Category Archives: Self-Pity

Pielke Jr. appears to get booted from a journal for giving an unfavorable peer review to some shoddy science

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“Pielke Jr. appears to get booted from a journal for giving an unfavorable peer review to some shoddy science“ (2013-02-21). So much truculent stupidity at Watts Up With That recently!  All just background noise here in the world of reality. This one’s entertaining though, especially as once again it illuminates Anthony Watts’ habit of blindly piling on any  complaint of persecution of fellow denialists.

What happened? Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. wrote another of his “everyone’s mean to me” blog posts because he was dropped from the editorial board of Global Environmental Change. Why? Because they hate him and only ever pretended to like him. The reality however is hilariously different.

First though, Anthony’s contribution. He insta-pasted a snide accusation from Mark Steyn, a notoriously inflammatory right-wing flunky, who after the obligatory self-referential muttering about the evil Dr. Michael Mann declared that “…Professor Pielke, expelled by the palace guard of climate conformism, appears to have been felled by the very pathology he identified.”

Our un-inquisitive and hasty Anthony was forced to walk it back a bit though as you will notice when carefully examining his post’s slug; “pielke-jr-gets-booted-from-journal-for-giving-an-unfavorable-peer-review-to-some-shoddy-science”. It’s missing the ass-covering “appears to get” which was added to the post title later. The post now starts with a non-correction by Roger. It seems he still considers himself rudely dumped, but not for the reason he howled about. I can still hear the wahhhh-mbulance though.

So what really happened? The thin-skinned drama queen thought he was kicked to the curb as payback for his blog criticism (Science is the Shortcut) of a paper, Climate change prediction: Erring on the side of least drama?, published in Global Environmental Change. Sadly, it turns out that none of the journal’s other board members were even aware of Roger’s devastating blast, making it hard to sustain the accusation.

In fact, Roger had reached the end of his term and had clearly been coasting. Expected to review up to five papers a year, as many as 30 in his six years, he had been requested to review 18 papers. He’d only actually reviewed six and hadn’t submitted a review since August 2010. His replacement coincided with that of five others, who presumably all simultaneously pissed of the secret editorial board leaders…

2013-02-23 Update: “Rabett” calls it: victim bullying.

Beyond bizarre: University of Graz music professor calls for skeptic death sentences

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Beyond bizarre: University of Graz music professor calls for skeptic death sentences (2012-12-23). Did you hear the one about the German music professor who thinks denialists should be executed? Anthony Watts heard it from Australian denialist Jo Nova (the “German” professor is actually Australian) and it’s hilarious!

Seems that Professor Richard Parncutt suggested in a rambling web essay that “the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for influential GW deniers” for “causing the deaths of hundreds of millions of future people” through their delaying tactics! Except he’s “not directly suggesting that the threat of execution be carried out.”

Of course this means that Anthony’s foes at Skeptical Science and DeSmogBlog are “motiviating [sp] this man’s hate”! Except of course that they haven’t. Professor Parncutt simply lists Skeptical Science and DeSmogBlog in passing as accurate resources for climate science information.

So it’s down to complaining about random members of the public now, is it Anthony?

Frontline responds to complaints about Oct 23 “Climate of Doubt”: Here, the Rebuttal to Frontline that PBS Ombudsman Won’t Put Online

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“Frontline responds to complaints about Oct 23 “Climate of Doubt”: Here, the Rebuttal to Frontline that PBS Ombudsman Won’t Put Online” (2012-11-17). Anthony Watts want the world to know that Russell Cook (Dr.? Nope.) is pissed that the PBS Ombudsman won’t let him spiral off into vortex of yes but’s, replete with home-grown acronyms, over every dismissal of his complaints about PBS Frontline’s excoriating look at the politics of climate denialism, “Climate of Doubt”.

We were careful to base our reporting on the most credible and transparent sources we could find and verify. – sez the PBS Ombudsman

Monckton! Blogs! Fake think-tanks! Sez Russell Cook, in a tour de force demonstration of denialist Tourette syndrome.

I suppose I can understand Russell’s confusion. No doubt his experience at WUWT has taught him that internet forums are the natural home of delusional assertions and attention-seeking behavior.

Someone remind me: what’s the sound of one hand clapping?

Friday Funny – David Suzuki goes postal

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“Friday Funny – David Suzuki goes postal” (2012-11-09). Anthony Watts re-blogs the Heartland Institute’s A Polite Discourse with Professional Climate Alarmist David Suzuki, where right-wing political hack Jim Lakely pretends that sending a Heartland Institute published rant on climate science (Roosters Of The Apocalypse: How The Junk Science Of Global Warming Nearly Bankrupted The Western World) was an attempt at “polite discourse.” (“Roosters” didn’t exactly make a splash back in February, this Bismarck Tribute review is the first real analysis that shows up in Google.)

Here’s Lakely’s attempt at polite discourse:

  1. He publishes and attacks a private correspondence.
  2. He calls Dr. Suzuki a “Professional Climate Alarmist”.
  3. He calls Dr. Suzuki childish.
  4. He puts “esteemed scientist” in sneer-quotes.
  5. He dismisses a renowned environmental scientist as expressing “faith-based climate views”.
  6. He ignores the entirety of environmental science to write “defaming people who disagree is the only trick aging alarmists like him have left.”

Here’s the note Dr. Suzuki wrote on his return-to-sender package:

“I am a scientist and I take great umbrage at being sent such a load of crap from a bullshit shill organization for the oil industry. You are the most anti-science group I can imagine.

