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r.pauli at 05:46 AM on 26 March 2012Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton
Just posted interview of Peter Hadfield by Peter Sinclair - Potholer54 and Greenman3610 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZKzJwMOWAI -
logicman at 05:44 AM on 26 March 2012Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton
I am continually amazed that some US politicians look to Monckton for advice on anything at all. He self-evidently does not believe in democracy. Here is the proof. In 1999 the British government passed a law taking away the right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords. The 1999 Act is quite short and is very clear in its meaning. The House of Lords Act 1999, section 1, provides firstly that "No-one shall be a member of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage". Section 2 provides for exceptions. The only exception rule which might apply to Monckton is 2,(6):"Any question whether a person is excepted from section 1 shall be decided by the Clerk of the Parliaments, whose certificate shall be conclusive." The Clerk of the Parliaments has publicly certified that Monckton is not entitled to sit in the House of Lords - Letter to Viscount Monckton of Brenchley from David Beamish, the Clerk of the Parliaments. According to the constitution and common law of our British democracy, the highest law in the land is an Act of Parliament enacted by both houses and signed by the sovereign. Accordingly, the 1999 Act is a manifestation of democratic and sovereign power. Monckton's continual assertion or implication that he is a member of the House of Lords is contrary to fact, contrary to law and contrary to the democratic and constitutional principles and practices of the United Kingdom. In effect, he is trying to apply his own diktat as a trump card over and above democracy. Given what Americans have been through in the past to protect their democratic freedoms I am surprised that they even let Monckton into their country, much less listen to his tosh and piffle. The public also deserves to know that what Monckton doesn't know about science would probably fill the world's science libraries. -
r.pauli at 05:42 AM on 26 March 2012Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton
Monckton is the dominate climate demagogue. And his name should be added to the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demagogy "20th-century American social critic and humorist H. L. Mencken, defined a demagogue as "one who will preach doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots." But unlike other demagogues - the stakes here are are total. On the spaceship Earth - we are hosting a climate demagogue spouting dangerous hallucinations of how to manage our atmosphere. Disturbing, like seeing a navigator in a jet fighter, playing with the ejection lever. Until now, our imperfect species has always managed to survive by tolerating a 15% lunatic fringe... but now that it applies to technical life-support systems, we are stymied by our inability to shut them down or re-educate them. What a pity. -
chris at 05:33 AM on 26 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
DB, perhaps you could do the same for me. As someone who signed up quite a long time ago, I suspect that the email address I signed up with might also not be valid any longer....even 'though SkepticalScience returns my password to my current email address when I "pretend" I've forgotton my password. So I am signed up under the user "chris", and I would like a new password to be sent to the email address associated with that username. ...hope that makes sense...
Response:[DB] I have reset your account & sent an email with the details to the email account on file.
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Rob Honeycutt at 05:00 AM on 26 March 2012Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton
What's really fascinating is to think back to 1972 when John Lennon was deported for FAR milder rhetoric. -
Martin at 04:54 AM on 26 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
@ John Cook Hi John, I hope I'm not sounding to impatient as this is my third comment. I still have not been able to change my password. Perhaps I'm not doing everything correctly. Could you either give me precise instructions or delete my user? Cheers, Martin
Response:[DB] I have changed your password, but the email you signed up under for this user ID does not appear to be valid. Are you also signed up under the user "martin"? If so, I will send the new password to that email address.
