Ghostbusters 3

Dr. Peter Venkman: Oh, my *God*. Look at all the junk science!
Dana Barrett: Oh, dammit. Look, this wasn't here...
Dr. Peter Venkman: You actually eat this?
Dana Barrett: Look, this wasn't here! There was *nothing* here! There was this... space! And there was a building or something with flames coming out of it, and there were creatures writhing around, and they were growling and snarling. And there were flames, and I heard a voice say "Zuul"! It was right here.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Well, I'm sorry, I'm just not getting any reading.
Dana Barrett: Well, are you sure you're using that thing correctly?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Well, I... I think so, but I'm sure there are no animals in there.
Dana Barrett: Well that's just great. Either I have a monster in my kitchen or I'm completely crazy.
Dr. Peter Venkman: [smiles] I don't think you're crazy.
Dana Barrett: [sarcastically] Oh, good, that makes me feel so much better.

Except for substituting "junk science" for "junk food", that exchange comes from a movie that exhibits many interesting and hilarious parallels to the current "Climate-gate" scandal: Ghostbusters. It's a story about three wanna-be scientists who set up shop using outlandish devices and crackpot terminology to convince people they can see and capture ghosts and other demons -- all in their quest to save the world and make a buck.

Ghostbusters wasn't my favorite movie in any sense, but I can't resist taking some actual dialogue from the movie and outlining a new script. Maybe someone cares to remake it in that spirit. If you want to understand the promotion of "Global Warming" by its advocates, this could have been their playbook--just do a little mental switch on the premise and on the good guys and bad guys -- with Prof. Philip Jones, leader of the UK's Climate Research Unit in the role of Dr. Peter Venkman, Dr. James Hansen of NASA as Dr. Ray Stantz, and Al Gore in the role of Winston Zeddemore:

Winston Zeddemore: Ray. If someone asks if you are a god, you say, "yes!"

The ghostbusters (or climate scientists) know how to promote their scam:

Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical"?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

Aka, "The Day After Tomorrow":

Dr. Egon Spengler: I'm worried, Ray. All my readings point to something big on the horizon.
Winston Zeddemore: What do you mean, big?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Well, let's say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area. Based on this morning's reading, it would be a Twinkie thirty-five feet long, weighing approximately six hundred pounds.

Winston Zeddemore: That's a big Twinkie.

Where their spirtual guidance and "higher authority" comes from...

Dr. Egon Spengler: The architect's name was Evo Shandor. I found it in Tobin's Spirit Guide. He was also a doctor, performed a lot of unnecessary surgery. And then in 1920, he started a secret society...
Dr. Peter Venkman: Let me guess: Gozer worshippers.
Dr. Egon Spengler: Right.
Dr. Peter Venkman: [to Ray] No studying.
Dr. Egon Spengler: After the First World War, Shandor decided that society was too sick to survive.
[He pauses, glancing nervously around at the holding cell crowd]
Dr. Egon Spengler: And he wasn't alone, he had close to a thousand followers when he died. They conducted rituals up on the roof. Bizarre rituals, intended to bring about the *end of the world*, and now it looks like it might actually happen.
[pause. Peter spins around to face another of the inmates, and starts singing]
Dr. Peter Venkman: So be good, for goodness' sake!

I'll give Barack Obama the role of "Gozer", an evil spirit who is out to unleash his demons and take over the world, but the overall approach comes from a bit-character played by Rick Moranis, an average Joe-Blow who eventually gets possessed and turned into a demon:

Dr. Egon Spengler: We'd like to get a sample of your brain tissue.
Louis: Okay.

And once possessed, the faithful keep chanting,

Louis: Aw, don't leave yet. Well, listen, maybe if we start dancing other people will join in!

When Phil Jones and the other scientists analyze the latest computer-generated climate models:

Dr Ray Stantz: [astounded] Wow! Talk about telekinetic activity, look at this mess!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Ray, look at this.
Dr Ray Stantz: Ectoplasmic residue.
Dr. Egon Spengler: Venkman, get a sample of this.
Dr Ray Stantz: It's the real thing.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Someone blows their nose and you want to keep it?
Dr. Egon Spengler: I'd like to analyze it.
Dr. Peter Venkman: [gets the slime on his hand] Whoa, ah.
Dr. Egon Spengler: This way.
[Venkman tries to wipe the slime off of his hand]

Insofar as the computers doing the modeling go,

Dr. Peter Venkman: Generally you don't see that kind of behavior in a major appliance.

There's an element of self-delusion, of course,

Dr. Egon Spengler: This is big, Peter, this is very big. There is definitely something here.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Egon, this reminds me of the time you tried to drill a hole through your head. Remember that?
Dr. Egon Spengler: That would have worked if you hadn't stopped me.

