Althouse: Timothy Egan's NYT column "Building a Nation of Know-Nothings" requires fisking...

August 27, 2010

Timothy Egan's NYT column "Building a Nation of Know-Nothings" requires fisking...

... and I'm relieved to see that John Hinderaker has already done the grisly task.

118 comments:

Michael said...: He should have interviewed HD House, right there in his own back yard. House believes that the unemployment rate was worse at the end of the Bush administration than it is now. House is a conservative, right?; 8/27/10, 10:16 AM
Anonymous said...: It's all a variant on the same argument.

Bigot=stupid.

As Krauthammer states very well in his recent National Review article, liberals have lost the battle in public opinion in almost every arena: gay marriage, immigration, defending ourselves against the jihadis, race hustling... you name it.

Liberals want to take these issues out of the electoral process.

The method: make them issues of bigotry.

It's worked well in the past.

If you can define an issue as one of bigotry, liberals argue, then the bigots cannot be allowed to vote on it.

Until this tactic is defeated, all issues will be outside the ambit of the electorate, as, indeed, they are now.; 8/27/10, 10:25 AM
Shanna said...: Excellent takedown, thanks for posting.

On the "media" point, it seems likely that a big chunk of that is "the internet" right? And it doesn't necessarily mean somebody told them he was Muslim, because I don't know anybody out there who is seriously telling people Obama is a Muslim. They might joke about it though (when the white house says things like "obama prays every day" i can't help but think it's 5 times a day, but that doesn't mean I think he is a Muslim). I think that comes mostly from people not thinking Obama is a terribly devout person, and then looking at his background and his affiliations and thinking Muslim is as likely as anything.; 8/27/10, 10:25 AM
GMay said...: Oh, the Republicans-are-stupid meme.

I'm predicting an appearance by Ritmo around 8pm EST. The over-under line on posts is 10, and on words is 2500.

Who's in?; 8/27/10, 10:35 AM
Anonymous said...: Wow! Read the comments in the NYT's following the Egan article. According to the commenters, America is full of dolts , themselves excepted. Talk about your echo chamber...; 8/27/10, 10:36 AM
Anonymous said...: The bigotry=stupidity argument that now consumes liberals is an attempt to exclude people whose views they despise from the political process.

The bigots, in essence convicted of political Original Sin, are too evil to be allowed to actually vote on any issue of importance.

All issues are now bigot issues.

The solution, effectively implemented by liberals, is to refuse to allow any bigot issues to be decided in the electoral process.

The gay marriage issue is the most obvious. Two attempts by the voters of California to impose their will have been defeated by judicial fiat and the refusal of the presiding governors of the state to enforce the will of the voters.

Because, you see, the voters are bigots. Since they are guilty of Original Sin, they are too wicked to be allowed to govern.

I've tried to raise this argument before. The bigot hunting isn't just a rhetorical tactic. It's a deliberate attempt to defeat the will of the electorate.; 8/27/10, 10:38 AM
madAsHell said...: Guys like Egan have spent the last few years trying to pick the grade school wedgie out of their ass.

Whiners!; 8/27/10, 10:48 AM
MadisonMan said...: Read the comments in the NYT's following the Egan article.

Well of course they're not stupid. They read the friggin' New York Times! Who on Earth is more enlightened?; 8/27/10, 10:49 AM
Scott said...: The Times is getting unreadable.; 8/27/10, 10:54 AM
Joe said...: Scott said...
The Times is getting unreadable

Is it the dyslexia or the macular degeneration?

I'm a member of DAM, Mothers Against Dyslexia, so I can ask.; 8/27/10, 10:59 AM
GMay said...: "The Times is getting unreadable."

Getting? Your tolerance is greater than mine. I salute you.; 8/27/10, 11:02 AM
kent said...: "[L]et's take a walk down memory lane and recall that 35 percent of Democrats told pollsters that President Bush was in on the September 11 attacks."

Questioning Obambi's religious affiliation = Darkest, Chthonic Evil, and proof positive of unbridled malignity of intent.

Accusing a sitting President of coordinating or co-coordinating the cold-blooded murder of several thousand American ctizens, on native soil = LOOK! LOOK! OVER THERE! BUNNIES -- !!!

'Nuff said.; 8/27/10, 11:11 AM
Opus One Media said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/27/10, 11:18 AM
Gabriel Hanna said...: @HDHouse:

there is no gauging how bad unemployment was when bush finally left town as his carry over legacy was like a runaway train. Damn luck Obama was there to stop it.

Weak sauce. Very weak sauce.

It's been almost two years. It's Obama's economy now. And your party controlled Congress for almost four years now. It's your mess, not Bush's.; 8/27/10, 11:21 AM
Opus One Media said...: @Michael...i did comment there. frankly, you little twit, there is no gauging how bad unemployment was when bush finally left town as his carry over legacy was like a runaway train. Damn lucky Obama was there to stop it.

Egan's column is right on point. There is a growing number of conservative idiots who swallow what your handlers put forth be it Rush or Beck, Savage or Coulter. You are led by bumbling manipulators who play on your worst fears and ignorance and you happily oblige them by giving attention to their lies.

Ignorance will do more to harm this republic than any outside threat and frankly I think that those who really are out to harm us just sit back and laugh at how easily part of our population is lead around by the nose.

Hinderaker lost all hope at credibility when he said "there is no scientific concensus on global warming". What the hell? Just among scientists John but not about astrologers and the local soothsayers.

Don't you get it? You think that the times is partisan and that this column is just a hack job so then you run to your hack job who is so out of reality as to make a sane person's head swim and that is your rebuttal?

No wonder people think you are dumb.; 8/27/10, 11:24 AM
Anonymous said...: There is no gauging how bad unemployment was when Clinton finally left town as his carry over legacy was like a runaway train. Damn luck Bush was there to stop it.; 8/27/10, 11:24 AM
Anonymous said...: You are led by bumbling manipulators who play on your worst fears and ignorance and you happily oblige them by giving attention to their lies.

Here we go again. Liberals have only one argument.

Translated: You're a bigot.

Note the "your worst fears and ignorance." You're a bigot. The "bumbling manipulators" are of course urging on the mob to grab their pitch-forks and torches.

The current recession and unemployment are the result of a bi-partisan effort.

Both parties agreed with the loony Diversity credo that argued that banks were denying blacks loans because of red-lining.

So throughout both Clinton and Bush's presidencies, the fed forced banks to loan to uncreditworthy lenders and indemnified said banks against the results of those loans.

That's why we're where we're at today.

HenHouse is one of our betters. He's free from political Original Sin.

This sanctimonious asshole posing has become just about all liberals have going.; 8/27/10, 11:24 AM
Opus One Media said...: @Gabriel....then 9-11 was all Bush's fault not Clinton's. right? yup your logic at work.; 8/27/10, 11:26 AM
Anonymous said...: And, by the way:

How did you get to be such a sanctimonious asshole, HenHouse?

Why do you think it's such an attractive trait?

Among liberals, this bizarre, asshole halo-preening is now universal.

Appears to be in very poor taste to me.

