My point is the BBC is hardly the paragon of journalistic integrity that you make it out to be. They have routinely been caught taking a specific side of the story and minimizing opposing views all the while treating their view as the accepted one. This doesn't mean they are lying to their audience but it also doesn't mean they are telling the whole truth. You can easily have a factual report that points to an entirely wrong or highly suggestive conclusion. And this wouldn't make the slightest difference if they were privately owned but they aren't.
The GP is probably referring to the various studies by Pew and UCLA (to name the biggest) which, while using completely different forms of measurement, all came to pretty much the same conclusion, Fox leans slightly right while almost all other stations have a strong left lean.
The studies focused on news broadcasts and not their opinion shows.
There are also numerous studies about the past election cycle which showed pretty much the same thing.
It's can be a bit of a pain to find a direct link to the original summaries of the PEW or UCLA study so I'll leave it to you to just google them and find a source which references them that you'll accept.
The BBC has been caught up in several uproars as to their bias journalism. Even their own internal report, which they fought to not allow to be made public even thought they are owned by the public, outlines several areas where they allowed a strong liberal agenda to drive stories.
The CBC might seem better than CNN for being generally unbiased in their straight news casts but they definitely have a Liberal lean in their overall programming and story selection. They've already be caught actively colluding with the Liberal party to try and make the Conservatives look bad (google Krista Erickson).
In the CBC and BBC for that matter, I think it is more a matter of perception. Their anchors do a much better job appearing less emotionally involved in their stories, which is what you want in a straight news broadcaster. It's only when you look at the content of their pieces as well as look at other stories they chose NOT to cover that you begin to see the bias.
Like many people said above, this is bad when it happens in a private news organization but still fully within their rights but when the taxpayers are footing the bill anything but straight reporting is just not kosher.
I replied to this earlier but it appears it didn't post so here is the short version:
Point 1) The article you link to is already adjusted for inflation so you might want to look at your own source. The actual dollar figure was 2.1 (in 1993) which for the article was adjusted to 3.3. No way to hide the decline in that one, research funding was increased.
Point 2) The profits of a private company do not figure into the debate about pro and con global warming funding as their own research expenditures in this field are already pretty clear (approximately 7 million last year) but even if they did Exxon's profits only represent a 7.6% return. That's nearly 2% lower than almost every manufacturing business in the US (except the Auto industry which is a mess all it's own). The numbers look big, and they are, but that's simply because the amount of money oil industries deal with in sales and costs are insane. Large expenditures, large risks and relatively small profit margins.
If you read the actual report your article links to you'd have seen that the numbers mentioned were already adjusted for inflation.
The actual dollars spent were 2.1B (1993) to 5.1B (2004). The 3.3B mentioned in the article was the adjusted 2.1 value.
And what exactly does the net income of a private company have to do with government spending on research? Does it matter that that huge profit only represents about a 7.6% margin, which actually under performs against the majority of the US manufacturing market by nearly 2%.
Yes, profits are huge in the oil industry but so are expenditures and risks. Either way, that doesn't change the dollar amounts being spent on research.
This 'decline' (or a very similar argument) is linked to somewhere down in a later post but in the case of Global warming research it's simply a play on numbers.
In the link below the you see that while the percentage spent on research over implementation dropped significantly, because the actual dollars spent went up it still meant a 140 million increase in actual research spending (all numbers were for US spending only).
That was for one researcher at one facility. The US government alone spends billion annually on climate research
I'd like to see your number on how much the oil industry is spending on anti-AGW studies and such. The only number I can find is for Exxon @ about 23 million over the last decade, with approximately 7 million of that for last year. Even if that had all been spent last year that would still fall short of just US federal spending by more than a factor of 100.
Only in the AGW realm can a group of people collectively spending a few million (even a few 10's of millions to be generous) be considered the Goliath to a worldwide political force spending in the 10's and hundreds of Billions.
All your link does it point out that Federal research funding increased from 1.85 billion to 1.99 billion ANNUALLY, (and tries to make it sound like the poor little researchers are struggling to get by). Do you even have the slightest hint how much 1.99 billion dollars is? I also have to question how an increase of almost 140 million in funding is considered "almost flat" by the writer. I especially love the way he uses a change in the percentage of funding in his statement to give the appearance of a decrease when in actuality all values went up. He doesn't happen to work at the CRU does he?
Compare that to the 23 million Exxon spent over the last decade on funding climate research projects and just guess when the money is.
I really don't think some people understand what the 'B' in billion represents.
Grants can be tightly controlled but are as often as not simply justified by publishing results. If you publish the right results then more grant money is likely to flow in.
I've had professors in school that were effectively forced to buy new computers for their grant work because they were told that the money HAD to be spent. They didn't need the machines but couldn't find anything else to spend the cash on. Sending back unused grant money is sacrilege akin to not spending your departments projected budget. It doesn't necessarily make sense but it's the way the financial managers of the world like it.
Over the last 10 years Exxon has given about 23 million in research grants for climate research projects (pro and con but you can assume mostly con if you want). In that same period the US government alone has given over 2 Billion in grants for just global warming research.
In the last 20 years the US government has spent almost 70 billion on general climate research and anti-global warming technologies (about 50/50). And all this is just for the US government spending. Other governments spend hundreds of million to billions on global warming as well as the various 'green' companies.
The director of the CRU, Phil Jones, alone has collected almost 27 million in grants since 1990. That's $27,000,000 (figured I'd write it out long hand since you don't seem to understand that that is a LOT of money).
