I'm a terrorist

god Or at least, that follows clearly from the latest nonsense from Wattie-land. Greenpeace enlists Justin Gillis &John Schwartz of the NY Times in Journalistic Terrorist Attack on Willie Soon – Miss Target, Hit Smithsonian Instead. If the NYT is "terrorist" then so am I. Of course, the Smithsonian is investigating Soon, so perhaps they're terrorists too?

Worse for Soon, I found this in my facebook feed, from God. I'm not suggesting that God (who is currently a black lesbian regretting that she created periods) is likely to smite Soon, but this kind of publicity in the general-o-sphere, as opposed to the usual knockabout in the blogosphere, is the kind of thing that gets you thrown under a bus.

The WUWT piece is full of the usual attempts at disdain: I cannot bring myself to quote from this unconscionable piece of journalistic malfeasance... Author’s Comment Policy: I am so sickened by this that I really don’t care to discuss it, but others may choose to do so – feel free. I'm not sure what they expected: everyone to maintain a respectful silence after the author flounced out? But of course that's not how it works; and so after everyone did indeed discuss it, the author joins in, entirely forgetting his own "policy". These people have the attention span of a goldfish.

More like this

WUWT: "I cannot bring myself to quote from this unconscionable piece of journalistic malfeasance""

Author’s Comment Policy: I am so sickened by this that I really don’t care to discuss it, ..."

Considering what is regularly going on at WUWT, those quotes are hypocritical on a galaxial scale.

By Lars Karlsson (not verified) on 24 Feb 2015 #permalink

I read down some of the comment thread on WUWT and then just had to give up. Even Nick Stokes pointing out that Soon had himself listed papers as deliverables was not enough to convince that Watties that they were indeed deliverables.

By ...and Then Th… (not verified) on 24 Feb 2015 #permalink

when your black lesbian god does strike him down

it wont be Soon enough

ps, i agree with her and consequently don't use periods, though commas are ok

By The Peak Oil Poet (not verified) on 24 Feb 2015 #permalink

Case in point (as pointed out by Sou):

"
Smear campaign: “His judgment cometh and that right soon”
Anthony Watts / 10 hours ago February 23, 2015

The title is a quote from the framed embroidery over the Warden’s wall safe in the movie The Shawshank Redemption, which is a story about one man fighting the corruption of the penal system at the hands of the warden, who was using his position to profit, bully, and murder. Since the quote turned out to be wildly ironic, I thought it was appropriate for what’s happening to Dr. Willie Soon at the hand of green activists and the compliant media. I often think of the warden as a figurehead for people like Dr. Lawrence Torricello, who once called for the death of climate skeptics."

By Lars Karlsson (not verified) on 24 Feb 2015 #permalink

So, let's just ignore the he-whore, and blame the NYT or the MSM or Mann or the Smithsonian (well, if they did have bad management, but I digress) or Harvard or ...

... because in Deniersville, it;s all about staying in the 1st two stages of grief (Denial and anger).

By Everett F Sargent (not verified) on 24 Feb 2015 #permalink

ATTP: Even Nick Stokes pointing out that Soon had himself listed papers as deliverables was not enough to convince that Watties that they were indeed deliverables.

"Deliverables" is standard contract language and I can imagine a corporation handing over large sums of money without such a contract. A statement of work will define the scope of the work to be performed under the funding and some sort of final report is required at the end as a "deliverable" work product. That's not to say that there was or wasn't an expectation that the work product would be favorable to the funder's agenda, but the word is not self evidently incriminating.

Not disclosing funding sources as required in journal publications, on the other hand, is clearly an ethics violation.

“Deliverables” is standard contract language and I can imagine a corporation handing over large sums of money without such a contract . . .
. . . can not imagine . . .

MarkB,
Yes, I largely agree. The problem isn't that he was funded to do the work. Nothing wrong with a company funding you to do research and publish papers (as long as they don't insist on certain results being obtained). The problem is not disclosing this funding on the papers, despite the project reports clearly describing these papers as "deliverables".

By ...and Then Th… (not verified) on 24 Feb 2015 #permalink

So, someone works at HaaaarVaaaard and the SmithSoonian and is an astrophySickist for like two decades now ...

