Dispatches from the Creation Wars

So Pat, is your Dad named Bill?

Posted by: Gingerbaker | December 1, 2009 9:51 AM

But surely the public leak of information that proves that the worldwide community of climatologists has been manipulating data to show a fraudulent temperature increase...

Actually, it does no such thing.

Posted by: Budbear | December 1, 2009 9:58 AM

Hilarious that a bunch of emails suddenly becomes "data." Someone has absolutely no idea how science works, or for that matter, how people communicate.

Posted by: SteveWW | December 1, 2009 10:02 AM

No Tristanm, he can't.

Posted by: rmp | December 1, 2009 10:15 AM

Yes, I know that catching Sean Hannity being a hypocrite is about as difficult as catching Sean Hannity being an idiot, but it's still funny to watch.

Given that they appear to hold the same position on "hacking emails", I assume that the words "Sean Hannity" and "NY Times" are interchangeable in the text above.

Posted by: Matt Huisman | December 1, 2009 10:24 AM

Hannity is a hypocrite only on days that end in "y." How is this any different?

Posted by: CHV | December 1, 2009 10:54 AM

"New York Obama Times"

When did Hannity start stealing Kevin Nealon's material?

Posted by: jpf | December 1, 2009 11:46 AM

Why am I not surprised to see Brayton’s first post on this subject to be some half assed attempt at equivocation.

This is a big scandal and it seems that the magnitude of it is inversely proportional to the amount of space Brayton has spent writing about it. Aside from the destruction of data, evading FOIA requests, collusion to have other academics shut out of peer reviewed journals and general bunkered clan mentality of the researchers, statistician Eric Raymond has gone over Mann's code (an impossibility until this material was leaked as Mann wouldn’t let anyone see his "trick") and Raymond seems to be convinced that Mann hardcoded the "hockey stick" into the code.

If true, and I see no reason to believe otherwise, this would constitute one of the greatest frauds in modern science.

Posted by: Mike H | December 1, 2009 11:57 AM

Hello again, Mike H, I see you're back with the same old set of unspecific assertions, not to mention the same old complete lack of any supporting evidence.

If true, and I see no reason to believe otherwise...

NO ONE has given us any reason to believe any of the denialists' allegations are true. Hell, most of the allegations aren't even specific enough to be verified at all.

You denialists aren't even good thieves: all you managed to steal is the ability to pretend you've stolen something significant.

Posted by: Raging Bee | December 1, 2009 12:22 PM

I'm no fan of Hannity, but there is a distinction. Even if the CRU emails were hacked (and that seems unlikely), they were from an publicly-issued account at a public institution. What this amounts to is therefore an irregular release of public information. Privacy becomes an issue when one from hacks a private email account.

Academics (including moi) are way too cavalier about merging private and public lives. I certainly don't expect privacy on my .edu accounts; that's why I have a private email address.

Posted by: Gerard Harbison | December 1, 2009 12:23 PM

Since when were emails "public information", no matter what account they're from?

Posted by: Ginger Yellow | December 1, 2009 12:28 PM

Since we now know (from multiple sources) that the so-called 'hockey stick' is complete rubbish...

Cite your alleged sources, or admit you're full of shit.

Posted by: Raging Bee | December 1, 2009 12:32 PM

Mike H:

I was going to reply to each and every point in your post, but I've decided to use a different strategy. I'm going to instead give you an opportunity to reveal to us whether you are as intellectually dishonest as your original post suggests, or not.

So, in your next post, I'd like you to expand on each and every point, and to explain why the context that has been provided by the climate scientists (so tell us what that context actually is) isn't as straight forward as it might first appear to be (i.e. why the explanations shouldn't be accepted).

Not only do I then not have to bother repeating myself for the six hundredth time, and to explain why you are in fact intellectually dishonest (at least as far as your original post reveals), which you would no doubt ignore, anyway, but it will give you a chance to persuade me otherwise, as well.

Accusing people of destroying data is easy, but I'd like to know whether you have any idea why I might not be persuaded by such ignorant platitudes.

Posted by: Damian | December 1, 2009 12:34 PM

But surely the public leak of information that proves that the worldwide community of climatologists has been manipulating data to show a fraudulent temperature increase ...

