Senator Jaegermeister . . . Why Do You Rise?

UPDATE BELOW: 12/30 -- Statement plus priceless photo link!

Who was the Roman god of wine, inspired madness and drunkenness?

Let's see . . . would it have been Bacchus?

Ahhh, yes . . . I think it was! In Greek mythology, it was the twice-born Dionysus (Dionysos), although, interestingly, the use of the name "Bacchus," for both the votary and god, was actually cited by Greek and Roman sources (fn # 2).

Well, it sure looks to me like somebody from Montana wants to become the Senate replacement for Ted Kennedy, no?

According to Politico, at the link:

An email seeking comment has been sent to Sen. Baucus's office and we will update this post when we hear back.

Will this make the evening news? Not very likely . . . unless Fox News decides to run with it.

p.s. Young ladies are hereby cautioned not to ride in any vehicle where "Mad" Max is behind the wheel . . .

UPDATE: A statement released by the Office of Senator Baucus to Patrick Gavin at Politico, posted in an update here, claims his "passionate defense" was turned into "an unfounded, untrue personal smear internet rumor," i.e., that he was intoxicated while giving the finger-pointing speech memorialized by the video, above.

"When his friend of 30 years Ted Kennedy, with whom he had fought so hard to provide health care to children, was being used as a cheap foil to oppose health care reform, Senator Baucus gave a passionate defense. Unfortunately, those who want to kill any meaningful reform, turned it into an unfounded, untrue personal smear internet rumor. This is beyond the pale and this type of gutter politics has no place in the public sphere. It is this type of slander that makes Montanans, and Americans, disgusted with the politics as usual in Washington. And what is even more sad is that such a personal attack would be given any validity at all, let alone being elevated to the status of 'news'."

Heh. A classic non-denial denial!

And, here's a link to a slightly more close-up photo of Senator Baucus -- not one taken that evening. Heh.

Any questions? (ht: comment by BKeyser on a HotAir thread, here.)

The Fudge Factor!

In my last post I asked what some others seem also to be asking in various ways . . . "Is Science Itself At Risk?"

People are asking these questions because of the myriad issues that keep arising regarding the work of the progenitors of anthropogenic global warming and climate change.

It seemed to me that the question naturally arises because of what unexplained approximations, private doubts expressed by the scientists themselves, destruction of raw data, data manipulations, employment of "tricks" to "hide the decline," evasions, possible violations of FOI requirements, etc. -- all have been and continue to be exposed, and are all threaded throughout the underbelly of what is being presented in the name of settled science. Thus, so much of what had been recently offered to the world as "science" to be believed, now appears to be riven with quite unsettling and unanswered questions.

And, in addition to all the serious questions many have raised arising out of the revelations of the e-mail and data dump late last month from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in the UK, it now appears there is yet another very serious problem associated with the work compiled over there at the CRU -- unprofessional computer source coding (ht for clip, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, here).

Brace yourself!

It seems that a writer of the source code underscoring their modeling work rather openly and candidly admits that he is somewhat incompetent, and not always up to the task!

On almost a daily basis, new revelations and very troubling information arises regarding global warming science. It does not mean that there is no basis to it. But this is beginning to look like the Leng T'che "slow slicing" -- or, "death by a thousand cuts."

So, many would argue that playing 52 pick-up with the entire world economy might not be such a hot idea, given those unanswered questions. In fact, it might not be such a hot idea, even if the anthropogenic basis of the prognosticators is eventually shown to have merit. That is because, as scientists like Richard S. Lindzen persuasively argue, the scare tactics of claimed climate change are an entirely different story.

He asked in that recent Wall Street Journal piece entitled, "The Climate Science Isn't Settled":

What does all this have to do with climate catastrophe? The answer brings us to a scandal that is, in my opinion, considerably greater than that implied in the hacked emails from the Climate Research Unit (though perhaps not as bad as their destruction of raw data): namely the suggestion that the very existence of warming or of the greenhouse effect is tantamount to catastrophe. This is the grossest of "bait and switch" scams. It is only such a scam that lends importance to the machinations in the emails designed to nudge temperatures a few tenths of a degree.

You would think this that this "climategate" scandal was becoming a bigger and bigger source of acute embarrassment, especially to those international architects and proponents of massive changes in our world's international economic order, the ones gathered as they all are in Copenhagen, negotiating agreements for underscoring the very energy future of our entire globe, a new and very limiting order attempting to bind developing and developed nations alike.

Now we come to the latest "cut" --- we find out that, on top of all the other issues cited above, that the lofty and grand future economic edifice being negotiated, is firmly rooted, at least in some small part, on the computer modeling work of some self-effacing code writer who readily concedes that, owing to his personal limitations, he has employed a "work-around" or two . . . thereby actually introducing a "fudge factor" right into the scientific mix!

His words!

What the . . . !! Go on. Take a look for yourself. Click on the arrow in the clip below.

Is Science Itself At Risk?

UPDATE, below: In the embedded Wall Street Journal sponsored "Journal Editorial Report" below, Paul Gigot talks about the overall context of this weeks Copenhagen climate conference, and the various implications thereof, in light of the unfolding scandal at the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. Arising out of the recent massive release of e-mails, and other evidence, much of the documentation suggested subversion of the peer review process, detailing of deliberate efforts to refuse to comply with FOI requests, recommendations to "lose" data, and even actual data manipulation in the modeling process itself.

