Category Archives: Dog-whistle

Friday Funny: Dr. Michael Mann keeps interesting company

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“Friday Funny: Dr. Michael Mann keeps interesting company” (2012-07-13). What are the chances that Anthony Watts, after years of alternately wailing about imagined personal attacks and launching them himself will be correct when he “accuses” his regular critic “caerbannog666″ of being… a Goth!!!!!!!! The only things Anthony manages to “out” are his own scientific hypocrisy and his pathetic inability to see past his own prejudices.

But, you say, every single occurrence of “caerbannog666″ in a Google search can only be related to the target of his mini-McCarthyist rummaging!

 I wondered who is this guy? A well known climate blog regular, he’s been bloviating all over the climate blogs for years. After finding him though about a minute’s worth of Googling public information, I wish I could unsee what I found. Meet [name of Brazilian bystander redacted] (Caerbannog)

That 31 year-old Brazilian goth’s MySpace page is clearly proof of the identity of a 57 year-old American who’s a critic of Anthony’s denialism. And everyone knows that Goths are creepy and dumb, so “caerbannog666″ is a creep and dumb! Therefore no Global Warming. Also, every “citizen-scientist” should go to that MySpace page and post insults.

Turns out the chances of Anthony correcting his foolish error are pretty low. In fact about as low as the chances of him even admitting it (you really owe it to yourself to watch Anthony flounder stiffly in the comments, preserved here as a PDF for posterity):

I’m not the least bit interested in what a few anonymous cowards think I should do/not do. ‘Caerbannog666′ has to make the request and he’s the only one whose opinion matters. He can use the contact form, or he can leave a comment on tips and notes. So far he’s done nothing. And since I’m tiring of the usual anonymous people who think that their opinion matters more on this issue, I’m closing comments. As stated, if ‘Caerbannog666′ wants a correction, he can ask for one and show why, and if he can demonstrate why he’s not the same person, I’ll gladly make a correction.

It’s pretty comical that Anthony thinks his inaccurate (and irrelevant) “outing” would be a legitimate way to diminish his scientific critics. Anthony tries to walk that back a bit in an update, mumbling about his proclaimed acceptance of people who choose to dress “in the dark style”. This post really boils down to impotent, frustrated, lashing out by A. Watts.

This self-congratulatory comment by David Ball sums up the Watts Up WIth That hypocrisy best: “Tolerance is one of the magic ingredients of WUWT IMHO.” I think that last bit of tech lingo is “In My Horse-shit Opinion”.

Climate skeptic instructor fired from Oregon State University

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“Climate skeptic instructor fired from Oregon State University“ (2012-06-10). Much like The White Queen, Anthony Watts can swallow any contradiction without a hiccup. Here he does his bit to fan the flames outrage over the persecution “firing” of climate skeptic Nickolas Drapela, an exalted Senior Instructor in chemistry at Oregon State University. It’s dang witch hunt!

First of all, setting aside any question of Nick’s scientific “persecution” (it’s farcical, but we’ll get there), those of us with functioning brains will recall Anthony’s resentful fantasies about how James Hansen and Gavin Schmidt at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies should be fired for their views on climate change (i.e. they describe how it’s happening). He’s even run dumbass polls on the topic, and ‘fire ‘em/throw them in jail’ is a steady somnambulistic undercurrent in the comments.

But that’s… different.

OK, let’s turn to the persecution. If we are to believe Nick’s champion Gordon Fulks, OSU is a place where:

“Transgressors who dare to be different are eventually weeded out so that the campus maintains its ideological purity.”

Stalin, Lysenko, politically correct, “Anthropogenic Global Warming, the official religion of the State of Oregon”, hot button, hot button. The on-going reductions in OSU’s funding has nothing to do with it. Nor does the fact that Nick’s basically wandered from university to university for the last fifteen years. It’s definitely malicious persecution.