So if you follow the money you'll most likely find yourself starting in Washington or some other capital and then straight to a University Campus with no "Big Oil" boogie man anywhere in sight.
So your defense against the fraud charges are an editorial from Nature magazine and a post from a website that is itself caught up in the middle of the scandal. By this point even many of the more prominent AGW supporters are admitting things look very fishy at the CRU, including fellow members of the EAU faculty.
As for the mainstream media defense, that's right along the 'consensus = proof' argument. The MSM has been pushing AGW for years; far beyond the limits of disinterested reporters. In some cases (NBC in particular) they have direct financial ties to the continuation of the theory. NBC's parent company stands to make billions (and yes that's a 'B') based on the proposed anti-CO2 legislation. Is there any wonder why suddenly when news comes out that shines a very negative light on their cause of the day that they are slow in covering it.
Basically, in the US in particular, if the story doesn't fit their political agenda news agencies are quite happy to ignore them. Just look at the last election cycle with the John Edwards fiasco. The New York Times was running front page stories of John McCain's relationship a decade earlier with a lobbyist that 2 assistants said he was friendly with (despite no hint of an affair and a voting record that did not in any way match her lobbyist positions) meanwhile no one except the National Enquirer was bothering to report on Edwards (poorly hidden) extramarital affair while he wife was fighting cancer.
Or even more recently, the entire ACORN mess. Most media outlets failed to report on it until AFTER people were fired, the senate had voted to remove all federal funding of the agency and several state agencies reported investigations into their practices. Even then many choose to focus on the two people reporting the story rather than the content of their investigation or simply did a quick 30 segment or small back page article on the matter. Even Jon Stewart had to rip the media for that one.
Making an honest effort would mean at least acknowledging these problem BEFORE issuing reports to the IPCC and NOT hiding data for years to prevent secondary verification. In fact, everything about the CRU's actions in this situation is about not being honest.
And I would take anything at RealClimate with a very heavy grain of salt as they are tied up neck deep with the CRU. Simply because the people who perpetrated this fraud, and fraud is what this was, say "hey now we're all good" is hardly a comfort.
An honest effort would have involved a report clearly marked as preliminary with references to the difficulties they were having in gathering and analyzing the data from various recording sites. In two words "Full Disclosure". Instead they issued reports and models that were used as the basis for the IPCC report, and did everything in their power to prevent anyone from outside their clique from gaining access to their data or collection methods all the while pushing the silly 'the science is settled' mantra; a drastic departure from the scientific methodology they claimed to be proponents of.
Observe, Hypothesize, Verify became Observe, Hypothesize, Obfuscate.
For definitive proof of their dishonesty all you have to do is look at Jone's emails requesting the other researchers delete an entire email chain from their systems so that it would not be available for a FOIA request, which is a violation of the FOIA itself.
Your feigned ignorance of the situation does not change the facts that these are not simple one or two isolated incidents. The emails and code just help give an inside look into issues that many outside scientist have had with the CRU and their international counterparts for years; their complete lack of transparency.
You seriously need to read the commented code. This wasn't just some off the street code monkey writing this stuff and putting comments like:
I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations, one with no WMO and one with, usually overlapping and with the same station name and very similar coordinates. I know it could be old and new stations, but why such large overlaps if that's the case? Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight.
or
Back to the gridding. I am seriously worried that our flagship gridded data product is produced by Delaunay triangulation - apparently linear as well. As far as I can see, this renders the station counts totally meaningless. It also means that we cannot say exactly how the gridded data is arrived at from a statistical perspective - since we're using an off-the-shelf product that isn't documented sufficiently to say that. Why this wasn't coded up in Fortran I don't know - time pressures perhaps? Was too much effort expended on homogenisation, that there wasn't enough time to write a gridding procedure? Of course, it's too late for me to fix it too. Meh.
or
OH FUCK THIS. It's Sunday evening, I've worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done I'm hitting yet another problem that's based on the hopeless state of our databases. There is no uniform data integrity, it's just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they're found.
This is one of the key scientists at the CRU and these are all comments about the state of the computer model that is often sited as one of the flagship models for future predictions, as well as their input data sets. It's not pretty stuff.
It was NOT just emails that were leaked but more importantly the code used for the CRU climate models; models which are (probably should be past tense now) considered one of the most important indicators of future events. They are one of the key components of the IPCC reports.
It's actually the code that is the most damning. Throughout the code there are manipulations and "fudge factors" applied to the input data sets to manipulate the models to ensure the result the scientists wanted always appears. Most have no justification and even the actual programmer seems mystified as to what is being done in many cases.
It all goes hand in hand with this type of cherry picking of values. You either have to use entire data sets or give rational and defendable reasoning for why you are only using portions. So far the only justification from the scientists involved seems to be that they simply didn't like the numbers they were getting at certain times so they just chose to exclude them.
1960 was the period in which the tree ring proxy indicated a cooling of temperatures. The problem was actual direct temperature measurements showed an increase. So instead of spending too much time studying why the two values started going in opposite directions Mann simply proposed (and later Jones adopted) the process of simply merging the two sets of measurements, with the tree ring data stopping at 1960, and direct measurements taking over. There was still tree ring data available for post 1960, but as it was clearly not moving in sync with recorded temperatures it was no longer convenient to use.
The problem with this is that they continued to use tree rings as accurate proxies for times in which direct measurements did not exist even though their own data showed that the use of tree rings as a proxy for temperature was not accurate. While it is not uncommon to merge two related data sets to fill in gaps when trying to create a more complete picture, once it can be shown that the sets you are using have the ability to wildly fluctuate away from each other in times where you have overlap, it is no longer valid to attempt to create a single picture using selective data from each set.
