(10:31 PM)
MORE FROM THAT CBS Declan McCullagh ClimateGate story:
As the leaked messages, and especially the HARRY_READ_ME.txt file, found their way around technical circles, two things happened: first, programmers unaffiliated with East Anglia started taking a close look at the quality of the CRU’s code, and second, they began to feel sympathetic for anyone who had to spend three years (including working weekends) trying to make sense of code that appeared to be undocumented and buggy, while representing the core of CRU’s climate model.
One programmer highlighted the error of relying on computer code that, if it generates an error message, continues as if nothing untoward ever occurred. Another debugged the code by pointing out why the output of a calculation that should always generate a positive number was incorrectly generating a negative one. A third concluded: “I feel for this guy. He’s obviously spent years trying to get data from undocumented and completely messy sources.”
Programmer-written comments inserted into CRU’s Fortran code have drawn fire as well. The file briffa_sep98_d.pro says: “Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!” and “APPLY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION.” Another, quantify_tsdcal.pro, says: “Low pass filtering at century and longer time scales never gets rid of the trend – so eventually I start to scale down the 120-yr low pass time series to mimic the effect of removing/adding longer time scales!”
It’s not clear how the files were leaked. One theory says that a malicious hacker slipped into East Anglia’s network and snatched thousands of documents. Another says that the files had already been assembled in response to a Freedom of Information request and, immediately after it was denied, a whistleblower decided to disclose them. (Lending credence to that theory is the fact that no personal e-mail messages unrelated to climate change appear to have been leaked.)
Read the whole thing. And Charlie Martin has much more on this.
(09:59 PM)
MY DOCTOR SAID I WAS “SOUND AS THE DOLLAR.” THE FUNERAL IS NEXT WEEK.
Okay, that’s a joke from the 1970s, but now we’ve got this: Gold Jumps to Record as Slumping Dollar Spurs Investment Demand . So recycling 1970s dollar jokes looks like a good bet . . . .
(08:30 PM)
CONSUMER REPORTS: Top Shopping Gripes. Makes me glad I’m doing most of my shopping online.
(06:28 PM)
CLIMATEGATE:
If these were internal Exxon-Mobil e-mails, the trial lawyers would be racing out the door with only one pants-leg filled and every Green press flack would be demanding this lead the evening news and front every newspaper above the fold. If similar e-mails came from the RNC showing racism or homophobia, the New York Times would not demur in the name of privacy, it would call for the GOP to go into federal receivership.
Since there’s federal grant money involved, might there be False Claims Act suits? That’s not my area, but I’d be interested in hearing from someone who knows.
(06:18 PM)
DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY: Leonard Pitts blows it on Nuremberg.
(06:17 PM)
HEALTH CARE BILL bad for gun owners? And an easy fix.
(05:32 PM)
WHAT? IT WASN’T HATE-CRAZED GLENN BECK LISTENERS? Police: Ky. census worker killed himself.
(05:06 PM)
POLL NUMBERS CRASH. “Well, rational people would look at this and reassess, see what has gone wrong, fire those whose judgment was flawed, and try to get the presidency back on track.”
(04:44 PM)
BREAKING: Competitive Enterprise Institute Sues NASA In Wake of ClimateGate Scandal.
UPDATE: CBS News: Congress May Probe Leaked Global Warming E-Mails.
Favorite sentence from the emails so far: “We need to show some left to cover the costs of the trip Roger didn’t make and also the fees/equipment/computer money we haven’t spent otherwise NOAA will be suspicious.”
(04:32 PM)
TREATING ANGINA PAIN WITH STEM CELLS: “Transplanting people’s own stem cells into heart lessens pain, improves ability to walk.” Faster, please.
(02:49 PM)
EMBRACING THE OBVIOUS: Nuclear power is OK now.
(02:36 PM)
TREATING ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION with shock waves.
(02:00 PM)
SO FAR, THE WORLD HASN’T ENDED: Collisions start at Large Hadron Collider.
(01:54 PM)
KENNETH ANDERSON on Robots, Law, and Society.
(01:39 PM)
EVERYBODY’S ENTITLED TO A DEFENSE, and there’s nothing dishonorable about defending bad people. But this guy isn’t doing much for the reputation of the bar. . . .
(01:03 PM)
NEW GDP REVISION: Has someone been hiding the decline?
(12:26 PM)
GRAND ROUNDS is up!
(10:48 AM)
HMM: Inspector General: Rhee Intervened For Johnson.