The misappropriated emails, code, and so forth show no such thing. Instead, people like you have shown that if a great deal of careful cherry picking is done, a few carefully chosen quotes can be presented out of context, distorted, and misconstrued to make honest, hard-working scientists look bad.

Much more importantly - there are two other organizations⁽¹⁾ - GISS and NOAA - which produce global temperature trend databases (GISS and NOAA) which show similar results, but are processed by different methods and different code. Ironically - the misappropriated emails, etc, come from the institution whose temperature trend analysis shows the least warming - especially over the last 10 years.

_{(1) I'm ignoring the claim that there is a global conspiracy. I am also ignoring the claim that 9/11 "was an inside job", the claim that the president is a "reptoid", and so on.}

Posted by: llewelly | December 1, 2009 12:35 PM

Since when were emails "public information", no matter what account they're from?

In Florida, the public records law is very broad. For instance, if someone were truly being obnoxious, they could demand copies of everything work-related that is ever written on our whiteboards, and erasing them could be considered destruction of public records.

Email is very much public here, and while they do filter out some private material, they have to err on the side of public release when there is any doubt.

Posted by: Benjamin Geiger | December 1, 2009 12:42 PM

Hannity really isn't a good one to discuss climate--at least 3 times in November, he declared that 2009 (through October) was the warmest, or one of the warmest, years on record (it was tied for 5th place).

Posted by: mark | December 1, 2009 12:45 PM

I take it, as a champion of the correct handling of public information, Raging Bee supports the prosecution of Phil Jones for orchestrating the deletion of email for the purposes of frustrating FOIAs.

Do you have any evidence to suggest that those emails were in fact deleted? And why would someone suggest that emails should be deleted — and then go on to act on that suggestion — but not delete the emails suggesting it?

The FOIA people were entirely in agreement with the scientists about the handling the fifty-odd requests in six days. They knew exactly what was going on, which is why they refused the requests.

I too would have refused them, for the simple reason that there is a difference between honestly wanting to access to information, and an orchestrated attempt to harass people.

Posted by: Damian | December 1, 2009 12:54 PM

Darksyde @21

if we take steps to develop new, cleaner energy sources, then even if you're right about AGW not being a threat the benefits are enormous. Less pollution and freedom from undependable terrorist enabling energy sources for starters.

And if you think suddenly impoverishing Saudi Arabia will diminish terrorism...

I respect your work Darksyde, but an objective analysis results in a much more uncertain picture than that which you paint. I'm not arguing against further research in clean energy, which is something I'm all for, but just pointing out that the picture is not nearly as simple and rosy as you suggest.

Posted by: James Hanley | December 1, 2009 1:03 PM

a concept my 2nd grader has already learned in her math classes.

I suppose that Pat wouldn't qualify to compete on "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?" What I don't understand is why we are trying to understand and respond to this gobshite. I mean, he's not going to change his mind over this.

If climate change were an American WW2 rifle pointed at his head, Pat would be a person denying the death-dealing capability of bullets because bullet manufacturers during WW2 had sold the US Army bad equipment.

Or if climate change were an atomic bomb, Pat would be denying the destructive capability of splitting the atom. If it were space travel, Pat would be one denying either the existence of space, or the ability of anything man-made withstanding the vacuum of space. If it were continental drift, Pat would be one denying all the evidence that South America and Africa used to be a single landmass. In all these cases, the extant experience and physical evidence didn't show any proof. It wasn't until Oppenheimer perfected his deadly toy, that Sputnik was launched, and that continental drift theory was accepted on the basis of continually gathered evidence that these became mainstream.

We don't give people who deny the destructive power of atomic weapons, the time of day to air their opinions as "valid." Similarly, we don't give it to people saying that the vacuum of space makes it impossible to survive there, or that continents have remained immutably in the same place. So I ask again: why do we give this gobshite the time of day?

Or will Pat and his denialist cronies only admit to being gobshites and obstructionists only after climate change is physically shown to be happening to such a degree that even pinheads like Pat have to admit that it's actually happening? Why do we wait for these guys? Why do we try to educate them to our way of thinking, knowing that hey eventually have absolutely no interest in even considering changing their minds on the issue?

Posted by: John Yum | December 1, 2009 1:13 PM

Incidentally, why would you associate with a pos like Markos Moulitsas?

What, exactly, has Moulitsas done wrong? Something worse than stealing someone else's internal emails, and then lying about what they say?

