The Beginning of Climategate

Sometimes you wake up in the morning and everything has changed. A gear has slipped in the planet. This is going to be a big, big deal.

I was too busy yesterday to listen to much radio, so I didn't get any of this until reading Glenn Reynold's Instapundit. Holy Data Manipulation, Batman ! Look at this stuff ! ! !

You can go here or here or here or here or here for more info, but let's start with The Telegraph (UK). As usual, they have the best summary of what's been going on. My apologies to author James Delingpole for scraping his entire article. I had no other choice, since perfection really can't be edited. Hit the link on his name for his other recent work. Lord have mercy, that boy can type. Here's Jimmy :

If you own any shares in alternative energy companies I should start dumping them NOW. The conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth (aka AGW; aka ManBearPig) has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (aka Hadley CRU) and released 61 megabites of confidential files onto the internet. (Hat tip: Watts Up With That)

When you read some of those files – including 1079 emails and 72 documents – you realise just why the boffins at Hadley CRU might have preferred to keep them confidential. As Andrew Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be “the greatest in modern science”. These alleged emails – supposedly exchanged by some of the most prominent scientists pushing AGW theory – suggest:

Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.

One of the alleged emails has a gentle gloat over the death in 2004 of John L Daly (one of the first climate change sceptics, founder of the Still Waiting For Greenhouse site), commenting:

“In an odd way this is cheering news.”

But perhaps the most damaging revelations – the scientific equivalent of the Telegraph’s MPs’ expenses scandal – are those concerning the way Warmist scientists may variously have manipulated or suppressed evidence in order to support their cause.

Here are a few tasters. (So far, we can only refer to them as alleged emails because – though Hadley CRU’s director Phil Jones has confirmed the break-in to Ian Wishart at the Briefing Room – he has yet to fess up to any specific contents.) But if genuine, they suggest dubious practices such as:

Manipulation of evidence:

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.

Private doubts about whether the world really is heating up:

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.

Suppression of evidence:

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?

Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.

Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.

We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.

Fantasies of violence against prominent Climate Sceptic scientists:

Next time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat

the crap out of him. Very tempted.

Attempts to disguise the inconvenient truth of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP):

……Phil and I have recently submitted a paper using about a dozen NH records that fit this category, and many of which are available nearly 2K back–I think that trying to adopt a timeframe of 2K, rather than the usual 1K, addresses a good earlier point that Peck made w/ regard to the memo, that it would be nice to try to “contain” the putative “MWP”, even if we don’t yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back….

And, perhaps most reprehensibly, a long series of communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority.

“This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the “peer-reviewed literature”. Obviously, they found a solution to that–take over a journal! So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering “Climate Research” as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board…What do others think?”

“I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor.”“It results from this journal having a number of editors. The responsible one for this is a well-known skeptic in NZ. He has let a few papers through by Michaels and Gray in the past. I’ve had words with Hans von Storch about this, but got nowhere. Another thing to discuss in Nice !”

Hadley CRU has form in this regard. In September – I wrote the story up here as “How the global warming industry is based on a massive lie” – Hadley CRU’s researchers were exposed as having “cherry-picked” data in order to support their untrue claim that global temperatures had risen higher at the end of the 20th century than at any time in the last millenium. Hadley CRU was also the organisation which – in contravention of all acceptable behaviour in the international scientific community – spent years withholding data from researchers it deemed unhelpful to its cause. This matters because Hadley CRU, established in 1990 by the Met Office, is a government-funded body which is supposed to be a model of rectitude. Its HadCrut record is one of the four official sources of global temperature data used by the IPCC.

I asked in my title whether this will be the final nail in the coffin of Anthropenic Global Warming. This was wishful thinking, of course. In the run up to Copenhagen, we will see more and more hysterical (and grotesquely exaggerated) stories such as this in the Mainstream Media. And we will see ever-more-virulent campaigns conducted by eco-fascist activists, such as this risible new advertising campaign by Plane Stupid showing CGI polar bears falling from the sky and exploding because kind of, like, man, that’s sort of what happens whenever you take another trip on an aeroplane.

