Suddenly Copenhagen.
The Obama administration suddenly reverses itself and announces, according to Simon Constable and Kelsey Hubbard, conversing with Stephen Power,, that POTUS will stop in Copenhagen to deliver an opinion on greenhouse gas emissions targets for the next decade, and the question is why the reversal. Several weeks ago, the Obama team clearly indicated POTUS was skipping Copenhagen and would make his green world remarks at Oslo for his Nobel Peace Prize. The change looks like political spin, and one presumption is that the administration is weakening to EU pressure on the fantasy of a planetary climate treaty. The US was supposed to lead on climate, but the House bill that was shoved through by Mrs. Pelosi is so gummed up with tricks and costs and obvious unenforceable taxes that the Senate will not touch it. That was why the White House initially tried to skip the warmist confab. No gain, just noise. So why the flip?
Warmist Fakes.
What has happened recently on climate is the revelation by a hacker into East Anglia University files that the warmists have been colluding for a decade to concoct or suppress data. There are 62 megabytes of emails between many players, most all of them warmists who are paid for their research, called scientists. The scandal is still emerging. We are in the denial stage. Right now, what we know is that the tree-ring data, which did not suit the anthropogenic theory, was either cooked or ignored. (Grows faster when warmer; slower when cooler.) The apologists are trying to argue that, while the emails are not good, the tree-ring stuff is minor and does not speak to the big picture. It is too early to say that the tree-ring data is all that was cooked. Ask yourself, if you are shopping for correlations to your theory that, starting with the Industrial Revolution of the mid 19th century, the greenhouses gases have risen precipitously, where do you go? Ice cores and tree rings are two metrics. Now, if the scientists handling the data are willing to fake the tree-ring data, or at least to abuse it, why would they stop? Why not the ice cores? Why not the ice cores back a million years? Why not the ocean temperatures now and over the last 60 years. Where would you stop abusing the data? Why stop? The warmist email scandal has months to go. Reputations will be wrecked, schools will be damaged, wholesale collapse of a money-raising internationalist cause. The cap and trade bill is tattered, shredded, mealy, used for a napkin at MacDonald's.
POTUS to the Rescue.
Perhaps POTUS has suddenly decided to return to Copenhagen (scene of his last defeat re Chicago Olympics) because he is looking to bolster the warmists. Perhap it is coincidence that the warmists are melting. The cocktail party unanimity at Copenhagen is probably ruined. POTUS attending does give the posse something to talk about besides how those emails really mean nothing, nothing at all, and that tree-rings are meaningless, without meaning, and that the global warming deniers are crackpots who make ice mountains out of ice in my tonic.
The late Jane Jacobs pointed out in her final book that our society rests on five pillars, community and family, higher education, the effective practice of science and technology, taxes and governmental powers directly in touch with needs and possibilities, and self-policing by the learned professions. She believed that all five pillars are crumbling, and that our civilization is making the transition to a Dark Age, defined by her as time when we not only forget how to do many quite basic things, but no longer even recollect that such achievements were ever possible.
The scandal mentioned above certainly involves the decay of the third and fifth pillars, and perhaps the three remaining ones as well.
Ken, it sounds like the five pillars of socialism... Obama is supporting a sinking ship. What we know is that scientists tried to cook the books in order to pursue political ends. It has become a religious and political movement, not a scientific one and may I ad, this event is just as profound as Galileo's apostasy: It is contrary to the facts and truth (on Galileo's side) on a global scale (The Church). Since then, the church has repented. Will we see that here? Like the flat earthers, AGW crown will hand onto the sinking ship for awhile. POTUS need to get his head out of his ass and stop his Mr. Opposite policy.
Kenneth – You are so right. However, these things can only come to pass (if they haven’t happened already, that is) if no one is held to account. I’m not talking about coming to some vague consensus in which it is agreed that everyone is guilty (as we have happily done with regard to our financial problems, for instance). I’m saying that, specific people have to be held accountable for the crime of willfully disseminating false information for political and financial gain. They have to be named and investigated. A verdict needs to be rendered and a punishments handed down. Al Gore’s name might well be at the top of that list.
But just the opposite is happening. I picked up my ‘free’ paper from the bottom of our driveway this Thanksgiving morning. (It’s the same paper we cancelled better than two years ago.) I open it up and there’s an article about how ‘global warming’ can affect the food supply adversely. Last week, ‘The New York Times’ called for the hacker/whistleblower’s head(s). The now real possibility of fraudulent scientific data having been knowingly disseminated is not what troubled the ‘Old Gray Lady’ at all.
