Regulatory Czar wants to use copyright protection mechanisms to shut down rumors and conspiracy theories

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“Regulatory Czar wants to use copyright protection mechanisms to shut down rumors and conspiracy theories“ (2012-01-20). Anthony Watts loves to give a platform to libertarian crackpots. Wild incendiary ideas get promoted, people Anthony doesn’t like get slandered, but he can stand back with his hands clean.

Here we have Alex Rawls, a climate change denier who’s also obsessed with, for example, the Flight 93 memorial (it is, of course, a “terrorist memorial mosque”), how the Beijing Olympics Closing Ceremony depicted an orgasm, and of course “Republicanism’. He tells us that Obama wants to suppress rumors and conspiracy theories such as claims that global warming is a deliberate fraud or that Barack Obama “pals around with terrorists.”

Strangely, these are precisely the wild claims that Alex, a “simple public-spirited blogger”, likes to shout from the rooftop.

Sorry Anthony, who you pass the megaphone to says a lot about you.

CO2 increases to make drunken clownfish

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“CO2 increases to make drunken clownfish“ (2012-01-18). Seriously Anthony? Researchers reported in Nature Climate Change (Near-future carbon dioxide levels alter fish behaviour by interfering with neurotransmitter function) that increases in dissolved CO2 changes clownfish behavior and all you can do is snicker about the word ‘clown’? Then you report The Daily Bayonet’s hint that the scientists were manipulatively using the clownfish’s cuteness to attract attention.

Anthony Watts looks in the mirror.

From the New Scientist coverage:

Carbon dioxide in the ocean acts like alcohol on fish, leaving them less able to judge risks and prone to losing their senses. The intoxication adds to the threats that global warming and ocean acidification pose to marine ecosystems.

Couldn’t be because clownfish were “the first type of marine ornamental fish successfully bred in captivity on a large-scale“, could it? Neither Anthony Watts or the Daily Bayonet have made the slightest effort to think it through.

SOPA: Watts Up With That?

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Most netizens will be aware that today is a day to protest SOPA, the controversial “Stop Online Piracy Act” bill introduced in the United States House of Representatives in October 2011 but not yet passed.

In essence, SOPA would give content creators a tool to enforce copyright by, among other things, blocking access to “infringing” websites. The driving force behind this are wealthy corporate interests in the music, television and film industries. The concern is that this will be used as a tool for suppressing free speech by simply alleging copyright infringement.

In the context of climate denialism you’d think that Anthony Watts, who often rails against imagined suppression and censorship of “climate skepticism” would be particularly concerned. But no. Crickets over there on an issue that Anthony would have us believe is fundamental to his activities.

Perhaps Anthony sees an easy way to harass people expressing views he doesn’t like and tool for impeding his critics. He’s tried, comically, to use copyright infringement as a weapon in the past.

2012-01-19 Update: I track Anthony’s blog by RSS feed, which apparently didn’t include his post about the horrors of SOPA, which ends with a press release from conspiracy enthusiast Senator Jim Inhofe, who has in the past seemed eager to use the power of his office to intimidate. Anthony’s late-in-the-day take on the issue turns out to be predictable, as are many of his reader comments are about how SOPA is intended to help the Obama communists to crush individualism. Progressive resistance is more nuanced; SOPA is a gift from beholden politicians to media conglomerates intent on protecting their profits that, through ill-design, places free speech at risk. Isn’t that the same thing?

The new Hollywood blacklist

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“The new Hollywood blacklist“ (2012-01-14). Oh the inhumanity! Kyocera hired Ben Stein to play an uptight dullard in a TV commercial and then changed their mind. Therefore, McCarthyism. Now Mr. Stein is suing for attention breech of contract. (Tip for Anthony: McCarthyism refers to right-wing politicians making false claims about secret political motives of people they consider politically unpalatable and then coercing businesses into shunning them. Some present examples might be Lord Monckton, Andrew Bolt, James Delingpole, Andrew Montford, Ken Cuccinelli, Marc Morano. Minus the influence in the arts.)