So they ran with the hypothesis that tree ring data was a accurate method to determine temperatures during periods that direct measurement was not possible and when faced with direct evidence that that was not the case they did not change their hypothesis, they simply switched to the more convenient metric for the times when the tree rings and actual temperature diverged. Without a proper explanation for the 1960 divergence, it would be hard for any unbiased scientist to continue to use tree rings as an accurate proxy for temperature.
No matter how many times people like you or the people involved keep trying to claim that a "trick" is not a trick, in this case it meets the textbook definition: "a cunning or deceitful action or device". The sole purpose of the "trick" in question was to remove data that directly contradicted expected results.
So instead of trying to properly explain the difference or reevaluate the use of tree rings as proxies they merely cut off the tree ring data at the point it became inconvenient and then substituted another set of data to fill in the gaps. That allowed them to create extended timelines to try and prove their point, knowing full well that almost all their historical data was questionable since it was based off a proxy that their own measurements showed to be faulty. Even with a explanation for the divergence all they would have shown was that their proxy was subject to external pressures independent of the temperature, greatly reducing it's use with regards to temperature studies.
This divergence problem is not something that can simply be passed over by merging two completely different records and then claim everything is ok, as Mann, Jones and any number of scientists basing their work off these datasets either knowingly or unwittingly did. If you use a proxy for temperature readings in years with no instrumental record (the tree ring data) you do not simply get to stop using that proxy at a time of your choosing when it's data doesn't match actual measurements. You either have to come up with a completely solid explanation for the divergence, something that is measurable, repeatable and able to be cleanly factored into the measurements or simply discontinue use of the proxy. The fact they chose to simple make it disappear using selective merging of unrelated data sets speaks volumes as to their intellectual honesty in this matter. The fact you dismiss it as simply a poor choice of words speaks volume of yours.
You seem to be going out of your way to be entirely missing the point.
Microsoft is under no obligation to allow any unauthorized accessories to EVER work with their systems. It doesn't matter if it work previously or not. Unless the makers of that device pay a licensing fee to MS to gain support rights, MS can at any time they want change their drivers/protocols whatever, to prevent the device from working. The makers of the device that no longer works, or their customers, have no legal recourse against Microsoft unless they can get them classified a monopoly, which is no where near the case in the gaming console market.
Panasonic supposedly did the exact same thing with the batteries in their Lumix cameras, and you can feel as insulted as you want but that still doesn't give you a legal leg to stand on in trying to get them to reverse their decision.
Unless that customer hardware was approved for use with the XBox by Microsoft themselves, then your class action case would have absolutely no grounds. Just because a company can make a product that works with another companies device, the device manufacturer is under no obligation to support it.
The rules change slightly when the device manufacturer can be designated a monopoly, but as has been mentioned a hundred times in this thread already, Microsoft is not a monopoly in the gaming console market.
The BBC is not the glowing example of unbiased reporting that you make it out to be. Their own internal investigation in 2007 of bias within the corporation found high levels of liberal bias where one side of an argument is often pushed by the entire network (entertainment, news, etc..) as opposed to balanced debate.
The report was pretty harsh and gave concrete examples. It was so bad the BBC, even though they are are publicly funded corporation, tried to go to court to have the report kept out of the public.
And there are several independent reports as well as sites dedicated to showing BBC bias, mainly focusing on their often one sided reporting of the Middle East.
So do the math, how many times has O'Reilly cut off a persons mic in 13 years compared to how many conservative guests KO has had in 6. Even the LA Times TV critic has mentioned the complete and utter lack of opposing views on Countdown. The fact that you see two people who agree with each other 95% as a 'debate' speaks volumes about your ability to view the world from a neutral standpoint. Though oddly, even while ranting about close minded conservatives you concede the point that O'Reilly routinely has guests on he disagrees with, the vast majority of which he does not shout down or disable audio equipment on.
So who would an average person determine is more comfortable with their positions, the one who is willing to at least talk to someone with an opposing viewpoint or the one who only has on people who agree with him?
As for what I watch, in case you missed it above, I typed it out quite clearly I used to watch Hardball and The Factor but have stopped watching both on any regular basis. If you want more detail I have watched both KO and Maddow (and find her much easier to handle but prefer to watch neither), I watch Hannity and Colmes when Colmes was still on it but it became very repetitive (have never watch Hannity solo), I watched Glen Beck for about a week but even when he made some sense his theatrics drove me nuts. The only political shows I now watch regularly are Red Eye and Meet the Press and the only straight News broadcast I watch regularly is NBC (not MSNBC, just straight ole NBC) though I browse between CNN and Fox News if anything interesting is happening.
I do regularly read political and news sites online including "Hot Air" Politico and even Daily Kos and HuffPo (which from your rants and complete hatred of all things conservative I'm sure would feel like home to you). I'm still trying to find that damn talking points listserve that every liberal assures me exists for conservatives. I did manage to find a liberal one that linked a lot of high profile media outlets and allowed them to disseminate the administration notes on a daily basis but no luck on the conservative one yet. What's a sloped browed conservative to do?
BTW, if you ever want an example of group think and see lightening fast attacks for variations from the accepted norm go to a HuffPo or Kos forum (or DU if you're extremely adventurous). Nothing will make your head spin faster then being caught next to an enlightened tolerant liberal who someone dares disagree with, as I'm sure your neighbors can attest to.