The world is currently cooling; electorates are increasingly reluctant to support eco-policies leading to more oppressive regulation, higher taxes and higher utility bills; the tide is turning against Al Gore’s Anthropogenic Global Warming theory. The so-called “sceptical” view is now also the majority view.

Unfortunately, we’ve a long, long way to go before the public mood (and scientific truth) is reflected by our policy makers. There are too many vested interests in AGW, with far too much to lose either in terms of reputation or money, for this to end without a bitter fight.

But if the Hadley CRU scandal is true,it’s a blow to the AGW lobby’s credibility which is never likely to recover.

All this, just in time for the big Hopenhagen summit in Denmark. When saying your Thanksgiving prayer next Thursday, remember to express your gratitude to God for creating hackers.

Nick Gillespie's latest fund-raising ploy for Reason magazine. Brilliant.

Why you should support Reason magazine:

A Target-Rich Environment

Have you ever gone dove hunting on a baited field? It's not much fun. There are so many birds, that you don't get a feeling of accomplishment when you bring one down.

Ever shot a deer from a herd that was enclosed in a small barbed-wire fence? Me neither. Hope I never do.

Have you ever gotten a fishing license, gotten your poles, lures, bait and boat together, and then gone to dip a few fish out of the live well at a Red Lobster restaurant? Well, I haven't either. I can't imagine why anyone would want to do that.

But that's what it is going to be like every time I visit this site.

The cool picture of the guy with too many targets to shoot at came from here.

There is only one goddess Gaia, and Al Gore is her prophet

Here's Al Gore on Conan O'Brien trying to explain one of the perpetual motion machines that he will soon force upon the gullible:


Here's some of the transcript, compliments of the good folks at Hot Air:

Conan: Now, what about … you talk in the book about geothermal energy …
The Goracle Of Music City: Yeah, yeah.
Conan: ....and that is, as I understand it, using the heat that’s generated from the core of the earth …
The Goracle Of Music City: Yeah.
Conan: … to create energy, and it sounds to me like an evil plan by Lex Luthor to defeat Superman. Can you, can you tell me, is this a viable solution, geothermal energy?
The Goracle Of Music City: It definitely is, and it’s a relatively new one. People think about geothermal energy — when they think about it at all — in terms of the hot water bubbling up in some places, but two kilometers or so down in most places there are these incredibly hot rocks, ’cause the interior of the earth is extremely hot, several million degrees, and the crust of the earth is hot …

Several million degrees? Do some Googling. Maybe he was thinking of the Sun. It doesn't really matter. His heart is in the right place and he means well. Give him your money. Give him control over manufacturing, trucking, and your thermostat. Who you gonna believe, Al Gore, or a thermometer?

Pray For Obama

Idea shamelessly stolen from a friend of Denny.

Here's a link to Psalm 109:8 if you can't Google it.

I don't want to associate myself with any of the verses that follow #8, BTW.

Texas bans all marriages. Including yours.

From Dave Montgomery at the McClatchy Newspaper Group:

AUSTIN, Texas - Texans: Are you really married?

Maybe not.

Barbara Ann Radnofsky, a Houston lawyer and Democratic candidate for state attorney general, says that a 22-word clause in a 2005 constitutional amendment designed to ban gay marriages erroneously endangers the legal status of all marriages in the state.

The amendment, approved by the Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by voters, declares that "marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman." But the troublemaking phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares:

"This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage."

Architects of the amendment included the clause to ban same-sex civil unions and domestic partnerships. But Radnofsky, who was a member of the powerhouse Vinson&Elkins law firm in Houston for 27 years until retiring in 2006, says the wording of Subsection B effectively "eliminates marriage in Texas," including common-law marriages.