Nothing stops them, and here's how they explain it to the public:

Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.

Just between themselves, as they jet from climate conference to climate conference,

Dr. Peter Venkman: As a friend, I have to tell ya you've finally gone around the bend on this ghost business. You guys have been running your ass off, meetin' and greetin' every schizo in the five boroughs who says he has a paranormal experience. What have you seen?
Dr Ray Stantz: Of course you forget, Peter. I was present at an undersea, unexplained mass sponge migration.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Ray, the sponges migrated about a foot-and-a-half.

Or about 0.0001 degree. But they promote mass migrations just the same -- in daily "science" news from AP, Reuters, NYTimes, or CNN:

Larry King: Hi, this is Larry King. The phone-in topic Today: "Ghosts and Ghostbusting." The controversy builds, more sightings are reported, some maintain that these professional paranormal eliminators in New York are the cause of it all.

Well, that's just too much of life imitating art. But when someone in the gullible public notices that their arguments aren't too believable:

Dana Barrett: You know, you don't act like a scientist.
Dr. Peter Venkman: They're usually pretty stiff.
Dana Barrett: You're more like a game show host.

This doesn't prevent Dana (Sigourney Weaver) from being possessed by our version of Zuul, the God of the Global Warming hysteria:

Dana Barrett: [possessed by Zuul, speaking to Venkman] Take me now, subcreature!

The scientists don't really have much affection for the public, however:

[Dana starts passionately making out with him]

Dr. Peter Venkman: I make it a rule never to get involved with possessed people.

Game-show hosts or not, beware the coming end-run in Copenhagen:

Dr Ray Stantz: I think we'd better split up.
Dr. Egon Spengler: Good idea.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Yeah... we can do more damage that way.

Michael Moore, where are ya? They know how to enlist the support of the rest of the scientific establishment:

Dr. Peter Venkman: We've been going about this all wrong. This Mr. Stay Puft's okay! He's a sailor, he's in New York; we get this guy laid, we won't have any trouble!

Mr. Stay Puft is a Thanksgiving Day blimp in the shape of a scientist in a white lab coat yearning for research grants. All you gotta do is ape the party line to get your green bunch of bananas. So how do you pitch it to the politicians?

Lenny: Do I believe in UFOs, astral projections, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full trance mediums, the Loch Ness monster and the theory of Atlantis?

Dr. Peter Venkman: If I'm wrong, nothing happens! We go to jail - peacefully, quietly. We'll enjoy it! But if I'm *right*, and we *can* stop this thing... Lenny, you will have saved the lives of millions of registered voters.

The public becomes entranced and you get people like Ed Begley to evangelize for you...

Dr. Peter Venkman: I just whacked him up with about 300 cc's of Thorazaine... he's gonna take a little nap now. I think we can get him a guest shot on "Wild Kingdom."

Which could be Ed's latest meltdown on Fox the other day. And how do the politicians respond?

Winston Zeddemore: Ah, if there's a steady paycheck in it, I'll believe anything you say.

Testifying before Congress, Al Gore offers serious evidence and sound scientific foundations for the need to act:

Winston Zeddemore: I'm Winston Zeddmore, Your Honor. I've only been with the company for a couple of weeks, but these things are real. Since I joined these men, I've seen shit that'll turn you white.

For the public, you tell them,

[In a TV commercial]
Dr Ray Stantz: Are you troubled by strange noises in the middle of the night?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Do you experience feelings of dread in your basement or attic?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Have you or your family ever seen a spook, spectre or ghost?
Dr Ray Stantz: If the answer is "yes," then don't wait another minute. Pick up the phone and call the professionals...
Dr Ray Stantz, Dr. Egon Spengler, Dr. Peter Venkman: Ghostbusters!
Dr Ray Stantz: Our courteous and efficient staff is on call 24 hours a day to serve all your supernatural elimination needs.
Dr Ray Stantz, Dr. Egon Spengler, Dr. Peter Venkman: We're ready to believe you.

The hysteria builds, even among the adherents,

Dr. Peter Venkman: Ray has gone bye-bye, Egon... what've you got left?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Sorry, Venkman, I'm terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought.

and Phil Jones asks the Reverend Al Gore,

Dr Ray Stantz: Every ancient religion has its own myth about the end of the world.
Winston Zeddemore: Myth? Ray, has it ever occurred to you that maybe the reason we've been so busy lately is because the dead *have* been rising from the grave?

Dr. Spengler speaks for good scientists everywhere:

Dr. Egon Spengler: I feel like the floor of a taxi cab.