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jatufin at 04:43 AM on 26 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
I myself sent email to Watts thanking his actions relating this stupid little episode. If we can stick to the old proverb "things fight, not people", there's still hope. -
Bob Loblaw at 03:58 AM on 26 March 2012Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton
Yes, it is kind of scary, Rob. I'm having a flashback to a M*A*S*H* episode where the 4077th is caring for a bunch of Korean orphans. Col. Potter is reading an army jeep maintenance manual to several kids (probably 1-3 years old), as if it were a kids' bedtime story. The kids don't speak a word of english, but they are loving every minute of it. The moral of the story: it doesn't matter what you say, but how you say it. The speaker is the coach - there to pump everyone up for The Big Game - and the audience only hears the Rah-Rah-Rah boosterism and couldn't care less that the content is jibberish. To paraphrase Elmer Fudd: be vewy, vewy afwaid. They're *not* just hunting wabbits. -
Rob Honeycutt at 03:33 AM on 26 March 2012Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton
caerbannog @ 18... That is a truly frightening accounting of the event. -
Lou Grinzo at 03:28 AM on 26 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Oh, great. Now the whole world will know that my PW here was "JohnCookIsACyborg". How embarrassing. But on a slightly more sane note, I think this incident is a classic revelatory action. It shows [1] how effective SkS has been in the eyes of the deniers. That doesn't really tell us much about the deniers; you'd have to be too dumb to use a browser not to see the SkS influence online. And they're certainly at least that competent. And [2] it shows just how utterly desperate deniers are to throw sand in the gears of science and efforts to communicate science's findings to a wider audience. Given the nature of this site and the lack of anything "interesting" they could have acquired by their nefarious means, it's one of the last ones I would have expected them to attack. So I have to admit to being slightly surprised. Ever onwards. -
snapple at 02:59 AM on 26 March 2012Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton
Lord Monckton has appeared more than once on Russia Today. This government-owned TV channel belongs to the Russian government's press agency RIA Novosti and used to feature Western denialists, but on March 17, the famous climate scientists Michael Mann was interviewed. RT was very gracious to Dr. Mann, but they seem to have amnesia, because they blamed denialism on the American politicians and the Heartland and did not take responsibility for also spreading the Climategate lies. RT criticized the Heartland, but the Heartland has cited RIA Novosti's attacks on the climate scientists. Heartland and other denialists deserve our contempt, but the Russian government's press agencies were also spreading the same lies. Now the line has changed: The Heartland, Monckton, and others are tossed under the bus. Still, RT and its parent RIA Novosti were spreading the same propaganda as the Western denialists. Shouldn't the leaders of Russia also be held to account? I think if the Russians are having Dr. Mann on TV, they should also apologize for the lies they told about the climate scientists. I don't know if the Russian leaders will do this or not, but I think they are the leaders of a superpower and will do this before Inhofe or Cuccinelli apologize. Here are the details. http://www.legendofpineridge.blogspot.com/2012/03/climate-change-scientist-michael-mann.html -
Eric (skeptic) at 02:31 AM on 26 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Is access to the database " restricted only to myself" (i.e. John Cook) or restricted to John Cook plus the forum software which must access the database to do its job. If the latter (which makes the most sense to me) then the forum software contains both a username and password in its configuration files either in clear text or in a form that can be automatically decrypted by the SW which might as well be clear text. Regardless of that, the only plausible explanation for the leak is external hacking, most likely by exploiting vulnerabilities that Andylee has talked about. My own instance of PHPBB was hacked, it is unfortunately all too common. -
funglestrumpet at 02:18 AM on 26 March 2012Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton
Perhaps we as a species really do not deserve to survive. Just look at the facts: The powers that be observe that the climate is changing and are sufficiently alarmed to set up the IPCC. This enables the world's leading climate scientists and other leading scientists in related fields to pool their expertise and analyse the state of the science in the relevant papers on the subject. From this analysis they then advise those in the legislature regarding policy on the issue. By way of 'thanks', they get a whole army of people: Delingpole, Philips, Hitchens, The Tea Party, The Republican Party, etc. etc. ridiculing them for all their hard work on all our behalves, while speaking from positions of breathtaking scientific ignorance and even invoking Genesis on occasion. They, like sks, get their private details hacked, and in some instances they get court proceedings taken against them. In fact, the list of 'retaliatory' acts seems endless. Perhaps the denialati don't realise that Mother Nature has declared war on us and she has some heavy armaments her arsenal. In a war situation, the last