I think Kyocera discovered that Stein wasn’t just an accidentally funny cameo as a monotonous economics teacher in that Ferris Bueller movie back in the Eighties, or the host of a dimwitted game show a few years back. He’s also a controversial misinformer on a number of scientific issues, namely creationism (he narrated the film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed) and climate change denial (it’s an Obama conspiracy). Not quite the association an advanced technology company wants to encourage.

So they used a real glass-wearing economics teacher instead.

Anthony Watt’s nuanced response, aside from overblown self-pitying political posturing is this:

I’ll never buy another Kyocera product ever again.

I thought it was “the greenies” that wanted to go back to living in caves in the dark, but perhaps resentful denialists renouncing society will get there first!

Monckton responds to “potholer54”

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Monckton responds to “potholer54” (2012-01-11). Anthony Watts really needs to think about who he associates with. Sure, the comical/pompous/paranoid attention-whore Lord Monckton will bring web hits, but it’s the bad kind of attention. It shows that you’re all about politics and shouting and not about thinking.

In this case Monckton’s guest post is about the “silly allegations” on YouTube of

a former “science writer” who uses a speleological pseudonym “potholer54″ [to] sneeringly deliver a series of petty smears about artfully-distorted and often inconsequential aspects of my talks on climate change.

Monckton does a good job of obscuring his argument, but if you strip away the pompous weaselly word play, his 2334 word response to the boils down to yeah, but… and because I said so. So little payoff for so many words. And long ones too!

So what can we determine from Monckton’s post? Well clearly potholer54′s penetrating observations have hit home with the thin-skinned Viscount, particularly because he goes to such effort to minimize them. The funny thing is that Monckton’s posts serve as “kick me” signs, his flowery attempts to dismiss his critics simply point us to where his claims are most effectively destroyed. You just know that getting to the bottom of his arch reference in this same post to a “no-account non-climatologist at a fourth-rank bible college in Nowheresville” is going to be worth the Googling (we covered it here).

Viscount, shouldn’t you keep quiet about where your arguments are so neatly skewered? We know that you love the spotlight and the sound of your own voice, but you’re really not helping yourself.

Anthony Watts helpfully provides the real name of the “potholer54″ YouTube account holder in case his readers want to make their life miserable.

Media 101 – How to jump a shark

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“Media 101 – How to jump a shark” (2012-01-07). Anthony Watts gives a lesson in media awareness, but it ain’t the one he thinks he’s giving. Anthony’s earlier post started as a standard “them corrupt lyin’ climate scientists and their gullible mainstream media partners” post but turned into “oops, I misread a journalist’s simplification of research results and used it to falsely malign the scientists, But I was right anyway.”

Anthony’s entrée into this subject is some Christian Science Monitor and Business Insider articles, not a scientific report. But that’s more than enough for Anthony to wade in swinging.

‘Peer-reviewed journal’ Business Insider said:

Researchers from the University of Queensland found the hybrids to be a mix between the common black-tip shark and the smaller Australian black-tip, which thrives in warmer waters than its global cousin.

“Renowned scientific pillar” Christian Science Monitor said:

The team is looking into climate change and human fishing, among other potential triggers.

Now Anthony acknowledges:

the [actual researcher's] press release DOES NOT contain the words “global warming” nor “climate change”.

Hence he is once again shouting about nothing. What’s the lesson again Anthony?

I’ve been Lenfesteyed

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“I’ve been Lenfesteyed“ (2012-01-03). Anthony Watts thinks the only remedy needed for people who disagree with his version of science and politics is to just change the radio station when a partisan “radio personality” starts regurgitating Anthony’s lies.

Yes, as long as Anthony’s misinformation isn’t heard by me it will have no consequence.

Anthony pretends he’s laughing off James Lenfestey’s January 2nd commentary (“The state of fear at the new year“) in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, but he has to go completely off-topic to find something irrelevant to attack his critic with. James writes poetry! (Note to commenter “Chris Smith” this is an actual example of ad hominem.)

