The Bank of Bryant bails out the Lakers

Are you &(*%@($^(#%!! kidding me?

The Lakers lose the lead, trail by 4 with 9.3 seconds left.

No problem, a Fisher three, foul Wade (who hits one of two), and then a Kobe three . . .

. . . at the buzzer . . .

. . . off the glass . . .

. . . and in to win the game.

Like I said: are you &(*%@($^(#%!! kidding me?

Climate science officially unsettles

From the Times of London, via Andrew Bolt:

The Met Office plans to re-examine 160 years of temperature data after admitting that public confidence in the science on man-made global warming has been shattered by leaked e-mails.

The new analysis of the data will take three years, meaning that the Met Office will not be able to state with absolute confidence the extent of the warming trend until the end of 2012.

Of course, we couldn’t have a story like this without a government trying to get in the way of real science (same link):

The Government is attempting to stop the Met Office from carrying out the re-examination, arguing that it would be seized upon by climate change sceptics.

Putting politics before science? I thought only Texans did that.

Cross-posted to VV

Because Computers Do Lie When Humans Tell Them To

Robert Grenier (Cube Antics) takes aim at the computer code used as “correction for decline” (via WUWT).  It is a genuine eye-opener.

In effect, the “value added” to the data was a wave designed to make current temperatures look something like this.

 Or, as Edward John Craig from NRO – Planet Gore put it:

CRU would adjust series of actual temperature readings so that they would be skewed toward these values. Add a little fudge, and it’s eternally hockey season.

Cross-posted to VV

Oh, Canada

Of all the places where I expected MSM to give Climategate its due  . . . well, actually, I didn’t expect any to do so.  Still, one of the absolute last places I expected it to appear was the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (which combines the worst aspects of MSM and PBS).

Yet Rex Murphy takes aim at the scandal, and does a terrific job.

(h/t Andrew Bolt and Kate @ SDA)

The latest Climategate news

First up: Gore’s claim of ManBearPig melting the Kilimanjaro ice is debunked (Pajamas Media):

Professor Sinninghe Damste’s research, as discussed on the site of the Dutch Organization of Scientific Research (DOSR) — a governmental body — shows that the icecap of Kilimanjaro was not the result of cold air but of large amounts of precipitation which fell at the beginning of the Holocene period, about 11,000 years ago.

The melting and freezing of moisture on top of Kilimanjaro appears to be part of  “a natural process of dry and wet periods.” The present melting is not the result of “environmental damage caused by man.”

Whoops!  Maybe Gore was talking about the other Kilimanjaro peak (Flying Circus via Youtube).

Meanwhile, the professors at the heart of Climategate are beginning to resemble, shall we say, rattlesnakes committing suicide (Daily Telegraph):

One of the scientists to whom the emails were addressed, Professor Michael Mann, the Director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University has moved to distance himself from some of the comments in the emails that suggest scientists did not want the IPCC, the UN body charged with monitoring climate change, to consider studies that challenged the view global warming was genuine and man-made.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4′s The World Tonight, Prof Mann said: “I can’t put myself in the mind of the person who wrote that email and sent it. I in no way endorse what was in that email.”

This may start to get ugly.

Cross-posted to VV

Wizards back in the playoff picture

Thanks to winning four out of their last five games (including completing  a sweep of back-to-back games tonight – always  a hard thing to do), but also due to the weakness of the Eastern Conference, the Washington Wizards are tied for 8th – the last playoff spot – in the East.

That said, they’re still 7-10 (I told you the East was weak), but if the last two weeks are any indication, they should be above .500 fairly soon, which in the East all but automatically clinches a spot in the postseason.

Gibbs: July 2011 Withdrawal date is “etched in stone”

I’ve heard more than a few Republicans express the hope that the president’s date to begin a withdrawal was conditional, i.e., dependent upon the situation on the ground.  Apparently, that even includes the Defense Secretary (CBS News):

During the Senate Armed Services hearing today, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was pressed by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. on whether the July 2011 date for beginning to withdrawal troops is “locked in.”

Gates seemed to suggest there was some flexibility, that “it was a clear statement of his strong intent” and that “the president always has the freedom to re-evaluate his decisions.” After the hearing Graham said he took that to mean the date is “not locked in” and will depend on conditions on the ground.