That person has an unimpeachable 100% track record of climate science denial ... as such, that person cannot get NSF or any other form of gooberment funding for the simple reason of their unimpeachable 100% track record of climate science denial .... that person must put food-clothing-shelter on the proverbial table as it were ... sans HaaaarVaaaard sans SmithSoonian sans astrophySickist, that person would be homeless, no street cred as it were ... elsewheres, people of a certain ilk notice this situation ... and in the past there were disclosures ... but someone (Baliunas) left the building as it were, and those disclosures suddenly sort of disappeared ... now the SmithSoonian just cannot throw that person under the bus as it were ... those people of a certain ilk hire said person ... the SmithSoonian has a business model (scope of proposed work from said person, deliverables from said person and the like) ... those people of a certain ilk don't really care 'bout on stinkin' deliverables, but there are them ruleZ that the SmithSoonian has don't'ch know ... the outcome is certain and there definitely (100%) are no black swans with skin in the game as it were ... the NYT (with much 2160p video replay help from Greenpeace), like the NFL, calls a 'technical' or offsides on said goings on and it only took the NYT like two whole decades to call said 'technical' as it were ... their at the goal line as it were ... the Globeattle Koolhawks are at the goal line ... poorboy from MS intercepts the pass ... the New Globland Warmriots win the game ... its on to Stupitbowl L ... I can't help myself ... the American football analogy ... needs more work ... like a full play-by-play ... must now go and make up rosters for both teams as it were ...

By Everett F Sargent (not verified) on 24 Feb 2015 #permalink

Carter and the Lord strike back!

[Thanks, that's glorious. When I read the first letter, it was immeadiately clear that kind of bombastic drivel could only produced by the looney lord. Imagine my astonishment to (a) discover that was actually Carter and (b) the good lord delivering an object lesson in how real drivel should be written, that puts Cater to shame -W]

By Lars Karlsson (not verified) on 24 Feb 2015 #permalink

LK,

BB has like six blog posts (to date) wrt Willie Soon since the NYT piece.

Obviously playing to his audience, so even if BB were to produce 100X versus the volume from the relatively more sane MSM, it's only one blog, all who go there have already made up their minds long ago (I only went there because of Google News, always NOT amazed at the up-is-down crowd).

By Everett F Sargent (not verified) on 24 Feb 2015 #permalink

I was also sure that the first letter was from his Lordship. Bob Carter hit a home run:

"he forms part of a quartet with Fred Singer, Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer – as an equal member of the four U.S. climate scientists who are most respected by their international peers"

AKA The Climate Beatles.

"he radiates scientific expertise, obeisance to empirical data, enthusiasm, commitment to communication, concern for both scientific and personal integrity and good humour in roughly equal measure"

Seems like a compliment, but what if he radiates these things "equal[ly]," but very, very poorly?

[Thanks, that’s glorious. When I read the first letter, it was immeadiately clear that kind of bombastic drivel could only produced by the looney lord. Imagine my astonishment to (a) discover that was actually Carter and (b) the good lord delivering an object lesson in how real drivel should be written, that puts Cater to shame -W]

The thing about the letter 'bombing' campaign, is that it should not factor in at all with respect to the inquiries, IMHO.

The inquiries look at the evidence ending on the date just prior to the NYT article, issues its verdict, the judge then listens to various pleas related to the sentencing.

Bad ending? Smithsonian gets stuck with Soon for life, not too bad as the Soon rakes in billions of dollars of soft money per annum from DonorsTrust, eventually the Smithsonian gets renamed the SmithSoonian.

By Everett F Sargent (not verified) on 24 Feb 2015 #permalink

From Carter's letter:

"Having read many of his written articles, and attended several of his plenary lectures, I can attest that Willie is scrupulous in attending to the basic scientific veracity of everything that he presents in public about scientific matters. He is careful not only in that regard, but also in the attention he pays to drawing reasonable and balanced conclusions, and in rigorously eschewing the unfortunate ad hominem arguments that too often characterize public “debate” about human-caused climate change."

"In essence, Willie Soon is a highly original, laterally thinking and communicative solar physicist who epitomizes the balanced theoretical-empirical, agnostic approach that all scientists should apply to scientific issues that relate to societal matters."

Seriously?

I think those videos are in Soon's own words.

Soon, who has piled on the crowd-pleasing invective throughout his presentation (the IPCC is “gangster science”, “misrepresenting results”, “misleading everybody” “anti-scientific”, and includes “bogus results” and “pseudo-scientific claims”) now gets upset that the IPCC “suggests” that Baliunas and Jastrow’s work was “flawed”. “Very strong words”, he moans, a “matter of really amazing injustice”, before labelling the IPCC statement as “pseudo-scientific”.

https://quantpalaeo.wordpress.com/2015/02/23/willie-soon-at-heartland-t…

[Yup, that letter is a true classic, and provides my text for the day: http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2015/02/24/rigorously-eschewing-the-unfor… -W]

By Everett F Sargent (not verified) on 24 Feb 2015 #permalink

TF,

Who are 'they all' wrt Soon? Is Greenpeace or the NYT going after other people?

Oh, you mean politicians, well go figure, when have the asshats in DC not gone after ?

I don't condone 99.44% of what the asshats in DC do, add this one to the list.