But Dr. Venkman speaks for "scientists" like Hansen and Jones,

Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?

That's easy! You cross the streams between good and bad, truth and falsehood, fact and fiction...

Dr. Egon Spengler: I have a radical idea. The door swings both ways, we could reverse the particle flow through the gate.
Dr. Peter Venkman: How?
Dr. Egon Spengler: [hesitates] We'll cross the streams!
Dr. Peter Venkman: 'Scuse me Egon? You said crossing the streams was bad!
Dr Ray Stantz: Cross the streams...
Dr. Peter Venkman: You're gonna endanger us, you're gonna endanger our client - the nice lady, who paid us in advance, before she became a dog...
Dr. Egon Spengler: Not necessarily. There's definitely a *very slim* chance we'll survive.
[pause while they consider this]
Dr. Peter Venkman: [slaps Ray] I love this plan! I'm excited to be a part of it! LET'S DO IT!

This will play in Washington, New York and East Anglia.

Winston Zeddemore: I love this town!

When the demons in Copenhagen vote,

Gozer: The Choice is made!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Whoa! Ho! Ho! Whoa-oa!
Gozer: The Traveller has come!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Nobody choosed anything!
[turns to Egon]
Dr. Peter Venkman: Did you choose anything?
Dr. Egon Spengler: No.
Dr. Peter Venkman: [to Winston] Did YOU?
Winston Zeddemore: My mind is totally blank.
Dr. Peter Venkman: *I* didn't choose anything...
[long pause, Peter, Egon and Winston all look at Ray]
Dr Ray Stantz: I couldn't help it. It just popped in there.
Dr. Peter Venkman: [angrily] What? *What* "just popped in there?"
Dr Ray Stantz: I... I... I tried to think...
Dr. Egon Spengler: LOOK!
[they all look over one side of the roof]
Dr Ray Stantz: No! It CAN'T be!
Dr. Peter Venkman: What is it?
Dr Ray Stantz: It CAN'T be!
Dr. Peter Venkman: What did you DO, Ray?
Winston Zeddemore: Oh, shit!
[they all see a giant cubic white head topped with a sailor hat, Peter looks at Ray]
Dr Ray Stantz: [somberly] It's the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man!

That big inflated scientist in the white lab coat, remember. Out to conquer the world.

Their argument to Congress for Cap and Trade goes something like this:

Dr Ray Stantz: [training Winston] This is where we put all the vapors and entities and slimers that we trap. Quite simple really. Load a trap here, open, unlock the system. Insert the trap, release, close, lock the system. Set your entry grid, neutralize your field and... the light is green, the trap is clean! The ghost is incarcerated here in our custom-made storage facility...

Dr. Peter Venkman: Let's talk serious. For the entrapment, we're gonna ask you for 4 big ones. $4,000 for that, but we are having a special this week on proton charging, and storage of the beast, so we are gonna ask for $1,000 more.
Hotel Manager: $5,000? I don't care if you need so much, I won't pay it!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Oh, that's okay we can just put it right back in there.
Dr Ray Stantz: We most certainly can, Dr. Venkman.
Hotel Manager: [Stops Ray] No, no NO! Anything.

What makes this possible is a public that believes in their divine right to vote any idiocy into law:

Louis: [possessed by Vinz Clortho] I am The Keymaster!
Dana Barrett: [possessed by Zuul] I am The Gatekeeper!

As for Climategate, Phil Jones can't take it anymore:

Dr. Peter Venkman: I don't have to take this abuse from you, I've got hundreds of people dying to abuse me...

Dr Ray Stantz: Symmetrical book stacking. Just like the Philadelphia mass turbulence of 1947.
Dr. Peter Venkman: You're right, no human being would stack books like this.

Or cook the books. For anyone challenging them in peer-reviewed papers,

Dr. Peter Venkman: Alice, I'm going to ask you a couple of standard questions, okay? Have you or any of your family been diagnosed schizophrenic? Mentally incompetant?
Librarian Alice: My uncle thought he was Saint Jerome.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'd call that a big yes. Uh, are you habitually using drugs? Stimulants? Alcohol?
Librarian Alice: No.
Dr. Peter Venkman: No, no. Just asking. Are you, Alice, menstruating right now?
Library Administrator: What's has that got to do with it?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Back off, man. I'm a scientist.

For the mildly annoying critics,

Dr Ray Stantz: Well, this is great. If the ionization-rate is constant for all ectoplasmic entities, we can really bust some heads... in a spiritual sense, of course.