Gigot queries the Wall Street Journal's Daniel Henninger, Kimberly Strassel, and Bret Stephens about their takes on meaning of the various aspects of the scandal.

Henninger begins by saying that in light of indications of public opinion shifting to a view that suggests scientists in general are manipulating data, the "rest of science" -- those outside the climate science community -- should speak out publicly and "defend the people who are trying to get more transparency into the [climate science] process."

Strassel makes the singularly important point that, from her perspective, it is not just the exposure of pettiness (as was indeed revealed in the e-mails) or even the implications of politicization therein that matters most. She says that the most disturbing evidence is what strongly suggests actual data manipulation being written right into the code of the computer models themselves. She notes that in conversations with statisticians and others, they "say it is an absolute mess, full of lots of fudges and little sleighs-of-hand, all designed to plump up the case for rising temperatures."

Stephens reiterates that these revelations show what amounts to "sausage factory methods" being used by some of these scientists, picking and choosing some data, while ignoring other data, in order to arrive at conclusions that, after all, attempt to show what are really relatively tiny differences in the temperature record over the decades. In other words, it hasn't taken much in the way of manipulation to create these supposed shifts.

Here is the Wall Street Journal clip:




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Andrew Bolt has posted an additional point of interest today, one coming from the "guru" himself, Al Gore, who, when questioned about the impact of the e-mail release, in an interview by John Dickerson posted on Slate, attempted to dismiss the entire controversy by suggesting that it is much ado over nothing but ten year old e-mails!

Really Al?

Here is a link to a searchable version of the entire set of the exposed CRU and East Anglia e-mails. As anyone can see, the considerable number of e-mails range over a more than ten-year period -- 1996 thru 2009 -- with many of the latest and most significant e-mails being a mere one or two months old -- ones from October and November of 2009!

Below is just one recent example, the full exchange of which is laid out here. It is the Phil Jones e-mail response to fellow scientist, Keith Briffa, reacting to a recent re-request for tree ring data supporting a Briffa study. The very specific data request had come from Dr. Don Keiller, who refers to a post of Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit (CA) (new site) in his request.

The blatant recommendation by Phil Jones to stonewall Dr. Keiller, and refuse to appropriately respond to his request is quite manifest:

From: Phil Jones
To: k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: FW: Yamal and paleoclimatology
Date: Wed Oct 28 16:04:00 2009

Keith,

There is a lot more there on CA now. I would be very wary about responding to this person now having seen what McIntyre has put up.
You and Tim talked about Yamal. Why have the bristlecones come in now.
[1]http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=7588#comments
This is what happens - they just keep moving the goalposts.
Maybe get Tim to redo OB2006 without a few more series.
Cheers
Phil

Al Gore simply loses all credibility when making comments like the one he made above -- alleging that the controversy is all just about ten-year old e-mails! The released e-mail record throughout the years is replete with ones as damaging as this less than two month old one written by Phil Jones.

In his piece, Andrew Bolt pointedly noted that Gore falsely claimed three times during the interview that the controversy was only about ten year old e-mails. So, you also really have to wonder what it says about John Dickerson of Slate, who let Gore get away with those complete misrepresentations without calling him on it at any point! Maybe he never read the e-mails either?


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In other news, it looks like Laura Nichols, a student reporter for the school newspaper at Penn State University, the Daily Collegian Online, has broken details of the story about how Penn State has indeed also launched an investigation into Michael Mann's role in the explosive "ClimateGate" scandal, ht, Climate Audit, here. The University of East Anglia had previously announced an internal investigation regarding the scandal that has hit its Climate Research Unit (CRU) as a result of the e-mail dump.

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UPDATE: Ed Morrissey, at HotAir, posts about the effects that the

"homogenization" process at the NOAA’s Global Historical Climate Network had on the temperature readings.

The possible implications are simply stunning, and yet consistent with concerns raised in the e-mails . . . the process literally "falsified climate declines into increases" as Ed noted in his headline. You should read the whole thing.

West Point Is "The Enemy Camp?"

UPDATE, below: MSNBS political opinionator, Chris Matthews, commenting just after the Obama speech regarding Afghanistan, which the President delivered December 1, 2009, at the United States Military Academy at West Point in New York.

Honestly, is there a bigger fool in public life today than this furrowing-feeler? He calls West Point the "enemy camp!"



This one, of course, was only the latest in that ample tapestry of gaffes that Matthews has woven over the years.

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UPDATE: Apparently Chris Matthews took a lot of heat today for calling the United States Military Academy at West Point the "enemy camp" during his analytical reaction to the Presidents's speech on Afghanistan last night. And he took that he, not just from cadets, or former cadets (which, as you will see, are the only "critics" he acknowledges in the video below) but from a whole raft of Americans, including, you would have to believe, from his bosses at MSNBC.

Certainly, the phones there must have rung off the hook on this one!

So, Chris did an about face and issued the following on-air apology, attempting thereby, as you will hear, to set himself above the strawman politicians who he says would have tried to talk their way around it.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Nope. I don't buy it.

I have never believed Chris Matthews was any more than a vile and disingenuous political hack, even back in the days when he first showed up on television and pretended to take a more broadly bipartisan approach to his commentary. To me, he is the most thoroughly dishonest and reprehensible commentator on the air today. And that specifically includes his air-time buddy at MSNBC, Keith Olberman, who at least doesn't try to hide his utter personal contempt for traditional American values, or for that matter, for virtually anything that this country has stood for over the years.