But, HenHouse, since you are such a superior intellect, I'm sure you can tell me why you fucking sanctimonious halo-preening is so clever.; 8/27/10, 11:27 AM
Opus One Media said...: Michael said...
He should have interviewed HD House.."

well someone should have interviewed you Michael but Howdy Doody seems to have been taken off the air and buffalo bob isn't doing that anymore.; 8/27/10, 11:27 AM
Joe said...: Hinderaker lost all hope at credibility when he said "there is no scientific concensus on global warming". What the hell? Just among scientists John but not about astrologers and the local soothsayers.

You mean those "scientists" like AlGore and Prince Charles?

Still going with the "consensus" argument are you HD?

How about the code that demonstrates the existence of AGCC? Or how about the raw data that the code processed?

Oh yes, those were either lost or not available for review...that's Science at its best...; 8/27/10, 11:28 AM
Opus One Media said...: shoutingthomas said...
"But, HenHouse, since you are such a superior intellect, I'm sure you can tell me why you fucking sanctimonious halo-preening is so clever."

Well I'm glad you finally concede that I'm superior to you. And my stuff just seems clever because your stuff is so pedestrian...you are the Ferris Bueller of envy...'your car is a piece of shit but i have to admire your car because i don't even have a piece of shit'...

ya'betcha!; 8/27/10, 11:29 AM
Opus One Media said...: oh joe, say it isn't so joe...lost to you too....ahhh science. can't live with. can't live without it.; 8/27/10, 11:31 AM
Anonymous said...: well someone should have interviewed you Michael but Howdy Doody seems to have been taken off the air and buffalo bob isn't doing that anymore.

So, tell, HenHouse of such superior intellect and freedom from Original Sin.

How did you become so brilliant and virtuous?

Not of woman born?

What are the evidences of your incredibly superior existence?; 8/27/10, 11:31 AM
Joe said...: oh joe, say it isn't so joe...lost to you too....ahhh science. can't live with. can't live without it.
So from your non-response I’ll take it you concede HDHouse….funny time was, when science involved data and the methods of its manipulation, now it’s “Trust us we KNOW!” Well if that’s all you got, don’t bother replying, because obviously you’ve got nothing….; 8/27/10, 11:33 AM
Anonymous said...: Tell us of your wondrous intellectual achievements, oh HenHouse, pure of soul and not of woman born!; 8/27/10, 11:33 AM
Anonymous said...: And, do tell, oh great and good Henhouse:

Why do you think it flatters you... this obsession with your own halo?; 8/27/10, 11:36 AM
mariner said...: We don't need to build a nation of know-nothings.

On the evidence of the last two national elections, we already have one.; 8/27/10, 11:40 AM
William said...: I agree with shoutingthomas. Tolerance has become the supreme high virtue among the liberal community. I have nothing against tolerance, but is this the very measure of a man? It seems to me that there are many virtues that trump tolerance......If Blago had made just one offensive racial comment in his taped conversations his goose would have been cooked. He would have been judged on that, not his relative honesty or dishonesty. You can sell a Senate seat, but if you say macaca in public, the game is over.; 8/27/10, 12:00 PM
Pastafarian said...: The comments after this article are really remarkable in their unanimity. The first comment is amusing:

"Can't we just have an IQ test as a part of determining voter eligibility?"

Can you imagine the cries of racism and elitism that would result if a conservative had suggested this? What has happened to "liberalism"?

And does anyone actually believe that Democrats would ever win another national election, if such a test was required?

I suppose it's possible that if the criteria for passing was so high that only the top 0.5% or so would be allowed to vote, then more Democrats might be eligible to vote. At this percentile, many of those passing would be academics with high native intelligence. Academia will probably always be dominated by liberals, as most in academia appear to be in a state of arrested development -- perpetual adolescents -- and adolescents always trend liberal.

But if they allowed the top 10%, or 20%, or 50%, or 90% of those tested to vote, the Democrats would be crushed.; 8/27/10, 12:03 PM
Joe said...: @Pasta…

I have a modest proposal. The IQ Test for voters should focus on a multiple choice test concerning the semiotics of Derida and Foucault. Also, it should have a section on the specifics of Das Kapital, Nausea , and The Stranger. Further, test subjects must demonstrate a working knowledge of Paul Krugman’s and Maureen Dowd’s works in the NYT.; 8/27/10, 12:09 PM
Andrea said...: Shorter HDHouseAlphaLiberalLoafingOaf and the rest of the tribe:

You stupid bigot I'm smarter than you!

Chanted over and over it has a kind of hypnotic power. It's sort of a liberal version of the power of Christ compels you! Great for exorcising those demons of ungood crimethink.; 8/27/10, 12:23 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Re global warming, I saw an opinion article the other day about the warming of the arctic circle. It was written by an expert of course who was a "PHD" or "Dr." from some fairly obscure university.

So I googled this Dr/ PHD and learned his doctorate is in political science! So, yes, Hdhouse, I am skeptical of your so-called science because this anecdote of mine is not uncommon.; 8/27/10, 12:25 PM
Michael said...: HD: Who is Howdy Doodie? Are those your initials? I am confused.

PS the U.S. govt has a thing called the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They do have a way of calibrating unemployment. They actually do and did have a way of calculating unemployment when Bush left office.; 8/27/10, 12:30 PM
roesch-voltaire said...: I agree a lot of folks, both Republicans and Democrats, hold strange ill-informed beliefs often fueled by the media. And because there is so much media, essentially owned by six corporations, that repeats the same meme over and over folks are not sure exactly where it came from so they say--TV. One example that strikes me is the claim that the Stimulus package has failed,which I hear over and over on talk radio, in contrast to a recent report from the CBO which points to modest success. For example improving the infrastructure of I-94 south of Milwaukee is a good example, let alone the three new battery producing plants in Michigan.; 8/27/10, 12:36 PM
Joe said...: let alone the three new battery producing plants in Michigan.

From firms in existence ONLY from government hand-outs...producing batteries for vehicles that would only be "profitable" from government hand-outs or mandates...Please continue on Voltaire...I'm intrigued.; 8/27/10, 12:42 PM
Anonymous said...: So I googled this Dr/ PHD and learned his doctorate is in political science! So, yes, Hdhouse, I am skeptical of your so-called science because this anecdote of mine is not uncommon.

I know just the guy you're talking about. I won't give the creep any more publicity.

His undergraduate degree is, I believe, in the incredibly scientific field of... history!; 8/27/10, 12:47 PM
Gabriel Hanna said...: @Joe:

How about the code that demonstrates the existence of AGCC? Or how about the raw data that the code processed?

Oh yes, those were either lost or not available for review...that's Science at its best...

Not to get sidetracked from the topic, but both raw data and code have always been freely and publicly available.

The raw data is, and always has been, held in multiple repositories all over the world, online and in libraries, and may be accessed for free from any university library.

NASA GISS provides their code for free here:

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/

This code has been replicated by these people, if you prefer theirs. The results show no significant difference.

http://clearclimatecode.org/

Disagree with the proposed policy prescriptions, as you like, but there isn't any better science available for climate than what climate scientists have put out.