For the really annoying critics, sic the media on them:

Dr. Peter Venkman: All right, this chick is TOAST. Okay; sticks?
Dr Ray Stantz, Dr. Egon Spengler, Winston Zeddemore: HOLDIN'!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Heat 'em up!
Dr Ray Stantz, Dr. Egon Spengler, Winston Zeddemore: SMOKIN'!
Dr. Peter Venkman: MAKE 'EM HARD!
Dr Ray Stantz, Dr. Egon Spengler, Winston Zeddemore: READY!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Let's show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown.

Don't you dare challenge the gospel of Global Warming, Phil Jones won't take it anymore...

Dr. Peter Venkman: NOBODY steps on a church in my town!

Now we come full circle to "Climate-gate". As I said, you have to do a little switch in your interpretation of the movie, which holds up ghosts as sorta real and mocks the EPA pretty well, but if you stop laughing at the thought of the critics of Global Warming taking on the role of Walter Peck, and pay attention to Venkman's responses, they could be right out of the lips of Phil Jones as he resists Freedom of Information requests for climate data:

Walter Peck: I'm Walter Peck, from the Environmental Protection Agency, the third district. [Peck shakes Venkman's hand and wipes ectoplasm on his jacket]
Dr. Peter Venkman: Great, how's it going down there?
Walter Peck: Are you Peter Venkman?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Yes, I'm *Doctor* Venkman!
Walter Peck: Exactly what are you a doctor of, Mr. Venkman?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Well, I have a PhD in parapsychology and psychology.
Walter Peck: And now, you catch ghosts?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Yeah, you could say that.
Walter Peck: And how many ghosts have you caught, Mr. Venkman?
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm not at liberty to say.
Walter Peck: And where do you put these ghosts, once you catch them?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Into a storage facility.
Walter Peck: And would this storage facility be located on these premises?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Yes.
Walter Peck: And may I see this storage facility?
Dr. Peter Venkman: No.
Walter Peck: And why not, Mr. Venkman?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Because you did not use the magic word.
Walter Peck: What is the magic word, Mr. Venkman?
Dr. Peter Venkman: [looking surprised] Please!
Walter Peck: May I *please* see the storage facility, Mr. Venkman?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why do you want to see the storage facility?
Walter Peck: Because I'm curious. I wanna know more about what you do here! Frankly, I've heard alot of wild stories in the media and we want to assess any possibility of dangerous and possibly hazardous waste chemicals in your basement.
[Peck is angered]
Walter Peck: Now you either *show me* what is down there, or I come back with a court order.
Dr. Peter Venkman: [Venkman snaps back] You go get a court order, and I'll sue your funny ass for wrongful prosecution.
Walter Peck: You can have it your way, Mr. Venkman.

What really captures the soul of a Global Warming scientist, however is this:

Dr Ray Stantz: Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn't have to produce anything! You've never been out of college! You don't know what it's like out there! I've *worked* in the private sector. They expect *results*.

Dr. Peter Venkman: Janine, someone with your qualifications would have no trouble finding a top-flight job in either the food service or housekeeping industries.

And what captures the essence of the souls of the Global Warming politicians:

Janine Melnitz: You are so kind to take care of that man. You know, you're a real humanitarian.
Dr. Egon Spengler: I don't think he's human.

For all of the rest of us,

Dr Ray Stantz: You have been a participant in the biggest interdimensional cross rip since the Tunguska blast of 1909!

And the response of the public:

Male Student: [Annoyed] I'm getting a little tired of this.
Dr. Peter Venkman: You volunteered, didn't you? We're paying you, are we?
Male Student: Yeah, but I didn't know you were gonna be giving me electric shocks. What are you trying to prove here, anyway?
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm studying the effect of negative reinforcement on ESP ability.
Male Student: [Aggravated] Effect? I'll tell you the effect is, it's pissing me off!

Which sums up so well how I feel about this and my judgment of these scientists:

Dr Ray Stantz: Hey, Dean Yeager! Are you moving us to a better office on campus?
Dean Yeager: No, you're being moved off campus. The Board of Regents has decided to terminate your grant. You are to vacate these premises immediately.
Dr Ray Stantz: What?
Dr. Peter Venkman: This is preposterous. I demand an explanation.
Dean Yeager: This university will no longer continue any funding for any of your group's activities.
Dr. Peter Venkman: But the kids love us!
Dean Yeager: Doctor... Venkman. The purpose of science is to serve mankind. You seem to regard science as some kind of dodge... or hustle. Your theories are the worst kind of popular tripe, your methods are sloppy, and your conclusions are highly questionable! You are a poor scientist, Dr. Venkman!
Dr. Peter Venkman: I see.
Dean Yeager: And you have no place in this department, or this university.