Walpin was investigating a California private school known as St. Hope, which was founded by Kevin Johnson, the former NBA star and friend of Rhee’s who was running for mayor of Sacramento. St. Hope had received about $850,000 in AmeriCorps money, and Walpin’s investigators were looking into charges that Johnson had misused those funds by assigning paid volunteer tutors to run errands for him and wash his car, as well as making them take part in political activities.
In the course of the investigation, some young female AmeriCorps volunteers also charged that Johnson had made inappropriate sexual advances toward them and offered one of them $1,000 a month to keep quiet.
Rhee, who later became engaged to marry Johnson, had been on St. Hope’s board of directors before taking over as chief of the District of Columbia system. Her apparent goal, as she visited Walpin, was to vouch for Johnson.
Read the whole thing. I don’t think this story is going away, despite concerted media efforts to ignore it.
UPDATE: Much more here.
(10:35 AM)
AMY ALKON: Screaming kids on planes, and their rude parents.
We’ve raised ours to be a well-behaved traveler, but not all kids take to it as well. Somebody should write a book!
(10:32 AM)
HEY HEY, HO HO, Tim Geithner has got to go?
(10:30 AM)
CHRIS DODD UPDATE: HARTFORD COURANT: Do The Dump Dodders Matter? Well, they’re certainly not a good sign.
(10:26 AM)
THE HILL: Side Deals Stack Up as Health Bills Move Along. Hey, they’re bribing ‘em with your money, so why not?
(09:39 AM)
MEGAN MCARDLE:
I have to say, I’m woefully underimpressed with the argument that I am now hearing to the effect that “Medicare will bankrupt America anyway if we can’t cut health care costs, so we might as well do health care reform.”
Anyone who has dated a manic-depressive has heard some version of this argument. “I can barely make ends meet now, so I might as well use my tax refund check to buy a boat! After all, if I can’t figure out a way to fix my budget, I’m going to go bankrupt anyway.”
And anyone who has dated a manic-depressive knows where this ends. . . . If we pass this health care reform bill, a bunch of people are going to leave their employer health insurance under this plan for some subsidized plan–millions of them, according to the CBO. If the government goes bankrupt, millions of people will lose that subsidized coverage and be much worse off than if we’d done nothing.
Read the whole thing.
(08:30 AM)
ONE MONTH LATER, Assessing Windows 7.
(08:14 AM)
CHARLIE MARTIN: Climategate: Violating the Social Contract of Science: The scientific method only works when fellow researchers can implicitly trust the results offered by their colleagues.
Plus, George Monbiot (!) writes: “It’s no use pretending this isn’t a major blow.” Plus: “I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.”
Mark Steyn calls Phil Jones the Designated Fall Guy.
UPDATE: The Fix Is In.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader George Hamid writes: “The more I read about Climategate, the more the term ‘Piltdown Man’ pops into my head.”
(08:07 AM)
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Will The Unemployment Disaster Be Obama’s Katrina? “Just as Katrina exposed critical weaknesses in the priorities and competence of the Bush administration, the unfolding unemployment disaster is threatening to do the same for the Obama White House.”
(07:32 AM)
ED MORRISSEY: Obama WH scrambled for story to smear Walpin. “Will the national media finally take some interest in the story now? The White House not only deliberately misled Congress on Walpin’s firing, they also withheld these new documents until after Grassley and Issa made their initial report on the investigation on Friday. . . . The new information shows that Obama fired Walpin for political purposes, not for cause. The White House also broke the law, at least initially, by not giving Congress the proper notification before terminating Walpin (they adhered to the regulation after being called on this violation by postponing Walpin’s termination date). The firing appears to have been motivated to protect an Obama ally (Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson) from having allegations of using federal funds to pay off employees and avoid sexual harassment charges exposed.”
(07:03 AM)
LOOKING FOR WAR ON TERROR NEWS? Check out Fred Pruitt’s Rantburg.
(02:57 AM)
MEGAN MCARDLE ON CLIMATEGATE: “The more ardent defenders of the emailers are glossing over the fact that in some cases, they really seem to have behaved quite badly, and with less-than-stellar scientific integrity. But I have yet to see the makings of a grand conspiracy, rather than the petty bullying of the powerful over the weak, the insider of the outsider.” The disappearing data seems a bit fishy, though.
Meanwhile, Andrew Bolt invokes The Simpsons.
And John Hinderaker offers more from the East Anglia Archives.
(11:35 PM)
ANN ALTHOUSE CHALLENGES ANDREW SULLIVAN. “I will look at the items and say what I think, with an eye toward Sullivan’s assertion: whether we are dealing with a person who is not just the usual politico but clinically delusional.”
