Forbid It, Almighty God!

Mon Jul 14, 2008 2:47 am by McGehee 3 comments [Humor?] [Our Times] [Media Ochre]

Horrible dream the other night. In the spirit of “The Brady Bunch,” “Bewitched” and a whole mess of other recent movies, Hollywood had decided to do a movie remake of “Gilligan’s Island.” They had cast Tobey Maguire as Gilligan, and Bruce Campbell—fresh off another season as Sam Axe on “Burn Notice”—as the Skipper. The Howells were James Spader and Reese Witherspoon. They were negotiating with Miley Cyrus to play Ginger. That’s when I woke up screaming, so I don’t know who was going to play the Professor and Mary Ann.

Yeah, That’ll Fly

Thu May 22, 2008 7:46 am by McGehee [Media Ochre]

The Washington Times is sneak-peaking its new website, and the first thing I notice—since I use the Flashblock extension for Firefox—is how much blank space the page has, peppered with those little round buttons with F’s on them. Once again some (not-so-)bright web designer has decided it’s not a “real” web page unless it’s filled to the brim with unnecessary animation (especially animated ads) to help distract the reader from the actual content. I already quit browsing the Fox News website because they “improved” it to the point of being completely unusable. Will the Washington Times follow suit? Will I care?

Somehow I Doubt She Meant to Do That
Thu May 1, 2008 10:11 am by McGehee [Humor?] [Media Ochre]	I really don’t think the cartoonist who drew this meant for the guy to look just like Al Gore. » Read more "Somehow I Doubt She Meant to Do That"

That’s Over, Until Next Year
Wed Apr 23, 2008 7:02 am by McGehee 1 comment [Wackadoodle] [Media Ochre] [Nature]	Yesterday, as you may have heard, was Earth Day. Also known among edutainment TV watchers as Junk Science Day.

San Francisco Chronicle Recycles News from the ‘70s

Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:48 am by McGehee 6 comments [Media Ochre] [Nature]

That’s the only possible explanation for this: A strong and deadly earthquake is virtually certain to strike on one of California’s major seismic faults within the next 30 years, scientists said Monday in the first official forecast of statewide earthquake probabilities. They calculated the probability at more than 99 percent that one or more of the major faults in the state will rupture and trigger a quake with a magnitude of at least 6.7. An even more damaging quake with a magnitude of 7.5 or larger, the earthquake scientists said, is at least 46 percent likely to hit on one of California’s active fault systems within the next three decades. It probably would strike in the southern part of the state, the scientists warned. » Huge state quake predicted within 30 years They’ve been saying “the big one” would hit California within the next 30 years, for 40 years. And then when everyone thought the Loma Prieta quake in 1989 was “the big one,” they said, No, that wasn’t it. Probably because California didn’t break off and fall into the ocean. If that doesn’t happen, even a magnitude 12 quake can’t be “the big one.”

NPR Listeners Just Love Diversity

Sun Mar 9, 2008 11:52 am by McGehee 1 comment [Our Times] [Media Ochre]

...as long as everybody thinks alike. According to NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard, more than 60 angry e-mails and phone calls arrived at the network, calling the programming “shameful” and a “lovefest with radical, right-wing nuts.” There were only a few, she said, that praised the series as “refreshing” and “articulate,” among other things. » NPR listeners rankled by segments on right Your tax dollars at work.

They Always Do

Mon Mar 3, 2008 11:10 pm by McGehee 4 comments [Media Ochre] [Nature]

There’s something insidious about being a part of the Establishment Media. The Weather Channel has lost its way, according to John Coleman, who founded the channel in 1982. Coleman told an audience at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change on March 3 in New York that he is highly critical of global warming alarmism. “The Weather Channel had great promise, and that’s all gone now because they’ve made every mistake in the book on what they’ve done and how they’ve done it and it’s very sad,” Coleman said. “It’s now for sale and there’s a new owner of The Weather Channel will be announced—several billion dollars having changed hands in the near future. Let’s hope the new owners can recapture the vision and stop reporting the traffic, telling us what to think and start giving us useful weather information.” » Weather Channel Founder Blasts Network; Claims It Is ‘Telling Us What to Think’ Of course TWC is “telling us what to think.” For some reason the Establishment Media—which increasingly includes relatively “new” outlets like TWC—appeals to the kind of people who want to do that. When you have a large-audience one-way medium of communication, it’s very easy to convince yourself that you should be believed solely because you’ve got a towering soapbox and a huge megaphone. A big audience and easily controlled channels for feedback just naturally lead to an inclination toward authoritarianism. So, every last one of you needs to sit down and write a short, concise letter to The Weather Channel telling them you agree 100% with John Coleman. Because I said so.