She calls it a "massive mistake" and blames the current attorney general, Republican Greg Abbott, for allowing the language to become part of the Texas Constitution. Radnofsky called on Abbott to acknowledge the wording as an error and consider an apology. She also said that another constitutional amendment may be necessary to reverse the problem.

"You do not have to have a fancy law degree to read this and understand what it plainly says," said Radnofsky, who will be at Texas Christian University on Wednesday as part of a five-city tour to kick off her campaign.

Abbott spokesman Jerry Strickland said the attorney general stands behind the 4-year-old amendment.

"The Texas Constitution and the marriage statute are entirely constitutional," Strickland said without commenting further on Radnofsky's statements. "We will continue to defend both in court."

A conservative leader whose organization helped draft the amendment dismissed Radnofsky's position, saying it was similar to scare tactics opponents unsuccessfully used against the proposal in 2005.

"It's a silly argument," said Kelly Shackelford, president of the Liberty Legal Institute in Plano, Texas. Any lawsuit based on the wording of Subsection B, he said, would have "about one chance in a trillion" of being successful.

Shackelford said the clause was designed to be broad enough to prevent the creation of domestic partnerships, civil unions or other arrangements that would give same-sex couples many of the benefits of marriage.

Radnofsky acknowledged that the clause is not likely to result in an overnight dismantling of marriages in Texas. But she said the wording opens the door to legal claims involving spousal rights, insurance claims, inheritance and a host other marriage-related issues.

"This breeds unneeded arguments, lawsuits and expense which could have been avoided by good lawyering," Radnofsky said. "Yes, I believe the clear language of (Subsection) B bans all marriages, and this is indeed a huge mistake."

Breeding unneeded arguments, lawsuits and expense? That's the purpose behind most legislation.
We're in the best of hands.
Government must intervene.
We simply must do something, rather than stand idly by.......
Healthcare will be different. They'll get it right.
Please pass the Kool-Aid.

75,000 stimulus jobs just disappeared

The Washington Examiner has done a bit o' Googling, and pulled together accounts of false stimulus results from about 30 city newspapers.

The results?

The Teleprompter Jesus And Company have been claiming that The Porkulus Swindle created or saved 640,000 jobs.

It ain't so. 75,343 of them don't exist. Hit the link for a morbidly fascinating map. The chart at the bottom of the page is equally dismal.

More than ten percent of the jobs the Obama administration has claimed were "created or saved" by the $787 billion stimulus package are doubtful or imaginary, according to reports compiled from eleven major newspapers and the Associated Press.

But wait, there's more.....

Today's report from ABC News tells us that prior to releasing its jobs report, the administration cut out 60,000 additional jobs from unreliable reports, none of which appear to overlap with the ones we've highlighted here. Had those jobs been included in the original count, the number of jobs "created or saved" by the stimulus would have exceeded 700,000, and the number of imaginary or doubtful jobs would have approached 20 percent.

The point is that the Obama administration at least did a preliminary fact-check to weed out the more obvious falsehoods.

The Examiner hasn't even published findings from others. They're putting out the call to the citizenry to email reports from local papers.

Do you have examples of inflated jobs 'created or saved' by the stimuls? Send a link to DFreddoso (or) MHemingway@washingtonexaminer.com

Now, on to the remaining 90% of the Porkulus jobs......

There are businesses all across the nation that want to swap their merchandise and services for your money. I take it as a given that you are the best judge of how you want to spend your money. Or not spend your money. It is, after all, yours.

Every time you spend a dime, you are casting a vote for which jobs to create or save.

The Stimulus Bill took that choice away from you and your children, and gave the money to the most bizarre assembly of hacks, toadies, vote-wranglers and victims that they could get away with.

Advocates of the bill argued that only government could get the funds into the system fast enough to prevent a total meltdown. But if that's the case, why have they only spent about 40% of the funds?

You probably missed this year's book burning. Mark your calendars for 2010. Bring everything but a King James bible.

