CTV Anchor Steve Murphy writes: Have you had an opportunity to watch Cindy Day's very measured approach to forecasting these recent storms?  Cindy constantly stresses that tropical cyclones are extremely difficult to predict with precision, especially when they are several days away.  Her forecasts employ likely and anticipated storm tracks and include ranges for rainfall and wind speeds.   A review of last week's coverage would confirm that Cindy Day's prognosis for Hurricane Bill was remarkably accurate even several days ahead of time.  Our news coverage of the arrival of the storm focused mainly on surf conditions and danger from the waves....

29 August, 2009
After hectoring us for five days about Bill, a hurricane that was actually a tropical storm, the media took an only slightly more restrained approach to Danny, a weak tropical storm that actually appears to be a half-day rain shower. CBC still wrung its hands for much of the week, but didn't cancel regular programs. Many contrarian readers responded to the hype, starting after the jump with CW.
29 August, 2009

Tropical storm Danny is currently a 'disorganized' system that may or may not become a hurricane, 'albeit a weak one.' By contrarian's back-of-the-envelope calculations, it lies roughly 2300 km south-southwest of Halifax. At its present speed of 17 km/hr, it could reach Nova Scotia in a just under six days—if it traveled in a straight line, which it won't. But that's close enough for the weather hysterics at CBC News to warn that it "could strengthen into a hurricane and affect Atlantic Canada by the weekend." Gee, maybe they should cancel normal programming. This continues a policy established last winter, when the first...

27 August, 2009

Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald offers a blood-curdling precis of the just released (but still redacted) CIA Inspector General's report (.pdf) on the agency's torture techniques. He concludes: The fact that we are not really bothered any more by taking helpless detainees in our custody and (a) threatening to blow their brains out, torture them with drills, rape their mothers, and murder their children; (b) choking them until they pass out; (c) pouring water down their throats to drown them; (d) hanging them by their arms until their shoulders are dislocated; (e) blowing smoke in their face until they vomit; (f) putting...

25 August, 2009

2:35 NSP President Rob Bennett has wrapped up the session with a brief thank you to the consumer participants and expert panelists. The session ended about an hour early to give participants time to get home before Hurricane Bill hits. Before leaving Truro,  the consumer participants will fill out a questionnaire touching on various energy issues. They filled out an a second survey before coming to the session. Comparing the two will give NSP policy planners some insight into whether and how an informed discussion can move public opinion on energy issues. 2:25 One of the consumer breakout groups expressed alarm about the...

22 August, 2009

Let the blogosphere note that on Friday morning, contrarian bet a friend that Hurricane Bill would not rank among the 10 highest wind speeds recorded in Nova Scotia in 2009. As of this morning, the bet is looking pretty safe. Environment Canada and the CBC  need to realize that the shrill, cover-your-ass forecasts they adopted in the wake Hurricane Juan are just as dangerous as under-predicting. EC and CBC cry wolf so often, and so predictably, citizens simply tune them out. This is a topic contrarian will return to. Reader comments welcome....

22 August, 2009

9:15 [caption id="attachment_1952" align="alignleft" width="303" caption="Roberta Bondar poses with charmed NSP flacks."][/caption] My old Daily News chum David Rodenhiser, now laboring in NSP communications, asked Bondar if she had any startling revelations in space. Many of them. One is that Buck Rogers was a myth. We romanticize space. It's a very difficult environment. It's very hard. It's hard on the body. But you can't beat the view. 8:40 p.m.: A surprisingly witty keynote speech by Roberta Bondar began with several slides of Hurricane Bill. These days Bondar makes her living as a professional speaker, but this isn't shaping up to be a canned speech. Moneyquote: The...

21 August, 2009

On February 12, 1891, the latest of many interruptions in his household's supply of coal gas moved Samuel Langhorne Clemens, AKA Mark Twain, to write the Hartford Gas and Electric Company. "Dear Sirs," he began. "Some day you will move me almost to the verge of irritation by your chuckle-headed Goddamned fashion of shutting your Goddamned gas off without giving any notice to your Goddamned parishioners. Several times you have come within an ace of smothering half of this household in their beds and blowing up the other half by this idiotic, not to say criminal, custom of yours. And it...

20 August, 2009

This month, Apple approved a free CBC Radio app that offers yet another reason to own an iPhone. It will prove a boon to radio listeners not tied to their radios all day. The CBC Radio app will give iPhone or iPod users live audio streams from of Radio 1, 2, and 3 (the corp's net-based, indy-oriented network). It will let users listen in any time zone, so when Atlantic Canadians miss a national program, they have four chances to catch up. Want to listen to a local show in real time? Pick it off the station menu (below left), our use...

20 August, 2009
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