See this AP report on one of the evacuation centers set up by San Diego officials for residents displaced by wildfires in the county.

The article is well-written in that it draws interesting contrasts between separate football stadiums used to shelter evacuees in separate cities during separate disasters, but leaves the reader to perform his own analysis as to why one was failure and the other was a success.

Of course, this is exactly what has happened, in discussions, in the blogs, and in talk shows.

One contrast the report failed to mention, however, was that Qualcomm was not isolated by the fire, as the Superdome was by the flooding, nor did it lose power. But it did serve a purpose in drawing the country’s attention away from Malibu and into the plight of real people who don’t have second or third homes or SUVs or RVs.

But leave it to the Washington Post to focus on the plight of the wealthy residents of Rancho Santa Fe:

Officials feared that the Witch fire — the largest of 15 in the county — would torch its fragrant boulevards of eucalyptus and march to the sea. And when TV news reported that evacuees could return Wednesday, residents made the road home a traffic jam of Mercedes-Benzes and Lexuses. They were stopped by an armed National Guardsman in a Hummer.

Note to authors: Rich people drive Hummers, the military drives Humvees. And if Washington, DC were burning, would you be reporting from Anacostia or counting the Mercedes and Lexuses leaving Georgetown?

It says a lot about the Nobel committee that they awarded the peace price not on the quality of its science (which is atrocious), nor the level of its discourse (polarizing, alarmist, and proselytistic), nor even its contribution to the debate on climate change (dogmatic and peremptory).

If climate change were really the concern the committee says it is, there are dozens of serious scientists, such as Bjorn Lomborg, whose contributions are truly legitimate and enlightening. But since this is a “Peace Prize,” the committee chose instead to recognize purely political entities whose only contributions have been the suppression and distortion of the truth.

That fact that Al Gore flatly refuses to debate any climatologist, oceanographer, meteorologist, or other scientist who disagrees with his alarmist views is evidence of his dishonesty. Instead, he travels the world and lectures us like a religious fanatic on the “moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity.” Fine. But Al Gore is a perfect example of how religious dogma and science can be at odds. Behind this shield of religious zealotry, Al Gore and his followers make the world a more dangerous and inhospitable place, quite apart from contibuting to peace and prosperity.

See the excellent Times of London article on Al Gore here.