So O'Reilly cuts off a mic once every year or so and that evens everything out? To prove your point please provide a list of conservative guests on the Olberman and Maddow shows since their start. You can probably send the entire list by SMS with more than enough space left to hack an iPhone.
And if you want just a recent example of actual NBC journalism take a look at their discussion of the gun toting protesters at a recent Obama town hall. The amount of editing required to hide the ethnicity of the gun wielder so that it fit their "racist whites" meme was astounding.
You seem to be intentionally missing my point. O'Reilly, Beck, Matthews and Olberman are all professional ideologues who host 'opinion' shows, which is just fine and completely within any channels right to target a specific audience, but, on NBC they see no problem with also allowing Matthews and Olberman and Maddow to host their serious news coverage of events such as Presidential debates and elections, not just the after event specials but the events themselves.
As for "never given a platform", have you ever heard of Air America? Probably not because even though millions of legal, and illegal, funds were pushed into creating that liberal utopia on the radio they couldn't maintain a fan base. Simply no one wanted to listen to them rant and rave into an echo chamber of guests with no real point, not even fellow liberals. O'Reilly, Limbaugh and even Beck on the other hand all have a rather substantial listener/viewer bases amongst independents and liberals. I suspect for Beck and Rush it's a least partially the 'Howard Stern" affect.
As for debates, when is the last time you've seen a true conservative on either Maddow or Olbermann to offer a differing of opinion? Well for Olbermann you'd have to go back to his sports broadcasting days while Maddow at least allows for some dissent, but not usually from an actual conservative, more likely from a 'not as left' or 'further left' type, depending on the issue. Matthews may have a bit more variety but he almost always dismisses viewpoints that disagree with his pre-determined outcome, often with overtly sexist statements for which he has gotten into hot water for more than once.
From what I've seen Beck is a bit closer to Matthews (minus the on air sexual comments about guests) but O'Reilly routinely has on guests that completely disagree with him. His debates often get quite spirited but they are at least honest. Even Hannity has people on he disagrees with but that always just turns into a shouting match so no one ever wins there.
As for you attempt to put down the entire right side of the political spectrum with a baseless personal attack, a recent Ohio State study that found that conservatives are more likely that liberals to spend time checking out opposing viewpoints. They had many suggestions as to why but one of their main theories was that conservatives are more grounded in their ideology so are more comfortable with opposition. I'll leave you to rant about that for a while on your own.
I personally don't watch any of main opinion shows with any regularity any more, except on the rare occasion when my PVR records O'Reilly instead of Red Eye, but I used to be a constant viewer of both O'Reilly and Hardball. I actually respected Matthews for his "pro abortion" stance (his words during one program), not that I necessarily agreed with him but he was willing to openly state his opinion. He even chided fellow liberals for trying to hide their beliefs under generic terms like 'choice'. He has since turned much further left and become the 'thrill up my leg' broadcaster.
I feel sorry for those who will never get to watch Tim Russert on Meet the Press and instead will have to get their fill of political discussions from the Olbermann's and Hannity's of the cable channels. I still don't know where Russert came down on the political spectrum but on his show he had people of all political stripes and treated them all fairly and as such was also a perfect choice for any legitimate news coverage.
As far as I'm aware Glen Beck and Bill O'Reilly don't host news shows on any network. They don't even host serious news events on Fox. They have opinion shows on Fox and on radio, but thats not the news. And for that matter Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh don't even have a show on any news network so they are a moot point.
Keith Olberman and Chris Matthews however were the official anchors for most of the last Presidential election run for almost every MSNBC or NBC event and anyone who thinks that KO is any less an ideologue as Glen Beck has got to be kidding themselves.
The fact far left writers/talkers can't maintain an audience on radio or write a book that people will buy is not the fault of AC or RL.
Nazism, as is Facism, are actually far left ideologies, both with very strong roots in early 20th century socialism. The attempt to connect them to the right is laughable at best and highly dishonest. By their very nature both favor the society over the individual which is a basic tenant of socialism; which is pretty much the definitive leftist ideology. Eugenics follows very closely with this in that it seeks to remove from society that which it determines to be a detriment. What they use to determine what is and is not good is often based in racism and other prejudices but the outward justification for eugenics based program is almost always that it will help better the society (see. Margaret Sanger).
A more natural extension of conservatism is anarchy, where in no laws exist to restrict a persons actions. A "What I do with my property is my own business" type society run amok.
And no matter which way you fall politically the grandparent is right. In a comparison between Bush, Obama and Hitler, of the two American Presidents, Obama shares much more politically with Hitler of course that still doesn't make the comparison all that useful for a discussion.
H ------- O - B
"O" may be closer to "H" than "B" is but "O" and "B" are much closer together and either are to "H". (I would have made H and O further apart but the junk character filter complained)
But the grandparent was discussing how Bush was being compared to Hitler on a daily basis with little media or public outrage (and often direct involvement on the media part) while a simple poster created by a liberal (and wrongly accredited to conservatives) has had people up in arms like someone had insulted their chosen deity (which in this case can be true for some).
As for Dictatorships, in and of themselves, they hold no political ideology but are just a form of government where power is centralized into a single figure. The ideology of the government then comes from that person and can fall anywhere on the left/right scale though it seems most large centralized authoritarian forms of government have been to the far left of the political scale, at least for the last century or so. I guess it's easier to keep the populace quelled when you at least pretend what you are doing is for their benefit and not your own.