Posted by: Raging Bee | December 1, 2009 1:19 PM

Doesn't matter.

There you have it -- yet another admission that evidence, or the nonexistence thereof -- doesn't matter to the denialist crowd. Yet more proof of their pathological dishonesty.

Posted by: Raging Bee | December 1, 2009 1:33 PM

Pat:
"But surely the public leak of information that proves that the worldwide community of climatologists has been manipulating data to show a fraudulent temperature increase..."

Except that from what I have read, they really did not do that...

Posted by: slpage | December 1, 2009 1:40 PM

One person telling another to delete some emails and then being ignored isn't exactly a conspiracy. It's not as though a ton of meticulous planning has to be done before it can be carried out.

Posted by: tacitus | December 1, 2009 1:43 PM

Damian, Raging Bee:
Do you guys have a source for the FOIA story? I'm talking to someone who's been pushing the "Climatologists running from FOIA" babble, and I'd love to have something to shut him up with.

Thanks in advance.

Posted by: Hayate Yagami | December 1, 2009 2:11 PM

I wish the American right would get as upset as they are now when the CIA or NSA gets caught misbehaving with regard to FOIA.

Also, the deleting of emails might be a violation of the university's record retention schedule (regulations on which documents are saved, how long they are saved, and how they are disposed of) I doubt that rises to a level of criminal conspiracy charges.

Posted by: History Punk | December 1, 2009 2:44 PM

Darksyde @ 21 - your point that the rational course of action is to transform to green energy even if science is wrong on AGW is being attacked relentlessly (at least a couple of times per week) in the Wall Street Journal's Editorial Section by guests and regular columnists.

The WSJ's own Editorial Board members use the same denialist tactics the most idiotic YEC's use (sans Ray Comfort) but also couple it to their argument it's also bad policy. I find their position equivalent to the argument by YEC's that Darwinism is factually wrong and even if true, also evil.

Bjorn Lomborg has been a regular contributor recently arguing there are better economic options than those that would reduce greenhouse gasses. Here's one example.

I see the WSJ's tactics as preemptive. I think they're covertly conceding that in the long run they'll lose the AGW debate, yet still oppose actions to mediate the effects of AGW. This latest email scandal could be pivotal however in their going back to exclusively denying AGW given how strident they've been in claiming these emails somehow falisfy all peer-accepted claims regarding AGW.

Posted by: Michael Heath | December 1, 2009 3:11 PM

"Pat, the problem is if we take steps to develop new, cleaner energy sources, then even if you're right about AGW not being a threat the benefits are enormous."

'We' don't need to take steps. The market is already doing that (or was the Toyota Prius, for instance, a government project?). I absolutely agree that fossil fuels are finite, and human civilization needs to transition to renewable sources and nuclear power in order to continue expanding. What I don't agree with is the claim that we need to panic, or suffer drastic decreases in our standard of living, or implement Democrat 'solutions' like nationalizing (or taxing to death) the means of production, in the name of some bogus warming scare.

"No, Pat, even assuming that the claims of misbehavior by the CRU scientists are wholly true, the small group implicated in these emails != "the worldwide community of climatologists.""

Sorry, dude. We have a group of 'independent' scientists all claiming that they got the same result (a warming Earth) via different sets of temperature observations. Now it's proved that one of those data sets actually shows a decline in real temperature which was hidden via a 'trick' to conform with the consensus result. It's legitimate - even necessary - to assume that the other data has been similarly manipulated until proven otherwise. We cannot trust climate scientists anymore. That's why we need the raw data - and all the secret algorithms used to modify it into the hockey-stick shape - released to the public, so nonaligned scientists, who remained neutral or skeptical of AGW (and so have been shut out of mainstream climatology) can look it with an unbiased eye and let us know what's really happening.

"We don't give people who deny the destructive power of atomic weapons, the time of day to air their opinions as "valid." "

Really? I know places where people who deny the destructive power of God's wrath aren't given the time of day. I imagine, though, that if I used the same precautionary principle argument to demand you all accept Jesus as your savior - because even if there's only a tiny chance that Hell is real, isn't avoiding it worth any sacrifice in real life? - you'd laugh me off the comments page. As far as I'm concerned, AGW is as mythical as the Last Judgment, and demands that we DO SOMETHING NOW are as rational as demands that we invade the moon on the off chance that the Martians have completed their Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator.