Amen. And hopefully, future media interviews with Global Warming advocates will go something like this:

Joe Franklin: As they say in T.V., I'm sure there's one big question on everybody's mind, and I imagine you are the man to answer that. How is Elvis, and have you seen him lately?

The Gatekeepers of Climategate

The article copied below is really great in summarizing the current scandal surrounding the Global Warming gatekeepers -- the scientists who fudged, faked and concealed the data to support a political agenda. I fully agree with the thesis of the article: these people need to be fully identified and exposed and drummed out of the field of science entirely--and some deserve long jail terms for fraud. They are guilty of attempting to cause orders of magnitude more harm to the world than Al Qaeda ever did. They need to put these key players through the intellectual equivalent of water boarding, find their accomplices and trace the conspiracy back as far as possible to as many people as possible.

But they need to go a step further. They need to ask: why were so many scientists working in collusion (actively or passively) to fake the global warming data? What were their full objectives? Yes, for many it was simply money and prestige and a gravy train of research grants. And for others it was raw power, pure and simple -- let's face it, controlling the world with cap and trade dictates, controlling how people light and heat their homes, how they transport themselves, what they eat (remember methane emissions from cows?), how they breed, ad infinitum--had to be a big trip for many of these guys who were consulted and interviewed and given extraordinary authority.

These are not the goals of low-grade grifters (except in spirit). I don't doubt that you could also find collusion among some foreign powers hoping to cripple the United States or manipulate us for their own gain, and I even don't doubt (no surprise) that you could find communist conspiracies (it's their raison d'etre, after all, and their involvement is well documented if not publicly well known). But none of that identifies the primary motives of the leaders or their many followers.

Look at the large numbers of people who wanted to believe--who wanted to believe in a theory that Mankind is inherently bad, inherently evil, even, and that mankind deserves to be punished, should be punished, and all of us should suffer and sacrifice for the hubris of using our minds, manipulating our environment for our personal survival, happiness and success in life? What attracts someone to the conviction that all that is bad?

There is only one answer.

Consider the ideas so many people are taught and believe in today:

That sacrifice is good--whether it's sacrificing your warmth and light and comfort and standard of living to saving the planet from alleged crises, or to any other purpose.

That the individual is bad, weak, flawed, of no consequence, of no intelligence, powerless before fate, having no worth compared to his race, his group, his countrymen, every member of his gender nor any other lifeform down to the lowest slug.

That individual judgment is of no significance, and any objections to the arguments of global warming from individuals are of no import compared to the assertions, flatulence and bullcrap from a collective herd of esteemed science guys having enough sheepskins and pedigrees.

That reason is impotent and incapable of guiding mens' existence--unless one wants to claim the illusion of reason to manipulate people towards ends such as "cap and trade" and global dictatorship for the alleged purpose of improving mens' lives.

That emotions are primary and feelings are more fundamental guides to action than reason, and if you feel strongly enough about something that gives you the right to impose it on every other man, woman and child on Earth at the point of a gun.

That objectivity doesn't exist (are there facts independent of anyone's perception?) but contradictions do exist (hey, everything is relative and the sun couldn't have more effect on global temperatures than a power plant or even a herd of cattle), and one man's dogma is another man's science (say, Phil Jones or James Hansen).

That reality is malleable (even physical laws are up for a vote) and anyone is entitled to manipulate it towards their ends, including climate scientists and politicians.

That the group (the establishment of any State-run institution, whether of science or public policy) is supreme, to be followed and obeyed unthinkingly.

That individual rights are passe', the pursuit of happiness is naive, personal property outdated, and the embodiment of all these -- capitalism -- is an evil blight consuming the planet, destroying the environment and enslaving people with freedom.

All this has come to be taught in our schools, promoted in our media and discussed endlessly and without question in intellectual colloquia. But who taught the teachers, the pundits and the intellectuals? What made it possible for so many people to subscribe, advocate and participate in such a hoax?

To get to the bottom of "Climategate" and prevent it ever happening again you must go deeper than the concretes of money and power. You must discover the preconditions of the hoax. As Ayn Rand said so often, those are the questions answered by philosophy -- a proper philosophy.

(For anyone new to her philosophy, see especially her essay, Philosophy, Who Needs It, delivered to the graduating class at West Point in 1974. Here it is in audio form online: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_ar_pwni. Also, see other introductory essays http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_advessays)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6679082/Climate-change-this-is-the-worst-scientific-scandal-of-our-generation.html

Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation

Our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get away with the Climategate whitewash, says Christopher Booker.

By Christopher Booker
Published: 6:10PM GMT 28 Nov 2009

A week after my colleague James Delingpole, on his Telegraph blog, coined the term "Climategate" to describe the scandal revealed by the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, Google was showing that the word now appears across the internet more than nine million times. But in all these acres of electronic coverage, one hugely relevant point about these thousands of documents has largely been missed.