People like HDHouse make the acceptance of climate science harder by turning it into a red vs blue issue.; 8/27/10, 12:52 PM
Joe said...: No Gabriel the CRU did not release it's code...admitting, privately it was "buggy"...and the data was "lost" by CRU...admitted in private e-mails.; 8/27/10, 12:54 PM
Pastafarian said...: So, roesch-voltaire: 9.5% unemployment. GDP growth 1.6% (annualized) for the last quarter (which is actually a contraction, as it's not enough to keep up with increasing population). Trillion dollar deficits for as far as the eye can see.

But you do have a nicer drive home now, just south of Milwaukee. So there's that.

What exactly would you have categorized as an unmitigated disaster for "The Stimulus"?

Since the administration predicted 8.5% unemployment without the stimulus, and 8% with it, I'd call 9.5% unemployment a pretty obvious failure.

And when you're talking about spending hundreds of billions (with a b) of dollars that we don't have, you sort of expect to get some return on that. Maybe even more return than a little "infrastructure improvement" just south of Milwaukee.; 8/27/10, 12:57 PM
Anonymous said...: I could see conditioning the franchise on the results of an IQ test provided we allow the vote only to those who fail. Since both public-choice theory and decades of empirical research indicate that our elections are doomed to be decided by people who don't know what's going on, I'd prefer to leave the decisions to those who KNOW they don't know.

Megan McArdle puts that CBO study in its place here.; 8/27/10, 12:58 PM
roesch-voltaire said...: Joe I agree the degree to which the giant stimulus is working remains a matter of political divide, and this plant in Holland is expected to hire only 300 folks, but it is a start. A few years down the line will reveal how smart the investment was. One problem with the lithium ion battery is it dependance on rare minerals which are controlled byChina who recently announced they want to keep more for their own production-- you probably will only find this information in news sources from Asia which express deep concern about the issue.; 8/27/10, 12:58 PM
Gabriel Hanna said...: @Joe:

No Gabriel the CRU did not release it's code...admitting, privately it was "buggy"...and the data was "lost" by CRU...admitted in private e-mails.

First, I'm not talking about CRU. For two, whether they released their code or not, NASA and NOAA have, and Clear Code Project has replicated NASA's, and they don't get significantly different answers. Third, CRU never lost "the data", because the data exists in multiple places around the world. CRU has lost copies of the data it had in the 70s.

This is one of the data sources used by all climate groups:

http://www.amazon.com/World-Weather-Records-1921-1930-Clayton/dp/1406777218

You can buy it for $35.00, but your library already has it.; 8/27/10, 1:00 PM
Michael said...: Gabriel Hanna: Thanks for the NASA link. I am not sure that this code is the universally accepted model for data input in this category of science. Can you confirm? It would seem to me that a single model, regardless of size, would be ridiculously simplistic for a subject so vast. Are there not multiple models that feed into the NASA model? The number of cells in the formulas would be so numerous that a single forced equation could tilt the outcome of the whole and be virtually impossible to discover.; 8/27/10, 1:01 PM
Joe said...: Joe I agree the degree to which the giant stimulus is working remains a matter of political divide, and this plant in Holland is expected to hire only 300 folks, but it is a start.

Yes a start, a start to continual hand-outs to NON-COMPETITIVE firms...Look at ZBB, the plant Obama visted. It's sales, last year less than $200,000, recipient of several tnes of MILLIONS in gov't grants....

These plants won't make money, I'd bet green-backs on it...; 8/27/10, 1:02 PM
Joe said...: NOAA admits its information isn't as good as CRU's and defers to CRU when pressed...and the CRU head "lost" the origianl data, he freel admits it...it ahs NOT been reconstructed.; 8/27/10, 1:04 PM
Synova said...: "I'm a member of DAM, Mothers Against Dyslexia, so I can ask."

LOL.

Took me a moment.; 8/27/10, 1:05 PM
Michael said...: R-V: I have been an investor for years and years in a company called Ballard Power, based in Canada and now owned in part (or at least I think they still own a piece) by Mercedes Benz that is striving to develop a battery capable of holding a charge for long periods to be used in automotive applications. This is not an area that can magically respond to capital which is one of the sad fallacies of the left when it comes to business, money and technological advancement. Money doesn't solve everything otherwise we would have, or could have, a cure for cancer. Having the government "pick a winner" can have very negative and unintended consequences (see Ethanol). I am happy for the 300 or so people who have jobs in these new plants, but whether they will be there in a few years is the real question. Are these sustainable businesses?; 8/27/10, 1:07 PM
Gabriel Hanna said...: @Michael:

I'm not sure I understand your question.

Of course climate is mathematically hard to simulate. If it wasn't there wouldn't be any arguments about it. A primer on climate modelling can be read for free here:

http://stratus.astr.ucl.ac.be/textbook/; 8/27/10, 1:08 PM
Gabriel Hanna said...: @Joe:

NOAA admits its information isn't as good as CRU's and defers to CRU when pressed...and the CRU head "lost" the origianl data, he freel admits it...it ahs NOT been reconstructed.

Joe, read the papers that came out in the 80s and 90s. They all say where they got their data. One souce is the World Weather Records I linked to available on Amazon.com. Other are kept by other organizations. Each weather station has its own records of its own observations. Phil Jones did not magically make these disappear. I can show you the copies in my university library if you wish, but here's the link:

http://griffin.wsu.edu/search~S12?/Yworld+weather+records&searchscope=12&SORT=D/Yworld+weather+records&searchscope=12&SORT=D&SUBKEY=world%20weather%20records/1%2C3%2C3%2CB/frameset&FF=Yworld+weather+records&searchscope=12&SORT=D&1%2C1%2C; 8/27/10, 1:10 PM
Joe said...: Gabriel the data ost was the COMPOSITE information taken fromt eh stations...the data had to be massaged, and I mean that in a good way, to make it cross-comparable and THAT data was "lost" by Jones.; 8/27/10, 1:11 PM
Gabriel Hanna said...: @Joe:

to make it cross-comparable and THAT data was "lost" by Jones.

I see you've walked back your claim a bit.

NOAA and NASA have their own system, which you can download for free, to average the temperature data. They don't get different results. ClearCode project doesn't get different results. CRU and all its records it ever had and all the scientists working their could die in a fire and that would not change the fact of the temperature trends.

This isn't something that ONLY CRU had and ONLY CRU was doing.; 8/27/10, 1:16 PM
Joe said...: No I haven't walked back, I clarified....the data you have, is NOT CRU's data, the data set that "proved" AGCC has been lost and can't be reconstructed...many ofthe stations have been moved, their data lost...; 8/27/10, 1:22 PM
Michael said...: Gabriel: Having worked with computer models I have a very clear sense of their benefits, worth and complexity. I only wondered if the NASA model was the gold standard and whether it is a single model or host to numerous models.; 8/27/10, 1:23 PM
Unknown said...: First, Egan seems to be in some confusion of what a Know-Nothing is/was. The Know-Nothings were anti-immigrant activists in the 1840s and 50s (not unlike the KKK 80 years later). The name came from the fact that, when the police arrived at the scene of a riot between the WASPs and the Micks or Krauts, the WASPs would invariably say, "I know nothing".

(Thank you, Sgt. Schultz)

That he seems to be using that as a monicker for Americans who are merely ill-informed indicates his lack of knowledge, more than anyone else's.