thing anyone should do is try to disrupt the work of the intelligences agency (IPCC) in formulating a 'state of play' regarding what the enemy is doing (Mother Nature) and offering advice on what our strategy should be in response. Yet that is exactly what Monckton and a whole army of like minded individuals are doing. Perhaps, difficult as it is to believe, the likes of Monckton actually want Mother Nature to have her wicked way with us. Perhaps they think that they and their progeny will be able to survive the troubles that lie ahead and come out on top, so to speak, in much the same way the collaborators in WW2 believed they were in for a good life at the end of hostilities. Perhaps those who are fans of Monckton have not spotted that His Lordship has a much more interesting life than they almost certainly do, flitting around the world as he does giving the same old same old (complete with known misleading statements) to audiences of adoring fans. Keith Barry and Derren Brown deceive their audiences, but only for the purposes of entertainment. It is difficult to work out the motives behind Monckton's audience deception. I for one would love to see who pays for all this globe-trotting and associated expenses. Perhaps his need to be in the limelight is so desperate, he pays for it all himself. Perhaps Peter Hadfield is right in allowing for the possibility that Monckton's misleading statements are genuinely unintentional. I would do the same if they did not include so many misrepresentations of hardworking scientists who are engaged on our side of the fight; misrepresentations that appear very deliberate to me. Perhaps we should not view Monckton as a collaborator, but it is hard not to. Perhaps he is not receiving any benefit from his actions on climate change other than a fun life being the centre of attention, something that he appears to crave. But there again, perhaps we really should view him thus. What really saddens me is that so many young people support his efforts to blight their future; like the cannon fodder of WW1 admiring the generals who were sending them 'over the top' to their almost certain deaths in a war they had been told was the war to end wars. ("Well, young Willy McBride, it's all happened again and again and again and again.") Perhaps Mother Nature is not really at war with us. Perhaps all she is doing is reacting as Gaia to a virus infection called humankind that has reached a tipping point in terms of its population and needs culling. When a person gets sick with a virus infection, the usual response is a rise in temperature. It would seem that the earth is only doing likewise. Perhaps Monckton is only acting as an anti-body, or somehow sees himself as such. Perhaps I should admit defeat, but I cannot. I regard Monckton and all those like him, together with their supporters that give them the oxygen of publicity, as my enemy, my children's enemy and the enemy of their children, unborn and unnamed. With that in mind I will fight them with all my might. Perhaps in Monckton's case Mother Nature will do the job for me. When a soldier runs away, as Monckton has so clearly done on this occasion, instead of standing their ground, the usual response is a court marshal for cowardice, followed by a blindfold and a target marker over the heart. I wonder how Mother Nature will deal with his cowardice. If he were genuinely worth his peerage, he would have the courage to either offer a defence of his seemingly misleading statements, or admit his error and amend his presentations accordingly. Perhaps he will, but I doubt that he has the courage. -
caerbannog at 02:08 AM on 26 March 2012Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton
#11: At the beginning of the event, the audience was told about opponents who were trying to get the event cancelled, to suppress their freedom to "hear the other side", yadda, yadda, yadda. It was made clear that anyone disrupting the proceedings in any way would be tossed out immediately. When Monckton asked people in the audience to raise their hands if they thought that global-warming could really be a potential problem, I raised my hand, and was almost the only one in the audience to do so (in fact, I may *have* been the only one). Questions to Monckton were to be submitted on 3x5 cards, and he did trouble himself to answer several "backside-kissing" questions. No need for question-screening with this audience! The event was structured in a way as to prevent any direct challenges to Monckton. Monckton just *loves* adoring fans, and events like this are specifically taylored to serve those fans up to him. BTW, Monckton got *three* standing-ovations during his show. At any rate, trying to engage Monckton in any sort of "reality based" debate would have been about as productive as taking on Duane Gish in a megachurch. One of Monckton's talking-points was the old "hockey-sticks from random noise" claim. To rebut that, you would basically have to explain stuff like autocorrelation lengths, eigenvalues, etc. to "Bubba". #15 AFAICT, the event was publicized only in the right-wing "orthogonal universe", i.e. via "tea party" web-sites, etc. I found out about it when I saw a climateprogress.org piece about the California GOP inviting Monckton to speak in Sacramento. Did a bit of Googling to see where else Monckton might be going; got a hit on a tea-party web-site and followed a couple of links from there. In retrospect, I feel a bit silly and naive about my on-line attempts to get some UCSD/SIO folks to attend the event -- I mean, just what *was* I thinking??? -