The reason why even the Guardian's George Monbiot has expressed total shock and dismay at the picture revealed by the documents is that their authors are not just any old bunch of academics. Their importance cannot be overestimated, What we are looking at here is the small group of scientists who have for years been more influential in driving the worldwide alarm over global warming than any others, not least through the role they play at the heart of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Professor Philip Jones, the CRU's director, is in charge of the two key sets of data used by the IPCC to draw up its reports. Through its link to the Hadley Centre, part of the UK Met Office, which selects most of the IPCC's key scientific contributors, his global temperature record is the most important of the four sets of temperature data on which the IPCC and governments rely – not least for their predictions that the world will warm to catastrophic levels unless trillions of dollars are spent to avert it.

Dr Jones is also a key part of the closely knit group of American and British scientists responsible for promoting that picture of world temperatures conveyed by Michael Mann's "hockey stick" graph which 10 years ago turned climate history on its head by showing that, after 1,000 years of decline, global temperatures have recently shot up to their highest level in recorded history.

Given star billing by the IPCC, not least for the way it appeared to eliminate the long-accepted Mediaeval Warm Period when temperatures were higher they are today, the graph became the central icon of the entire man-made global warming movement.

Since 2003, however, when the statistical methods used to create the "hockey stick" were first exposed as fundamentally flawed by an expert Canadian statistician Steve McIntyre, an increasingly heated battle has been raging between Mann's supporters, calling themselves "the Hockey Team", and McIntyre and his own allies, as they have ever more devastatingly called into question the entire statistical basis on which the IPCC and CRU construct their case.

The senders and recipients of the leaked CRU emails constitute a cast list of the IPCC's scientific elite, including not just the "Hockey Team", such as Dr Mann himself, Dr Jones and his CRU colleague Keith Briffa, but Ben Santer, responsible for a highly controversial rewriting of key passages in the IPCC's 1995 report; Kevin Trenberth, who similarly controversially pushed the IPCC into scaremongering over hurricane activity; and Gavin Schmidt, right-hand man to Al Gore's ally Dr James Hansen, whose own GISS record of surface temperature data is second in importance only to that of the CRU itself.

There are three threads in particular in the leaked documents which have sent a shock wave through informed observers across the world. Perhaps the most obvious, as lucidly put together by Willis Eschenbach (see McIntyre's blog Climate Audit and Anthony Watt's blog Watts Up With That), is the highly disturbing series of emails which show how Dr Jones and his colleagues have for years been discussing the devious tactics whereby they could avoid releasing their data to outsiders under freedom of information laws.

They have come up with every possible excuse for concealing the background data on which their findings and temperature records were based.

This in itself has become a major scandal, not least Dr Jones's refusal to release the basic data from which the CRU derives its hugely influential temperature record, which culminated last summer in his startling claim that much of the data from all over the world had simply got "lost". Most incriminating of all are the emails in which scientists are advised to delete large chunks of data, which, when this is done after receipt of a freedom of information request, is a criminal offence.

But the question which inevitably arises from this systematic refusal to release their data is – what is it that these scientists seem so anxious to hide? The second and most shocking revelation of the leaked documents is how they show the scientists trying to manipulate data through their tortuous computer programmes, always to point in only the one desired direction – to lower past temperatures and to "adjust" recent temperatures upwards, in order to convey the impression of an accelerated warming. This comes up so often (not least in the documents relating to computer data in the Harry Read Me file) that it becomes the most disturbing single element of the entire story. This is what Mr McIntyre caught Dr Hansen doing with his GISS temperature record last year (after which Hansen was forced to revise his record), and two further shocking examples have now come to light from Australia and New Zealand.

In each of these countries it has been possible for local scientists to compare the official temperature record with the original data on which it was supposedly based. In each case it is clear that the same trick has been played – to turn an essentially flat temperature chart into a graph which shows temperatures steadily rising. And in each case this manipulation was carried out under the influence of the CRU.

What is tragically evident from the Harry Read Me file is the picture it gives of the CRU scientists hopelessly at sea with the complex computer programmes they had devised to contort their data in the approved direction, more than once expressing their own desperation at how difficult it was to get the desired results.

The third shocking revelation of these documents is the ruthless way in which these academics have been determined to silence any expert questioning of the findings they have arrived at by such dubious methods – not just by refusing to disclose their basic data but by discrediting and freezing out any scientific journal which dares to publish their critics' work. It seems they are prepared to stop at nothing to stifle scientific debate in this way, not least by ensuring that no dissenting research should find its way into the pages of IPCC reports.

