The Press

Nuclear Power and The Chicago Tribune

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On the editorial page of the Chicago Tribune they recently wrote an article titled “Restored Faith In Nuclear Power”. This article summarizes the recent earthquake in Japan and the fact that it occurred right under a nuclear plant. Even though the plant wasn’t rated to support an earthquake, it withstood a 6.8 magnitude earthquake with only minor damage and no radiation leakage.

Next, the article talks about the fact that there is some nuclear construction occurring in the US. They cite the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and the fact that they restarted the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in mid-May 2007 after a $1.8 billion effort, which took 5 years. Other nuclear plants on the drawing board are supposedly reducing the licensing frame to four years and construction to three years, meaning that nuclear plants could come online in seven years.

The article also mentions that the UN report on global warming mentioned that nuclear power had to be part of the mix alongside wind and renewable resources to reduce global warming. Thus, they conclude, the US can have faith in nuclear power, and left the feeling that in fact more nuclear power is on the way.

While I personally believe that nuclear power IS an essential part of our energy portfolio and that encouraging nuclear power is good for the country and our balance of trade, I think that this editorial is way too optimistic and there in fact is little hope of a nuclear power revival in the US.

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Muni Bonds and Garbled Journalism

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One of the best financial periodicals available is the Wall Street Journal and I read it daily. I find their standards, overall, to be quite high. Occasionally, however, they write a garbled piece which brings me back to my opinion that “generalist” journalists should go the way of the Dodo. The article in question is titled “Exodus from Muni Bonds Could Yield Opportunities” from Saturday, August 25th.

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A little photoshopping, Scarecrow?

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How about them pics! I was half-expecting the final image to show a group of pale, dour-faced cadets standing solemnly behind a blue/green rotting corpse, with a big “WAR IS BAD” banner displayed in the background. Or maybe I am overreacting — the faux-crossprocessed look is big these days.

The actual article isn’t bad. The cadets come across as intelligent, thoughtful and morally serious. I wish more journalists and elected officials were like that.

(via Rachel)

UPDATE: I’ve posted, below the fold, a composite image showing the original photos from the articles superposed over versions of the same photos that I spent a few minutes roughly editing in Photoshop. Even though the photos were made in different settings with different lighting, they all appear more natural after approximately the same types and amounts of color and lighting adjustments (red levels: 1.15; green levels: .85; blue levels: .90; midtone levels: 1.15-1.40). IOW, it appears that the photographer or photo editor dialed in extra blue and green, desaturated the reds and darkened the images overall. There may be another explanation but it sure looks as though the magazine was trying to make these cadets look less than bright-and-rosy. The grim facial expressions add to the negative effect and, consequently, bolster my impression that the image manipulation here was intentional.

UPDATE 2: OTOH there’s this photo from an unrelated article on a newspaper’s Web site. In this case it looks like the photographer inadvertently used the wrong white-balance setting and they ran the photo without correcting the color cast. I’m sure it’s unintentional, since the accompanying article is a favorable profile of the subject of the photo. Could a mass-circulation magazine make a similar error with images used in a feature article? Maybe, but it seems unlikely.

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MSM Military Expertise

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I watched part of an interview on C-SPAN conducted by a guy who was identified as a (the?) “CBS News national security correspondent.” The interview was with a leftist author who has written a conspiracy-mongering book about the Blackwater company. At one point the author used the term, “fourth generation warfare.” The CBS guy subsequently said that he had never heard that term before and was unfamiliar with it. Is this possible? It seems like a very odd admission for a “national security correspondent” to make. Perhaps I misheard, or the correspondent really was familiar with the term and was trying to elicit an explanation for an audience he assumed was not. Either way, very strange.

A Parliament of Clocks

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I think an old parable explains why the professional subcultures of articulate intellectuals, such as academics in the humanities, artists and journalists, all experience such enormous pressures to conform to the same viewpoint.

In the parable, a king wants to buy some clocks and travels to the Bavarian village were the ten best clockmakers in the world keep their shops all along one street.

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