On the broader issue, if he's complaining about the state of education in this country and it's capacity for objective, analytical thought, he should remember who has been running the media and education for the past 40 years or so.; 8/27/10, 1:27 PM
Pastafarian said...: Gabe said: "...and that would not change the fact of the temperature trends."

Except those trends seem to be based on data that some might call questionable; so that would make the "fact" of those trends not fact at all, but fiction.

Not that I'd be surprised if the earth were warming, since we're coming out of an ice age, and it's clear that the earth has been warmer than it is now for much of its history.

But I have trouble believing that Egg Harbor, Wisconsin actually hit 600 degrees F:

http://www.ihatethemedia.com/wisconsin-city-600-degrees; 8/27/10, 1:28 PM
Joe said...: Gabriel Hanna, in short were the AGCC supporters Graduate Students attempting to receive a PhD they'd be sent back to their cubicles. Their data is suspect, and much of it "lost"...their modeling is admitted to be buggy, including variables designed to smooth the result and make the temperature increase apparent...their models do not track back, i.e., do not run from today to the past.

What their committee would conclude is that their dissertation is very sketchy at best and needs much further work...

As they already had PhD's and their voices became the new paradigm/consensus well they are heroes.; 8/27/10, 1:34 PM
Joe said...: Just reading another article and I found this Voltaire:

While most of the green automobile attention in recent years has been focused on electrification, liquid fuels still have about 100 times the energy density of today's best lithium-ion batteries, a difference that probably won't change significantly any time in the near future.

So those battery plants are making an inefficient product, that is far less useful than gasoline or diesel....the only way they can "compete" is to either tax gasoline/diesel for a subsidy or to artificially make gasoline/diesel more expensive than it otherwise would be.
But hey, let's celebrate it's Recovery Summer.; 8/27/10, 1:38 PM
Gabriel Hanna said...: @Pastafarian:

Except those trends seem to be based on data that some might call questionable; so that would make the "fact" of those trends not fact at all, but fiction.

Why do you call the data questionable? What do you think, specifically, is wrong with the way weather stations measure temperature or the way those temperatures are averaged? What do you think the "real" temperature measurement should be, and on what evidence is your opinion based?

Since you know the temperature record is "fiction", you can surely produce the "real" one, right?

If you want to do science better than the people who do it for a living, it is not unreasonable for you to demonstrate that you can do it AS well. Why don't you write your own code for averaging temperatures and show that you get a 40 year cooling trend or something? That would blow climate science right out of the water.

Not that I'd be surprised if the earth were warming, since we're coming out of an ice age, and it's clear that the earth has been warmer than it is now for much of its history.

It's can't be true that smoking gives you lung cancer, because people get lung cancer for other reasons. This is your logic.

The mainstream scientific logic is: Carbon dioxide is known from basic physics to be a greenhouse gas. Industrial society has been putting a hell of a lot of it in the air. Modelling shows that increasing the carbon dioxide should increase the temperature, and the records show it has increased.

If you want to attribute that warming to something else, you have to do running a model that shows your something else accounts for it too.

You've got the code to start with; I'll be interested to see the results.

But I have trouble believing that Egg Harbor, Wisconsin actually hit 600 degrees F:

I can't find a primary source on that, so I don't know what the mistake was, and can't give you an opinion. However, there are any number of people who watch for and fix those mistakes when they come up.; 8/27/10, 1:50 PM
Joe said...: Gabriel but we ahve historical evidence of Global Warming PRIOR to the Industrial Revolution...and so it is NOT "clear" that industrial processes are the cause or any cause of a putative global warming, which we may or may NOT be seeing...; 8/27/10, 1:52 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/27/10, 1:53 PM
AC245 said...: Not to get sidetracked from the topic, but both raw data and code have always been freely and publicly available.

As Joe pointed out, Gabriel, this is a flat out lie.

The raw data and code have not "always been freely and publicly available" (e.g. the Climategate emails about deleting data rather than letting non-true believers get their hands on it, the stacks of ignored FOI requests that the CRU avoided prosecution on only because the SOL had run out, the teeth-pulling measures it took to get the code that turned white noise into hockey stick graphs, etc.).

The raw data is, and always has been, held in multiple repositories all over the world, online and in libraries, and may be accessed for free from any university library.

Again, not true. In some cases, ever-changing, constantly-modified data sets and code bases (like the GISS one you refer to - check the Wayback Machine to see how frequently that "historical raw data" changes) are provided publicly, until such egregiously invalid data is spotted by the non-true-believers (e.g. Pastafarian's cite), at which point the offending data is simply removed from public view.

You've tried pulling this shit before, Gabriel, and every time you do you get called out on it - much like HDHouse and his unemployment claims. And like HDHouse's, your lies do not become more convincing with repetition.; 8/27/10, 1:56 PM
Gabriel Hanna said...: @Joe:

No I haven't walked back, I clarified....the data you have, is NOT CRU's data, the data set that "proved" AGCC has been lost and can't be reconstructed...many ofthe stations have been moved, their data lost...

Even if I accepted that what you said is true; how could losing data in say, 1990, make results published using that data in 1980 false? Time machines?

Here's Hansen's 1987 global warming paper:

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1987/1987_Hansen_Lebedeff.pdf

Can you tell me which of those data sources are now missing? If they weren't missing in 1987, how is anything he said in 1987 now wrong?

Gabriel Hanna, in short were the AGCC supporters Graduate Students attempting to receive a PhD they'd be sent back to their cubicles. Their data is suspect, and much of it "lost"...their modeling is admitted to be buggy, including variables designed to smooth the result and make the temperature increase apparent...their models do not track back, i.e., do not run from today to the past.

What their committee would conclude is that their dissertation is very sketchy at best and needs much further work..

As they already had PhD's and their voices became the new paradigm/consensus well they are heroes.

Let's leave aside how much time you've spent on Ph.D. committees as a grad student or a professor, I'm sure your experience must be extensive or you wouldn't say such things.

What data is "lost"? I gave you the Hansen paper--which of the records he mentions are "suspect" and why? Can you tell me anything about the code? I gave you multiple links to download it. Can you run the models and show that they give the wrong answers? Did you read anything from the Clear Code project that has replicated the GISS code? Have you told them about what parts of their code are wrong?; 8/27/10, 1:57 PM
ricpic said...: You want stupid? How about the Left's faith in Keynesian economics? Which boils down to the belief that if government takes and then spends an individual's money rather than the individual spending his own money that that magically multiplies the effect of that money on the general economy. How do they get away with such stupidity? Attack attack attack, that's how.; 8/27/10, 1:59 PM
Gabriel Hanna said...: @AC245

Again, not true. In some cases, ever-changing, constantly-modified data sets and code bases (like the GISS one you refer to - check the Wayback Machine to see how frequently that "historical raw data" changes) are provided publicly, until such egregiously invalid data is spotted by the non-true-believers (e.g. Pastafarian's cite), at which point the offending data is simply removed from public view.

And those hard copies published in the 1960s were removed? Then why are they in my library? Why are they in yours?

You've tried pulling this shit before, Gabriel, and every time you do you get called out on it.