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My point is the BBC is hardly the paragon of journalistic integrity that you make it out to be. They have routinely been caught taking a specific side of the story and minimizing opposing views all the while treating their view as the accepted one. This doesn't mean they are lying to their audience but it also doesn't mean they are telling the whole truth. You can easily have a factual report that points to an entirely wrong or highly suggestive conclusion. And this wouldn't make the slightest difference if they were privately owned but they aren't.
The GP is probably referring to the various studies by Pew and UCLA (to name the biggest) which, while using completely different forms of measurement, all came to pretty much the same conclusion, Fox leans slightly right while almost all other stations have a strong left lean.
The studies focused on news broadcasts and not their opinion shows.
There are also numerous studies about the past election cycle which showed pretty much the same thing.
It's can be a bit of a pain to find a direct link to the original summaries of the PEW or UCLA study so I'll leave it to you to just google them and find a source which references them that you'll accept.
The BBC has been caught up in several uproars as to their bias journalism. Even their own internal report, which they fought to not allow to be made public even thought they are owned by the public, outlines several areas where they allowed a strong liberal agenda to drive stories.
The CBC might seem better than CNN for being generally unbiased in their straight news casts but they definitely have a Liberal lean in their overall programming and story selection. They've already be caught actively colluding with the Liberal party to try and make the Conservatives look bad (google Krista Erickson).
In the CBC and BBC for that matter, I think it is more a matter of perception. Their anchors do a much better job appearing less emotionally involved in their stories, which is what you want in a straight news broadcaster. It's only when you look at the content of their pieces as well as look at other stories they chose NOT to cover that you begin to see the bias.
Like many people said above, this is bad when it happens in a private news organization but still fully within their rights but when the taxpayers are footing the bill anything but straight reporting is just not kosher.
I replied to this earlier but it appears it didn't post so here is the short version:
Point 1) The article you link to is already adjusted for inflation so you might want to look at your own source. The actual dollar figure was 2.1 (in 1993) which for the article was adjusted to 3.3. No way to hide the decline in that one, research funding was increased.
Point 2) The profits of a private company do not figure into the debate about pro and con global warming funding as their own research expenditures in this field are already pretty clear (approximately 7 million last year) but even if they did Exxon's profits only represent a 7.6% return. That's nearly 2% lower than almost every manufacturing business in the US (except the Auto industry which is a mess all it's own). The numbers look big, and they are, but that's simply because the amount of money oil industries deal with in sales and costs are insane. Large expenditures, large risks and relatively small profit margins.
If you read the actual report your article links to you'd have seen that the numbers mentioned were already adjusted for inflation.
The actual dollars spent were 2.1B (1993) to 5.1B (2004). The 3.3B mentioned in the article was the adjusted 2.1 value.
And what exactly does the net income of a private company have to do with government spending on research? Does it matter that that huge profit only represents about a 7.6% margin, which actually under performs against the majority of the US manufacturing market by nearly 2%.
Yes, profits are huge in the oil industry but so are expenditures and risks. Either way, that doesn't change the dollar amounts being spent on research.
This 'decline' (or a very similar argument) is linked to somewhere down in a later post but in the case of Global warming research it's simply a play on numbers.
In the link below the you see that while the percentage spent on research over implementation dropped significantly, because the actual dollars spent went up it still meant a 140 million increase in actual research spending (all numbers were for US spending only).
That was for one researcher at one facility. The US government alone spends billion annually on climate research
I'd like to see your number on how much the oil industry is spending on anti-AGW studies and such. The only number I can find is for Exxon @ about 23 million over the last decade, with approximately 7 million of that for last year. Even if that had all been spent last year that would still fall short of just US federal spending by more than a factor of 100.
Only in the AGW realm can a group of people collectively spending a few million (even a few 10's of millions to be generous) be considered the Goliath to a worldwide political force spending in the 10's and hundreds of Billions.
All your link does it point out that Federal research funding increased from 1.85 billion to 1.99 billion ANNUALLY, (and tries to make it sound like the poor little researchers are struggling to get by). Do you even have the slightest hint how much 1.99 billion dollars is? I also have to question how an increase of almost 140 million in funding is considered "almost flat" by the writer. I especially love the way he uses a change in the percentage of funding in his statement to give the appearance of a decrease when in actuality all values went up. He doesn't happen to work at the CRU does he?
Compare that to the 23 million Exxon spent over the last decade on funding climate research projects and just guess when the money is.
I really don't think some people understand what the 'B' in billion represents.
Grants can be tightly controlled but are as often as not simply justified by publishing results. If you publish the right results then more grant money is likely to flow in.
I've had professors in school that were effectively forced to buy new computers for their grant work because they were told that the money HAD to be spent. They didn't need the machines but couldn't find anything else to spend the cash on. Sending back unused grant money is sacrilege akin to not spending your departments projected budget. It doesn't necessarily make sense but it's the way the financial managers of the world like it.
Over the last 10 years Exxon has given about 23 million in research grants for climate research projects (pro and con but you can assume mostly con if you want). In that same period the US government alone has given over 2 Billion in grants for just global warming research.
In the last 20 years the US government has spent almost 70 billion on general climate research and anti-global warming technologies (about 50/50). And all this is just for the US government spending. Other governments spend hundreds of million to billions on global warming as well as the various 'green' companies.
The director of the CRU, Phil Jones, alone has collected almost 27 million in grants since 1990. That's $27,000,000 (figured I'd write it out long hand since you don't seem to understand that that is a LOT of money).
