More fraud from Pat Michaels

The graphs are worthlessness unless they are based on empirical measurement.

If Michaels, Singer, Ball, Spencer, McIntyre, McKitrick et al were involved with public corporations and put such fraudulent information into a Prospectus, Financial Statement or MD&A there would be an immediate outcry and charges of fraud would be laid. Why are people associated with think tanks, Universities and other Institutions exempt from this?

For example three top executives from Nortel Networks Corporation are in court today in Toronto charged with fraud.

Hello Everyone,

I am trying to find the transcript for James Hansen's June 1988 testimony in front of Congress and Google is not being my friend. I am particularly trying to find in the primary material from 1988 where he says scenario B is most likely. Thanks in advance.

Trent,

Hansen's testimony was a preview of his 1988 paper.

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1988/1988_Hansen_etal.pdf

He states,

"Scenario B is perhaps the most plausible of the three cases"

if that helps.

Sorry (replace the -'s with underscores)

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1988/1988-Hansen-etal.pdf

;)

Dana has commented on Michaels' article at WUWT. The WUWT crowd are horrified - not that Michaels has clearly doctored a graph but that Dana would challenge him.

Thank You GSW for the help. I got the Hansen paper. I just want to be able to point also to the Senate testimony too.

MikeH - haha yes, the WUWT crowd was not happy when I pointed out that Michaels had doctored the graphic in question. Watts immediately attacked me and tried to change the subject, as did his flock.

Thanks for the link, Tim.

In fact, this article is great : everywhere it is posted, the usual denier lurkers rage like little kids. Splendid enjoyment.

Just so you don't have to enter the asylum, this is Watts's reply to Dana1981:-

REPLY: Oh please. Way to ignore the issue. Dana, you think everything on WUWT is a disgrace, so your view is right in line with your M.O., yet you ignore your own problems with SkS and the editing of posts, comments, and response post facto. Get your OWN HOUSE IN ORDER before criticizing others. Sadly, I expect youâll be posting yet another SkS smear in the near future. Iâll make sure Pat Michaels sees your rant though. â Anthony

Can Watts get any lower? What a disgusting hypocrite, liar, and all-round scumbag.

Just when are these outrageous liars going to get their just deserts?

Here is the 1988 Hansen testimony to the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

It's obvious that Scenario B was considered the most likely at the time. Scenarios are always presented as the most likely, plus one higher, plus one lower.

However the emissions projected in each scenario also have to be taken into account. AFAIK, emissions since 1988 have grown at a higher rate than 1.5% a year, which is the growth rate in Scenario A.

That is in no way meant as justification for Michaels altering the Hansen chart - which I agree is equivalent to fraud.

For one thing, none of the scenarios in the Hansen charts go up in a straight line. They are from a model, and it seems to me that they show the 'noise' expected. Scenarios A and B diverge markedly and then come much closer together later on. You can't take a particular point on the chart as a prediction at a particular time. It's the trend that's important.

For another thing, the rate of increase in emissions went up more quickly after the turn of the century - so scenario B emissions would have been closer to the mark in 1997-98 at the time of Michael's deception.

(I thought it was generally accepted that temperatures have not risen as much as projected this decade if greenhouse gas emissions were the only factor operating, and that aerosols are likely to be having a dampening effect at the moment.)

FYI, Watts spent 7 years in college but never managed to graduate.

Also, a bit of old video footage from Watts' college days just surfaced -- link here (warning -- salty language at the end): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjIH1jdx2_A

Clearly Watts does not mind aiding and abetting a purveyor of mendacious crap , which says much about Watts himself.

The above I caught up with under On willful misdirection from Pat Michaels at Rick Piltz's Climate Science Watch (thanks prokaryotes over at ClimateProgress).

That's all Watts can do is froth and foam, sad creature for even he must know where the truth lies.

To be fair, Watts was right in saying that I think the vast majority of what's posted on WUWT is a disgrace to true skeptical thinking (including the comments). That being said, his response to my comment was a pretty transparent attempt to distract from the fact that Michaels had been caught red-handed doctoring Gillett's figure.

