6 thoughts on “Dana Nuccitelli’s holiday trick for sobering up quick: put a little less rum in your egg nog”

1. Off topic, but hypocrite and liar Anthony Watts has waded into a thread at McIntyre’s now largely irrelevant blog on the AGU’s ‘condoning’ Peter Gleick with a predictably ad hominem and nasty sneer at Gleck’s physical appearance and an attack on the AGU’s ‘professional ethics’.

   AGU Honors Gleick

   My comment in response is still visible, but I don’t know how longer that will remain the case, so here’s a copy …

   “Anthony Watts weighs in with a comment on ‘professional ethics’ and a predictably ad-hominem attack on Gleick. I wonder if this is the same Watts who permits the moderators on his blog to log in under false names and pose as commenters to promote the blog party line?

   The outspoken and regular WUWT poster ‘Smokey’ is in fact D B stealey, aka moderator ‘dbs’.

   http://en.gravatar.com/dbstealey

   Once this became public knowledge ‘Smokey’ fell silent, however another poster ‘D Boehm’ has continued with an identical line of asinine arguments and unreferenced and unsourced ‘killer’ charts…. and the moderators have curiously become anonymous.

   Of course WUWT is not in the same league as a professional scientific association, still it seems a prima facie case of a double standard. Here’s an extract from the WUWT site policy …

   “Internet phantoms who have cryptic handles, no name, and no real email address get no respect here. If you think your opinion or idea is important, elevate your status by being open and honest. People that use their real name get more respect than phantoms with handles. I encourage open discussion.”

   Oh really? “

   [Anthony Watts is a classic example of a small mind trying to make an impression on a big stage. – Ben]

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2. Fascinating to read how ‘one of the worlds leading solar physicists and WUWT’s resident solar expert’ (Watts on Svalgaard in Sept 2012) teaches other WUWT regulars about (solar) science, particularly their childish reactions when Svalgaard’s science tells them what they usually deny.

   While the exchange between Svalgaard and Alec Rawls is interesting, the one between the first and regular WUWT commentors is no less entertaining. Here’s what user vukcevic says about halfway through the exchange: “It appears that many other readers too, don’t take you your statements any more with full confidence, you once enjoyed” to which Svalgaard replies “Unlike you, I’m not fishing for approval.” Classic!

   Or how about user Paul Vaughan (B.Sc., M.Sc.)? He writes regarding Svalgaard “My tolerance of this man’s dark ignorance &/or deception has completely expired. I recommend that either he be banned from commenting on climate or that strong restrictions be placed on his insufferable behavior” to which Svalgaard replies “I thought that expired a long time ago. And I feel how deeply inconvenient truths affect you.”

   An ‘Inconvenient Truth’ at WUWT?! From WUWT’s own (and perhaps former) ‘resident solar expert’. Now who would have though that!?

   There’s lots more nuggets like the ones above so I do recommend everyone to read all of it. It is most entertaining!

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3. And so a CA commenter accused me of protesting too much about anonymity on the interweb, and so I corrected him ….

   “Not quite. Anthony Watts, who runs the flagship ‘sceptic’ blog, claims to believe in ‘open discussion’, he deplores ‘sockpuppetry’, his stated policy is that ‘Internet phantoms who have cryptic handles, no name, and no real email address get no respect here’. He tells us that ‘I try to give everyone a fair shake on this blog’, he insists that ‘Guest authors and moderators are expected to adhere to this policy’

   And yet his moderators are free to assume false names and post as ordinary commenters. When ‘Smokey’ was posting, moderated by erm, himself, unsurprisingly, he or she always seemed to get more than a fair crack of the moderator whip- with opposing posts edited, snipped for no good reason, or held up while ‘Smokey’ formulated an answer. I’m not sure this contributes much to the debate.

   It’s just a blog, and clearly no crime has been committed, however the charges of dishonesty and hypocrisy seem pretty much proven. If Watts is unable to own up to this petty subterfuge, what else is he happy to mislead his readers about? How many of the posts there are actually by staff?

   Sadly, Mr. Persaud (Nigel to his friends) was having none of it …

   “there are very large differences between Gleick’s impersonation of a Heartland document in order to obtain documents and the use of pseudonyms on blogs. Gleick’s conduct was illegal, while there is nothing illegal about the use of pseudonyms on blogs. Blog policies here discourage coatracking topics and it seems to me that your complaints about moderation at WUWT are coatracking in a discussion of AGU.”

   Unsure of what ‘coatracking’ is, I posed a few simple questions in Nigel’s direction

   “Fair enough. Mr McIntyre, however given that Mr Watts posts here, and the two of you seem to have something of an association, and given your very public and admirable commitment to the principles of transparency and freedom of information, perhaps you could pass the following questions to Anthony?

   1. Is it the case that ‘Smokey’ and moderator ‘dbs’ (Dave Stealey) are in fact the same individual?
   2. Is the poster ‘D Boehm’ also Dave Stealey? ( a simple ‘Yes’, ‘No’ or ‘Unknown’ will be fine)
   3. Approximately how many posts at WUWT are actually by moderators (a percentage or an absolute number is acceptable)
   4. Does Mr Watts have any comment on the the fairly clear breach of his own blog policy by his own staff?

   If you don’t wish to publish this, a response to my supplied email address would be equally appreciated.

   yours, in the spirit of climate auditing,

   Phil Clarke

   I’ll let you know if and when I receive a response to my polite and utterly reasonable questions.

   [Expect truculent silence. – Ben]

   Reply ↓

   • Phil, “Nigel Persaud” is a sock puppet used by Steve McIntyre. See here:

     http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2005/08/26/sockpuppets/

     Just hilarious but to be expected from two people who are as dishonest as Watts and McIntyre.

     [Perhaps “McIntyre” is really a concern troll created by “Nigel Persaud”! :-) Seems McIntyre is just as unethical and partisan as the scrabbling denialists he pretends to keep at arms-length.- Ben]

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4. Pingback: Another Week of GW News, January 6, 2013 – A Few Things Ill Considered

5. On the subject of the dbs/Smokey connection, dbs is now commenting as D Boehm Stealey on a thread by Alec Rawls. I poked at him once by quoting him as D Boehm Smokely, which did not get a direct reaction. However, in my next comment I included the following:

   D Böehm Smokely sez:

   January 11, 2013 at 3:19 pm
   dvunkannon,

   Converting data into chart form does not make that data wrong. You just don’t like the fact that Phil Jones’ data deconstructs your belief that CO2 causes any measurable warming.

   Misattribution is misattribution. I mean, if I said that the mod D Boehm Stealey said something, but it was really said by the ordinary commenter Smokey, or vice versa, that would be misattribution, right? Oh, wait…

   The Smokely line and misattribution paragraph are down the memory hole, replaced by this:

   (If that is your idea of debate you can take it elsewhere. Next off-topic attempt gets future comments deleted. ~mod)

   The rest of my comment has been allowed to stand.

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