Next checkmark: Is Nick a fiercely insightful scientist whose careful analysis has disproven AGW and who must be silenced at any cost? Just look at his publication record! Case closed. Well honestly the case never opened because his entire published scientific output is third author on this metabolic chemistry paper from 2000. Gee, I wonder if that contributed to his termination?

Still, there are plenty of laughs in “Global Warming Cracked Open”, a paranoid cut-and-paste “sociopolitical” slide show rant about AGW. Slide 78 of 80 introduces the only science, a pathetic cherry-picked and debunked chart of solar activity from that bastion of scientific integrity, the deceptive “documentary” The Great Global Warming Swindle. He also assures us that “they regularly read all my email communications.”

Now I get it! Anthony Watts and other denialists look at this delusional no-hope nutter and see… themselves. Is this really the donkey you want to hitch your persecution wagon to, Anthony?

Thanks to Tamino’s post The Light of Day for doing the heavy lifting on this one,

Paging David Appell and Nick Stokes again: time to fess up and apologize

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“Paging David Appell and Nick Stokes again: time to fess up and apologize” (2012-05-28). Those “alarmists” are always exaggerating, as Anthony Watts loves to imply remind us. Even about things as mundane as so-called death-threats!

I mean, it’s not as if they’ve had to escape from the trunk of a kidnapper’s car, is it? Or that they were threatened with having their children “brutally gang-raped”. (What, that one’s true? Never mind.) And as anyone who’s up-to-date knows “You will be chased down the street with burning stakes and hung from your f*** neck, until you are dead, dead, dead!” is what all the cool kids say when they’re chillin’. Heck even (apparently actual) scientist Judith Curry thinks saying that “AGW fraudsters” should be dealt with thus - “Knock them down. Kick them until they quit moving. Check for breathing. Repeat.” - is simply a cute turn of phrase.

So when Rupert Murdock’s The Australian declares “no death threats in emails [to climate scientists]” because an Australian’s freedom of information request for a specific institution, specific short period of time, and specific small number of individuals doesn’t turn up much, when that pretty much settles the question for Anthony. Forget all the stuff that happens outside that tiny slice of space/time! Doesn’t count.

This means that Anthony can justify swaggering across the internet spouting self-serving nonsense like this about comments deploring aggression and threats towards climate scientists by the aforementioned David Appell and Nick Stokes amongst others:

They can be men, apologize for their errant and childish behavior towards me and other skeptics on this matter, and move on. I’ll be happy to accept their sincere apologies posted here or on their own blogs and put the matter behind us. Ball’s in your court fellas.

By the way Anthony’s completely unable to control any of the vicious stream of denialist comments that his readers, without his explicit encouragement, make. It takes all his effort just to censor his critics! No time left over at all for that other stuff, which is purely for theatrical effect anyway.

As always, Anthony offers himself as exemplar. He get’s angry e-mails, but he’s strong enough to laugh them off. Man up, warmists, Anthony-style! He’d never overreact to the purely hypothetical situation of angry people trying to confront climate scientists at their offices or wave hangman’s nooses at conferences.

Oh, wait. He did overreact, didn’t he? When little Anna Haynes showed up (uninvited!!!!) at his offices seeking to speak with him, he freaked. But that, of course, is different.

One thing for sure, Anthony won’t mention the ABC News program Media Watch’s investigation into the coverage of threats against climate scientists. Nothing gets in the way of bluster like a factual dissection.

But what the emails don’t prove is what The Australian splashed on its front page on May the third… ”Climate scientists’ claims of email death threats go up in smoke”

He’ll stick with the pull-quote from Rupert Murdock’s The Australian, thank you.

Update from the comments: Vicious denialist threats are pretty much routine and they are explained away by people like Anthony Watts, who do everything in they can to encourage them.