I'm not the one saying actual physical books never existed. Give me your address and I'll have Amazon.com send you a copy.; 8/27/10, 2:01 PM
Joe said...: Even if I accepted that what you said is true; how could losing data in say, 1990, make results published using that data in 1980 false? Time machines?

Because GCC wasn't an issue much prior to 1988, and so the data from 1980 is not likely to be as closely examined.

Phil Jones' data set, possibly including the data from 1980, had to make various corrections to account for climate, location (Heat Island Effect) and various other factors...that "1980 data" is NOT the 1980 data, it is data that had been manipulated to make it cross-comparable...and THAT data set is gone, Gabriel!

He lost it...or so he says.

Bottom-Line: much of the "best"evidence of AGCC is gone, i.e. not replicable...
YOU KNOW ONE OF THE HALLMARKS OF SCIENCE?

Also Gabriel please give me the details of YOUR CS Degree. Statistics Degree/Math/OR Degree as well as your Climatology/Meteorology Degree. You keep talking about "We" can't do the science, please demonstrate YOUR ability to do the science.

Plus a number of statisticians have questioned the Climatologists methods...geeeeez, I guess they're ignorant too.; 8/27/10, 2:09 PM
Opus One Media said...: Andrea said...
Shorter HDHouseAlphaLiberalLoafingOaf and the rest of the tribe: You stupid bigot I'm smarter than you! Chanted over and over it has a kind of hypnotic power."

Tribe? is that code for Jews?

You keep chanting away honeybunch. Self hypnosis may erase the rest of that virtually blank slate that is your brain.; 8/27/10, 2:10 PM
Opus One Media said...: Synova said...
"I'm a member of DAM, Mothers Against Dyslexia, so I can ask."

Ksa nac I os!!!!; 8/27/10, 2:12 PM
Opus One Media said...: Scott said...
The Times is getting unreadable."

I know. They keep bumping up the necessary reading level. Its above 7th grade now..or was ...when 7th graders could read.

gosh it must be frustrating as all get out...all those words...so much time...so little ability.; 8/27/10, 2:14 PM
Trooper York said...: Michael said...
HD: Who is Howdy Doodie? Are those your initials? I am confused.

That is the greeting that Hd gives every morning when he looks in his Depends.; 8/27/10, 2:15 PM
Joe said...: HDHouse said...
Synova said...
"I'm a member of DAM, Mothers Against Dyslexia, so I can ask."

Ksa nac I os!!!!

No actually she DIDN'T write it HDHouse...must be tough not being able to read for comprehension.

So after having laughed at other people you now you reveal your reading problems...guess you'll have to lay off the MoDo columns for a while too.; 8/27/10, 2:17 PM
Trooper York said...: The Times is a dying dinosaur with a tiny pea sized brain that doesn't realize it is dead yet.

Sort of the same thing as it's aging elitist fans such as hd.; 8/27/10, 2:20 PM
Opus One Media said...: @joe....pow...zoooom...right over the old noggin'

@troopery...did you see the JW stuff on AMC this week? He was so good. I've rented True Grit tonight, grillin' outside and burgers and corn on the cob in front of the screen...

and by the way, if you don't like the NYT, what do you propose?; 8/27/10, 2:31 PM
Gabriel Hanna said...: @Joe:

Phil Jones' data set, possibly including the data from 1980, had to make various corrections to account for climate, location (Heat Island Effect) and various other factors.

ClearClimate can show you these effects. They are negligible. Don't take my word for it, or theirs, run the code yourself:

http://clearclimatecode.org/trendy/

Show me the "real" temperature record.

Bottom-Line: much of the "best"evidence of AGCC is gone, i.e. not replicable...
YOU KNOW ONE OF THE HALLMARKS OF SCIENCE?

"Replication" does not mean taking someone else's calculation and doing it exactly. "Replication" is doing YOUR OWN calculation and getting the same results.

Which has happened multiple times, as I pointed out and linked to.

If YOU do the calculation, using the publicly available data and code, and get different results, you will blow climate science out of the water. Why don't you? Why does no climate skeptic do this?

Also Gabriel please give me the details of YOUR CS Degree. Statistics Degree/Math/OR Degree as well as your Climatology/Meteorology Degree. You keep talking about "We" can't do the science, please demonstrate YOUR ability to do the science.

M.S., atomic physics, Washington State University, quantum Monte Carlo simulations of spin-aligned bosonic clusters. I wrote the QMC codes in Fortran 90.

http://pra.aps.org/abstract/PRA/v74/i6/e063604

Ph.D., Washington State University, condensed matter, fluids.

I'm not a climate scientist. You'd refuse to believe me if I were.; 8/27/10, 2:31 PM
Trooper York said...: Enjoy you grilling and your grandkids hd. Life is to short as it is. This is the best time of year to be on the beach right before Labor Day.

These are memories the kids will treasure always. Enjoy them and make it as memorable as possible.; 8/27/10, 2:36 PM
Trooper York said...: As for news, I prefer the National Enquirer. They break more stories than the Times anyway.; 8/27/10, 2:37 PM
Gabriel Hanna said...: Anyway, the climate stuff is way off topic. I agree with everything Hinderaker said except that, and I don't agree with HDHouse on much of anything. If he cared about global warming more than he cares about scoring partisan shots he'd be an effective advocate; as it is he discredits everything he writes in favor of.; 8/27/10, 2:38 PM
Pastafarian said...: Gabe said: "Why do you call the data questionable?"

Um...600 degrees F, in Wisconsin. Recently, not during Earth's formation. Seems questionable to me. But I hear it was a dry heat, and that those Cheese-heads are a tough bastards, so maybe it's plausible.

It's right there in my comment, dude. That part that you dismiss with a weak 'cite please?!' (to paraphrase).

Then a few comments later you actually use the appeal to authority argument with respect to another commenter: "Let's leave aside how much time you've spent on Ph.D. committees as a grad student or a professor..."

Uggh. That's not like you. Does AlphaLiberal have control of your account information?

It's basic physics, Gabe, and I remember sitting in astrophysics as the professor, as an exercise, calculated the effects of CO2 concentrations on temperatures on Earth (where it's a trace gas and makes little god-damned difference) and Venus (where its concentration is so great that atmospheric pressures are orders of magnitude greater than they are on Earth, and where its effects are huge).

It captures energy only in very narrow frequency bands. You could triple its concentration, and you wouldn't increase temperature by half a degree C. Basic physics tells us this, but AGW fanatics (believers? zealots?) reject those simple calculations, and insist that there must be some positive feedback mechanism, to explain the correlation between historical temp and CO2 concentration.

Seriously. Even though the existence of such a positive feedback mechanism can be rejected on its face, as this would make the whole system chaotic and not tend toward equilibrium, but rather explode upward without bound; and even though the correlation can easily be explained by CO2 dissolved in the oceans outgassing with increasing temperature.

Modern day Piltdown Man, Gabe.

But we've gone quite far afield from the original topic of the post, haven't we?; 8/27/10, 2:41 PM
AC245 said...: And those hard copies published in the 1960s were removed? Then why are they in my library? Why are they in yours?

Are you claiming that the data published now as "historical data" will match the data that was published in 1960?