I've also come up with a new term for Michaels and Watts that I used towards the end of my post - denial enablers.

WATTS is complaining about "the editing of posts, comments, and response post facto"?

Really?

REALLY?!?

This is a man who scrubbed a year's worth of my responses and banned me so I couldn't comment on it, then edited his replies in those threads to remove references to me, and then edited his posts to make them less idiotic.

Projection much?

Watts' excuse that since this was a "guest post" by Michaels and that he (Watts) isn't responsible for the errors and omissions is wearing a bit thin. Seems to me if you're going to do this "guest post" thing the least you need to do is read and question what is to be posted, not shoot the commenters who pick the flaws you were too lazy or incompetent to find.

It's a bit like saying
"Yes it is my gun officer, but it isn't my fault that bloke got shot cos I didn't put the bullets in it."

Since we're on the Michaels topic, recall that Michaels has often complained about "pal review." People might want to review:
Skeptics Prefer Pal Review Over Peer Review: Chris de Freitas, Pat Michaels And Their Pals, 1997-2003
from a few months ago.

You can see how "pal review" works when done really well, with an editor who wants to help and no Editor-in-Chief.

As it happens, the scientists complaining didn't realize th extent of de Freitas' efforts.

14 SteveC,

It doesn't even work on that level. If Watts were merely some sort of innocent facilitator* of mendacious tripe, then he would simply say, "Not me, complain to the guest poster", but he goes out of his way to attack anyone who criticises the stuff he facilitates, feigning outrage at the very idea that there could be anything wrong with it on any level.

*Of course, his pretence that WUWT is some sort of open-minded clearing house for sceptical views on science is disgusting and laughable in equal measure.

Oh dear, Patrick Michaels tries to defend the indefensible and makes so many strawmen arguments it is not true.

Let me see, using gross distortions and lies to defend previous gross distortions and lies. He expects that to work? The man is clearly deluded and in a very big way....

First sentence of Michaels' response:

When the battle is being lost, there is a tendency to try to raise a level of distraction to shift the attention away from the desperate situation at hand.

Indeed!

Can't believe I missed that report on Pal review from John. Thanks for the link.

> denial enablers.

denablers.

portmanteau.

"Mr. Nuccitelli ... realizes that it is in his best interest to try to obliterate evidence which paints a less than alarming picture of our climate future."

Huh? So presenting all of the data from a paper is "obliterating evidence"? What exactly should Michaels' performance be called? Adding evidence?

If someone is still searching for James Hansen's 1988 US Senate testimony, The Guardian posted most of it June 2008 in connection with a 20-year anniversary recognition of that milestone.

The URL is http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Environment/documents/2008/06/23/….

The Guardian post includes the transcript of Hansen's oral opening statement and his written statement (except for its Attachment A, cited as Reference 1 in the written statement).

This is a complete record of Hansen's testimony except for two items: (1) the referenced "Attachment A", which is a prepublication copy (already in letter-set form for the journal) of the JGR article cited in Hansen's written statement as Reference 1; and (2) the transcript of the question and answer period involving Hansen. (Both these items are in the archival printed Senate record, but not available online in the US Congress records.)

It's only a matter of time before Pat wins a Malaysian export award for conspicuous consumption of rubber graph paper and gum erasers.

Looks like Hansen's ClimateChangeHearing1988.pdf has gone walkabout again for neither GSW's link at #4 nor GP Alldredge's link in #22 work.

Lionel, the link at #22 works fine if you chop off the dot at the end. Like this.

Thanks Martin. How stupid of me, I normally look out for things like that or try cropping the URL to go up-directory but did miss that iota.

I did once have that doc but lost it in a drive corruption when a computer failed (it was the backup drive).

At the risk of causing problems where are the usuall suspects to defend this example of denial enabling?

Duff anyone.......

@GP Alldredge,

Thanks for the effort but your link gives me a 404.

@GP Alldredge,

Never mind, Martin Vermeer points out how to find it. Thank you so much for this effort.

Jeremy C asks:

where are the usuall suspects to defend this example of denial enabling?

