John replies: I don’t care what makes you happy. It’s clear to me that you want a rise from trolling and personalized insults. Do it again and get banned.

Sigh! I knew you’d twist the ‘useful idiot’ phrase at some point in time, which is why I pointedly said not to take it literally. That is, you’re not an idiot. But you are unable to see the role you play in the ecology of global warming. The communists called allies who didn’t know what was really going on (presumably because they believed the communist’s lies), “useful idiots”. You don’t apprear to have the scientific knowledge / training to evaluate what those you support are saying, but that doesn’t make you an idiot, just naive.

But perhaps appearances are deceiving. Step in and make statements which are scientific, ie falsifiable, any time you want. Or ask questions aimed at gaining particular pieces of knowledge related to the actual science at issue.

Regards
H. K.

I like this comment from this site:

"I believe the best way forward requires us all to raise the standard of our own game and double check everything posted to avoid personal attacks, unintended or otherwise; but also, not to be so blind as to believe that the personal attacks come from one side and not the other, or believe that all of one side of the debate are implicit in the insults. Both sides of this highly polarised, charged debate contain elements that are willing to use personal attacks in these discussions. If we turn a blind eye to one side and not to the other, we are part of the problem."

from this thread http://www.climateaudit.org/index.php?p=66#comments

I’m not saintly here, but I tell you that when you’ve been called a ‘useful idiot’ on a nominally moderated blog like this one (and a blind eye has been turned to such comments and the comment has been allowed) *as I have* it does colour your view of the site, and of those moderating the site! When I moderate I don’t allow clear insults – period. We’re the better for it, and we don’t have any anymore! It’s about mutual respect, loose that and we end up where we are here (but,it could be worse, try the NG’s sometimes…).

Michael, if the planet warms by the minimum you say – 1.5C – what will have caused it if not changes to ghg’s? Could it warm globally by 5C this century due to normally natural causes? I honestly can’t think how, the sun would have to go nuts for it to warm by 5C, globally, in a century. Just my opinion.

You comments on ridicule are interesting – they are, of course, your opinion. Perhaps it’s an approach I could try? It’s my opinion…no, better not

John replies: When you’ve been compared to Senator Joe McCarthy and subjected to vitriolic attacks in the way that I have then you’ll have a right to complain. Until then, you will confine your comments ENTIRELY to facts and supportable opinions. Any more personal attacks and you will be banned without further warning. No bleating about what others have done (or rather you think they have done). End of discussion.

John replies: The serious point is that you have repeatedly turned general comments into highly personalized attacks. If someone refers to you, you immediately refer the same point back to the referrer, as you did with the above post. To say that you are someone who appears to get a rise from making personalized attacks, is nothing more than a statement of fact given your output. Your "tu quoque" replies just demonstrate your inability to deal with conceptual thought outside of the narrow agenda that you seem to think is so important.

I do not make inflammatory personalized attacks on this weblog – you do. There is no serious point to the post. It was a troll. Do it again, and you will be banned.

Life is too short to spend trying to converse difficult issues without having to raise one’s voice above the noise of people dedicated to wrecking conversation.

The one constant of this blog is the wretched personalized attacks of Peter Hearnden, farmer and climate expert. It can always be counted on, rain, sunshine, the sun rising and setting, and Peter Hearnden making a “tu quoque” attack on this weblog usually in response to a comment he barely comprehends.

I didn’t mention you at all, yet you turn what I said into (yet another) personalized attack on me and Steve McIntyre. I bet you haven’t even read “1984″ because it’s extremely clear you don’t understand the sense in which I used it.

On the scale of perjorative terms, “Hockey Team” scores pretty lowly compared to the terms used against skeptics both by you, and others on this blog and elsewhere particularly on something laughably called “realclimate”.

Don’t try to brush me or Steve with the same schtick that has been used against us. “Skeptic” is not a perjorative term, and I am proud to be a skeptic. Skepticism is essential to science and the scientific method.

“Climateaudit”, is a blog to audit some of the work done in climate science which has direct impact on public policy right across the world. It does not simply focus on Michael Mann’s work with emphasis on one paper – if you count up the references to scientific works there must be around a hundred by now. Oh, and Steve need no help from me to audit Mann’s work – that’s all his work.

If Mann’s work has featured prominently it is because his works have had an enormous impact on public policy and deserves detailed examination, and rightly criticism of poor methodology, both in data control and statistical quality, that undermines both the public policy that rests upon it, and in the near future the status of science as a bulwark against political tyranny and irrationalism.

My point about the contraction of terms in order to prevent debate and enforce political conformity is an idea straight from George Orwell, a socialist, who nevertheless saw the chilling effects on personal freedom, civil liberties and democracy, through the manipulation of language, the shading of news events for propaganda purposes and the rewriting of history, all in the service of an unapproachable and uncontestable “consensus” called “the Party Line”.

That’s what has happened to the terms “global warming” and “climate change” – they have been contracted in order to prevent debate or even thought. In talking to a scientist recently, that person remarked that in some countries, even discussion of AGW in public policy is not allowed.

John, mentioning only in passing the political attack, I don’t like the terms bandied about either. I don’t like ‘sceptic’, or ‘contrarian’, or ‘believer’, or ‘deniers’, or ‘hockey stick team’, or any of the probably hundreds you, and I too, use. I, and I’m sure others, are open to your suggestion of how you views might be better summed up, *I really would like to use a better word (or phrase) than contarian or sceptic*. So, what’s it to be??? And will you stop some of the offensive terminology you so liberally use???

Words are only way of saying things quickly. The alternative is ClimateAudit becomes ‘The place where Steven McIntyre, assisted by ‘John A’, ‘audit’ the work of Michael Mann, … during the years 1998-2005 with particular emphasis on the one paper …etc etc etc’? Pretty snappy…Is that how you want us to refer to this place?

Sorry, but it’s enivitable you views will be summed up somehow, as mine are. That’s how language is – nothing Orwellian about it (unless that is what you want to see…).