Back in 2006, when the eminent US statistician Professor Edward Wegman produced an expert report for the US Congress vindicating Steve McIntyre's demolition of the "hockey stick", he excoriated the way in which this same "tightly knit group" of academics seemed only too keen to collaborate with each other and to "peer review" each other's papers in order to dominate the findings of those IPCC reports on which much of the future of the US and world economy may hang. In light of the latest revelations, it now seems even more evident that these men have been failing to uphold those principles which lie at the heart of genuine scientific enquiry and debate. Already one respected US climate scientist, Dr Eduardo Zorita, has called for Dr Mann and Dr Jones to be barred from any further participation in the IPCC. Even our own George Monbiot, horrified at finding how he has been betrayed by the supposed experts he has been revering and citing for so long, has called for Dr Jones to step down as head of the CRU.

The former Chancellor Lord (Nigel) Lawson, last week launching his new think tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, rightly called for a proper independent inquiry into the maze of skulduggery revealed by the CRU leaks. But the inquiry mooted on Friday, possibly to be chaired by Lord Rees, President of the Royal Society – itself long a shameless propagandist for the warmist cause – is far from being what Lord Lawson had in mind. Our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get away with a whitewash of what has become the greatest scientific scandal of our age.

Shanghaied by Forked Tongue

My friend Ed (author of the "Sparrowhawk" series on the American Revolution) makes the excellent point in his latest editorial Fork-Tongue in Shanghai that when Obama said he was a fan of "non-censorship" while visiting China recently, what he really meant was that he was not a fan of freedom of speech. No slip of the forked tongue. As Ed observes,

The satire is that in Shanghai, Obama was subjected to the same censorship that he wishes to impose on America. It was the professional totalitarians showing the ropes to an amateur.

An amateur with grand ambitions to be a pro, I might add.

Ed also makes the cogent point that terms like "providers" are concocted by Leftists to imply a sacrificial obligation (and thereby seize the moral high ground) by businesses to provide free services to everyone else, without rights to control the means of providing. To ensure that, government must therefore have the authority to force businesses to comply. You may note that what is really implied is the destruction of the concept of property rights as such. That is always the real goal of such agendas. To quote Ellsworth Toohey, the arch-Marxist par excellance from "The Fountainhead" (quoted in my own editorial on Toohey vs Obama, "Good Night America", 6/28/09),

"Don't bother to examine a folly--ask yourself only what it accomplishes.

See Ed's column at http://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/2009/11/fork-tongued-in-shanghai.htm

Rodents of Unusual Size

Or a large man-eating rat by any other name, from The Princess Bride.

A friend sent me an article that makes the point that the Health Care Bill is a sort of Ponzi scheme to make us all dependent on government in matters of health care, but in my opinion, this falls far short of the truth and the nature of the pure evil behind it. Why were 40 Democrats sacrificed to pass the health care bill (they will lose in the next election for voting for this), and why do the people behind this want a "dominant role of government in health care"?

The short form answer is, as I said in a previous post, that I think the guys orchestrating health care "reform" want much more than just that. Their goal is a Chavez-like incremental communism with an end-game of the Cuban model. That's why I often say Obama is a Castroite, and why I'll now append that title to Nancy Pelosi. It was Pelosi's sacrifice of so many members of her own party to her agenda that finally convinced me she is a committed communist and not just a socialist.

She would only do this, by the way, if there was some Plan B, not yet revealed, that would make her and her ilk (including Obama) unconcerned about the next election. Stay tuned.

As I said previously in "The Real Meaning of Health Care Reform" (9/4/09), the primary goal of this "reform" is the enactment of the legal basis for totalitarianism. I do not think the bill was a simple product of the "Far Left", but was concocted as part of a broader plan by committed communists whose ultimate goal is the destruction of capitalism and the United States. The health care bill (like Obama) is a stepping stone to that end.

I make a big distinction between socialists and communists. The latter are active conspirators, whereas socialists are simply "me-too-ers" who aren't part of any conspiracy but just really, really excited to promote their agenda out in the open. (And rank and file average Democrats are simply ballast to them.) Communists have a goal and a plan, and actively work together in secret to implement it.

If you'll pardon the speculation, their plan (and it is a loose conspiracy, I think, that includes a great number of people around the world) is to put their people in all top positions of our government. The Presidency of the United States was the "holy grail" they've sought for 60 years -- access to every single top secret of the U.S. government, and the highest influence of all domestic and foreign policy. Obama's "appearance" on the stage was not accidental. A black man was groomed for this role for a reason -- to get out a large base of normally uninvolved voters, to cash in on all the latent guilt fostered in public schools for decades over the legacy of slavery, and to insulate him from a lot of criticism as just motivated by "racism".