[Chip Knappenberger](http://www.skepticalscience.com/patrick-michaels-serial-deleter-of-inco…), apologist for Michaels, is tying himself in Gordian knots over at SkepticalScience trying to excuse Michaels' dishonest graphs. This statement is hilarious:

We included our version of the figures to help visualize what the authors were describing in the abstracts. If the figures bother you so much, just put your hands over them when reading the article, the take home message is unaffected.

Ian Forrester:

> > just put your hands over them when reading the article, the take home message is unaffected.

Wonderful summary of the inactivist response to any evidence of wrongdoing by (other) inactivists.

Now we just need to turn this into a lolpic meme.

-- frank

31 Ian,

Not just an apologist. These are the "staff" at World Climate Report:-

Chief Editor: Patrick J. Michaels

Contributing Editor: Robert C. Balling, Jr.

Contributing Editor: Robert E. Davis

Administrator: Paul C. Knappenberger

re: 33
See p.6 of Pals and check out the groups (boxes) and other links (lines) among people.
Note that Knappenberger was student of Michaels and that U VA was sadly a hot spot, with Singer, Michaels, Davis, Knappenberger.
Note orange box (George Marshall Institute) which connects many.

If I ever update this, I'll add another box to cover Heartland. Counting only those who have been Contributing Editors/Authors for Heartland's Environment and Climate News, we have:
Balling, Baliunas, Davis, Michaels, Singer, Soon.

If we add others who've written for or quoted in E&CN, most of the rest of the pals are there. And, for one more graph of connections, see Weird Anti-Science, p.4.

Ian @ 30.

Thanks for that.

My jaw dropped at what you pasted hitting the ground with a clank.

FWIW, the Hansen 88 forcings were a bit low, but the climate sensitivity was a bit high. In any case, as Hansen pointed out, over a 10-15 year period, it would not make much difference

Did a comment from me get stuck in the spam box?

(Doesn't really matter too much, I think what I wrote has now been covered by others. Just checking.)

Never mind - just found it. Old age must be sending me blind.

I was rather surprised that Michaels attempted to defend the indefensible (his deletion of Scenarios B and C), and I'm working on a response post for SkS to point out the rather massive errors in his logic, which will probably be published Monday.

I do remember very well that Hansen's presentation made me think more about AGW as being a more pressing concern than I'd previously considered it. Back then many of us were more concerned with the remnant/cleanup from CFC destruction of the ozone layer - especially the big, irregularly shaped hole over antarctica - and in conjunction with that, in particular, about amphibians. People were also still concerned over nuclear power (Chernobyl was still fresh) and over overfishing, especially bottom fishing and the overlap of people's fishing with territorial waters. And so on. Dozens of things but we'd many of us always thought of AGW as that thing we'd someday have to prioritize. Back then, I thought about fixes and prevention about equally, I think. I'd been doing data and submission help on ozone stuff and scientific translation and submission stuff for both arctic and antarctic physics and biology. It was really a watershed moment.

> just put your hands over them when reading the article,
> the take home message is unaffected.

Double facepalm, that is.

Did Michaels ever say who they did that "advocacy science" presentation _for_? Someone pays for "advocacy science" and pays for it to be presented to the lawmakers.

Or in this case, science gets turned into "advocacy science" by deleting the inconvenient parts.

It's lying by omission, not a sin -- some would say it's the core job of the advocate.

At the risk of causing problems where are the usuall suspects to defend this example of denial enabling?

Duff anyone.......

Well, I've been arguing with a couple folks at Lucia's place. Funny enough one of the came up with the argument that SkS was "deleting data" by showing the full graphic from the paper and the same argument that the abstract is the important thing in papers, not the papers themselves.

>I was rather surprised that Michaels attempted to defend the indefensible (his deletion of Scenarios B and C)

You shouldn't be. It's the same defence that the first link in my post responds to.

The thick plottens; Eli points out that the graph 'adaptation' was actually simple - and clumsy - erasure of the original!

Notice, again, the [crickets] from the usual (and usually impossible to shutup) suspects? When even the likes of Duff aren't trying to defend you...

