lies about global warming in California, starting with the assumption that temperatures are rising in California:



“Increased number and intensity of forest fires”

Not according to the research done by Anthony Westerling, a climate scientist at UC Merced. Westerling and his colleagues showed in a study published last year in Science that while the amount of land in Western federal forests nearly septupled between 1987 and 2003 - compared to the previous 17 years - Southern California, which has a different climate regime, experienced no increase in the number of fires as a consequence of rising temperatures.