Because you know that's a lie. We've been over this before. I explained to you that NASA had changed their data sets several times - including adjusting historical data going back to 1901 - and provided you links demonstrating this fact. After which, bizarrely, you accused me of not realizing that they had gone back and made adjustments to historical data:

Gabriel Hanna said...
@AC245:
'But I would ask that you answer this simple yet vexing question:
Why are the numbers in the published historical data sets constantly changing?'

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/updates/
You're so busy accusing NASA of being scammers that you never even bothered to look at THEIR OWN WEB PAGE where they TELL YOU RIGHT OUT WHY THE DATA CHANGED.
That's the problem with "skeptics" like you. You never once bothered to try to find out NASA's side of things.
Again, just like a creationist.
Here is their reasons for some of the more recent changes, which you won't read. But other people will and will know that you didn't have any idea what you were talking about.

Now you're back to the claim that the data isn't constantly shifting. :yawn: You're as dishonest as HDHouse.; 8/27/10, 2:42 PM
Joe said...: "Replication" does not mean taking someone else's calculation and doing it exactly. "Replication" is doing YOUR OWN calculation and getting the same results.

Which has happened multiple times, as I pointed out and linked to.

But you can't replicate Jones, he doesn't have the data...he lost it. And yes, replicability does mean running their data and getting the same results.

That's the basis of much peer review...taking the data set and performing the same operations upon it and getting the same results.

True, replicability also means running the same experiment, but in this case it would mean compiling all the same data again, wouldn't it? So the asnwer would be to run Jones' data set, but sadly, we can't...darn it the rats got it.; 8/27/10, 2:42 PM
bagoh20 said...: If the nation is full of idiots and the policy is failing because it's too hard for them to understand, then let the rubes make the policy. It can't be any worse and at least it would be understood by the people who have to live and prosper under it.

Or as Buckley said:

"I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University."

"The largest cultural menace in America is the conformity of the intellectual cliques which, in education as well as the arts, are out to impose upon the nation their modish fads and fallacies, and have nearly succeeded in doing so."; 8/27/10, 2:43 PM
roesch-voltaire said...: Michael -yes Ballard is an interesting example; I invested in it in the early days and got out in 2000 when I thought it was over-hyped given the small market for the expensive batterie. Sold at $100, took some of the profits and invested in another battery company- Power Technologies, which went bust. It is always a question of how much energy can be delivered for the dollar or yen, but I think the future for EV vehicles is promising. So no I don't see the stimulus as disaster spending, but I do see the millions of dollars flushed away in Iraq and Afghanistan as a disaster. So I say bring the money home and spent it on our infrastructure.; 8/27/10, 2:43 PM
Michael said...: RV: John McCain, our idiot Republican candidate, once proposed an award of $250 million to someone who could come up with a battery that would carry a car 400 miles. Now, that is nearly liberal in its stupidity. The company that comes up with that battery will earn a thousand times the "award." The incentives in the private sector are vast and no government "help" is generally required. Sure there are some offshoots of govt. spending that result in productive consumer goods, etc. but in general the technology will go where it goes, not where it is led.

Lots of infrastructure needs to be replaced, but it has been neglected in favor of countless do-gooder projects that have failed. Those projects keep getting tried. Something has to give.; 8/27/10, 2:54 PM
Joe said...: …but I think the future for EV vehicles is promising.
Sure as long as you over-look the power for them coming from coal-fired, NOX-belching, Carbon-Spewing power plants, Oh that’s right…we’re going to get rid of them or at least new ones, so I guess only a SELECT few will get the pleasure of driving these marvelous EV’s.

So no I don't see the stimulus as disaster spending, but I do see the millions of dollars flushed away in Iraq and Afghanistan as a disaster. So I say bring the money home and spent it on our infrastructure.
Then be of partial good cheer. The Stimulus cost MORE than Iraq and Afghanistan. Didn’t get much in the way of infrastructure or winterization, but the people of ZBB got millions of our dollars!; 8/27/10, 2:58 PM
Joe said...: This week's stimulus plan is coming in around 900 billion. That's about 1 trillion dollars, or about 7% of our entire GDP (and this on top of the trillions of stimulus and bank aid already doled out). The entire projected ten year cost of our involvement in Iraq is 1 trillion dollars, or 100 billion a year; 8/27/10, 3:08 PM
Gabriel Hanna said...: @pastafarian:

It's right there in my comment, dude. That part that you dismiss with a weak 'cite please?!' (to paraphrase).

You linked to one blog commenting on something written on a nother blog without even a link.

I did go look it up. It was a problem with a satellite measurement. Fortunately there are lots of other measurements available.

Then a few comments later you actually use the appeal to authority argument with respect to another commenter...

I don't think it's unfair, if someone says "those guys should have been sent back to school", to respond in kind.

It captures energy only in very narrow frequency bands. You could triple its concentration, and you wouldn't increase temperature by half a degree C. Basic physics tells us this, but AGW fanatics (believers? zealots?) reject those simple calculations, and insist that there must be some positive feedback mechanism, to explain the correlation between historical temp and CO2 concentration.

Physicist do not agree that climate scientists have the basic physics wrong. I've posted these links before, but here they are again:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/GCM.htm

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm#L_0271

over many decades the planet's content of heat-energy had been rising, and was rising still (this continued after 2005 as well). There was only one remotely plausible source of the colossal addition of energy: the Earth must be taking in more energy from sunlight than it was radiating back into space. Simple physics calculated that to heat all that sea water required nearly an extra watt per square meter, averaged over the planet's entire surface, year after year. The number was just what the elaborate greenhouse effect computations had been predicting for decades. James Hansen, leader of one of the studies, called the visible increase of the planet's heat content a "smoking gun" proof of greenhouse effect warming (see graph below). Moreover, in each separate ocean basin there was a close match between the pattern of rising temperatures measured at each location and depth and detailed model calculations of where the greenhouse effect warming should appear. Warming from other sources, for example a change in the Sun's output, could not produce these patterns. Evidently the modelers were on the right track.(56)

Yet amid all the uncertainties about how carbon cycles operated, how much could we trust the computer models to work under circumstances different from the present? Scientists are more likely to believe something if they can confirm it with entirely independent lines of evidence, preferably from somewhere nobody had looked before. Just such new evidence came up in the 1990s, thanks to an unexpected alliance of paleontology and plant physiology. Studies of plant species that had changed little since the rise of the dinosaurs (magnolia for one) showed that if you exposed them to a higher level of CO2, the structure of their leaves changed. Ancient fossil leaves showed just such changes. Several kinds of chemical studies of ancient rocks helped pin down how the level of the gas had swung widely over geological ages, and the temperature too.
Eventually geochemists and their allies managed to get numbers for the "climate sensitivity" in past eras, that is, the response of temperature to a rise in the CO2 level. Over hundreds of millions of years, a doubled level of the gas had always gone along with a temperature rise of three degrees, give or take a degree or two. That agreed almost exactly with the numbers coming from many computer studies.

It's not Piltdown Man, and I honestly wish I could say it was.

But we've gone quite far afield from the original topic of the post, haven't we?

Yeah, and maybe we should get back to it. I said anything that I wanted to say.; 8/27/10, 3:15 PM
Gabriel Hanna said...: @pastafarian:

It's right there in my comment, dude. That part that you dismiss with a weak 'cite please?!' (to paraphrase).