> Funny enough one of the came up with the argument that SkS was "deleting data" by showing the full graphic from the paper and the same argument that the abstract is the important thing in papers, not the papers themselves.

Up is down.
Black is white.
Ignorance is strength.

>The thick plottens; Eli points out that the graph 'adaptation' was actually simple - and clumsy - erasure of the original!

Heh, I thought that this was the point of all the blog responses to the initial Michaels post on WWWT. It was as plain as the elongating noses on their lying faces that the graph had been tampered with - I even loaded it into a graphics editor the same day to prove it to myself.

Of course, my cynicism started way back when [I suspected that Plimer had vectorised his H&E figure 3](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/05/ian_plimer_lies_about_source_o…). Ever since then I have been scrutinising denialist graphs for similar antics.

I should posted on it myself and pre-empted the rabbet!

Hide the decline.

48 OMFG,

Which? The decline in the standard of denialism? The decline in even the pretence of simple honesty? The decline in the knowledge of basic physics?

OMFG 48

The problem with the divergence problem is that it was a trivial presentational issue at the time and irrelevant now.

The never-let-it-go tactic has a shelf-life. Were you wiser, you would know this.

Tim - right you are, the exact same BAU defense as 5+ years ago. In my draft response post, I've added a link to that defense, as well as your response to it. My response makes a lot of the same points as yours - you mostly beat me to the punch! Though I also created some graphics quantifying why we did not follow a 'BAU' emissions path.

Still on schedule for publication Monday.

Dana, like I said, it's good to see my Amazon.com Ian Plimer pal posting on skeptical science.

Since when does âadaptedâ mean âredrawn or drawn from the dataâ? If I had the data that went into the graph, then I would have plotted up a new graphâbut whatâs the difference if I plot a new graph the way I want or alter some other graph so it plots what I want to show?

Chip Knappenberger defends the erasure over at Eli's.

SkS's post is just plain retarded. Michael's wrote a couple of blog posts and highlighted the relevant facts. I would hold a scientific paper to a higher standard, but for a blog post I'm fine with focusing on the main findings.

[snorts]

Ah, the palpable hypocrisy...

> Michael's wrote a couple of blog posts
Michaels erased stuff from charts he showed to Congress.

Michael's wrote a couple of blog posts and highlighted the relevant facts by whiting-out the facts he doesn't want anyone to know about.

>SkS's post highlighted the relevant facts. I'm fine with focusing on the findings.

See, [AJ at #54](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/01/more_fraud_from_pat_michaels.ph…), I did exactly what Michaels and Knappenberger did.

Apparently you'er fine with that too... even though it reverses your meaning.

Fool apologist.

I would hold a scientific paper to a higher standard, but for a denier's blog post commenting on the paper, I'm fine with lying, defrauding, photoshopping, obscuring...

One has to wonder how the AJs of the world would react if James Hansen had deleted data from a denialist paper, and presented the distorted findings to U.S. Congress.

Somehow I think they would be whistling a slightly different tune. Double-standard doesn't even come close to describing it.

a look back at 1988

"Sweating in the hearing room on a day of 98-degree record heat, Hansen told senators that there was "only a 1% chance of an accidental warming of this magnitude. ... The greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now."

"Sen. TIMOTHY WIRTH (D-CO), 1987-1993: We knew there was this scientist at NASA, you know, who had really identified the human impact before anybody else had done so and was very certain about it. So we called him up and asked him if he would testify.

DEBORAH AMOS: On Capitol Hill, Sen. Timothy Wirth was one of the few politicians already concerned about global warming, and he was not above using a little stagecraft for Hansen's testimony.

TIMOTHY WIRTH: We called the Weather Bureau and found out what historically was the hottest day of the summer. Well, it was June 6th or June 9th or whatever it was. So we scheduled the hearing that day, and bingo, it was the hottest day on record in Washington, or close to it.

DEBORAH AMOS: [on camera] Did you also alter the temperature in the hearing room that day?