Philippe Chantreau at 01:18 AM on 26 March 2012Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton
Off course, Monckton can't answer. Hadfield's video is full of footage of Monckton himself putting his foot in his mouth and ramming it down as far as it will reach. It is so plain and obvious that it takes Watts all his denial power to wiggle away from it. -
thanes at 01:08 AM on 26 March 2012Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton
Caerbannog, I've spent many good hours also, wasted, debating things with the intellectually derailed or dishonest, and I have to say the efforts have helped me fill in holes in my understanding of the science. By now (and in fact, probably for the last year), the diminishing returns have gotten infinitesimal. There seem to be now three kinds of postings- those by conservative ideologues with no intellectual integrity, hired shills, and the truly paranoid. The first are, unfortunately, people I think still must be engaged. The second should be identified and exposed ( I have NO idea how to do that, but it's got to be possible) and as to the third, as soon as you realize it, I think the response should be the same as during an in-person exchange, when you suddenly realize that you are speaking with someone delusional or psychotic, you back away slowly, showing your hands, making calming sounds. -
skywatcher at 01:00 AM on 26 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Password successfully changed, no problem for me there. No sign of unusual spam etc as yet either. It seems to be becoming some kind of a (rather twisted) badge of honour to be targeted by illegal hackers - a nod to the high quality of work done by SkS. It seems to be all the hackers can resort to as they are totally lacking in evidence for their point of view. paulchevin #75, for a while on one of the SkS articles there was an image that was linked (IIRC) to a NOAA page, which triggered a random login popup window for NOAA, not sure if that would be related? -
muoncounter at 00:58 AM on 26 March 2012Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton
caerbannog: Do you know how this event was publicized beforehand? It would be interesting to see how 'they' were able to attract such a distinguished audience and get some of those folks out of their bunkers. This could be an early warning of another active summer for the teabag crowd - like the summer of the health care debate. -
Doc Snow at 22:47 PM on 25 March 2012Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton
"From what I saw tonight, I would have to say that most of the people who attended the Monckton show are very unlikely to be moved by appeals to evidence and logic." Well, I spent more time than I would have liked yesterday--on a beautiful Saturday, no less--"debating" with just such idiots (Canadian ones, FWIW.) Second Law, yadda yadda, Faith-based AGW, yadda yadda, lying scientists, yadda yadda. I (and a few othermasochistsdedicated posters) keep giving 'em facts, which invariably sink without a trace in what passes for consciousness with such denialists. I just have to keep reminding myself that it's the reader passing by, not the ostensible opponent, for whom the truth may be important. (The worst of that is, there have got to be very few lurkers as such threads spin out--sensible, normal folk must flee them in droves. It does raise questions about the efficient use of time.) All of which is to say that my appreciation for Peter Hadfield's efforts runs deep. It takes a lot of work and patience, and he's done a magnificent job. There can be no question as to whether Monckton is a serial fabulator--you can, IMO, write QED on the file. -
Riccardo at 22:08 PM on 25 March 2012Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton
caerbannog thank you for sharing your experience with the Monckton-Tea Party crowd. Although in any country we have skeptics and deniers there are traits characteristic of the anglo-saxon world that aren't easy to decipher for us "barbarians" (as strangers, the original meaning of the greek word). -
Bern at 22:06 PM on 25 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Well, I had no difficulty changing my password. It was unique to this site, anyway. Like others here, I'm not in the least bit surprised that SkS has been targeted for an unethical & illegal attack by the 'other side'. Sorry to see they've been somewhat successful, though. And I'm happy to admit that my opinion of Anthony Watts just went up a few notches after reading this thread. -
bill4344 at 21:03 PM on 25 March 2012Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton
Um so Watts can understand His Lordship's British accent, but not Peter Hadfield's British accent? Extraordinary! And strikingly convenient. Throw in a little guilt-by-association, and a handy strawman about 'obsession', and you can wander away from the scene while whistling just a little too loudly in the dark, all the while waiting for something shiny to turn up and distract the troops from the whole sorry mess. As it will. Inevitable conclusion: Monckton cannot answer Hadfield. And Watts knows it. But on the whole their audience doesn't care, because they'd rather believe - it's what they're good at - whether it be in faked birth certificates, global Communist conspiracies, or English aristocrats who are smarter than the entire trained scientific establishment, don'tchaknow? -
Sapient Fridge at 20:10 PM on 25 March 2012Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton
caerbannog, doesn't sound like a good event to express opposing opinions. I assume you kept your mouth firmly shut on the night? ;-) Looks like Monckton's doing a runner and isn't going to reply to potholer54's points. This post (24/03/12 8:13am) from Anthony Watts seems to indicate that he wants to end this embarrasing debate early, without needing any reply from his Lord: REPLY: While I can’t hear what Hadfield is saying (he sounds like a British mumble to me) they seem totally infatuated with their manhunt, so much for Hadfield’s repeated claims of being “dispassionate and logical”. Thanks for posting this. When he starts colluding with that hateful “greenman”, all semblance of rational debate is destroyed. This video then cements my decision not to provide any further space to Hadfield here. – Anthony -
paulchevin at 19:22 PM on 25 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
A few days ago (sorry, I can't remember exactly when) I received a popup message when I visited SKS. It was a standard Windows prompt for me to log on. I chose to ignore the message, closed the window and found that I was already logged on. I don't know sufficient about computers to say whether this could be relevant to what has happened, but it has certainly never happened before or since. Paul -
caerbannog at 19:21 PM on 25 March 2012Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton
OK folks, I took one for the team and went to see Monckton do his thing. Drove up to the USD campus (where Monckton was speaking), parked the car and started looking around for the auditorium -- when I spotted a parked car with a "Show Us Your Birth Certificate" bumper-sticker, I knew that I was close. Saw some other (ahem) "interesting" bumper-stickers, including a variation on the ecumenical "Coexist" bumper-sticker. But instead of being spelled out with various religious symbols in an inclusive manner, the "Coexist" letters were formed from various types of automatic weapons. Well, when I got to the auditorium, I very quickly found myself in a parallel (no, make that *orthogonal*) universe. There might have been as many 500 people there (300-seat auditorium and a big overflow room) -- can't say exactly, but there were way more people than could fit into the auditorium. The event was MC'd by California GOP assemblyman Brian Jones, and he was not shy about serving up plenty of full-strength Koolaid. There were references to the UN, "Agenda 21", evil, lying scientists, etc. etc... The global conspiracy against America is truly far-reaching, nebulous, and ill-defined. Based on the reactions to the MC's dog-whistling, it didn't take me very long to realize that many of the people sitting around me were completely unhinged -- we are talking tinfoil-hatville to the max. Monckton served up plenty of "red meat" during his presentation -- he did not hesitate to dish out hate and bile directed at the scientific community -- he singled out Naomi Oreskes for special attention, referring to her as "that monstrous woman", and then he said something along the lines of "We in the UK are working to decertify the University of California as a legitimate academic institution". This California crowd then erupted into loud applause. I knew that the tea-party types are a bit "off", shall we say -- but the paranoia and conspiracy-mongering were even more than what I was expecting. It's really a bit more than spooky, when I come to think of it. When I was a kid, people like these would be seen handing out leaflets at airports -- now, they call the shots in a major US political party. And as for Potholer54, all I can say is that as much as I appreciate his efforts and love his videos, Monckton has tapped into such a lucrative "mother lode" of American loonery that he can simply ignore the good Potholer. Any refutation of Monckton's claims, no matter how well documented and presented, will simply be folded into the right-wing paranoid conspiracy narrative. From what I saw tonight, I would have to say that most of the people who attended the Monckton show are very unlikely to be moved by appeals to evidence and logic. -
John Mason at 18:49 PM on 25 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Jeez - what a weekend. Friday afternoon we find out what has happened and start investigating. By Friday night frantically changing passwords all over the place and manage to knock coffee over keyboard in process, and Saturday get a new keyboard and return to discover the whole town's telecoms are down - broadband, cashpoints, the lot. This morning by contrast seems a bit more normal! So I can now catch-up: it's good to read that Watts, despite our frequent differences, has vetoed spreading what is basically a stack of personal data further. The climate debate can be a street-fight at times, but perhaps we should all reflect that vigorous disagreement is one thing, but a line should be drawn as to what constitutes fair play. Things like this go well beyond that. -
monkeyorchid at 17:45 PM on 25 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Oh, and here's a quote from Bishop Hill (Montford) himself on the thread below the leak story, attacking the one person brave enough to defend SKS on the thread: "Hengist, If your contributions were less dishonest I think people would be more inclined to be civil to you." Mar 24, 2012 at 7:54 PM | Bishop Hill Montford's defending the vitriolic attacks other posters have made against Hengist. Compare that to how SKS responded to criticisms of Antony Watts on this thread. How people treat their opponents is often more telling of their character than how they treat their friends... http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2012/3/24/behind-the-scenes-at-skeptical-science.html -