Lord Monckton, who positively lives for strutting about and stirring things up, has also decided to respond. He’s sent a weaselly letter to the paper containing his usual collection of debunked assertions that he simply expects will not be checked before publication. I howled at his characterization of Professor John Abraham’s truly epic take-down of Monckton’s presentation at Bethel University as a “driveling attempted rebuttal of it by a non-climatologist at a local bible college”. That’s the sign of a puffed-up poser who knows he’s been publicly thrashed. The references to the usual tiny circle of denialist personalities and “supporting links” to his denialist scienceandpublicpolicy.org website and Ken Cuccinelli’s shameful legal assault on Dr. Michael Mann are weak tea indeed.

Anthony and Lord Monckton, face it: Being invoked by an ignorant blow-hard partisan talk-show host is the pinnacle of your achievements.

Canadian Senate Testimony – Skeptic side now being heard in Canadian politics

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“Canadian Senate Testimony – Skeptic side now being heard in Canadian politics” (2012-01-01). Anthony Watts approves of Canada’s Conservative government. They’re allowing “skeptics” to speak! Intellectual freedom finally reigns and the Global Warming hoax will now wither away in the bright sunshine of public scrutiny! Or something like that.

Of course the “skeptic” position has never been repressed. They never shut up no matter how completely their arguments are refuted. In Canada conservative media and politicians have been pounding the denialist drum for years because it feeds into their political prejudices.

What’s really changed? In 2011 the Conservatives eked out a small majority government with less than 40% of the ballots because of a split in the progressive vote, and are now busy inflicting their agenda on Canadians, shutting down debate.

In climate policy the Conservatives are now dismantling Environment Canada to prevent awkward research, abandoning the Kyoto Protocol in spite of wide support among voters, and as seen here staging politically useful ‘expert testimony’.

What would you think of a group of experts (Timothy Patterson, Ross McKitrick, Jan Veizer, and Ian D. Clark) that by pure chance only contained denialists? Actually, I have to give the Conservatives some credit. It’s awfully hard to find that many denialists who won’t be immediately laughed out of the room and they put in the hard work gathering them together. It’s kind of like a singing dog: it’s not that the dog can’t sing well, it’s that it even tries.

But isn’t this the kind of repressive, undemocratic, secretive, manipulative government that Anthony claims to be fighting against? Apparently not.

Be careful today and tonight, billions may die

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“Be careful today and tonight, billions may die” (2011-12-31). Anthony Watts makes a fart joke! Somehow a rather sensational 2007 article about methane clathrates, on a left-wing political website called The Canadian, has exposed all those climate scientists as lily-livered Chicken Little worrywarts. The article said 4.5 billion people would could die from Global Warming-related causes by 2012, and they didn’t! Well, not yet. Hah! Thus ending Global Warming once and for all.

Then Anthony makes the witty fart joke:

If it happens, it will be the gaia fart heard round the world.

What’s actually funny is that “pesky” methane clathrates have been a legitimate scientific concern for years (see Real Climate in 2005, 2010, and 2012 and the IPCC website) but the denialist response has largely been to try to dismiss it with witty fart jokes.

If the Arctic clathrates did outgas abruptly I don’t think it would be comparable to a harmless frat house prank as Anthony tries to imply. I predict that Anthony, dripping with empathy, would offer up “My bad! I never dreamed this could really happen” and switch to arguing about how the secret world government controls survival shelter funding.

Update on Jan 8th, 2012: More RealClimate wild methane alarmism on January 7th! Read this with denialist disgust:

But the methane worst case does not suddenly spell the extinction of human life on Earth. It does not lead to a runaway greenhouse. The worst-case methane scenario stands comparable to what CO2 can do. What CO2 will do, under business-as-usual, not in a wild blow-the-doors-off unpleasant surprise, but just in the absence of any pleasant surprises (like emission controls). At worst comparable to CO2 except that CO2 lasts essentially forever.

WUWT search engine issues and site update

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“WUWT search engine issues and site update” (2011-12-31).  You know why Anthony Watts’ website isn’t the top science website in the whole world? Because we’re not Googling “global warming” and diligently hunting for and then clicking on WUWT. Get clicking, only you can stop the secret communist world government take-over! Speak truth to Power!

The blogger ““ has concluded that “Google hates WUWT … and more than likely is actively trying to repress the site.“

Although famously opaque, it seems that the painful truth is that Google’s heartless search algorithms have figured out that Anthony’s website is pretty much the least useful place to look for information about “global warming”.