TIMOTHY WIRTH: What we did is that we went in the night before and opened all the windows, I will admit, right, so that the air conditioning wasn't working inside the room. And so when the- when the hearing occurred, there was not only bliss, which is television cameras and double figures, but it was really hot.[Shot of witnesses at hearing]

WIRTH: Dr. Hansen, if youd start us off, wed appreciate it. The wonderful Jim Hansen was wiping his brow at the table at the hearing, at the witness table, and giving this remarkable testimony.[nice shot of a sweaty Hansen] "

tch tch tch

Looks like we all agree that Pat Michaels is a fraud.

I don't know if readers here have yet come across Edward Carr's 'Open the Echo Chamber' blog which has a number of rebuttals to Michaels' special brand of miss-direction including A guide to critically reading sources of climate misinformation (or, as I call it, mendacious crap).

I figure something like 'Michaels' Miss-direction' could become another quick action button at Skeptical Science.

What about the rest Pam? Oh yes that's right - it has some science - wouldn't want to include that. tch tch tch.

JAMES HANSEN: [June 1988 Senate hearing] Number one, the earth is warmer in 1988 than at any time in the history of instrumental measurements. Number two, the global warming is now large enough that we can ascribe, with a high degree of confidence, a cause-and-effect relationship to the greenhouse effect.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hotpolitics/etc/script.html

Fast forward to 2011.

Including 2011, all eleven years of the 21st century so far (2001-2011) rank among the 13 warmest in the 132-year period of record.

Pam - What's wrong with hitting someone with a 2 by 4 if that's what it takes to get their attention?

No source cited Pam, 'tch, tch, tch' indeed!

But of course you probably read that in Christopher Horner.

I do believe, those who suffer from fixed delusions, to them, their perceptions and interpretations of events make perfect sense, and everyone else is crazy, irrational, ignorantly unconcerned or part of the conspiracy.

Hence, the refusal to acknowledge the error of their ways,the application of double standards and fake science to support their inferior arguments.

Chip's self imposed "Gordian Knot Argument" at SkS, and Pat's misleading claims at 'WUWT' can be summed up neatly by Paul Krugman, thus :-

"Let me instead go meta; this is an example of why policy debate is so frustrating, and why Iâm not polite. The key thing about how the conservative movement handles debate is that it never gives up an argument, no matter how often and how thoroughly it has been refuted. Oh, there will be more sophisticated arguments made too; but the zombie lies will be rolled out again and again, with little or no pushback from the ârespectableâ wing of the movement."

Meanwhile, back in the real world of the big picture, far away from the argument "He says, She says!", the growth of investment in clean energy technology, continues unabated!

Who benefits?

retarded. Michael's

The Dunning-Kruger is strong in this one.

tch tch tch

What a remarkably stupid and foul intellectually dishonest ass you are, Pam, to employ this tu quoque argument that, aside from being the lowest form of fallacy, equates supposed scientist Pat Michaels, giving scientific testimony before Congress, to the theatrics of some politician who has been out of office for 19 years ... what a great way to defend Michaels. If you want to tsk tsk Timothy Worth, go do it where he can hear you, not here, where it is irrelevant ... or better yet do your tsk tsking in front of a mirror, you sickening slimeball.

inaman,

Has Kevin found his âmissing heatâ yet?

Pam,

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Kevin-Trenberth-travesty-cant-account-f…

Gee, you really are that stupid. Hansen's testimony is incorrect because of some Democrat Senator's stage managing? What's building an igloo outside the Capitol, then? Ever actually done any political campaigning?

And, oh God, it's the Trenberth trope again. Shouldn't that handle be sPam?

No doubt you think that by swooping in to splat these stale, whiffy, endlessly regurgitated morsels upon us you're being really clever, proving a point, whatever.

I think the place for you, since I doubt you'll have the decency to do us all a favour and simply quite while you're behind, is on the Jonas thread with your zombie peers...

Meanwhile, for the grownups; the next round (of 2) on Pat Michaels by Dana N is up over at SkS.

Obvious attempt at distracting attention from the initial point was obvious, Pam. Try again.
Michaels presented before the Congress distorded datas. I don't know the rules for US testimony, but I know a public representative doesn't like at all to be lied.

