Tuesday, July 05, 2011

Bits and Pieces - July 5, 2011

Perhaps the best map out there of the Las Conchas fire over time. (h/t to John Fleck) I just saw a tweeted photo of a big smoke plume going up. The fire only (only!) increased by 2300 acres overnight, but there will be more tomorrow. It's still only 25% or so contained.

George Monbiot on the downsides of the nuclear industry. I tend to agree with most of this; we need nuclear to supply the increasing electrical power that the world needs, and it doesn't send carbon dioxide into the atmosphere the way fossil fuels do. But the people who run the plants are out to make a buck, and safety often comes second. That's why we need government regulation - of all sources of energy.

Page van der Linden quotes my post on the drums at Area G and provides a lot more information. Some good comments too. Mark Gubrud, in particular, highlights something that has bothered me: the willingness of some to just make stuff up if it suits their purpose.

This is a continuing story in Britain. We don't hear so much about it here. It seems that reporters at News of the World were hacking voicemail accounts of the famous and not so famous at a startling rate. It almost seems to have been standard practice. The latest is that they tampered with the voicemail accounts of a family whose daughter had gone missing, giving them false hope (so they'd provide better interviews?) and possibly destroying evidence. News of the World, of course, is part of Rupert Murdoch's news empire. Just like Fox News. More from Marcy Wheeler.

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