You linked to one blog commenting on something written on another blog without even a link to the blog post, and no link to primary source. How can I comment on something when I don't know what happened?

I did go look it up. It was a problem with a satellite measurement. Fortunately there are lots of other measurements available.

Then a few comments later you actually use the appeal to authority argument with respect to another commenter...

I don't think it's unfair, if someone says "those guys should have been sent back to school", to respond in kind.

It captures energy only in very narrow frequency bands. You could triple its concentration, and you wouldn't increase temperature by half a degree C. Basic physics tells us this, but AGW fanatics (believers? zealots?) reject those simple calculations, and insist that there must be some positive feedback mechanism, to explain the correlation between historical temp and CO2 concentration.

Physicist do not agree that climate scientists have the basic physics wrong. I've posted these links before, but here they are again:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/GCM.htm

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm#L_0271

over many decades the planet's content of heat-energy had been rising, and was rising still (this continued after 2005 as well). There was only one remotely plausible source of the colossal addition of energy: the Earth must be taking in more energy from sunlight than it was radiating back into space. Simple physics calculated that to heat all that sea water required nearly an extra watt per square meter, averaged over the planet's entire surface, year after year. The number was just what the elaborate greenhouse effect computations had been predicting for decades. James Hansen, leader of one of the studies, called the visible increase of the planet's heat content a "smoking gun" proof of greenhouse effect warming (see graph below). Moreover, in each separate ocean basin there was a close match between the pattern of rising temperatures measured at each location and depth and detailed model calculations of where the greenhouse effect warming should appear. Warming from other sources, for example a change in the Sun's output, could not produce these patterns. Evidently the modelers were on the right track.(56)

...Eventually geochemists and their allies managed to get numbers for the "climate sensitivity" in past eras, that is, the response of temperature to a rise in the CO2 level. Over hundreds of millions of years, a doubled level of the gas had always gone along with a temperature rise of three degrees, give or take a degree or two. That agreed almost exactly with the numbers coming from many computer studies.

It's not Piltdown Man, and I honestly wish I could say it was.

But we've gone quite far afield from the original topic of the post, haven't we?

Yeah, and maybe we should get back to it. I said anything that I wanted to say.; 8/27/10, 3:17 PM
Opus One Media said...: hey ty...I got a 4th grand daughter last weekend (go to my blog)...she was born under the double moon...well not quite...love her to death.

thanks for the nice words. you too buddy...have a wonderful friday night. i'll raise a martini to you at 6p as you are an awful prick and a good person.; 8/27/10, 3:44 PM
David Davies said...: HDHouse sez: "Hinderaker lost all hope at credibility when he said "there is no scientific concensus on global warming". What the hell? Just among scientists John but not about astrologers and the local soothsayers."

So genuine actual honest-to-goodness real life scientists who don't agree with your AGW 'consensus' just don't count? Like Dr. Richard S. Lindzen of M.I.T.? Who is actually a 'climatologist'?

Don't even come back and tell us that Dr. Lindzen is 'funded by the oil companies'. The money for research grants comes almost entirely from the government (Al Gore and his buddies), so if there is any distortion of the argument by the influence of money, it is happening on your side.; 8/27/10, 4:00 PM
Opus One Media said...: David Davies said...
i have no idea.

david is full up to his eyes in bullshit..other than that i got nothin'; 8/27/10, 4:15 PM
Trooper York said...: God Bless on your beautiful granddaughter hd.

Politics is one thing and family another.

I bet she will always know that grandpa loves her.; 8/27/10, 4:15 PM
garage mahal said...: And she will always know Green Bay will be playing in North Texas in 163 days.; 8/27/10, 4:29 PM
Anonymous said...: edutcher: That he seems to be using [Know-Nothing] as a monicker for Americans who are merely ill-informed indicates his lack of knowledge, more than anyone else's.

Tell me about it. That's a mis-usage peeve of mine, right up there with "begs the question" to mean "provokes the question" and the now damn-near ubiquitous loose for lose.

wv: gritur. Just gritur teeth and stop complaining about other people's grammar and spelling, you old fart.; 8/27/10, 4:41 PM
former law student said...: The next step would be to fisk Hinderaker. One thing leaps out (I trimmed some of the verbosity -- it's all at Althouse's link):

Hinderaker said "let's ... recall that 35 percent of Democrats told pollsters that President Bush was in on the September 11 attacks. ... Do one-third of all Democrats really believe that President Bush knew about or orchestrated the September 11 attacks?"

But David Paul Kuhn did not say in Politico that Democrats believed that Bush "was in on" the September 11 attacks. Nor did DPK say that Democrats believed that Bush "orchestrated the September 11 attacks." What DPK actually did say was "Fully 35 percent of Democrats believe George W. Bush had advance knowledge of the 9/11 terrorist attacks."

Now why would Hinderaker misrepresent statements from an article he himself linked to? Is he dishonest or merely stupid?

Was it reasonable for Democrats to believe that President Bush had advance knowledge of the 9/11 terrorist attacks? Perhaps they had heard of the President's Daily Brief of 6 August 2001, which informed Bush that Bin Ladin was "determined to strike in the US," and that "FBI information since [1998] indicate[d] suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for
hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of
federal buildings in New York."

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB116/pdb8-6-2001.pdf

Now does knowing that al-Qaeda is determined to strike within the US and knowing that al-Qaeda seems to be getting ready to hijack airplanes equal "advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks"? Reasonable minds may differ, but I wouldn't fault anyone who equated the two.; 8/27/10, 5:04 PM
Crimso said...: Hey Anglelyne, don't forget "must of" instead of "must've"; 8/27/10, 5:08 PM
Trooper York said...: garage mahal said...
And she will always know Green Bay will be playing with themselves in the stands in North Texas in 163 days while the New York Giants win the Superbowl.

Fixed.; 8/27/10, 5:08 PM
garage mahal said...: That almost sounds like you want to make this interesting. Almost.; 8/27/10, 5:23 PM
David Davies said...: Let me make it a bit more clear for you, HDHouse.

Dr. Richard Lindzen, professor of climatology at M.I.T., does not agree with those who propose that our emissions of carbon dioxide are causing significant global warming.

Dr. Lindzen is not the only genuine scientist who disagrees with the mediocre science student Al Gore. There are lots of others.

Where is your scientific 'consensus'?

Oh, right. It is an imaginary concept, located between your ears.; 8/27/10, 5:55 PM
GMay said...: Oh look, 1st echelon troofers. Neat, I didn't know we had troofers on this blog!

Why am I not surprised fls is leading the charge.; 8/27/10, 5:57 PM
GMay said...: IPCC Consensus; 8/27/10, 6:09 PM
MayBee said...: 6 August 2001, which informed Bush that Bin Ladin was "determined to strike in the US,"

Why do people cite this as if it has deep meaning?
Here's the full brief, fwiw: Link

Note that it mentions that Bin Laden had been determined to strike in the US since 1998. There is speculation in it that the Millennium bomber may have been the first attempt.