What missing energy?

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo1375.html

We should start a sweep. Will Pam's next comment contain the words "hockey stick"?

> We should start a sweep.

My bingo card is filling up quite nicely. Yours?

I agree that as an illustration of things to come, the 'stagecraft' of the 1988 hearing was pretty crude: the sweat was there, but those present had to add the blood and the tears in their own minds. Tck tck tck indeed.

@ zoot: I predict either "final nail in the coffin" or "HIDE THE DECLINE", perhaps followed by a dissertation on how science ended with Newton and so-called "medicine" isn't really science.

No, no, no.

Please, please, please.

This behaviour must stop

We should be applauding Pam's mash ups. She has bravely taken on the task of defending disinformation when the usuall suspects just know they can't even try and twist Michael's toe shots and are hiding this one out. Y'know, Duff babes, et al.

Instead, how about this:

Pam,

We admire your courage when those who shape your thinking have left well enough alone.

Pam, they have left you on your lonesome facing science with only the transparent and shabby shift of ideology to gird your loins and to hide your intellectual nakedness.

We ask you just two things: to consider the science and then bring it before those who seek to direct your thinking (this involves asking questions).

But we salute you and we will never, never stop!

Biology isn't a science, either. Just sayin'.

So a politician made the room hot when Hansen testified, and that has what exactly to do with Michaels distorting Hansen's research?

Also, as john byatt notes, a very bad time to be bringing up the 'missing heat' red herring.

As bill notes, the first part of the SkS response to Michaels' response is up, and examines his 'BAU' assertion in detail. Interestingly, the net forcing was closest to Scenario C, not A (or even B) in 1998. In fact, it was a bit below even Scenario C.

Part 2 tomorrow will examine what Michaels' presentation should have looked like, had it been accurate, and what this tells us about Hansen's model accuracy and real-world climate sensitivity.

inaman,

I a n a m. Pam i a m.

Has Kevin found his âmissing heatâ yet?

A p-i m.

Pam not only knows nothing about the subject of her question, but has no interest in finding out, and yet she thinks she's on the right side of the "debate" and is even winning it ... a textbook example of the DKE. We might have been able to reach Pam and folks like her in their early years with training in critical thinking and the scientific ethic, but at this point they're just dead weight.

@70.

It seems that no matter how many times you explain, reference, expand upon, or otherwise demonstrate what was meant by these 5 second sound bites from various emails (eg the "missing heat"), sceptics have a strange "cognitive block" which prevents them from absorbing the information.

Re: Heystoopid #67

Thanks for that quote from Paul Kruger â but could you reference it more precisely since it seems from Wiki he has written a huge amount and I would like to 'bash' some Libertarians elsewhere.

Sorry! in my last post I made a spelling mistake - should have been Krugman, not Kruger (smile)

@85 clippo, I caught that one from Eli @ Rabett Run, commenting on Chip's lack of open candor at being caught out with much red herring on his face and [non full disclosure!](http://rabett.blogspot.com/2012/01/wo-comment.html)

The extra missing lines:- "In comments and elsewhere I fairly often encounter the pearl-clutchers, who want to know why I canât politely disagree, since weâre all arguing in good faith, right? Wrong."

The complete reference can be found in Paul's [New York Times Blog 'Tweeting Dead'!](http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/the-tweeting-dead/)

@ Lionel A | January 22, 2012 10:55 AM

No source cited Pam, 'tch, tch, tch' indeed!
But of course you probably read that in Christopher Horner.

Who?

Did you mean Christopher Booker eg. from his 'The Real Global Warming Disaster' (Continuum, 2009) book?

SteveR #88

No Christopher C Horner 'Red Hot Lies How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed'.

The irony of the sub-title it burns. Poor grammar too with that ',' between 'Fraud' and 'Deception' - on a book cover at that.

SteveR #88

I made a post which looks lost in moderation (probly due to long URL) where I linked to a Google books of Christopher C Horner's 'Red Hot Lies How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed'.

The irony it burns, poor grammar too with that ',' between 'Fraud' and 'Deception', for a book title at that.