JB says that ‘the warmist e-mail scandal (still) has months to go’. I don’t think it’ll take quite that long for it to get swept completely under the rug. The MSM will ignore it and continue with its polar bear stories. Teachers in schools will continue to teach about those dreaded carbon footprints. President Barrack Hussein Obama will go to Copenhagen and commit us to policies that will reduce our carbon emissions and curb our economic activity – in short, just like 9/11 never happened as it did; just like our financial meltdown never happened as it did; just as we never elected a Marxist to the highest office in the land as we did, this too shall pass. History is written by the winners, and the Left has won. And if, despite the best efforts of the MSM, this particular issue should persist and prove troublesome to this administration’s efforts to tax the country and all its future generations into feudal servitude, we can always declare ‘global warning’ skepticism a ‘hate crime’ and lock ‘global warming’ skeptics into the same loony bin along with ‘holocaust deniers’. Come to think of it, that would likely require that we make an exception for Iran’s Supreme Leaders.
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
I rather doubt that a Dark Age will be averted just because Congress passes one more bill or appoints yet another Special Prosecutor. No, our dying society requires the kind of regeneration that comes only from radical decentralization--and that means undoing the centralized bureaucratic state that Mr. Lincoln's party once birthed and now falsely claims to abhor. A free people who conduct their lives in a sensible fashion based on the principle of subsidiarity need not give fear that the lies of conscienceless politicians or scientific hoaxers wil reduce them to serfdom.
I think we should keep Galileo out of this. JB made a big deal about Climategate and Galileo on his show. The conventional wisdom about Galileo is wrong. The good guy in the Galileo affair was probably Urban VIII and the bad guy was Galileo. The Galileo affair like Climategate was about politics but that is where the similarity ends. Urban was not suppressing good science or promoting bad science. In fact a lot of Galileo's ideas were flawed. There were people trying to depose Urban because he would not support the Hapsburgs in the 30 Years War. Check the date for the Galileo trial and it was smack in the middle of this war. Urban was Galileo's mentor, friend and spiritual leader. He suggested the tittle and emphasis of Galileo's treatise and it was to be published by the Vatican till a sponsoring cardinal died and an outbreak of the plague prevented any communication between Rome and Florence.
It is all very complicated but it has almost nothing to do with science or religion and nearly all to do with politics. It is all about people named Richelieu, Adolphus, Philip IV and Ferdinand II. This is something John should be on top of but he has bought the flawed anti Catholic template on this.
Guys, guys, you're a bit behind the curb on this one. Let me bring you up to speed (having wasted about 4 hours on a very spirited thread on this subject yesterday):
(1) Careers are already ruined.
(2) The CRU research has already been irreparably discredited.
(3) There is a tie between Obama's Science Czar John Holdren and the CRU suppression. As JB would say "I want to be very careful here" but the fact is that the tie is there and IMO the POTUS will have to jettison this guy within a couple of weeks to avoid having the path lead to his own door.
(4) Now it is true that it will take a while for the general public to wakeup from the brainwashing they've been handed, but the fact is that most of the data for the IPCC reports were obtained from this CRU and CRU can not even duplicate its own results. This is all richly documented in detail by CRU's programmers. They didn't just cherry-pick data, they cooked, cooked, re-cooked, moved around, ignored, and straight out fabricated the famous hockey stick graph. None of this will come as any surprise to anyone who's read the definitive work on the climate change hoax, "Heaven and Earth" by Ian Plimer. If you haven't read it, read it ASAP.
(5) As to why POTUS might be going to Copenhagen, this scandal is the death knell, the fatal blow for the AGW theorists. And as usual the POTUS and the other apologists for these bad policies circle the wagons, but there is nothing they can do. This theory, the cap-and-trade, everything, is DOA. It's already a done deal. Trust me on this one.
(6) PS I've been telling everyone who would listen for the last 3 years that the whole thing is a crock. But now the average Joe will come to realize it.
behind the curve #(*$&%#
The e-mails they will try to explain away. They're already trying a number of different explanations for some of the more damning comments in the e-mails, I suppose to see if any of them will stick. This is unlikely to work, but it does muddy the water.
