"Do you really think you know more than scientists? They're scientists.
Yes, and science is a wonderful thing. It's improved our lives in countless ways. It also has nothing to do with what these frauds, and the useful idiots who believed them, have been pulling."
This is an enormous case of organized scientific fraud, but it is not just scientific fraud. It is also a criminal act. Suborned by billions of taxpayer dollars devoted to climate research, dozens of prominent scientists have established a criminal racket in which they seek government money-Phil Jones has raked in a total of £13.7 million in grants from the British government-which they then use to falsify data and defraud the taxpayers. It's the most insidious kind of fraud: a fraud in which the culprits are lauded as public heroes. Judging from this cache of e-mails, they even manage to tell themselves that their manipulation of the data is intended to protect a bigger truth and prevent it from being 'confused' by inconvenient facts and uncontrolled criticism.I am skeptical that this is a criminal act, but I guess that depends on assertions that were made in grant proposals and the intent of these "scientists." In all candor (and Tracinski implies as much), I'm inclined to say that these fools sincerely believed the crap they were espousing . . . it was moral relativism mixed with arrogance that motivated them to quash dissent and do whatever was necessary to "be right."
Roger Pielke, professor of environmental studies at Colorado University, discovered data had been lost when he asked for original records. “The CRU is basically saying, ‘Trust us’. So much for settling questions and resolving debates with science,” he said.
A more thoughtful response to the emails comes from Mike Hulme, another climate scientist at the University of East Anglia, as reported by a New York Times blogger:Emphasis added.
"This event might signal a crack that allows for processes of re-structuring scientific knowledge about climate change. It is possible that some areas of climate science has become sclerotic. It is possible that climate science has become too partisan, too centralized. The tribalism that some of the leaked emails display is something more usually associated with social organization within primitive cultures; it is not attractive when we find it at work inside science."
The response from the defenders of Mr. Mann and his circle has been that even if they did disparage doubters and exclude contrary points of view, theirs is still the best climate science. The proof for this is circular. It's the best, we're told, because it's the most-published and most-cited—in that same peer-reviewed literature. The public has every reason to ask why they felt the need to rig the game if their science is as indisputable as they claim.
As readers are now aware, the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, the main climate research center in Britain, has had 128 megabytes of secret emails and other data placed online by someone calling himself “FOIA.” A number of scientists have been trying for years to get the raw data possessed by CRU placed online, filing requests under the British Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Although required by law to release this information, CRU has not done so, or has claimed that the data were accidentally erased. We now have proof in the emails that the illegal withholding of information was intentional, and that the erasure of data was also intentional.Emphasis added.
The now non-secret data prove what many of us had only strongly suspected — that most of the evidence of global warming was simply made up. That is, not only are the global warming computer models unreliable, the experimental data upon which these models are built are also unreliable. As Lord Monckton has emphasized here at Pajamas Media, this deliberate destruction of data and the making up of data out of whole cloth is the real crime — the real story of Climategate.
His economic team's resistance to a second round of stimulus, 'lukewarm' reaction to Congressional jobs legislation, and prioritization of deficit reduction over job creation certainly has the feel of a taking-in-the-damage-from-2,500-feet flyover moment.Wow. Then again, I guess you could say that Libs view economics like bad meteorology . . . giving a convincing forecast and then hand out raincoats with your logo on them.
A paralyzed Belgian man who spent the past 23 years incorrectly diagnosed as being in a vegetative state, was fully conscious and could hear everything around him the entire time.After seeing this story today, I googled "locked in" and "Schiavo" (as in Terry Schindler Schiavo--the relatively young woman at the center of the controversial case involving a loser husband wanting to put his estranged wife to death) and "locked in" and realized that the phrase only showed up in relation to the battle between Schiavo's loser husband and those--like her mother, who didn't think she should be deprived of oral nutrition and hydration. The little google exercise seemed to illustrate an epic clash of two world views.
. . . .
Finally, with a little help from a nurse who goaded the doctors, Chiappa was diagnosed as being "locked-in" rather than a vegetable. A massive stroke that hit the base of his brain had left him unable to move, but left his mind perfectly intact.
Neurologists say paralysis plays only one role in a complicated combination of impaired states that can trap a person in their body.
A Pennsylvania university's requirement that overweight undergraduates take a fitness course to receive their degrees has raised the hackles of students and the eyebrows of health and legal experts.Well, at least we don't have to worry about the gov't ever sticking its nose into our health and healthcare, right?
Publisher HarperCollins said Friday that Sarah Palin's memoir sold 300,000 copies its first day, among the best openings ever for a nonfiction book. In 2004, Bill Clinton's 'My Life' debuted with sales of 400,000 copies. The year before, Hillary Rodham Clinton's 'Living History' started at 200,000.
Nashville Judge Claudia Bonnyman said the law was 'fraught with ambiguity' and ruled in favor of a suit brought by restaurant owners who argued gun owners would not be able to determine if an establishment met the criteria.Legal gadfly Gordon Bonnyman's wife may be a bit of a gadfly herself; except she's a judge. Under what theory of "standing" does a restaurant owner sue against a law on behalf of patrons who might (or might not) be unsure about whether they're breaking the law? Regrettably, it appears that Judge Bonnyman, like her husband, is inclined to use the courts to legislate her policy preferences.
In several of the emails, climate researchers discussed how to arrange for favorable reviewers for papers they planned to publish in scientific journals. At the same time, climate researchers at times appeared to pressure scientific journals not to publish research by other scientists whose findings they disagreed with.
In order to counter that argument [that homosexual marriage is being "foisted" upon Americans by "out-of-touch" judges], [attorney Mary] Bonauto and other gay-marriage activists in Maine who began organizing to press for gay marriage there decided to avoid taking the issue to court. Instead, they set about electing lawmakers who were friendly to their cause two years ago, and this year successfully convinced the legislature to become the nation's first to establish gay marriage by statute, rather than by decree. "Frankly, we had heard the criticisms about going the court route, and so we said, 'Fine, we'll go to the legislature,'" says Bonauto. "And it has been an incredible campaign."I'd say it's one thing to present an issue/platform squarely to voters and let them vote, and another to simply get people elected who covertly share your agenda. The latter looks more like a coup than republican government.
Mr. Gore says that he is simply putting his money where his mouth is.It's one thing to be in business and another thing to be intimately involved in crafting the policies that lead to GOVERNMENT contracts. And you gotta love the word-smithing of "global warming pollution reductions." Read: Carbon Dioxide. Which reminds me of the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide.
“Do you think there is something wrong with being active in business in this country?” Mr. Gore said. “I am proud of it. I am proud of it.”
In an e-mail message this week, he said his investment activities were consistent with his public advocacy over decades.
“I have advocated policies to promote renewable energy and accelerate reductions in global warming pollution for decades, including all of the time I was in public service,” Mr. Gore wrote. “As a private citizen, I have continued to advocate the same policies. Even though the vast majority of my business career has been in areas that do not involve renewable energy or global warming pollution reductions, I absolutely believe in investing in ways that are consistent with my values and beliefs. I encourage others to invest in the same way.”