(11:19 PM)
WHEN THE PRESS CAN IGNORE A SEX SCANDAL, you know it’s covering for politicians, not covering them.
(10:46 PM)
THERE IS SOME JUSTICE IN THIS WORLD: Captain Sully Getting “Rock Star Sex.”
UPDATE: Various readers think it’s extra justice that it’s Captain Sully as opposed to Blogger Sully. Well . . . One successfully crash-landed a plane with no engine power in the Hudson River, and the other is defending the Obama Administration. So degree-of-difficulty has to go to the blogger, really. . . .
(10:10 PM)
DAVE WINER: “I assumed that because we elected Obama to end the war in Iraq that it went without saying that the war in Afghanistan would be ended as well. Apparently not so.”
Nothing goes without saying. And every promise has an expiration date. Every single one.
UPDATE: “Dave Winer should have been paying closer attention.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Louis Abelman didn’t quite get this, which was perhaps a bit too pithy unless you’ve been paying close attention. Here’s what I sent him by way of clarification:
Well, you hate to spell this stuff out as it spoils it. But here goes:
(1) Nothing goes without saying — Obama’s “atmostpherics” were designed to fool people like Dave, but if you paid attention, which Dave didn’t you saw that the atmospherics pointed one way and the statements the other. (2) Every promise has an expiration date — remember, he promised to get us out of Iraq posthaste? And yet . . .
Okay, maybe it was too pithy, I’ll grant you that, though it seemed clear to me.
And if mocking Dave Winer is wrong, I don’t want to be right!
And Lou commented, “Dang! I never get this Limbaugh parody style. Seriously, I feel like a humorless liberal scold every time. Which is the point? Cheers.” Well, it’s not the point. But it sometimes comes of responding to what you expect people to be saying as opposed to what they’re actually saying. And, to be fair, sometimes I’m a bit too pithy. But that’s supposed to be part of the charm.
(10:04 PM)
PJTV: Stephen Green’s Hair Of The Dog. “If there really was a Party Of No, I would so join.”
(09:46 PM)
RON BAILEY eschews the term “Climategate,” but says: “Hmmm. Data not agreeing with model predictions. Very interesting. And of course, Flannery is right, science does work through ‘a robust interchange and testing of ideas.’ But interchanging ideas about how to hijack some aspects of peer review and by trying to suppress the work of researchers with whom one disagrees? Messy indeed.”
UPDATE: Reader Kenneth Hitchens writes: “Indeed, it’s Climaquiddick. Or is it too early for that?” Well, the press is playing along, which makes it more a -quiddick than a -gate so far . . . .
(08:55 PM)
HELLO, BRAINPAL: Intel wants brain implants by 2020. They’ll need better antivirus protection. . . .
(07:00 PM)
A BUNCH OF new releases on Blu-Ray and DVD.
[Sorry, link was bad before. Fixed now.]
(06:34 PM)
DER SPIEGEL: Obama’s Nice-Guy Act Gets Him Nowhere. If only he were as tough on America’s enemies as he is on Fox News.
John Hinderaker comments: “President Obama took office wanting to distinguish himself from President Bush. . . . Now, as Der Spiegel concludes, he is trying desperately to distinguish himself from Jimmy Carter.” I don’t think he’s trying all that hard . . . .
Plus, Mark Steyn: More mush from the wimp. Sorry, but a Carter-era rerun is the best-case scenario.
(06:23 PM)
NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Practical Nanotube Electronics.
(06:11 PM)
A READER EMAILS: “This morning 6 term Congressman Dennis Moore, (D), Kansas 3rd District, announced that he will not seek reelection. A member of the Blue Dog Coalition, Moore was one of the first targets of the Tea Party movement when hundreds demonstrated at his Overland Park, Kansas office in mid-February, 2009.” More on that here.
And here’s a flashback. And here’s another.
(05:22 PM)
LASER SURGERY to correct presbyopia. I don’t need bifocals yet, but, well, faster please!
(04:20 PM)
COOL PICTURES in the WSJ Photo Journal blog.
(03:26 PM)
MORE BREAKING NEWS: ACORN Document Dump Scandal. “Shockingly, we now learn that the ACORN office in National City (San Diego County) engaged in a massive document dump on the evening of October 9th, containing thousands upon thousands of sensitive documents, just days prior to the Attorney General’s visit.” But the documents were retrieved from the dumpster.
Breaking news that most news media don’t want to break, that is . . ..
(02:32 PM)
ESPN COLUMNIST SUSPENDED FROM TWITTER.
(02:23 PM)
SOLAR CELLS AT a dollar per watt?