From the Amazing Grace Baptist Church KJV.com website.... (When he refers to TR, he means "Textus Receptus". Generally used in scholarly circles to mean "the received text", or "the one we've ended up using".)

Come to our Halloween book burning. We are burning Satan's bibles like the NIV, RSV, NKJV, TLB, NASB, NEV, NRSV, ASV, NWT, Good News for Modern Man, The Evidence Bible, The Message Bible, The Green Bible, ect. These are perversions of God's Word, the King James Bible.
We will also be burning Satan's music such as country , rap , rock , pop, heavy metal, western, soft and easy, southern gospel , contempory Christian , jazz, soul, oldies but goldies, etc.

We will also be burning Satan's popular books written by heretics like Westcott & Hort , Bruce Metzger, Billy Graham , Rick Warren , Bill Hybels , John McArthur, James Dobson, Charles Swindoll , John Piper, Chuck Colson, Tony Evans, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swagart, Mark Driskol, Franklin Graham , Bill Bright, Tim Lahaye, Paula White, T.D. Jakes, Benny Hinn , Joyce Myers, Brian McLaren, Robert Schuller, Mother Teresa , The Pope , Rob Bell, Erwin McManus, Donald Miller, Shane Claiborne, Brennan Manning, William Young, etc.
We are not burning Bibles written in other languages that are based on the TR. We are not burning the Wycliffe, Tyndale, Geneva or other translations that are based on the TR.

We will be serving Bar-b-Que Chicken, fried chicken, and all the sides.

That last line has brought me more joy and happiness than you can imagine.

This year's book burning has already taken place, but the 2010 event already has its own link. Go here to get directions.

One other thing that I can't resist mentioning.... King James was gay.

Pics of the King James Only controversy came from here.

Paul Krugman - Lets imitate Germany

Here's Paul Krugman, who won a Nobel in Economics for consistently saying that the economic policies of George W. Bush, the failed economic policies of the past 8 years, were bad, bad, bad.

Free to Lose - Paul Krugman

Consider, for a moment, a tale of two countries. Both have suffered a severe recession and lost jobs as a result — but not on the same scale. In Country A, employment has fallen more than 5 percent, and the unemployment rate has more than doubled. In Country B, employment has fallen only half a percent, and unemployment is only slightly higher than it was before the crisis.

Don’t you think Country A might have something to learn from Country B?

Well, if someone were genuinely curious about the question, he would first ask "From what baseline are both countries starting?"

This story isn’t hypothetical. Country A is the United States, where stocks are up, G.D.P. is rising, but the terrible employment situation just keeps getting worse. Country B is Germany, which took a hit to its G.D.P. when world trade collapsed, but has been remarkably successful at avoiding mass job losses. Germany’s jobs miracle hasn’t received much attention in this country — but it’s real, it’s striking, and it raises serious questions about whether the U.S. government is doing the right things to fight unemployment.

Mr. Krugman might want to amend that to read "has been remarkably successful at avoiding additional mass job losses."
He goes on to suggest new programs to pay employers for employees that they don't need, using money from, uhmmm....you.
But, I digress.
Here's the German unemployment rate, relative to the U.S.

Go here to see some additional history. Any U.S. political party that tried to emulate Germany's economic policies and results - 10% unemployment during the previous economic boom - would be thrown out.

Every now and then, we have to drop back and punt. If we aren't happy with the results, we throw out the current regime and put in a new one.

Don’t you think Country A might have something to learn from Country B?

No.

In closing, here's an October, 2009 article about German Chancellor Angela Merkel's next challenge: Germany's rising unemployment rate.

What the hell was Krugman thinking?

Die quickly, mainstream media. Die quickly.

Update from 8:00 p.m. Here's what Don Boudreaux of George Mason University had to say about Krugman's article. Posted a couple of hours after mine, and making the same points and then some.

What does this mean? It means that if GMU Economics Professors and Fort Worth Shipping Managers take time out of their day to rip your editorials to shreds, just because its so dang easy, you should consider hiring a fact-checker.