More significantly, a lot of the computer code used by HADCRUT for their climate models has also been "outed" in this data dump. The remarks inserted in the very code are near-impossible to reconcile. Here's one:
"Uses 'corrected' MXD - but shouldn't usually plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to the real temperatures"
MXD is a tree-ring growth parameter, being used as a proxy for temperature (this is itself debatable). Note that it is first "corrected," then will be "artificially adjusted."
This data has been massaged so many times it is nothing more than a limp noodle at the end of the process. And the codes prove it. The codes that so many people have asked to see for so many years. Now, all exposed. All the data perversions exposed in all their naked glory. The programmers have only just begun working their way through the computational aspects of these codes. There are many respected scientists who actually believe in the integrity of science who will turn their inquisition upon the HADCRUT scientists who have concocted these abominations of climatology. And I do not think, like Monty Python, they will put them in the comfy chair and poke them with soft cushions. There will be blood.
More here:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/crus_source_code_climategate_r.html
Eric, Lou - I don't agree. I think this thing will be swept under the rug like everything else. Remember, Dan Rather tried to say that it doesn't matter if some of the facts in his reporting were wrong, the overall point that Bush was a bum was still as valid as it's ever been. That was then; this is now. We've since elected a hologram president; we've struck perfectly good words from the lexicon; we're changing the definitions of words; we're happily pursuing policies that go against the laws of gravity.
Believe me, by the time this is over, the whistle blowers will be in jail and the perps will be hailed as heroes for having succeeded in poking another stick in the eye of white man's logic. This is an all out effort by the Left; this is all out war. They know that if they can't do it this time, they'll never succeed. They're not going to quit.
"I am legend."
Of course they will look for the new template to explain it away. Remember vicarious PTSD in regards to Hasan? The left has no choice having backed themselves into a corner through a process that relied on dogma and emotion and not logic. While not his expertise, I would have like to hear and see what Richard Feynman would have said about this if he was alive.
Science Magazine:
NOVEMBER 26, 2009
Climate Hack Scandal Update
By Antonio Regalado
In the case of data apparently stolen from the University of East Anglia, the Norfolk Constabulary today confirmed a criminal investigation is "in its early stages and no further information will be released at this time."
The university has its own internal probe into the leak of thousands of emails and data files last week. It’s not uncommon for servers to register when and by whom files are copied, offering clues.
A lengthy statement from UEA yesterday included comments from pro-Vice Chancellor for research Trevor Davies and Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit
Science Magazine:
NOVEMBER 25, 2009
Union of Concerned Scientists on Climate Scientists' Behavior
by Eli Kintisch
Update 11/25 3:20 pm: Grifo clarifies in an interview that the group "does have concerns" about the alleged behavior of some scientists in this case. "If a US scientist deleted emails persuant to freedom of information act requests, that's reprehensible," she says. "Ultimately a lack of transparency doesn't work."
Yesterday I asked Francesca Grifo, senior scientist and director of the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), about the possibility that the University of East Anglia's Phil Jones was asking colleagues to delete emails requested under information requests. Citing a busy schedule, she declined to be interviewed, instead sending the following statement through a spokesperson:
We expect a high degree of scientific integrity by scientists, whether they be in university labs or federal offices. But what may or may not have happened does not change the science - ice sheets are melting, sea level is rising and the top ten hottest years since 1880 include 2001 through 2008.
UCS's Peter Frumhoff has also downplayed the issues raised by the emails, stating in a press release that the emails show:
scientists at work, grappling with key issues, and displaying the full range of emotions and motivations characteristic of any urgent endeavor.
In an email to Insider, University of Colorado, Boulder, policy expert Roger Pielke Jr. takes issue with the UCS response:
The comment from UCS reflects the exact sort of thinking that got climate science into this mess, specifically, an inability to differentiate the health of the scientific enterprise from the politics of climate change. It is possible to attend to both at the same time. As important as climate change is, it does not justify abandoning standards of scientific integrity. The reality of climate change and the need to respond does not excuse the sort of behavior revealed in the emails.
EmailPrint ShareMore
Posted on November 25, 2009 12:15 PM in | Permalink | Comments (9)
9 Comments
By Sandra on November 26, 2009 12:10 PM
Dear Scientists,
My cousin who was raised with me died in Vietnam. Later my family learned that the gulf of Tonkin incident, the reason for the war, was a lie.
Today I am having a very hard time to pay my bills. I know that if my energy bill doubles that I will have to live without electricity or lose my home. It is very hot where I live and I am not so healthy. I know that food prices will also double and I will not have that much to eat.
If the future of earth is at stake, it is like a war that has to be fought and I understand this.
