The appalling reporting I see and hear all too often

            It's funny what can set one off.

            In my case it is the reverberation of a news report about Atlantic Ocean levels rising mostly along the Northeast USA coastline.

            Of course, it was reported as "true", and that it was due to global warming. Even the Voice of America carried it.

            No where could I find discussion of perhaps the land is sinking as a cause.  There are plenty of precedents for that happening, too. After all, the earth is always changing, sometimes in ways we like, and sometimes in ways we don't like.

            One obvious example is along the shores of Lake Superior in North America, where the north shore and the south shore lands are alternately rising and sinking.  The cause is most probably from something called "isostatic rebound". Generally speaking the Americans are losing land to the water rise, and the Canadians are gaining land from water recession. Such is my learning from a previous map project, since I don't live there these days.

            Similar things are probably happening in the Baltic Sea area, too.

            No wonder I take most news stories with a large grain of salt.

            Said another way, I discount a lot of what I read and hear, for good reason in my mind.

            Now maybe poor reporting has always been around, but my age 64 perception is that the problem is worse these days than say a half century ago.

            One practical effect is how to make good decisions with poor facts from poor reporting.  Such is one dilemma facing a common citizen in 2012.