But something tells me that the R's won't ever do anything as the word 'transparency' is not in their dictionary. Inhofe.

By Everett F Sargent (not verified) on 25 Feb 2015 #permalink

So when the Democrats (my party--I've only voted for Democrats all my life) do something wrong it's 'politicians.' When Republicans do something wrong it's 'Republicans.'

Interesting.

By Tom Fuller (not verified) on 25 Feb 2015 #permalink

BINGO! You win the strawman-of-the-day award.

By Everett F Sargent (not verified) on 26 Feb 2015 #permalink

Well we know anyone in Canada who thinks is an antipetroleum terrierist now: Will No One Rid Me of These Troublesome Canadians?

And there's a whole bunch more of'em on this list (of writers -- anyone fond of science fiction will recognize most of them, whether you like their rather varied politics or not): Outspoken Authors

I wonder what Kim Stanley Robinson thinks of the East Coast winter ....

By Hank Roberts (not verified) on 27 Feb 2015 #permalink

And the only summary of that journalism.org article about the Pew survey that I've found, yes, it's from a liberal source:
_______________________________________
"The message, the Pew research suggests, has really taken hold. Pew researchers gave respondents a list of 36 popular media sources and asked how much they trusted each one. Some were liberal, like The Daily Show or ThinkProgress. Some were conservative, like Rush Limbaugh or Fox News. Most of them are fairly straightforward news organizations with no overt political agenda, like NPR, various network news, CNN, and the New York Times.

The findings were astounding. Out of the 36 news sources, consistent liberals trusted 28, a mix of liberal and mainstream news sources. Mostly, liberal respondents generally agreed, holding out a little more skepticism for overtly ideological sources like Daily Kos or ThinkProgress, but not actually distrusting them, either. The only news sources liberals didn’t trust, generally, are overtly right-wing ones, such as Fox News, the Blaze, Breitbart, or Rush Limbaugh’s show.

Conservatives, on the other hand, saw betrayers and liars around every corner. Consistent conservatives distrusted a whopping 24 out of 36 outlets and mostly conservative respondents distrusted 15 and were skeptical of quite a few more. The hostility wasn’t just to well-known liberal sources like MSNBC. Strong conservatives hated all the network news, CNN, NPR, and the major national outlets, except the Wall Street Journal. Respondents who are mostly conservative fared better, but were still hostile to the New York Times and the Washington Post, as well as skeptical of mainstream organizations like CBS and NBC News.

The fact that conservatives are this paranoid should be alarming enough, but it becomes even more frightening when you consider who conservatives do trust in the media. Consistent conservatives only trusted 8 media sources–compared to the 28 liberals trusted—and of the eight, only one has anything approaching respectable reporting or reliable information. And that one, the Wall Street Journal, has good straight reporting but has an op-ed page that is a train wreck of right-wing distortions and misinformation. Most conservative people were a little more open-minded, trusting USA Today and ABC News, but still were supportive of openly distorting sources like Fox News or the Drudge Report.

The trust conservatives put in conservative media is utterly misplaced. For instance, both consistent and mostly conservative people love Glenn Beck, though he’s a well-known purveyor of outrageous conspiracy theories that percolate up to him from fringe characters. Breitbart and Sean Hannity also rated high, despite their shared history of championing right-wing fringe characters like Cliven Bundy.

But what is really frightening is the reach of Fox News. Fox News rated as the only real news source for consistent conservatives, with 47% of them citing it as their main source of news. Nothing even came close to touching it, as the second most common answer, “local radio” was cited by only 11% of consistent conservatives. Eighty-eight percent of consistent conservatives trusted Fox News. Mostly conservative and even “mixed” people also liked Fox News.

The problem with this is watching Fox News actually makes you less informed than if you don’t watch any news at all. In a 2012 study, Fox News viewers rated the absolute lowest in ability to correctly answer questions on a quiz about recent news events. People who didn’t take in any news programs at all did better on the quizzes. NPR listeners rated the best. Consistent liberals in the Pew research were big fans of NPR, by the way. It was the second most common outlet cited as a favorite by consistent liberals, topped only by CNN.

Fox News is one of the main factors, possibly the main factor, driving political polarization in this country. Huge chunks of this country listen mostly or solely to a relentless stream of misinformation coming from Fox News, coupled with warnings, implied or even baldly stated, to avoid listening to other, more factually accurate news sources. Unsurprisingly, then, more people are becoming conservatives and people who were already conservative are becoming more hardline about it. If you have any Fox viewers in your family, you probably already suspected this, but now Pew has given us the cold, hard facts to confirm your suspicions."
-- Amanda Marcotte

By Hank Roberts (not verified) on 01 Mar 2015 #permalink