The Heartland Institute Sends Legal Notices to Publishers of Faked and Stolen Documents

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The Heartland Institute Sends Legal Notices to Publishers of Faked and Stolen Documents (2012-02-19). Anthony Watts thinks the Heartland Institute is kickin’ butt and takin’ names. They’re absolutely insisting that Desmogblog.com take down those embarrassing Heartland documents, some of which might be fake, and delete everything they said about them. Of course being staunch defenders of every individual’s right to exploit others, the Heartland Institute has to preface this with a hypocritical bit of spin:

“We realize this will be portrayed by some as a heavy-handed threat to free speech.”

Desmogblog.com (apparently “already in legal trouble over the Tallbloke libel”) seems strangely unconcerned about Heartland’s bluster. As does a certain 71 year-old veteran.

“Stop talking about this!” seems like a weak position when the Heartland Institute was so quick to disseminate and interpret the actually stolen Climategate e-mails.

Here’s a comment at WUWT that calls a spade a spade:

Hunt says:

Heartland still has a link to the illegally obtained “climategate” docs:
http://heartland.org/policy-documents/death-blow-climate-science
Although if you click the megaupload link, it’s been closed down by the feds for racketeering. Kind of says it all.

It’s funny how the Heartland Institute can consider things done by opponents despicable but perfectly understandable when done by themselves.

Anthony of course doesn’t even blink.

2012-02-20 update: Peter Gleick, at the Huffington Post, is the source of the Heartland Institute leak and asserts their authenticity.

2012-05-22 update: After much caterwauling by the Heartland Institute about forgeries and the shameful behavior of nasty warmists, the true conclusion can be drawn: “Peter Gleick cleared of forging documents in Heartland expose“

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.

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.

Pielke Junior on: The climate debate is ‘over’

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“Pielke Junior on: The climate debate is ‘over’” (2011-12-12). Wow, this must have been a whopper if Anthony Watts didn’t just brave it out as per usual! How nasty were his supporter’s comments?  So much for Anthony’s version of editorial review, in this case a blind copy-and-paste of a “Global Warming Policy Foundation” book review screed.

I have removed this guest post [by Shub Niggurath] because it has been brought to my attention that it is unfair and has caused inflamed reactions [especially in comments] that were unintended. It was my mistake for posting it without seeing this, and my decision to remove it. – Anthony Watts

What brought this on? Roger Pielke Jr., author of last year’s tepid “science” book The Climate Fix and until now a reliable comfort to denialists, recently said:

The debate over climate science is over and has been won by those who assert a human influence on the climate system.

This seems to have made him the target of denialist’s Two Minutes Hate (did Al Gore feel a momentary abatement in the voodoo doll pricking?). The jilted Global Warming Policy Foundation sniffs that Roger’s “wrong and irrelevant”. The comments on Anthony’s blog post must have been vicious.

Perhaps Anthony realized that if Roger was consumed in the righteous flames of denialist wrath there would be effectively no-one with even faint public policy credibility to point to as a “mainstream” supporter. A follow-up post containing more of Shub Niggurath’s reasoned criticisms was also deleted.

Take note Anthony; this is how your viciously doctrinaire followers will one day treat you. Praised as melding of Galileo and Martin Luther one day, Despised and hated the next. You are the tail, not the dog.

Thanks to Michael Mann’s response, a newspaper censors a letter to the editor ex post facto

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Boom, sez Martin.

Boom, sez Martin.

“Thanks to Michael Mann’s response, a newspaper censors a letter to the editor ex post facto“ (2011-10-02). Anthony Watts tells us that Michael Mann, lead bully of “the Team”, has forced the proud Vail Daily to withdraw a Sept. 30th, 2011 Letter to the Editor from the skeptical mind of Martin Hertzberg, titled Vail Valley Voices: Researcher disputes evidence for global warming.

Could it be that Dr. Mann found Hertzberg’s analysis so embarrassingly accurate that he had to use his secret power connections to eradicate the hated thing? Hmm. No. Dr. Mann never made any such request.

What did he do? He wrote a response on Oct. 1st, 2011 that effectively started with this:

“It’s hard to imagine anyone packing more lies and distortions into a single commentary.”