As it turns out, the Secretary of Defense is no longer the authority regarding the actions of troops under him – that’s White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ job in the hope-and-change era (same link):

After the briefing, Gibbs went to the president for clarification. Gibbs then called me to his office to relate what the president said. The president told him it IS locked in – there is no flexibility. Troops WILL start coming home in July 2011. Period. It’s etched in stone. Gibbs said he even had the chisel.

Be afraid; be very afraid.

Carbon-credit fraud in Denmark passes $1.5 billion

Just on time for Copenhagen to host the Climategate-denier summit, the Copenhagen Post reveals a massive fraud operation in Denmark’s CO2 quota market (h/t SDA):

Denmark is the centre of a comprehensive tax scam involving CO2 quotas, in which the cheats exploit a so-called ‘VAT carrousel’, reports Ekstra Bladet newspaper.

Police and authorities in several European countries are investigating scams worth billions of kroner, which all originate in the Danish quota register. The CO2 quotas are traded in other EU countries.

The “billions of kroner” total 8 billion, which translates to more than $1.5 billion.

Cross-posted to VV

“Load of hot air underpinned by fraud”

Those were the words professor Ian Pilmer used to describe “climate change” (Daily Express, UK, via Andrew Bolt).

I am now certain this is beyond any effort the alarmists make to control it, because it is now nearly beyong my capacity to keep track of it.  The only reason exhaustion was prevented from robbing the readers of this was an urge to try pumpkin-flavored egg nog, which led me to look over the blogs just one more time . . .

I should note that pumpkin-flavored egg nog is actually quite good.

Cross-posted to VV

Climategate spreads further (and a stunning IPCC snafu) – UPDATED

As the men at the center of Climategate come under investigation, mathematician Douglas Keenan has come forth to address a long-running concern of the global warming alarmists’ claims – the “urban heat island” effect (Pajamas Media):

In 2007, I published a peer-reviewed paper alleging that some important research relied upon by the IPCC (for the treatment of urbanization effects) was fraudulent. The emails show that Tom Wigley — one of the most oft-cited climatologists and an extreme warming advocate — thought my paper was valid. They also show that Phil Jones, the head of the Climatic Research Unit, tried to convince the journal editor not to publish my paper.

After my paper was published, the State University of New York — where the research discussed in my paper was conducted — carried out an investigation. During the investigation, I was not interviewed — contrary to the university’s policies, federal regulations, and natural justice. I was allowed to comment on the report of the investigation, before the report’s release.

But I was not allowed to see the report. Truly Kafkaesque.

The report apparently concluded that there was no fraud. The leaked files contain the defense used against my allegation, a defense obviously and strongly contradicted by the documentary record. It is no surprise then that the university still refuses to release the report. (More details on all of this — including source documents — are on my site.)

My paper demonstrates that by 2001, Jones knew there were severe problems with the urbanization research. Yet Jones continued to rely on that research in his work, including in his work for the latest report of the IPCC.

This comes courtesy of Australia’s version of Kate McMillan – Andrew Bolt, but that’s not all Bolt has.  Check this out:

If you think the IPCC processes are too strict to be corrupted by such disgraceful practices, let Madhav Khandekar show how a mere typo had the IPCC predicting a melting away of glaciers in 30 years, rather than 350:

Predictably, the IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri reacted angrily [to Indian research denying warming was melting Himalayan glaciers] citing the IPCC 2007 climate change reports which asserted that the (Himalayan) glaciers are receding faster than in any other part of the world and if the present rate ( of melting) continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps even sooner is very high if the earth keeps warming at the current rate. …

First, where did this number 2035 (the year when glaciers could vanish) come from?

According to Prof Graham Cogley (Trent University, Ontario), a short article on the future of glaciers by a Russian scientist (Kotlyakov, V.M., 1996…). estimates 2350 as the year for disappearance of glaciers, but the IPCC authors misread 2350 as 2035 in the Official IPCC documents, WGII 2007 p. 493!

The scale of this scandal grows greater and more bizarre by the day.

And how!

Cross-posted to Virginia Virtucon

UPDATE: Wouldn’t you know it, Keenan has already posted to Kate’s blog (SDA).

UPPERDATE: Australia’s Labor government, faced with an actual opposition, is turning tail and opting not to go to the voters early (Andrew Bolt).