So if you follow the money you'll most likely find yourself starting in Washington or some other capital and then straight to a University Campus with no "Big Oil" boogie man anywhere in sight.
So your defense against the fraud charges are an editorial from Nature magazine and a post from a website that is itself caught up in the middle of the scandal. By this point even many of the more prominent AGW supporters are admitting things look very fishy at the CRU, including fellow members of the EAU faculty.
As for the mainstream media defense, that's right along the 'consensus = proof' argument. The MSM has been pushing AGW for years; far beyond the limits of disinterested reporters. In some cases (NBC in particular) they have direct financial ties to the continuation of the theory. NBC's parent company stands to make billions (and yes that's a 'B') based on the proposed anti-CO2 legislation. Is there any wonder why suddenly when news comes out that shines a very negative light on their cause of the day that they are slow in covering it.
Basically, in the US in particular, if the story doesn't fit their political agenda news agencies are quite happy to ignore them. Just look at the last election cycle with the John Edwards fiasco. The New York Times was running front page stories of John McCain's relationship a decade earlier with a lobbyist that 2 assistants said he was friendly with (despite no hint of an affair and a voting record that did not in any way match her lobbyist positions) meanwhile no one except the National Enquirer was bothering to report on Edwards (poorly hidden) extramarital affair while he wife was fighting cancer.
Or even more recently, the entire ACORN mess. Most media outlets failed to report on it until AFTER people were fired, the senate had voted to remove all federal funding of the agency and several state agencies reported investigations into their practices. Even then many choose to focus on the two people reporting the story rather than the content of their investigation or simply did a quick 30 segment or small back page article on the matter. Even Jon Stewart had to rip the media for that one.
Making an honest effort would mean at least acknowledging these problem BEFORE issuing reports to the IPCC and NOT hiding data for years to prevent secondary verification. In fact, everything about the CRU's actions in this situation is about not being honest.
And I would take anything at RealClimate with a very heavy grain of salt as they are tied up neck deep with the CRU. Simply because the people who perpetrated this fraud, and fraud is what this was, say "hey now we're all good" is hardly a comfort.
An honest effort would have involved a report clearly marked as preliminary with references to the difficulties they were having in gathering and analyzing the data from various recording sites. In two words "Full Disclosure". Instead they issued reports and models that were used as the basis for the IPCC report, and did everything in their power to prevent anyone from outside their clique from gaining access to their data or collection methods all the while pushing the silly 'the science is settled' mantra; a drastic departure from the scientific methodology they claimed to be proponents of.
Observe, Hypothesize, Verify became Observe, Hypothesize, Obfuscate.
For definitive proof of their dishonesty all you have to do is look at Jone's emails requesting the other researchers delete an entire email chain from their systems so that it would not be available for a FOIA request, which is a violation of the FOIA itself.
Your feigned ignorance of the situation does not change the facts that these are not simple one or two isolated incidents. The emails and code just help give an inside look into issues that many outside scientist have had with the CRU and their international counterparts for years; their complete lack of transparency.
You seriously need to read the commented code. This wasn't just some off the street code monkey writing this stuff and putting comments like:
I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations, one with no WMO and one with, usually overlapping and with the same station name and very similar coordinates. I know it could be old and new stations, but why such large overlaps if that's the case? Aarrggghhh!
There truly is no end in sight.
or
Back to the gridding. I am seriously worried that our flagship gridded data product is produced by Delaunay triangulation - apparently linear as well. As far as I can see, this renders the station counts totally meaningless. It also means that we cannot say exactly how the gridded data is arrived at from a statistical perspective - since we're using an off-the-shelf product that isn't documented sufficiently to say that. Why this wasn't coded up in Fortran I don't know - time pressures perhaps?
Was too much effort expended on homogenisation, that there wasn't enough time to write a gridding
procedure? Of course, it's too late for me to fix it too. Meh.
or
OH FUCK THIS. It's Sunday evening, I've worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done I'm hitting yet another problem that's based on the hopeless state of our databases. There is no uniform data integrity, it's just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they're found.
This is one of the key scientists at the CRU and these are all comments about the state of the computer model that is often sited as one of the flagship models for future predictions, as well as their input data sets. It's not pretty stuff.
It was NOT just emails that were leaked but more importantly the code used for the CRU climate models; models which are (probably should be past tense now) considered one of the most important indicators of future events. They are one of the key components of the IPCC reports.
It's actually the code that is the most damning. Throughout the code there are manipulations and "fudge factors" applied to the input data sets to manipulate the models to ensure the result the scientists wanted always appears. Most have no justification and even the actual programmer seems mystified as to what is being done in many cases.
It all goes hand in hand with this type of cherry picking of values. You either have to use entire data sets or give rational and defendable reasoning for why you are only using portions. So far the only justification from the scientists involved seems to be that they simply didn't like the numbers they were getting at certain times so they just chose to exclude them.
1960 was the period in which the tree ring proxy indicated a cooling of temperatures. The problem was actual direct temperature measurements showed an increase. So instead of spending too much time studying why the two values started going in opposite directions Mann simply proposed (and later Jones adopted) the process of simply merging the two sets of measurements, with the tree ring data stopping at 1960, and direct measurements taking over. There was still tree ring data available for post 1960, but as it was clearly not moving in sync with recorded temperatures it was no longer convenient to use.
The problem with this is that they continued to use tree rings as accurate proxies for times in which direct measurements did not exist even though their own data showed that the use of tree rings as a proxy for temperature was not accurate. While it is not uncommon to merge two related data sets to fill in gaps when trying to create a more complete picture, once it can be shown that the sets you are using have the ability to wildly fluctuate away from each other in times where you have overlap, it is no longer valid to attempt to create a single picture using selective data from each set.
