Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Talk of the Town: Global warming data not current

Actual scientist and ecologist Tim Crews gives us a sparkling smackdown of climate-change denier, corporatist tool and non-scientist Terry Lovell. I'm sure we'll see a long list of comments to say that Crews can't possibly know anything because he teaches at Prescott College. Logic like that is what's giving the blockhead right* such stunning electoral victories lately.

* VP George HW Bush, speaking privately to Soviet Premiere Gorbachev in '87: "Reagan is a conservative. An extreme conservative. All the blockheads and dummies are for him, and when he says that something is necessary, they trust him."

Letter: Mother seeks help for late son's unit

Maybe one of my anonymous Courier employees will pipe up here. In Jasmine Crowl's letter seeking donations, she thanks "the following originations for their support ...." The editors spend untold hours screwing around with people's letters to control the message, but they couldn't be bothered to fix this obvious spell-check error for a Gold-Star mother? You guys kill me.

Deputies arrest man after chase in Dewey-Humboldt

Gad the paper is full of editorial mistakes today. In this entertaining little chasing-the-nutbar story, Ken manages to omit the first reference to a witness only called "Grugel," who might have been the bad guy's target, but the story's so deeply muddled I can't really tell.

Today's Chuckle

Or maybe Today's Wince -- this headline: "Small swine flu vaccine shipment lets county give doctors some."

In the lead, Jerry describes "5,000 doses of H1N1 (swine) flu vaccination." That should be vaccine, of course. The story is riddled with errors that any freshman copy editor could have handled. Ack.

Further down, we see in Bruce's story on the Supes meeting that the Centennial Committee wants to issue a "cache" and commemorative stamps. It's "cachet," of course. I'm sure there's a dictionary in the office somewhere. Check under the dust in the broom closet.

Broken limbs and relationships: Property owner, APS at odds over tree trimming

A rich white lady is mad at APS for trimming trees in her rental yard that she should have pruned back years ago. Why in the world is this a news story, leave alone on the front page? Electric utilities are constantly pissing people off by taking liberties with the trees. Should we expect a front-page story next week on how the credit-card company raised the interest rate on some nice grandma?

By the way, Jason, that quote should have been "... we couldn't in good conscience re-energize that line ..." rather than "conscious." Really basic.