(02:17 PM)
CLIMATEGATE: Brian Wang comments: “The over reaching on the science and over aggressive tactics are now blowing up in face of the pro-global warming side.”
But he also comments that there’s “no need to exaggerate the deadliness of coal.” That’s right. As I’ve noted before, the shrillness of the global-warming alarmists obscures the fact that we should be doing most of the same things regardless — switching to clean nuclear power, boosting research into efficient solar (including orbital solar), and, even within the fossil-fuel world, moving from coal and oil to natural gas.
(01:25 PM)
STEVE CHAPMAN: Gun Control, Chicago Style. A rule under which only politicians have guns strikes me as the worst of all possible worlds . . . .
(01:05 PM)
WHAT DOES A WMD LOOK LIKE in disguise?
(10:46 AM)
WHAT TO LOOK FORWARD TO: The Bureaucrat In The Exam Room.
(10:27 AM)
CATO’S BRIEF FILED in McDonald v. Chicago.
UPDATE: It’s also the Pacific Legal Foundation’s brief, I should note.
(10:20 AM)
FROM HACKERS TO HACKS. NEW YORK TIMES: We won’t publish on illegally acquired documents. You know, unless doing so would hurt national security, or something.
UPDATE: Related: All The News That’s Fit to Bury.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Wear these to the NYT offices!
I’m thinking “Hide The Decline” could be a slogan for a lot of folks, right about now.
MORE: It’s especially hypocritical of Revkin since some of the emails are his.
(10:16 AM)
SHOCKING NEWS: ‘Useless stay-at-home men’ a female myth: Working women who claim partners don’t pull their weight do so to feel more feminine and in charge in the home. “Meisenbach said the trend of the female high achiever and the male slacker is a tall story that women tell each other to compensate for the fact that most career-orientated women feel an ‘overwhelming sense of guilt’ over their role and less of a mother and a wife.”
Somebody tell George Lopez and Joy Behar.
(10:10 AM)
A.P.: Newspaper circulation may be worse than it looks: “Here’s why: Since April 1, new auditing rules have made it easier for newspapers to count a reader as a paying customer.” Amusing start date.
(10:05 AM)
STAR TRIBUNE: At U, future teachers may be reeducated.
Do you believe in the American dream — the idea that in this country, hardworking people of every race, color and creed can get ahead on their own merits? If so, that belief may soon bar you from getting a license to teach in Minnesota public schools — at least if you plan to get your teaching degree at the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus.
In a report compiled last summer, the Race, Culture, Class and Gender Task Group at the U’s College of Education and Human Development recommended that aspiring teachers there must repudiate the notion of “the American Dream” in order to obtain the recommendation for licensure required by the Minnesota Board of Teaching. Instead, teacher candidates must embrace — and be prepared to teach our state’s kids — the task force’s own vision of America as an oppressive hellhole: racist, sexist and homophobic.
I thought loyalty oaths were out.
(09:53 AM)
MINORITY WOMAN criticizes MSNBC’s “indelible whiteness.” Hey, it’s the Stuff White People Like network. . . .
(09:44 AM)
L.A. TIMES: Sarah Palin vs Barack Obama: The approval gap silently shrinks to a few points. So does this mean that she’s doing well, or that he’s doing badly?
(09:41 AM)
INSPECTOR-GENERAL-GATE UPDATE: Byron York: New documents: White House scrambled to justify AmeriCorps firing after the fact.
UPDATE: Reader C.J. Burch emails: “Just like Nixon, except without the press coverage.”
(09:29 AM)
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: America The Jobless: Ron Paul Wins, Timothy Geithner Loses? “A lot of Democrats are ‘upset and nervous’ with the administration’s handling of the economy.”
(09:12 AM)
RASMUSSEN: Support for Health Care Plan Falls to New Low. 56% against, only 38% for.
(09:02 AM)
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Where Has The Obama Thrill Gone?
(08:32 AM)
UH OH: Wave of Debt Payments Facing U.S. Government. “The United States government is financing its more than trillion-dollar-a-year borrowing with i.o.u.’s on terms that seem too good to be true. But that happy situation, aided by ultralow interest rates, may not last much longer. . . . Even as Treasury officials are racing to lock in today’s low rates by exchanging short-term borrowings for long-term bonds, the government faces a payment shock similar to those that sent legions of overstretched homeowners into default on their mortgages.”
(08:01 AM)
PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE ON What to drink at Thanksgiving.
Perhaps I’ll serve Reynolds Merlot, though in deference to the improvement represented by Sarkozy over Chirac, I might go back to our tradition of Beaujolais Nouveau.