So they ran with the hypothesis that tree ring data was a accurate method to determine temperatures during periods that direct measurement was not possible and when faced with direct evidence that that was not the case they did not change their hypothesis, they simply switched to the more convenient metric for the times when the tree rings and actual temperature diverged. Without a proper explanation for the 1960 divergence, it would be hard for any unbiased scientist to continue to use tree rings as an accurate proxy for temperature.
No matter how many times people like you or the people involved keep trying to claim that a "trick" is not a trick, in this case it meets the textbook definition: "a cunning or deceitful action or device". The sole purpose of the "trick" in question was to remove data that directly contradicted expected results.
So instead of trying to properly explain the difference or reevaluate the use of tree rings as proxies they merely cut off the tree ring data at the point it became inconvenient and then substituted another set of data to fill in the gaps. That allowed them to create extended timelines to try and prove their point, knowing full well that almost all their historical data was questionable since it was based off a proxy that their own measurements showed to be faulty. Even with a explanation for the divergence all they would have shown was that their proxy was subject to external pressures independent of the temperature, greatly reducing it's use with regards to temperature studies.
This divergence problem is not something that can simply be passed over by merging two completely different records and then claim everything is ok, as Mann, Jones and any number of scientists basing their work off these datasets either knowingly or unwittingly did. If you use a proxy for temperature readings in years with no instrumental record (the tree ring data) you do not simply get to stop using that proxy at a time of your choosing when it's data doesn't match actual measurements. You either have to come up with a completely solid explanation for the divergence, something that is measurable, repeatable and able to be cleanly factored into the measurements or simply discontinue use of the proxy. The fact they chose to simple make it disappear using selective merging of unrelated data sets speaks volumes as to their intellectual honesty in this matter. The fact you dismiss it as simply a poor choice of words speaks volume of yours.
You seem to be going out of your way to be entirely missing the point.
Microsoft is under no obligation to allow any unauthorized accessories to EVER work with their systems. It doesn't matter if it work previously or not. Unless the makers of that device pay a licensing fee to MS to gain support rights, MS can at any time they want change their drivers/protocols whatever, to prevent the device from working. The makers of the device that no longer works, or their customers, have no legal recourse against Microsoft unless they can get them classified a monopoly, which is no where near the case in the gaming console market.
Panasonic supposedly did the exact same thing with the batteries in their Lumix cameras, and you can feel as insulted as you want but that still doesn't give you a legal leg to stand on in trying to get them to reverse their decision.
Unless that customer hardware was approved for use with the XBox by Microsoft themselves, then your class action case would have absolutely no grounds. Just because a company can make a product that works with another companies device, the device manufacturer is under no obligation to support it.
The rules change slightly when the device manufacturer can be designated a monopoly, but as has been mentioned a hundred times in this thread already, Microsoft is not a monopoly in the gaming console market.
The BBC is not the glowing example of unbiased reporting that you make it out to be. Their own internal investigation in 2007 of bias within the corporation found high levels of liberal bias where one side of an argument is often pushed by the entire network (entertainment, news, etc..) as opposed to balanced debate.
The report was pretty harsh and gave concrete examples. It was so bad the BBC, even though they are are publicly funded corporation, tried to go to court to have the report kept out of the public.
And there are several independent reports as well as sites dedicated to showing BBC bias, mainly focusing on their often one sided reporting of the Middle East.
So do the math, how many times has O'Reilly cut off a persons mic in 13 years compared to how many conservative guests KO has had in 6. Even the LA Times TV critic has mentioned the complete and utter lack of opposing views on Countdown. The fact that you see two people who agree with each other 95% as a 'debate' speaks volumes about your ability to view the world from a neutral standpoint. Though oddly, even while ranting about close minded conservatives you concede the point that O'Reilly routinely has guests on he disagrees with, the vast majority of which he does not shout down or disable audio equipment on.
So who would an average person determine is more comfortable with their positions, the one who is willing to at least talk to someone with an opposing viewpoint or the one who only has on people who agree with him?
As for what I watch, in case you missed it above, I typed it out quite clearly I used to watch Hardball and The Factor but have stopped watching both on any regular basis. If you want more detail I have watched both KO and Maddow (and find her much easier to handle but prefer to watch neither), I watch Hannity and Colmes when Colmes was still on it but it became very repetitive (have never watch Hannity solo), I watched Glen Beck for about a week but even when he made some sense his theatrics drove me nuts. The only political shows I now watch regularly are Red Eye and Meet the Press and the only straight News broadcast I watch regularly is NBC (not MSNBC, just straight ole NBC) though I browse between CNN and Fox News if anything interesting is happening.
I do regularly read political and news sites online including "Hot Air" Politico and even Daily Kos and HuffPo (which from your rants and complete hatred of all things conservative I'm sure would feel like home to you). I'm still trying to find that damn talking points listserve that every liberal assures me exists for conservatives. I did manage to find a liberal one that linked a lot of high profile media outlets and allowed them to disseminate the administration notes on a daily basis but no luck on the conservative one yet. What's a sloped browed conservative to do?
BTW, if you ever want an example of group think and see lightening fast attacks for variations from the accepted norm go to a HuffPo or Kos forum (or DU if you're extremely adventurous). Nothing will make your head spin faster then being caught next to an enlightened tolerant liberal who someone dares disagree with, as I'm sure your neighbors can attest to.