First it Was the New York Times, Now It’s Hollywood

Mon Mar 3, 2008 9:16 pm by McGehee 4 comments [Elections] [Media Ochre]

Tonight’s episode of the NBC TV series “Medium” features a U.S. state senator with a terrible secret from his time in a POW camp in Vietnam. Did I mention “Medium” is set in Arizona? Not having seen the episode yet as I post this, I don’t know whether the fictional Senator is running for president… Update, Tuesday night: Finally watched the episode, through the magic of TiVo. He’s a state senator, not U.S. And the terrible secret was murder and cannibalism, followed by blackmail and another murder. A little far-fetched that it would be a shot at McCain. Still, it’s a little troubling they’d have this Arizona politician be covering up something terrible from his days as a POW in Vietnam, while an Arizona politician who was a POW in Vietnam is running for president. Maybe some Hollywood writer’s Republican-hating wet dream? Who knows.

Somebody Who Lives Up There Ought to Know Better

Mon Feb 25, 2008 4:42 pm by McGehee 1 comment [Alaska] [Media Ochre]

Again, I’m posting from blamy balmy* Coweta County, Georgia, not chilly Fairbanks—but for this post I thought I’d offer the current conditions up there as background for the content. The caption for the picture reads: Smoke billows out of downtown smokestacks on a cold early-February afternoon. Due to Fairbanks consistently failing air quality regulations, the Department of Transportation is funding a multi-million dollar study on local air pollution. » Air pollution concerns spark study, possible measures (The headline and link in the above goes to the associated news article.) At the temperatures Fairbanks tends to have during the winter, those towering plumes—which appear dark only when backlit as above (and the big plume is in fact directly in front of a sun already heavily filtered by the photographer’s equipment)—consist overwhelmingly of moisture condensation, not smoke. There are particulates embedded in the emissions, but mostly what comes out of these smokestacks is air that is so much warmer than the atmosphere, that it contains far more water vapor than the ambient outdoor temperature can support. But of course it is better for Teh Narrative™ to mislead readers by calling it all “smoke.” There’s a reason people up there refer to their local daily newspaper as the News-Minus. *Had eye trouble this evening—though “blamy” does seem like it might be an appropriate adjective for Coweta County these days after all…

Tonight on BFO* News…

Sat Feb 23, 2008 10:15 pm by McGehee [Elections] [Media Ochre]

The New York Times has just noticed that water flows downhill. Some suggested Mr. McCain might want to tap a younger running mate to balance the ticket, particularly if he were to face a young opponent like Mr. Obama, 46. Others said his age would simply heighten his need to choose somebody whom voters would feel comfortable with as president should anything happen to him. (Not to be morbid, but eight vice presidents have succeeded presidents who died in office.) [...] Mr. McCain’s advisers say the campaign has yet to discuss vice presidential prospects. “We haven’t spent one second talking about the selection of a running mate, and, as you know, he’s superstitious, so I doubt we will talk about it for a while,” said Charlie Black, a veteran of many Republican presidential campaigns. Asked about the age factor, he drew on his past campaign experience for an analogy of how it might weigh in the selection. “Reagan had a quote ‘age’ issue in 1980,” Mr. Black said. “It wouldn’t go away until the day he picked George Bush as vice president. And then people said, well, here’s a known quantity, the guy has experience, including international experience, and, yeah, he could handle it.” » McCain’s Age May Figure in Choice of a Running Mate Of course, John McCain is no Ronald Reagan. For one thing, Reagan had executive experience before seeking the presidency. For another, Reagan used to say—and mean—that you could get a lot more done when you didn’t care who got the credit. McCain is too much in love with the spotlight to take something like that to heart. Anyway, the NYT headline says McCain’s age “may” be a factor—which implies that it also may not. And that does seem to be the conclusion of the piece. Whatever would we do without the New York Times to tell us these things? *BFO = “Blinding Flash of the Obvious.”

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