All I am begging you is that someday my children do not learn as I learned about my cousin, that all that happened to me was based on a lie. TY - Sandra
By robert sinkowitz on November 26, 2009 10:19 AM
Little wonder the AAAS coverage/responses have been as tepid as they have,,, as AAAS had already 'settled' the science for us all~
By proxima on November 26, 2009 7:00 AM
Concerning Woodfin V Ligon's post on the need of inventing a new system to publish raw datas:
I'm not sure that creating a new kind of scientific press which only treats in datas and "objective conclusions" would be so easy to put in place. However, I just came across a proposal by Eric Raymond, a respected figure of the open-source community:
"Open-Sourcing the Global Warming Debate".(esr ibiblio org)
Coming from an engineering background, I am not aware of all the usages and traditions of the scientific community. But it seems to me that research on Climate Change is not "any science" anymore considering the magnitude of what is potentially hanging above our heads.
This exceptionalism is even more blatant when it comes to groups like CRU and IPCC which advise political bodies on policies which engage the future of the whole biosphere.
A commun declaration of the governements present at Copenhagen to make available to everyone, by law, the datas and methods relating to climate change, would probably be received favorably by all parties involved in this débate and serve to dispel many doubts.
By Woodfin V Ligon on November 25, 2009 9:41 PM
As a retired scientist, I can say that I am not shocked or surprised by any of the matters discussed in the emails. For the most part, these folks are just arguing about the science. But there are many issues beyond the science that arise when one reads these emails that many non-scientists might well find disturbing. For example, we find the data is not as iron clad as the scientists would have us believe. These scientists actively refuse FOI requests in order to cover up this fact. Furthermore, we get the very strong impression that many of them are less interested in hard science and more interested in the impression the data ultimately presents. Some readers will conclude that perhaps we need to wait just a bit. After all, if we are to believe these scientists,(and perhaps we should) we are discussing nothing less than the fate of the earth. And then we read these emails...and we have to conclude with these non-scientist observers that we really have to see the original data.
And clearly, given that almost all science is paid for by the citizens, can't we reasonably ask why the citizens should not have access to the real data completely uncontaminated by the "opinions" of the authors? Consider just how many jpegs would be equivalent to the volume of material that was hacked! Not very many. Have them post it all on Google. People are arguing about the volume but I submit that for all of science it would be a drop in the bucket.
Another idea comes to mind which might reduce some of this in-fighting. Mind you this is a very radical thought but this is very serious business and we badly need to get it under control I believe this mess really reflects the long standing need for a major shift in "science publishing" so that "data" and "opinion" are very clearly separated.
I believe, there should be one group of journals which deals only with data--real data. It should be very, very difficult to get a paper into one of these "data" journals. The description of exactly how the data was acquired should be exceedingly detailed. If the data is in fact flawed, it should be possible to reproduce the data to the extent that the flaw in logic or procedure would be apparent. The greatest error a scientist could make should be any attempt to present his "data" as something it is not.
Of course, the devil is always in the details and, for example, it is often the case that scientists attempt(for all sorts of reasons) to make a case by measuring only part of a system. A primary "data" journal cannot stop this practice but it can make it much more obvious that the data is only partial. Many limitations are, of course, very real as in the case of instruments which simply won't produce data above/below a certain wavelength. Such limitations should be very carefully denoted as a part of the data. Given the power of today's search engines, we should never have to worry about overlooking data. A careful search should produce it all.
There should be another group of journals that I would consider "secondary" that deal only with peoples opinions drawn on the "data" in the primary journals.
There might be a "hold" of several months that allowed the scientists who acquired the "data" to be the first to make conclusions based on the new "data".
The problem is that "conclusions" are always opinions. Two different people can often reach very different conclusions based on the same data. We need a way to separate the facts and the opinions. Using the system proposed here, popular publications would know if a scientific publication was "fact" or "opinion". Their articles could be clearly based on "fact" or on "opinion". Currently even the "best" journals are not immune to politics. The tone of these emails clearly shows exactly how the scientists are really politicians. This is no surprise because they are just people. There is always a reason to take a particular stand. Such tendencies should not be allowed to influence data. After all the "data" is what we citizens are paying for. Politics should influence only the "opinions"
This is a very serious issue. We are not discussing something arcane like the reality of dark energy. If global warming is real this is well beyond serious. Perhaps it is time to make some fundamental changes.