A Google on

"Timothy Wirth" AND "Deborah Amos"

should drop you in on the very page.

SteveR I have tried to provide citation for Christopher Horner but am not getting anything through.

Thanks Heystoopid.

Since your link, Iâve also done some âKrugmanâ research and found this from:-

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/opinion/republicans-against-science.h…

Now, we donât know who will win next yearâs presidential election. But the odds are that one of these years the worldâs greatest nation will find itself ruled by a party that is aggressively anti-science, indeed anti-knowledge. And, in a time of severe challenges â environmental, economic, and more â thatâs a terrifying prospect.

And I think that was picked up internationally â certainly by the Daily Telegraph in the UK.

[Christopher C. Horner](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_C._Horner)

SteveR #88

The Christopher Horner source was 'Red Hot Lies' found by searching on:

"Timothy Wirth" AND "Deborah Amos"

attempts at being more specific seem to not get through.

Strangely (or not so strangely, given the Horner connection) [July not June temperatures are historically higher in Washington D.C..](http://www.weather.com/weather/wxclimatology/monthly/graph/USDC0001)

Both June 6th & 9th weighed in at 81ºF in 1988, with as in most other years July being hotter, [with both 6th & 9th July hitting 96ºF](http://www.almanac.com/weather/history/DC/Washington/1988-07-06)

Given that the US legislature recesses for the summer from the first week of August, would anyone be surprised that the Wirth anecdote does not withstand scrutiny?

See comment #64. The quotes are from the transcript of a PBS Frontline doco on global warming. Deborah Amos is the reporter. It documents how the fossil fuel industry has been blocking action on climate change in the USA. It also documents how piss weak the Clinton/Gore admin was and the Democrats were/are.

SteveR

My more explicit replies containing references to Christopher Horner and Red Hot Lies have now turned up at #89 and #90.

An idea for an open thread.

You've been skiing, when you lose control and hit a tree. Your leg hurts a lot, and you can't stand on it. You get carried down the mountain and end up seeing the ski resort doctor, who is a free thinking sort, who doesn't trust the established orthodoxy. You say that you think the leg might be broken. Naturally he thinks its not that simple. How does this skeptical doctor explain the pain in your leg?

@89
"The irony of the sub-title it burns. Poor grammar too with that ',' between 'Fraud' and 'Deception' - on a book cover at that."

I don't want to defend Horner (and, really, I'm not since he wasn't the person who designed the cover), but the comma was placed correctly. It should *not* be "...Threats, Fraud and Deception...". Or better yet, it certainly doesn't have to be. "...Threats, Fraud, and Deception..." is a perfectly fine construction, grammatically speaking. Fraud and deception are separate ideas, needing a separating comma (technically called a serial comma, as it is the last one before the "and").

There are so many real things to attack in that book; no need to invent more.

Poor grammar too with that ',' between 'Fraud' and 'Deception'

Uh, wrong.

There are so many real things to attack in that book; no need to invent more.

Indeed, the criticism is petty and stupid, a sort of grammatical Dunning-Kruger effect.

http://www.amazon.com/Eats-Shoots-Leaves-Tolerance-Punctuation/dp/15924…

OK. So I may have erred, never having known about the use of a comma in this way. BTW it still looks wrong in the context.

So to describe me as creating a 'grammatical Dunning-Kruger effect' is just as petty, and stupid, as you, think, my, error, was.

Enough commas for you? ;-)

But then that is one of the 'entertaining' things about ianam, always a bit OTT with the vitriol. This even though I agree with your position on any debate

And lest you get me wrong, I am one of the so called warmists having studied and taken on board much of the science that underpins our understanding of AGW and of its reality.

Whatever, sorry for the unintended distraction.

@98 "How does this skeptical doctor explain the pain in your leg?"

That's easy, the answer is...GALILEO!!!!1!!

(Galileo! Galileo Figaro...Magnifico-o-o-o-oh)

[Heartland Institute sending a pack of lies to 14,000 US school board officials.](http://www.desmogblog.com/fakeducation-years-heartland)

That is what I call a big scandal!