(BTW: glaciers melt. They're ice, it's what they do. The North Pole was ice-free in the summer in the colonial period - remember the Northwest Passage? - this sort of thing is cyclical and unexceptional. I remember a science fiction story I read once about aliens who came to Earth in the summer; in autumn, when the leaves began to fall, the aliens panicked, assumed that they had somehow introduced a disease to Earth's plant life, and fled the planet. Reminds me of the OH NOES ICE IS MELTING types, except that I can assume the aliens had no malicious agenda.)

Posted by: Pat Donohue | December 1, 2009 3:15 PM

The North Pole was ice-free in the summer in the colonial period - remember the Northwest Passage?

Posted by: Dave | December 1, 2009 3:31 PM

Darksyde,

Agreed that a comment section doesn't allow for full analysis. My inner economist just rebelled for a moment.

Posted by: James Hanley | December 1, 2009 3:38 PM

There you have it -- yet another admission that evidence, or the nonexistence thereof -- doesn't matter to the denialist crowd. Yet more proof of their pathological dishonesty.

BWAHAHAHA! Truncate the context, and then accuse the other guy of dishonesty. Bee, you're every bit as transparent as I remember you.

Let me spell it out for your tiny insect brain; colluding with others to delete public records is every bit as criminal as deleting them yourself. Whether the emails can be proven to have been deleted is immaterial to a conspiracy charge. If you email me and tell me to delete the email you sent me last week, to avoid it being disclosed in an FOIA, and I say OK, that's a crime.

Posted by: Gerard Harbison | December 1, 2009 4:08 PM

Or will Pat and his denialist cronies only admit to being gobshites and obstructionists only after climate change is physically shown to be happening to such a degree that even pinheads like Pat have to admit that it's actually happening?

There are altogether four possibilities:
No AGW/No action : best outcome, Pat and company cheer.
No AGW/Action: Windmills everywhere, somewhat depressed standard of living, Pat and company have a gripe that they can milk for centuries.
AGW/Action: Windmills everywhere, somewhat depressed standard of living, Pat and company have a gripe that they can milk for centuries.
AGW/No Action: By the time the temperature change is unmistakable, a hundred years or so from now, we're all dead and Pat doesn't give a damn (being dead). The rest of Pat's company can continue to blame unspecified natural processes or Divine wrath over Teh Ghey.

You will note that in none of these cases is Pat in any way likely to admit being wrong.

Posted by: D. C. Sessions | December 1, 2009 4:16 PM

One person telling another to delete some emails and then being ignored isn't exactly a conspiracy. It's not as though a ton of meticulous planning has to be done before it can be carried out.

Criminal law act, 1977, UK.

(I)f a person agrees with any other person or persons that a course of conduct shall be pursued which, if the agreement is carried out in accordance with their intentions .... will necessarily amount to or involve the commission of any offence or offences by one or more of the parties to the agreement...he is guilty of conspiracy to commit the offence or offences in question.

Take it up with Her Majesty's Gummint, Perry Mason. It doesn't need to be elaborate. You say 'let's rob that old lady', and I say 'OK', we have a conspiracy.

Posted by: Gerard Harbison | December 1, 2009 4:27 PM

"Collusion" means more than one person. So where, exactly, is the evidence that more than one person was in on this "collusion?"

1212063122.txt

Phil says:

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?
Keith will do likewise. He's not in at the moment - minor family crisis.
Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don't
have his new email address.

Mike replies:

I'll contact Gene about this ASAP.

And if such evidence really exists, why aren't you taking it up with law-enforcement?

UK police are already on the case. By the way, Phil Jones just temporarily stepped down, pending the investigation.

Posted by: Gerard Harbison | December 1, 2009 4:35 PM

In regards to Pat... I just have to say how much of a relief it is that there is so much overlap between AGW denialists and Creationists.

AGW is a complicated topic, and I am nowhere near qualified to examine the evidence. You really have to be a climate scientist to fully grasp it. As a result, sometimes when these AGW denialists start saying we're all being bamboozled, the thought enters my mind: If I was being bamboozled about global warming, would I realize it?