Someone at the Vail Daily, whose brain cells happened to brush up against each other, had a look and realized that Dr. Mann was right. Really, really, right. The issue suddenly wasn’t about the noble rights of the upstanding Martin Hertzberg, self-identified ”long-time denier of human-caused global warming”, to tell whopping great malicious lies. It was about whether the Vail Voice was legally exposed for carelessly spreading his false and defamatory statements. They chose to put as much distance as possible between themselves and what was clearly a piece of crap.

Anthony can’t even keep his indignation straight. He starts off implying that the Vail Daily is a noble vehicle for free speech, but turns on them with a series of nitpicking remarks intended to impugn their professionalism (does Dr. Mann live in Vail? I think not! Why the obsequious one day turnaround for Mann’s response? Why did the paper call Hertzberg a “denier”? Oh, that’s his self-description. Etc).

After all the howling it seems that the Vail Daily has re-posted the offending Letter to the Editor, apparently with some of the stupider things removed. What do we learn about Martin Hertzberg? He’s a big fan of the deceptive Oregon Petition. He knows that the greenhouse effect is “fear[ ]mongering hysteria… devoid of physical reality.” He considers anthropogenic CO2 emissions “about as significant as a few farts in a hurricane.” He’s heard of the Medieval Warm Period. He knows that diplomats and bureaucrats “have huge egos and a lust for power.” Finally, he’s a co-author of the idiotic Slaying the Sky Dragon: Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory, so he’s already had his ass kicked repeatedly on the same topics. I think Martin’s journey to the dustbin of history will be a short one.

In my opinion it’s better to leave these things “up” as originally posted and insert a correction at the start so they are in legitimate context and not left as unchallenged assertions. That way Anthony’s link to the Wikipedia entry for freedom of speech need not be indignantly displayed. I think he should have, uh, censored the sentence “In practice, the right to freedom of speech is not absolute in any country and the right is commonly subject to limitations, such as on libel, slander, obscenity, incitement to commit a crime, etc.” though, because that’s the exact issue here.

P.S. Anthony, I think your Latin’s a bit over-enthusiastic. Also the Sherlock Holmes-by-screen-capture schtick is wearing thin, especially in light of your coy pretense of ignorance about Martin Hertzberg’s denialist contributions. Don’t bury the lede.

2011-10-03 update: Some good coverage at caerbannog (Michael Mann opens a can of whupass on a global warming denier) and at Rabbet Run (It Must Be The Neighborhood).

Fly your flag

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“Fly your flag“ (July 4th, 2011). Sez Anthony Watts, hand on his steadfast heart, in his endearing mangled way; “As always, I always put up a reminder for Americans to fly your flag on national holidays that are honoring our nation and those who served.”

Sez I and Samuel Johnson; patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. If something isn’t worth doing for its own merit, why is it worth doing at all? “Patriotism” that rejects fellow citizens or bolsters a political position is self-serving and destructive.

At least this year Anthony didn’t infer that climate scientists are traitors.

Anthony also reveals a vulnerable side. He has the cutest little electric car and that he hasn’t the heart to dislodge a barn swallow nest. Bullies always want you to know that they’re really misunderstood softies.

What climate science has come to: a rap music video with expletives

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“What climate science has come to: a rap music video with expletives“(May 11, 2011). Anthony Watts thinks an Australian TV show’s rap music put-down of the pontificating of unqualified denialists, I’m A Climate Scientist, is an “ugly insulting profanity“.

Whereas Anthony’s endless lies and misrepresentation are presumably high-minded discourse… [Funny, he was happy to link to the dunce-cap astro-turfer Minnesotans For Global Warming video "spoof" a while back. They took it down because some kill-joy pointed out that of they'd infringed copyright and content was just a tiny bit libelous.]

Perhaps he just wants his readers to swarm in and drown out supportive commenters and “dislike” it?