monkeyorchid at 17:35 PM on 25 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Clearly Anthony Watts is a far better man than Montford. Who knew? -
actually thoughtful at 17:07 PM on 25 March 2012Roy Spencer's Bad Economics
dunc461 - it seems you are in the mode of "knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing" - in the real world, it is cheaper to use renewable energy than it is to use fossil fuel, when all variables are included. That will not change based on the number of people on the planet. That will not change based on the energy density of the economy. Buildings take ~40% of our annual energy usage, yet we know how to make zero energy buildings. Over the life of the building, the savings of not paying utilities greatly exceeds the initial cost of conservation and renewable energy. Therefore the cost of mitigation is negative for buildings (ie you save money, so there is no cost. There is a savings). This comes from the real world, from experience, from the evidence of reality. If your spreadsheet does not report this result, please adjust accordingly. And you state many times no nuclear. This is an assumption that the Chinese, for one, are invalidating right now. Again, your spreadsheet needs adjustment. The task of avoiding the worst of global warming is mainly the task of ending coal now, and switching off of oil over the next 20-30 years. If you think Americans won't figure out how to do that and make/save money, you are not a student of history. I suspect clever people in other countries will also contribute. The idea that getting off of fossil fuels is a cost is an assumption. An assumption that is not born out by reality. It is a savings. -
ahaynes at 16:50 PM on 25 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
> If John wants to set up a fund +1 J Bowers -
J Bowers at 15:28 PM on 25 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
I also suggest going over to Bishop Hill to give Montford some stick for linking to the file via Tom Nelson. If John wants to set up a fund to hire someone or a service to try and trace the hacker, I'll gladly contribute. Via a secure server, mind ;) Hey, you never know where it'll lead to. -
jyyh at 15:17 PM on 25 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Changed password, notified FB-friends, in case someone has voyeristic tendencies and wants to compromise their computers by meddling with the cracked file. -
J Bowers at 15:12 PM on 25 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
I suggest everyone change their IP address. You may need to contact your ISP if you have a static IP or a long lease IP. Best to err on the side of caution, IMHO. How To Change Your IP Address -
bill4344 at 14:10 PM on 25 March 2012Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton
To be fair, His Lordship has been extremely distracted by issues of enormous moment, busy as he is with Sheriff Joe Arpaio to establishing that... wait for it!... Obama's birth certificate is a fake! Seriously. Now, anyone prepared to download a trial of Adobe Illustrator, or who has it already on their computer, and who has a scanner with OCR software (also download-and-trial-able) can quite innocently replicate the damning 'separate layers' (actually separate groups on a single layer) in a scanned PDF of a document that this high-profile posse claims proves conclusively 'this thing has been fabricated'. Simply find a printed document with text placed over a graphic background of some variety, and then let the software - I used ABBYY FineReader - scan it to a PDF. Open this in Illustrator, and notice how it has all the separable bits and bobs in a number of groups - just like the Birth Certificate does! Not the world's greatest scanning practice, perhaps, but a pretty-damn-good refutation of their argument, I'd have thought. It would appear to me that some people just forgot to be skeptical! ;-) ... -
r.pauli at 14:00 PM on 25 March 2012Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton
He is not a journalist, not a scientist, and not much of a lecturer. Monckton is an entertainer. -
bill4344 at 13:41 PM on 25 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
arch @#64 - Indeed - the sound you're not hearing is me holding my breath! -
idunno at 12:06 PM on 25 March 2012Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton
Apparently, according to Anthony, there is no further need for his Sublimely Scented Excellency to further debase himself and address the impertinent Hadfield any further, as Hadfield has now contaminated himself by association with an untouchable, greenman3610: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/23/moncktons-slide-presentation-to-the-california-assembly/ See comment and response at 8.13 a.m., March 24. -
GillianB at 11:39 AM on 25 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
How do I unregister at SkS? See my comment #59. -
mikeh1 at 11:26 AM on 25 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
I am also getting the "That username has already been taken" message -
arch stanton at 11:10 AM on 25 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Dana @43, Yes, we agree. In case I wasn’t clear I think the other emotions are all valid too. Bill@57 – You mean there’s nothing at all about how Katniss has been lied to and manipulated for purely political reasons by SkS? I guess that will come out in one of the later installments. ;) -