By rick_go on November 25, 2009 7:06 PM
Leonard, don't worry about peer review, poor judgment or other cover for these criminals. Real scientists have doubted these fools for quite some time. These are not some misguided egg heads. These are people that have gained or have stood to gain personally from their lies. Let's look at prosecuting these fraudsters to the fullest extent of the law. Willful fraud in order to secure government taxpayer grants and/or funding of their activities may be one charge. How about conspiracy to commit fraud, racketeering (RICO), perjury,money laundering, treason..?
By Eric on November 25, 2009 3:12 PM
The misbehavior of the CRU doesnt' really impact our qualitative understanding of global warming, but an alarming degree of our quantitative understanding of it is influenced by the work of those scientists who have been misbehaving.
Does it matter if the magnitude of warming is half or twice what we currently think? Does it matter if there really was a Midieval Warm Period? I think that this is critical context for the current political debate, and these guys have now muddied the water.
By Eric on November 25, 2009 2:38 PM
I agree with the previous commenter. I would also add that the union of concerned scientists is really more of a political group than a scientific one. They don't have a problem with the behavior because they're already bought into the political outcome. Again, politics not science.
I, for one, am a concerned scientist. The statistical tricks and questionable paleoclimate proxies that the CRU folks are defending, are not scientifically defensible, and I'm concerned that the entire "scientific concensus" rests on them.
By Leonard Ornstein on November 25, 2009 2:36 PM
There are a number of questions that should be separately recognized and assessed with respect to the hacked emails:
1) The most important is: does the behavior of the scientists involved significantly weaken the collective AGW position that warming is real, that it will probably continue with business as usual, and that such warming will probably subject humanity (and ecosystems) to severe risks? The answer to this one should be a resounding, NO.
2) Has the behavior of a few of these scientist revealed poor judgment about scientific and legal protocol? YES.
3) Does this episode reveal (again) that the scientific peer review process is imperfect, and can stand improvement? YES.
Journalists must weigh their responsibilities to the public carefully, so that the weight that they give to discussion of questions like 2 and 3 will not easily be perceived as changing the answer to questions like 1.
It's a tall order, but extremely important.
By FrancisT on November 25, 2009 12:46 PM
The comment that "the top ten hottest years since 1880 include 2001 through 2008 " is more important is rich in irony since that claim is typically made with reference to the CRU temperature series which is the core of the code released in the leak. It may well be that the claim is correct and that the code is providing the right answers but without the leak we had no idea how the temperature series was created. With it we know, and the details are not pretty.
Claims like the one made need proof and without the leak and the partial success of FOI requests to NASA and NCDC we would have to simply take the claims on trust. Taking scientific claims on trust with no attempt to understand how the claim is reached is not part of what I would consider the scientific method.
I'm rather concerned about the scientific ability of this particular "concerned scientist"
They keep saying glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising.
First, sea levels look to be leveling off since 2006. http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
Glaciers are melting? Yes. How many glaciers are melting? How many are growing? What percent of glaciers are melting? This context is never mentioned.
In other news, data manipulation of 150-year temperature record now exposed in New Zealand. http://tiny.cc/3Fp5Y Actual temperature site readings show flat temps for 150 years. Massaged data shows a big rise.
Also, huge icebergs are approaching New Zealand. Unusual to see so much ice that far north. Due to cooling? Hmmm. Yup, I think so.
"By Leonard Ornstein on November 25, 2009 2:36 PM
There are a number of questions that should be separately recognized and assessed with respect to the hacked emails:
1) The most important is: does the behavior of the scientists involved significantly weaken the collective AGW position that warming is real, that it will probably continue with business as usual, and that such warming will probably subject humanity (and ecosystems) to severe risks? The answer to this one should be a resounding, NO."
And thus spake Pope Urban VIII...and we say yet it moves...
To focus too closely on hockey stick graphs and ice core samples and tree rings is to miss the larger point: The exposure of this particular scientific scandal--there are others that will soon see the light of day, particularly in the fields of medicine and genetics--merely reflects the fundamental sociopolitical fact of our time, a crisis in legitimacy for the Establishment that will only escalate over time.
It is done ... they are finished ... into thy hands I commend their spirits.
Yet MaObaMohammed goes to copenhagen to continue his world apology tour. Remember, this guy is a narcissist, and he won't stop in spite of what the facts are.
I don't know if that link works. Here it is: http://www.faithfreedom.org/obama.html
Peter,
Your posts trouble me on two counts. And let me first say that I wouldn't take the time to try to make you rethink this if I didn't think you were a potentially influential voice and thus worth the effort to convince.