So O'Reilly cuts off a mic once every year or so and that evens everything out? To prove your point please provide a list of conservative guests on the Olberman and Maddow shows since their start. You can probably send the entire list by SMS with more than enough space left to hack an iPhone.
And if you want just a recent example of actual NBC journalism take a look at their discussion of the gun toting protesters at a recent Obama town hall. The amount of editing required to hide the ethnicity of the gun wielder so that it fit their "racist whites" meme was astounding.
You seem to be intentionally missing my point. O'Reilly, Beck, Matthews and Olberman are all professional ideologues who host 'opinion' shows, which is just fine and completely within any channels right to target a specific audience, but, on NBC they see no problem with also allowing Matthews and Olberman and Maddow to host their serious news coverage of events such as Presidential debates and elections, not just the after event specials but the events themselves.
As for "never given a platform", have you ever heard of Air America? Probably not because even though millions of legal, and illegal, funds were pushed into creating that liberal utopia on the radio they couldn't maintain a fan base. Simply no one wanted to listen to them rant and rave into an echo chamber of guests with no real point, not even fellow liberals. O'Reilly, Limbaugh and even Beck on the other hand all have a rather substantial listener/viewer bases amongst independents and liberals. I suspect for Beck and Rush it's a least partially the 'Howard Stern" affect.
As for debates, when is the last time you've seen a true conservative on either Maddow or Olbermann to offer a differing of opinion? Well for Olbermann you'd have to go back to his sports broadcasting days while Maddow at least allows for some dissent, but not usually from an actual conservative, more likely from a 'not as left' or 'further left' type, depending on the issue. Matthews may have a bit more variety but he almost always dismisses viewpoints that disagree with his pre-determined outcome, often with overtly sexist statements for which he has gotten into hot water for more than once.
From what I've seen Beck is a bit closer to Matthews (minus the on air sexual comments about guests) but O'Reilly routinely has on guests that completely disagree with him. His debates often get quite spirited but they are at least honest. Even Hannity has people on he disagrees with but that always just turns into a shouting match so no one ever wins there.
As for you attempt to put down the entire right side of the political spectrum with a baseless personal attack, a recent Ohio State study that found that conservatives are more likely that liberals to spend time checking out opposing viewpoints. They had many suggestions as to why but one of their main theories was that conservatives are more grounded in their ideology so are more comfortable with opposition. I'll leave you to rant about that for a while on your own.
I personally don't watch any of main opinion shows with any regularity any more, except on the rare occasion when my PVR records O'Reilly instead of Red Eye, but I used to be a constant viewer of both O'Reilly and Hardball. I actually respected Matthews for his "pro abortion" stance (his words during one program), not that I necessarily agreed with him but he was willing to openly state his opinion. He even chided fellow liberals for trying to hide their beliefs under generic terms like 'choice'. He has since turned much further left and become the 'thrill up my leg' broadcaster.
I feel sorry for those who will never get to watch Tim Russert on Meet the Press and instead will have to get their fill of political discussions from the Olbermann's and Hannity's of the cable channels. I still don't know where Russert came down on the political spectrum but on his show he had people of all political stripes and treated them all fairly and as such was also a perfect choice for any legitimate news coverage.
And there you go equating opinions with news.
As far as I'm aware Glen Beck and Bill O'Reilly don't host news shows on any network. They don't even host serious news events on Fox. They have opinion shows on Fox and on radio, but thats not the news. And for that matter Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh don't even have a show on any news network so they are a moot point.
Keith Olberman and Chris Matthews however were the official anchors for most of the last Presidential election run for almost every MSNBC or NBC event and anyone who thinks that KO is any less an ideologue as Glen Beck has got to be kidding themselves.
The fact far left writers/talkers can't maintain an audience on radio or write a book that people will buy is not the fault of AC or RL.
Nazism, as is Facism, are actually far left ideologies, both with very strong roots in early 20th century socialism. The attempt to connect them to the right is laughable at best and highly dishonest. By their very nature both favor the society over the individual which is a basic tenant of socialism; which is pretty much the definitive leftist ideology. Eugenics follows very closely with this in that it seeks to remove from society that which it determines to be a detriment. What they use to determine what is and is not good is often based in racism and other prejudices but the outward justification for eugenics based program is almost always that it will help better the society (see. Margaret Sanger).
A more natural extension of conservatism is anarchy, where in no laws exist to restrict a persons actions. A "What I do with my property is my own business" type society run amok.
And no matter which way you fall politically the grandparent is right. In a comparison between Bush, Obama and Hitler, of the two American Presidents, Obama shares much more politically with Hitler of course that still doesn't make the comparison all that useful for a discussion.
H ------- O - B
"O" may be closer to "H" than "B" is but "O" and "B" are much closer together and either are to "H". (I would have made H and O further apart but the junk character filter complained)
But the grandparent was discussing how Bush was being compared to Hitler on a daily basis with little media or public outrage (and often direct involvement on the media part) while a simple poster created by a liberal (and wrongly accredited to conservatives) has had people up in arms like someone had insulted their chosen deity (which in this case can be true for some).
As for Dictatorships, in and of themselves, they hold no political ideology but are just a form of government where power is centralized into a single figure. The ideology of the government then comes from that person and can fall anywhere on the left/right scale though it seems most large centralized authoritarian forms of government have been to the far left of the political scale, at least for the last century or so. I guess it's easier to keep the populace quelled when you at least pretend what you are doing is for their benefit and not your own.