David Suzuki.”

Seems pretty accurate to me, Anthony. In fact it applies equally to you, although I suspect your motivation is garden-variety incoherent libertarianism.

Neil Armstrong, First Man on the Moon: 1930-2012

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“Neil Armstrong, First Man on the Moon: 1930-2012“ (2012-08-25). Do you really think that Anthony Watts would pass up the chance to sidle up beside a great man so he can poke his nose into the spotlight? Bet your ass not.

“America has just lost its most heroic son” declares Anthony, tissue dabbing the corner of his eye as he ‘reflects’ on the death of Neil Armstrong, first man to step on the surface of the Moon.

I wonder if Anthony will recognize the contrast: Neil Armstrong did something courageous and audacious. He was part of a concerted effort to face a challenge that had no guarantee of success, that required the best efforts of the entire nation and had to be reinvented every step along the way to finally achieve it. That was America in the 1960′s.

Denialists today say the environmental risks we clearly face aren’t so bad (maybe they’re even good!), are lies, or can’t be conveniently solved and fight for inaction. This is Tea Party America in the 2000′s.

America has gone from “can do ” to “can’t do”.

So Anthony when you declare, through crocodile tears, that “America’s manned space program is also dead” remember that thinking people know that it’s wounds come from the determined efforts of ‘small government’ political zealots like yourself. Reflect on that while you pretend to exalt NASA’s most famous representative.

Farewell to Neil Armstrong, a courageous and dedicated explorer from a time when America faced challenges rather than set them aside and bickered over them.

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. – President Kennedy, 1962.

Another skeptical university professor fired – related to CARB’s PM2.5 air pollution regulation scandal

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“Another skeptical university professor fired – related to CARB’s PM2.5 air pollution regulation scandal“ (2012-06-16). In case you were wondering, every time a prickly right-winger gets fired from a university it’s because of persecution by the oppressive liberal intelligentsia. Anthony Watts wants to make sure you learn what he discovered on the always-reliable WingNut Daily (fyi, it’s all driven by intellectuals resentful over the failure of Communism). The Los Angeles Times has some coverage too.

Seems the John Galt wannabes at the American Center for Law and Justice are fightin’ the good fight for James Enstrom, a UCLA researcher fired after 35 years for daring to expose fraudulent research that was used to “justify draconian diesel vehicle regulations” as well as fake credentials at the “vile” (that’s Anthony’s description) California Air Resources Board. I guess the wheels of liberal oppression grind slowly.

Diesel exhaust is good for you and should not be regulated (pay no mind to the 750,000 annual Chinese deaths from particulate pollution). So is second-hand smoke.

Dr. Enstrom was defending his conclusions about the pish-poshedness of secondhand smoke years ago. Back in 2005 he was already invoking the right-wing’s favorite boogeyman Lysenko in defense of his tobacco epidemiology research. His Scientific Integrity Institute, solely concerned with the integrity of one J.E. Enstrom, Ph.D., came into existence at around the same time.

I suppose I have to say it: there’s no question that academic freedom needs protection and that legitimate examination of any scientific consensus is deeply important. Too bad that hypocritical partisan zealots like Anthony are so busy poisoning the debate. By the way Anthony, which is it? Close all universities because they’re dens of communism leeching off the noble taxpayer, or don’t touch the freedom of academics? ‘Cause if you only howl about the plight of right-wing allies you’re not really operating on principle, are you? What we actually get from you are incessant calls to fire academics that you don’t like and to strip funding from programs that don’t support your politics.

It’s YOU that academic freedom needs protection from, not Enstrom or Drapela.

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.

Live stream from Heartland conference

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“Live stream from Heartland conference” (2012-05-23). Anthony Watts is a predictably circular fantasist, but when the entire denialosphere gathers its hard not to set Atlas Shrugged aside for a minute.

Exciting times again! The Heartland Institute’s Seventh International Conference on Climate Change is underway! “Real Science, Real Choices.” Yeah, baby! They’ve even “reserved several dozen speaker slots for prominent warmists“! Gotta dust some credibility the speaker’s list somehow. (No takers.)

Václav Klaus! You know, the famous climate scientist. Oh, wait, he’s the right-wing Czech President.

Astronaut-Climate Scientists who’ve touched the gol-durn face of God! Well, mostly disgruntled/retired NASA engineers that sent a stern letter to themselves containing many exclamation marks.

Stand-up comedy too! Have you heard that hilarious Ricky Gervais? Oh, it’s Lord Monckton doing his one-man Morris dance? Pass.

Anthony Watts presenting science! Oh, he’s just going to warm over his debunked “How Reliable Are Twentieth Century Temperature Reconstructions?” aspersions. Not in the mood for a witless version of Ground Hog Day.

Still, Joe Bast! He knows how to throw a party, right? Maybe not. Attendance is down to 300 (but thousands more will see the videos fer sure). Joe “Unabomber” is suddenly having trouble getting donor meetings and is casting about for rich (senile?) uncles. Denialist throats need to be well-lubricated it seems. But heart-felt thanks as always to the Heritage Foundation and the Illinois Coal Association.

Ain’t gonna be no rematch I guess. Surely we can count on Watts, Monckton, Singer, Morano, Michaels and pals to keep the dog and pony show going, even if just by bellowing on their blogs?

No doubt Anthony will shortly explain how this is all proof that Global Warming is over (and was a lie).

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!

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”.