Count 1: I think you're being overly pessimistic, or perhaps cynical, or both, about the motivations of the AGW proponents. First of all, it's a rainbow of proponents - from those who honestly don't have an axe to grind but have become convinced through constant repetition that AGW is a fact, to those who have thought it through and decided that there is AGW but are basically honest people and would be willing to change if they became aware that a hoax had been perpetrated, to those who have a huge financial and reputational stake in it and would fight to the bitter end even if it involved further coverups. I grant you that the latter group are going to perservere for a while longer, or try to morph their theory into something that can survive, and so forth. That's a given. We all try to survive and we all have different ideas of what constitutes honesty. There are many on the left who think that I personally have a corrupt interest in preserving the health care status quo at all costs; let them believe it. I personally don't think I'm corrupt but I am a fanatic about free markets, and I'll fight every bit as hard for free market solutions as the CRU people will fight for climate change. But I think the moderates, the people who won't fight to the death, are the people whose opinions will change as a result of this scandal, and they are enough to turn the tide (IMO.)
Count 2: Now, let's say that you were basically correct about everything: that they will present a united front, cover up, falsify, suppress, lie, control the media, and let's even stipulate that it's with an "evil" intent that they do so. Let's say that all that were true (which I don't think it is.) What is to be gained by just adopting this fatalistic tone you have increasingly adopted, saying "Oh, woe is me, they are out to get us, there's nothing we can do about it in the long run, I weep for this country, etc...." You're certainly not alone in this. I'm sure I've been guilty of it myself and JB is guilty of it with his "Death of the Republicans" series and RL is guilty and Glenn Beck and on and on. We all thought a long time ago that exposing the fact of Political Correctness and its hypocrisies would serve to disarm the Politically Correct, but it hasn't. Everyone knows that PCism had a hand in the Fort Hood tragedy, but it didn't stop the tragedy from occurring, and we have no guarantees that we've learned our lesson even yet. Our perpetual "Woe is me" whining isn't working. Time to try something new.
Now, what I suggest is that the antidote to PCism and liberalism in general isn't to identify their hypocrisies - their hypocrisies have long been obvious to anyone with eyes and ears and a brain. The antidote is for us to speak the truth. Whenever possible! With whatever means we have. Rather than spend a paragraph on a blog complaining about the CRU people, let's spend a paragraph talking about what the evidence really is about climate change. Let's talk about where we as conservatives would like to go once the pendulum swings back and we're in power. Let's talk about the positive steps we can take to influence the media, not in GB/RL mode but in JB mode and Dr. Laura mode and Thomas Sowell mode and George Will mode etc..... Let's figure out the answer to the mystery of the ages - how the PCers have managed to take over the MSM - and beat them at their own game. Whining isn't going to help. Telling the truth to the ongoing detriment of the worm-eaten status quo will make their edifice crumble. It's already started - and people like you can make the difference.
FWIW.
And having JB's show taken off the air in a market like LA is a big step in the wrong direction, by the way. Hope you find a new station to carry you out here John! Listening on the internet every night is do-able for me but it's not everyone's cup of tea.
Our motto should be those time-honored words that Father Junipero Serra had inscribed above his room in the San Juan Capistrano Mission:
"VERITAS VOS LIBERABIT"
I am convinced that those three words are the answers to all the ills in the world.
Check out the emails here: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/
Anyone else curious as to why this scandal isn't a bit more front and center on the JB schedule? Oh, I forgot, we've got to get our 3 hours on Afghanistan in somehow.
I think JB believes in AGW.
Perhaps, but it is my sense that while Mr. Batchelor might once have leaned toward the to the notion of global warming, of late he has moved away from it.
Damn it, I seem to be unable to write even the simplest sentence without inserting a typo today.
Don't mean to brag, but once I told him it was nonsense, I wonder how come he didn't trust me. Can someone remind me the last time I've been wrong? It's starting to slip away into the hazy past ....
About 2 months ago I sent a brief letter to the editor at the WSJ, saying that they should "Stop reporting global warming as a fact, and stop reporting the Honduras situation as a coup, because history will show you to be dead wrong in both cases, and you're just making an ass of yourself in the meantime." Naturally they neither printed my letter nor took my advice, but maybe next time they will (doubt it, though!) Still, a monster e-mail if I do say so.