It is very non-specific, and I doubt it was the first PDB mentioning Bin Laden.
Anybody who thinks it indicated Bush had any kind of information about that day and that type of event, is ill informed enough to be the subject of Egan's next column.; 8/27/10, 6:59 PM
MayBee said...: My comment got deleted, perhaps because of the link.

Here is the complete transcript of the August 6 PDB:
Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."

After U.S. missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a -- -- service.

An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told - - service at the same time that bin Laden was planning to exploit the operative's access to the U.S. to mount a terrorist strike.

The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of bin Laden's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the U.S.

Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that in ---, Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own U.S. attack.

Ressam says bin Laden was aware of the Los Angeles operation. Although Bin Laden has not succeeded, his attacks against the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Laden associates surveyed our embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.

Al Qaeda members -- including some who are U.S. citizens -- have resided in or traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.

Two al-Qaeda members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were U.S. citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.

A clandestine source said in 1998 that a bin Laden cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.

We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ---- service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists.

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full-field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.

Anybody who thinks that gave enough information to constitute a direct warning about the 9/11 attack - enough so President Bush could be considered to have advanced knowledge of it- is ill informed enough to be the subject of Egan's next column.; 8/27/10, 7:14 PM
Automatic_Wing said...: Was it reasonable for Democrats to believe that President Bush had advance knowledge of the 9/11 terrorist attacks? Perhaps they had heard of the President's Daily Brief of 6 August 2001, which informed Bush that Bin Ladin was "determined to strike in the US...

Um, no, that's not reasonable. in fact, it's pretty fucking stupid. It's like saying that FDR had advance knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack because he had intelligence that Japan might attack us. Which he did.

Lame rationalization for a lame belief system.; 8/27/10, 7:18 PM
MayBee said...: I keep trying to link or quote the August 6 PDB, and my comments keep disappearing.

But I invite anybody to google it. It is available to read, and it is quite short.
It says that the US had known since 1998 that Bin Laden was determined to strike in the US. The millennium bomber may have been the first attempt, and we were investigating some recruiting they were doing in New York. The intelligence about a hijacking threat was unable to be substantiated, but they felt operatives were working on explosives.

How Bush was supposed to glean from that anything that constituted "advanced knowledge" of 9/11 is a mystery.

Don't be a 8/6 PDP Truther.; 8/27/10, 7:28 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Longtime liberal commenter is his usual self : Dumb de dumb dumb.; 8/27/10, 7:35 PM
Opus One Media said...: MayBee said...
"How Bush was supposed to glean from that anything that constituted "advanced knowledge" of 9/11 is a mystery."

Shit MayBee...how Bush gleaned how to put on his shoes is a mystery. That dumb turd couldn't face east if the sun was risen and hittin' him in the face.; 8/27/10, 7:51 PM
Joe said...: HDHouse responds with his usual well-reasoned, witty repartee..I wonder what advice HD must his clients, as he has such words of wisdom for us.; 8/27/10, 8:10 PM
GMay said...: Damn, I guess I should've also done an over-under on what time Ritmo would show up.; 8/27/10, 8:21 PM
Michael said...: President George W. Bush. Andover. Yale. Harvard Business School.

H.D. House?; 8/27/10, 8:25 PM
Michael said...: "Confidential college transcripts and test scores obtained by the Washington Post reveal that neither presidential candidate, George W. Bush nor Al Gore, were shining students during their college days at Yale and Harvard, respectively. Although each earned respectable scores on the SAT college admissions test (a total of 1355 of 1600 for Gore and 1206 for Bush), neither did that well in their college courses"

Can't seem to find the SAT scores for BH Obama, Mr. House, perhaps you can employ your superior skills to post them.; 8/27/10, 8:30 PM
MayBee said...: Is the belief that Bush is stupid more or less offensive than the belief that Obama is Muslim?; 8/27/10, 8:32 PM
GMay said...: I believe Bush also speaks more languages than Obama, Kerry, Gore, and Clinton. Pretty sure he had a higher GPA than Kerry too.

Logged a few hundred flight hours hours in the supersonic F-102 trainer if I recall. You can't even fire one of those up if you're the moron that leftards would have everyone believe Bush was.; 8/27/10, 9:35 PM
Alex said...: shoutingthomas - you know this bigotry tactic only seems to occur on the internet and talk radio. I think you blow it out of proportion to what's happening in real life.; 8/27/10, 10:25 PM
dick said...: fls,

Take your two factoids and from that determine that Al Qaeda will attack the WTC and the Pentagon on 9/11 in the height of the rush hour by crashing planes into the buildings - make sure you determine which planes flying from which airport will do the damage and while you are at it remember that NYC has over 4,000 flights per day flying into the 3 major airports and the minor airports where private planes land and take off. You have to be specific about it. Also include the fact that the various intelligence agencies cannot correlate their information nor can they share sources thanks to Jamie Gorelick and Janet Reno. You might want to point out what wording in the sainted memo gives you your information.

I only mention this because I just went out on my balcony and now at 12 midnight there are 10 flights that I can see overhead from my apt in Queens halfway between JFK and La Guardia airports.; 8/27/10, 11:03 PM
Mick said...: How about law profs that don't know what the meaning of Natural Born Citizen is (born in the US of US Citizen Parents)?; 8/28/10, 6:52 AM
Opus One Media said...: Michael said...
President George W. Bush. Andover. Yale. Harvard Business School."

well that pretty much sums up being the son of a president and a legacy and a richer than hell idiot doesn't it?

when there is no other logical explanation, there is no other logical explanation.; 8/28/10, 11:51 AM
Michael said...: HD: Yes, because junior level math teachers always look to the pedigree of their students before giving grades. You betcha.

Where were you "educated?"; 8/28/10, 12:48 PM
Robert Cook said...: From Hinderaker's POWERLINE (who knew these guys were still around?) piece:

"But the "false belief in weapons of mass destruction" was not some sort of popular (let alone Republican) delusion. It was the considered judgment of the CIA and every other intelligence agency, world-wide."

Says who? This is what the Bush Administration frequently asserted, but have we ever seen actual position papers or public statements by "the CIA and every other intelligence agency world-wide" declaring this to have been their actual unanimous "considered judgement?"

Given that Hussein's son-in-law Hussein Kamel briefly defected to the west and admitted that Iraq's "WMD", (i.e., chemical and nerve agents, as there never were nukes) had been destroyed, as he, (Kamel) had directed their destruction himself, it seems doubtful the CIA was not aware that assertions of Iraq's "extant" WMD were, at the least, highly debatable and hardly conclusively proved.

Given also that in the months prior to 9/11, both Condi Rice and Colin Powell asserted that Iraq was effectively disarmed and essentially impotent and could project no threat to its neighbors, it seems highly probable--to the point of near certainty--that any assertions by the Bush White House that "the CIA and every other intelligence agence world-wide" held the "considered judgement" that Iraq still maintained WMD were egregious exaggerations of what they actually knew and believed, at least, and, most probably conscious lies.

That Hinderaker unquestioningly accepts the assertion and repeats it reveals that he is not making arguments but promulgating propaganda.

As for the division of stupidity among Americans, well, the band Sparks put it well over 30 years ago when they sang, "Everybody's stupid, after all."; 8/29/10, 7:50 AM