But then they start spouting Creationist lunacy, and I breathe a sigh of relief. (Well, sort of... I suppose it would be better if I was bamboozled and climate change wasn't an impending threat...) Evolutionary biology may also be a complicated topic, and you may need to be an evolutionary biologist to fully grasp it... but the evidence of common descent is so fucking trivial, I just can't believe that anyone over the age of 13 can't accept it.

If Creationist-caliber idjuts are also drawn to AGW denialism, that's really a useful thing to know. It reassures me that it probably is good to defer to the expert consensus -- and the expert consensus on climate change is pretty clear -- lest one end up believing something as stupid as a 6000-year-old earth.

So, thanks Pat, for reminding me that AGW denialism goes right up there with Creationism in Epic Dumbassery.

Posted by: James Sweet | December 1, 2009 4:37 PM

Do you really think that scientists conspiring over a long period of time to suppress huge amounts of evidence would have less sense than me?

This one is too easy...

Posted by: Gerard Harbison | December 1, 2009 4:40 PM

That's TWO OR MORE PEOPLE, shit-for-brains. One person making a suggestion doesn't count. You don't have a case.
Well, I'm not so sure. I'm pretty sure Mr. Harbison is conspiring with himself to make the world a dumber place. And if that's not illegal, it should be.

James, I hope you wash your hands after typing that nastiness. In fact, it appears Jones, Briffa, and Mann agreed to do this. At least, I'm sure PC Plod will be asking Jones and (if he can get him to answer questions) Mann what they meant.

Posted by: Gerard Harbison | December 1, 2009 4:44 PM

Now it's [allegedly] proved that one of those data sets actually shows a decline in real temperature which was hidden via a 'trick' to conform with the consensus result. It's legitimate - even necessary - to assume that the other data has been similarly manipulated until proven otherwise.

By the same token, once it's been proven that some AGW denialists are blatant liars who have no clue what they're talking about, then we have to "assume" that the entire AGW-denialist movement is similarly clueless and dishonest until proven otherwise. So if this is the argument you blustering asshats want to make, then you already lost it years ago.

Posted by: Raging Bee | December 1, 2009 4:49 PM

Now it's proved that one of those data sets actually shows a decline in real temperature which was hidden via a 'trick' to conform with the consensus result.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, those of us who have been paying attention already knew that the data series in question showed a recent decline. We knew this because the very scientists accused of hiding this decline have, in fact, been describing it in quite some detail in the peer-reviewed literature for...oh, the last decade or so.

But you wouldn't know that, Pat, because you don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about. You get your opinions from pundits who tell you what to think. It would never have occurred to you to bother actually reading the scientific literature; not that you'd have been able to understand it had you done so.

Posted by: MartinM | December 1, 2009 4:57 PM

Oh, good grief.

It's conspiracy when the actions agreed toif carried out will be criminal.

Posted by: Gerard Harbison | December 1, 2009 5:03 PM

If the deletions didn't happen, then there is no criminal conspiracy case to answer.

No, Harbison is correct on that point. No actions need take place.

However, the participants must be aware that what they're proposing would, if carried out, result in a breach of the law, IIRC.

Posted by: MartinM | December 1, 2009 5:12 PM

James Sweet @ 68:

I am nowhere near qualified to examine the evidence. You really have to be a climate scientist to fully grasp it. As a result, sometimes when these AGW denialists start saying we're all being bamboozled, the thought enters my mind: If I was being bamboozled about global warming, would I realize it?

I concur. However, I do understand the quality of processes and my reading of RealClimate and its contributors and guest climatologists continuously provides strong evidence climatologists are on an intellectually honest journey (where all processes have some defects, I find zero fatal ones). However, I also don't concede to science merely because denialists lack the same critical thinking skills and honest that creationists portray, they could both be wrong; science about AGW and denialists simply because even broken clocks are right twice a day.

It's also been my observation that utlilizing and even enhancing a robust process are by definition, honest. A good example is Behe's books. I could not fisk some of his claims. But he violates the process and I'm skeptical and sure enough, honest scientists falsify his claims which would have been screened out if he'd gone through the peer-review/publication route (at least post-publication, if not prior).

Sadie @ 75 - my investigation into Christian denialism of AGW was merely that their leaders were promoting denialism and the sheep were already predisposed to attack science and defend Republicans. Leaders like Jerry Falwell and Tony Perkins' motivation was to keep people in the Republican party in order to defend their financial status and political power by insuring that anti-abortion rights and the then novel anti-gay marriage opposition were sufficient to keep them voting Republican.