My comment was AGW or anthropogenic global warming, meaning man caused. If there is a reason for it, it's the sun or some other natural phenomena. right now, things are cooling down. Just ask Robert Zimmerman, who I think is one of John's best regular guests.
I find myself in a similar predicament, although I am not right as often as you or rush limbaugh. :)
Hmmmmm.... I'll take that as a compliment. Thread due to go fallow soon anyway! : )
I know that you meant "man-made," but I chose to omit that phrase. The case for any sort of global warming, man-made or otherwise, is pitifully weak.
And even before I happened across Mr. Batchelor's show and his excellent guest, Bob Zimmerman, I was uneasily aware that not only have things gotten a mite chilly of late, we are seriously overdue for another glacial period.
In any case, since an Ice Age is the most absurd thing that could possibly happen to us in this wussified era of Global Warming hysteria, it doubtless will.
Of course, an Ice Age might have an up side. Chilly, monocultural North Dakota remains largely untouched by the current depression. When asked what their secret to remaining prosperous is, North Dakotans merely say, "The cold weather keeps out the riffraff."
Didn't the lefty-pinko types tell us to "question authority?"
I question their data and their motives as well.
The leftists knew exactly what they were doing when they said to question Authority. Once Authority is gone, then naked Power is all that remains. Robert Nisbet wrote about this phenomenon in "Twilight of Authority," *reviewed here by Robert Bork*.
It was, but Rush is always saying how he is right 99.5% of the time. I find that had to believe in his case, based on some facts...Anyway, it was.
Yeah, but he also brags alot. I brag quite a bit too and I will say one word in my defense for doing so. I don't brag because I want everyone to think "Lou is wonderful", I blow my own horn because I always get the feeling that nobody listens to my warnings about how X, Y and Z are going to happen, and so when my predictions turn out to be accurate, I like to tout it, is all. If the world weren't upside-down and backwards I wouldn't have to be doing all this blogging and I'd be content to go back to doing what I do, Jim, which is being a simple country actuary. Dammit, Jim, I'm no blogger, I'm just a simple country actuary.
Do they really think they can destroy data?
Emails are backed up, sent off site. Data are compressed and set to tape storage. IT auditors will find the missing data. Heads will roll, University Climate departments will close. Rankings will go down.
When Congress and Parliaments summon University Chancellors to submit to questioning; They will do what all leaders always do, fire the irresponsible and clean house.
Guilty parties so far:
Penn State
University of East Anglia (UK)
NOAA (US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency)
NASA
Al Gore
Nobel Peace Prize Committee
UN agencies
NGOs
Shell Oil
Many more to come...
Anyone who received government funding and gave false data will go to jail. Could be Oil for Food scandal times 20!
Anyone want to play a game of Dead-pool?
It ain't braggin' if you can do it. You're no braggart. The Neocons, though...
Thanks. I do have an inclination towards it, though, and have to watch myself. My wife gets the brunt of it, fortunately for you-all.
True, being right all the time can be a burden...to other people, I mean. For a hilarious sci-fi take on this, get a copy of George Alec Effinger's wonderful short story, "The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Absolutely Everthing," about what happens not when bug-eyed monsters bent on eating us come to Earth, but something much, much worse, a race of well-intentioned, high-IQ busybodies.
Correction: "The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything."
Earlier in this thread I alluded to emerging scandals and controversies in the life sciences that will make Climategate look like a minor disagreement. Well, evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller discusses some of this in a ">*in a fascinating piece for The Economist*.
Mr. Batchelor should have this man on his show.
Lou - Thanks for the advice. I can't really disagree with anything you've ever said. As for me, I try to wear a number of different hats. One is the 'whiner' hat; another is the 'know-it-all'; a third is 'doomsday' hat; you get the idea. I don't think about it all that much; I just write what comes to me. I've looked back over what I've written and find that, surprisingly, I've been rather consistent. So have others. There have been no converts on either side. And that may well be a part of the problem.
You, at least, are willing to listen. You endure liberal blogs. You will applaud a well-crafted point. All of this is commendable. And in a more tolerant world, you'd be rewarded with the honor of being a statesman or diplomat.
But, I fear - I truly fear - we've already gone beyond that. It's been termed a culture war. The operative word is 'war'. They seek to destroy us. Any quarter we grant them - any compromise - will be turned against us and decrease our advantage.