r.pauli at 10:57 AM on 25 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
A bigger concern could be over the viruses, trojans, worms and stolen passwords that silently do damage. The nefarious payload that does blatant damage does us a favor by its reveal... I fear the invisible attack that acts as a relentless parasite. Personally, for my comments here...I could say that now I have an excuse for all the blunderingly stupid things I have said. But thanks for all that you do. Fail gracefully and try to make new mistakes. -
Tony O at 10:29 AM on 25 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
I do not know if it is a coincidence but I sure have had a lot of Comet Cursor problems in the last few days -
hank at 10:24 AM on 25 March 2012Stauning and Friis-Christensen on Solar Cycle Length and Global Warming
Aha: clearly a new case of divergence. -
pbjamm at 10:24 AM on 25 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
John Russel@45 We can only hope that some of the facts sink in but the contrarians do not have a very good track record with regard to reading comprehension. -
Chris G at 10:05 AM on 25 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
I suspect this is causing John some anxiety, but for my part, I would ask him to rest easy, mostly. I comment anonymously because I fear the irrational behavior of, I guess, irrational people. But I think only a small set of people commenting/posting here would actually receive personal attention, and I do not think I am in that set of noteworthy people. I use different passwords depending on the nature of the material; ie, my password here is in the set of social media/I-don't-really-care passwords, which is distinct from my financial passwords, etc. So, even if the passwords are decrypted, I'm think I have little to loose. I work with databases and software; Andy Lee is giving good advice. My expertise is not in security or web hosting; his knowledge is beyond mine is this area, but my limited understanding jives with his advice. Kind of curious what is posted about me, but not so much that I want this site to post a link. If I had to guess, I would hazard that this is the work of a highly motivated, at least moderately skilled, but delusional person, and not the work of someone directly involved in the denial industry. I don't see what there is to gain for the professional deniers by hacking identities. Russian? Maybe, but I suspect whoever did it merely used a Russian site to post because of legal considerations. Honestly, what is to be gained by this hack? I suppose that it could be used to sway opinion (out of context or misunderstood quotes - same as climategate), but personal information does not change the laws of physics; so, I'm wondering what the hacker was hoping to achieve. -
climatehawk1 at 10:04 AM on 25 March 2012Catching up with the Younger Dryas: do mass-extinctions always need impacts?
Thanks for the update--I haven't read about the Younger Dryas since the early 1990s, very interesting to see the multiple sequels and theories. -
GillianB at 09:45 AM on 25 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
I tried to change my password but got the message that the name is already taken. I tried the 'forgotten password' route, entered my name and email address, and it said the password has been sent to an email address that isn't mine. What to do? -
David Horton at 09:37 AM on 25 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
What a bugger. I haven't noticed anything odd yet. I'm guessing mainly spam or unwanted blog visitors might happen, and can cope. Hard to see how it could be used on more sinister way. -
bill4344 at 09:34 AM on 25 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
The charming Bishop Hill - how did I think to look there? - has provided a helpful link to one Tom Nelsons' blog, where Mr Nelson futher provides a link to the zipped trove of material and a few opportunities to blather on for the self-styled 'leaker'. But what's most interesting is the culled 'revelatory' material Nelson has kindly posted. Because there's a rather outstanding hole in it where anything even resembling a 'smoking gun' might be. How I laughed when I realised that the best they could come up with was -To achieve this goal, we mustn't fall into the trap of spending too much time on analysis and too little time on promotion.
With the description of what this goal actually is conveniently omitted from their cherrypick lest it might turn out to be, oh, what, perhaps, increasing the audience for the website? For sound AGW science generally? Something equally 'sinister'? Then follows a list of whole bunch of proposed - wait for it - outreach activities that I commend you all for undertaking. It's a genuine pity about what promises to be a rather interesting paper's probable chances at Science given this untimely revelation of its submission. Other than that this really says most about is the truly grubby arm of Denial and the pathetic lengths to which they are prepared to go. -
newcrusader at 08:45 AM on 25 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
This is too bad. In November 2010- Thanksgiving Day- someone hacked me- HD crashed. Same Thing Christmas Eve 2011. I have total protection from McAfee-stuff still can get through. Recently my Google account was compromised- sent them a nasty note. My Boston Globe account was also hacked. It seems someone is out to get me/us. Lets face it we probably have enemies as climate 'crusaders'--- I successfully changed my email and password. Carry On.
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