I think that if the Republican plutocrats had originally supported a green transformation or at least did so by the mid-90s, than conservative Christians would also because there'd be no motivating factor to reject it by the grass roots or its leaders. As nearly always, the Bible provides support either way.

Posted by: Michael Heath | December 1, 2009 5:32 PM

Pat Donohue "The market is already doing that (or was the Toyota Prius, for instance, a government project?)"
Okay. I can't let that stand. The real world is not laissez faire nor is it the "State controlling the means of production", it's a mix of competing and cooperating interests that includes both the private and public sectors.
New tech research is typically subsidized by gov't grants. New tech sales (as with, up until recently, the Prius) were subsidized by the State (or the mild loss would've been too big for a megacorp like Toyota even in the face of the "positive optics" of making the Prius...and they need "positive optics", because Toyota also makes and sells tonnes of: Tacoma, Tundra, JF Cruiser, 4Runner, Sequoia & Land Cruiser.

Posted by: Modusoperandi | December 1, 2009 6:09 PM

Increasing the levels of atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases must increase the amount of heat captured by the Earth. Period. One can calculate exactly how much more heat is captured in a simple model easily because the effect is pure physics.

To be pedantic, I believe there is a point of saturation; we're just nowhere near it.

Posted by: MartinM | December 1, 2009 6:36 PM

ITT, we play a game of "spot the denialist tactics". I've already got one case of "fake experts", obviously.

Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | December 1, 2009 7:35 PM

Re Tyler DiPietro

Anybody who has had any experience with computer code produced at universities is well aware of the fact that, if the program is substantial in size, it was probably produced by many graduate students over the course of many years. Graduate students are notorious for lack of in-code comments and sparsity of other documentation because those activities take time which delays their achieving their Masters and PhD degrees, which is the only thing of interest to them. Thus, they have no incentive to produce professional, well documented, well structured code. The result is computer code that has been patched and re-patched to such an extent that it's virtually impossible to figure out what's going on (sometimes referred to as rats nest code). My suspicion is that the climate models that Prof. Jones is using are of this nature, and, given that Mr. Raymond apparently has no expertise in physics, chemistry or climate models and can't possibly have spent sufficient time to understand what the code is representing, his claims are total rubbish.

This doesn't mean that these models are useless or invalid as calibration and validation activities can still be performed. As I understand it, these calibration and validation activities have been extensive.

Another thing to keep in mind is that climate models have become more sophisticated over time as the computer hardware capabilities have escalated. The computer power available when climate models were first developed pales in comparison to what is now available and the programs sophistication has improved in parallel.

Posted by: SLC | December 2, 2009 8:35 AM

Pat Donohue: I was six years old in 1971.

Back then I believed in stealing cookies, writing bathroom humor in coloring books (never meant for public consumption), and finding creative ways not to eat my peas. My goodness, what unethical behavior. And you're still six years old, apparently. The Pentagon Papers were turned over to the NYTimes by a contributor; they weren't stolen by someone breaking into the system (and hey, does that remind you of another nefarious scandal, BTW, involving subsequent leaks by someone nicknamed Deep Throat?). Your analogy is not apt.

Posted by: Kristine | December 2, 2009 12:14 PM

Just as I predicted, as soon as we asked the denialists to back up their wild-ass claims with specific references, they dropped their chest-pounding "this goes to eleven" bluster and ran away. I guess we won't be hearing from Mike H again for awhile, and after the "no permanent ice-caps in the Colonial period" comic relief, I'm guessing Pat Donohue won't be back either -- at least not until he changes his name to "AirTran."

Posted by: Raging Bee | December 2, 2009 4:47 PM

Gerard Harbison wrote: "So Jones sends and email telling people to delete other emails, and a copy of that email is stored -- we don't know why or by whom -- and I can't tell you why that email still exists, and so the allegations are false?

LOL!"

That's the most probable interpretation, as I see it. If Jones's message exists only because someone else saved a copy of it, it sure is unlucky for your side that this unknown preserver failed to preserve the really incriminating messages.

Assuming that Jones really sought to evade FOI disclosures, by the way, is far from definite.

Posted by: Chris Winter | December 3, 2009 8:47 PM