If it were legitimate, I could live with it. They won; we lost. But it was done with smoke and mirrors. It was done through subterfuge, all orchestrated by a relatively small number of players. It galls me that they are doing all this on the backs of hard-working, well-meaning American families who were rightfully engaged in raising their children while trying to keep their own heads above water. The American dream, after all, is a full-time job.
I bet many of them had been told by their parents that if they did the right and honorable thing for their families and participated in community affairs, everything else would turn out right as well. They never dreamed that a moment's glance away would put the entire nation at risk. It just wasn't ever supposed to be that close. When you get on the bus you expect to get where you're going (provided you get on the right bus). There should never be a question as to vetting the driver; examining his political leanings, competency, or state of mind. So lax have we become, we didn't even insist on seeing Obama's valid birth certificate or school and health records! No, we trusted everyone (Frank, Pelosi, Schumer, etc.) to do their jobs and represent our best interests. We assumed they were honorable men and women when we sent them to Washington in our stead. We never thought they would betray us. Ditto, our Universities and the media.
What I think happened last November was a coup. There's nothing much ma n' pa kettle can do about a coup. Still, justly or unjustly, I poke them and won't let them forget that they let it happen. I want them to get so riled up as to ultimately blow the libs' straw house down. Right now, it's our only chance. There's nobody else out there. The Republicans have abdicated. There's a lot of people talking and writing; some are even marching. But it won't amount to a hill of beans until we all decide either to blow in unison - or forever hold our breath.
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
Peter -
"There have been no converts on either side".
Let me try to refute that statement by pointing out two items where I believe that I, and others like me, many others, in our own small way, have made a difference in the last 6 months:
(1) Honduras - U.S. reluctantly agreed at the last minute to recognize the election this past weekend. Mary Anastasia O'Grady - now, there's a voice that can really be respected by both sides. She is just one voice but it's a strong voice that can make people in high places stop and think about what they are doing. I hammered all my elected representatives for weeks about this issue, and my family, and friends. I believe, and I could be wrong, that we made a difference, enough of a difference, maybe like holding the door open one extra second so the good guys could win the bridge at Khazad-dum.
(2) Health Care - hammering, hammering, hammering away, like a human woodpecker I've been. So many different blogs. So many different e-mails, letters, phone calls. My family - all liberals - and it's a big family - and I'm melting them on this health care debate because I'm the first person they've ever met up close who opposes single payer. I'm like a firebrand buried deep in a liberal iceberg. Again, there are thousands like me around the country. I think the tide is turning. Look at the most recent Gallup poll- look at the deltas in the polls on the public favoring these bills - they are turning the tide. Whether we win or not is still to be seen, but we still have a fighting chance.
I believe we can make a difference, we just have to "NEVER GIVE UP."
"Never Give A Inch" - Hank Stamper
BTW, War is fine with me, cause fighting is what Tiggers like Best of All!
And I am a simple country computer technologist cum fix-it-all. Unfortunately, I am almost in the same boat. Worse really. I have a blog, so I have no excuse.
Obvious, as they tried to.
I have one too - it's called "The Barn Door". And I'm really proud of the pieces I wrote on it. Unfotunately, I don't have the time to devote to it and I never was able to attract a following outside of the usual gang of idiots and I figured it was more efficient to take the battle to the enemy rather than wait and hope for Nancy Pelosi to join my blog so I could convince her what a worthless sack of ____ ERRR convince her how mistaken she is on so many things.
I'm pulling a "Bleak House" on my blog like I am with just about everything else in my life - i.e., just as soon as the Health Care matter is settled, I'll devote more attention to (wife, blog, kids, personal hygiene, etc.).
Don't feel too bad. A lot of us are shoveling the same crap against the same wall. As far as Pelosi goes, I like steaming pile of humanity.
Far from feeling bad, it is my constant reminding myself that there are others like me, that there are others like me, many others like me, that keeps me optimistic. One of the poisons that the enemy uses is to try to marginalize us, make each of us believe that we're extremists. That's why they fear Sarah Palin so much - because someone like Palin, whether she can get elected or not aside, is capable of awakening a whole bunch of people to the fact that WE are the normal ones, and the "progressives" are the extremists. It's a powerful weapon to be able to convince your enemy that he stands alone. Step one in the reformation process is to remember that we are not alone.
It's almost like the scene in the first Matrix movie where he wakes up and realizes that he's been in a cocoon and fed artificial visions all of his life. That's the magnitude of the awakening that conservatives and moderates alike need in this country.
Is it only me or this page loads extremely slow these days? o_O
Is it only me or this page loads extremely slow these days? o_O