Category Archives: Nuthin’

Merry Christmas – open thread

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“Merry Christmas – open thread” (2011-12-24). Anthony Watts takes up a new cause, the “War on Christmas”, by not wishing Happy Holidays to his readers. It’s Christmas or nothing! Funny how everything he does has a myopic, xenophobic tinge to it.

He also reminds his followers to remember Winston Churchill’s advice: “Never give up, never give in.” Yeah, Winston was all about encouraging ignorant people to stubbornly resist the facts. Here’s three Churchill quotes Anthony may want to ruminate over during his holidays:

  • A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.
  • A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
  • Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.

Thanks for all the schmaltzy YouTube videos though.

Here at Wotts Up we take a skeptical view of the alleged life of Jesus and of all demands for faith in the unproven. We do hope that you take advantage of this Western cultural ritual to enjoy some time with friends and family.

Update: Of course, even while trying to quote Winston Churchill Anthony Watts manages to both misquote and be selective. Churchill’s full remarks are here, some particularly relevant excluded words are in bold:

never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.

Honour and good sense are provably anathema to Anthony and his supporters.

Climategate 2.0 emails – They’re real and they’re spectacular!

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“Climategate 2.0 emails – They’re real and they’re spectacular!” (2011-11-22). Remember Climategate? The stolen climate scientist e-mails that denialists tried to cherry-pick and twist into… something? Happened just before the Copenhagen climate conference. Anthony Watts and his team remember and they’re still sullenly licking their wounds over that misfire (but putting on such a brave face…).

Now we have new stolen e-mails with “new revelations!” Coincidentally, just before the Durban climate conference.

Oh. It’s just a second batch of even tamer messages from the first theft. Still, plenty of opportunities to make a fuss, tut and titter, and infer darkly. That’ll do, right Anthony? Especially since the first thing Anthony seems to have done is search for his own name. (Could vanity be the motivation behind everything Anthony’s done?)

Here are a few links on Climategate 2.0, I doubt I’ll cover what will undoubtably be a flood of outraged irrelevant posts on Anthony’s blog:

Look for Fox News, the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and similar news organizations to credulously report the new “revelations.”

Things we don’t know – about climate

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“Things we don’t know – about climate“. More Christmas Guest pudding. 3,000 words by Paul Murphy. Short version: Paul doesn’t know anything about climate, or even science really, and he likes to watch movies on TV.

Quick, somebody slap a carbon tax on this new planet

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“Quick, somebody slap a carbon tax on this new planet“. Oh, I see what you did there, Anthony. You used a completely un-related NASA astronomy news report to make fun of carbon taxes! That is so clever! It’s like you’ve jumped all the way to Class Clown with a rank of Grade Six!

Is your headline the only thought you had? Apparently yes.

Antarctic Ozone Hole smallest in five years

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“Antarctic Ozone Hole smallest in five years“. A blind copy-and-paste from Anthony Watts from the scientific journal MSNBC. A smaller ozone hole is indicative of success in altering human emissions (chlorofluorocarbons), but a short-term trend is probably not statistically significant.

Doesn’t fit the narrative, does it, Anthony? Slapping on a bit more cover for the anti-science?

BBC “disappears” headline “Coldest December Day on record for some sites”

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BBC “disappears” headline “Coldest December Day on record for some sites”. Oh. My. Dog. (Sorry, reading Anthony Watts’ blog makes me dyslexic sometimes.) A website changed an article headline! It is a climate conspiracy!

Anthony follows this revelation with some nit-picking over whether 2010 really will be a “dead heat” with 1998 for the hottest year on record. This requires ignoring the running averages that have always been used for comparison, mumbling about where the real “finish line” is, breaking out a magnifying glass and of course not discussing at all the fact that 1998 was hot because of a very strong El Niño effect while there is no comparable influence contributing to 2010’s results.

Ooh, an Emily Litella moment! After all that whining about the word “dead heat”, it turns out that the denialist’s favorite scientist Dr. Roy Spencer is the one that used it. Quoth Anthony; never mind.

Environmentalist marries Gaia in E-ceremony

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“Environmentalist marries Gaia in E-ceremony“. As reported in the Huffington Post, someone has staged a mock “wedding” with the Earth. A perfect target for Anthony Watts’ searing scientific mind! “There’s no mention at HuffPo if Earth was a willing partner or if it was a shotgun wedding.”

Good one, Anthony!

 

SOHO – 15 years today

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“SOHO – 15 years today“. Another bald press release copy-and-paste from Anthony Watts. NASA announced that December 2nd is 15th anniversary of the SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) spacecraft.

 

Artist's concept of the SOHO spacecraft. Learn more on NASA's website unless you're stupid enough to rely on Watts.

Researchers find mathematical patterns to forecast earthquakes

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“Researchers find mathematical patterns to forecast earthquakes“. Anthony offers a copy-and-paste of a Eurekalert press release about Spanish earthquake forecasting paper titled “Pattern recognition to forecast seismic time series”.

Why? To ‘prove’ that he has a roving scientific intellect I guess. It wouldn’t be so transparent if you actually made an intelligent statement about it, Anthony. Instead, we get not even a single word.

Couldn’t you even type “Wow!” or something?

Friday Funny: “Pay up, Suckas”

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Friday Funny: “Pay up, Suckas”. Anthony Watts takes the time to copy-and-paste, and prove his mad Photoshop skillz, a goofy AFP article about a Spanish woman claiming ownership of the sun.

Anthony clearly feels a duty to keep the climate change debate moving forward.