In my opinion the timing of the economic collapse only weeks before the election was also not an accident. It was an essential part of the Plan. The preconditions of the collapse had been building (created and encouraged) for several decades. I think the seizing-up of the credit markets was pushed as far ahead as 2-4 years before the election. These people knew that a bad economy and widespread fear and panic would gain them substantial points in the election.

I think Hank Paulsen (former Secretary of the Treasury) was probably part of the plan because of his central role in bringing the "crisis" to Bush for immediate action only weeks before the election, but it's possible the strings were pulled from below to manipulate him to that situation. When it was evident that Obama had even a small chance of losing (his margin was shrinking rapidly), they had Paulsen pull the trigger on the boldest and most desperate move of all -- Paulsen would take a catastrophic meltdown crisis to Bush (the dumbest shrub on the planet) with the immediate need for a trillion dollars. The point wasn't the state of the economy itself, which was admittedly bad. It was to precipitate a catastrophic crisis, by goading Bush into asking Congress for an emergency authorization of a trillion dollars -- a few weeks before the election. They knew this would scare the living hell out of everyone in the country and get Obama and the Democrats all the swing votes necessary to ensure victory.

The evidence for Paulsen (a Democrat) being more than a dupe and probably a closet communist is that his job as Secretary of the Treasury was carefully orchestrated in my opinion. Paulsen's motivation for wanting the job was simple: at Goldman, he was the one who put the entire company at risk by promoting the mortgage backed securities market (MBSs). Goldman for a time made a lot of money on this, and Paulsen was sitting on $500M worth of stock options as a result of the "success" of that strategy. But his options were going to be worthless soon -- when the MBS house of cards collapsed or when the trigger was pulled on the economy to make it collapse.

As Secretary of the Treasury, Paulsen would be in an ideal situation to not only pull that trigger, but by law required to divest himself of a "conflict of interest" before he had to pull it -- to liquidate his options at Goldman. A key company officer dumping such a large number of options on the market would normally devastate the price of a stock, but everyone knows that stock divestment was a legal requirement for anyone to take the Treasury top job. Paulsen was smart enough to know the MBSs he promoted at Goldman were a ticking time bomb. So it was perfect for him -- he made out like a bandit before chickens came home to roost. Then he had no reluctance at all to go to Bush with an outrageous call for a trillion dollar "bailout" of the banking industry.

Look a step further at how perfectly this all came together for the communist conspiricists. Requesting a trillion dollars not only ensured Obama the election, it got them the authority to seize control of the entire banking industry. And then the auto industry. And then carte blanche to demand more regulation of every other industry.

Seriously, if you were a committed communist, and your goal was the destruction of capitalism and the nationalization of private industry, what could be more perfect?

Most people are very reluctant to openly suggest there are communist conspiracies or that particular people are communists, even in the face of glaring evidence. (Eg, Van Jones making explicit public statements such as "I AM A COMMUNIST", and Obama spending his entire life consorting with communists, including his parents and mentors and preachers and fellow intellectuals.) People think (rightly) that it makes them look wild-eyed and un-credible -- and I would agree in many forums or circles, you just can't do it. Labels are usually a diversion from underlying intellectual issues.

But there are cases where a label is appropriate: when the issue isn't simply intellectual. If a country, for instance, was planning to attack the United States with atomic weapons, you wouldn't mock anyone who used the label of "The Soviets". You would use that label to more precisely identify the nature of the threat and the plans the Soviets were making. Well, the Soviets may be gone (at least in Russia), but their ilk live on and plan and work towards their goal. That is the value of the label "communist".

Belittling of labels was one of the goals of the post-McCarthy era, for that reason. Even if McCarthy and HUAC were temporary (and minor) setbacks, the communists brilliantly spun those hearings to demonize anyone as lunatics for seeing communists under every table.

And communism didn't go away after McCarthy -- it flourished in the twilight for decades, especially after the government and teachers unions cemented control of the school system post-Kennedy. The "black-listing" was an ideal cover, for this -- it made the communists much more cautious about revealing their affiliations. (Van Jones is, relatively speaking, just a loud mouthed moron in those circles.)

So, even if you can't produce "smoking gun" evidence in the form of CPUSA cards for these people (though you could for Jones and for Obama's father, and for Frank Davis, Obama's mentor), that doesn't mean communists and a broad conspiracy aren't out there, but you do have to be willing to risk being called a conspiracy nut to see it. The signs are everywhere, if you know what to look for.

What are the signs? To see them accurately, the key is to not get suckered into thinking all Leftists are communists; most aren't (communists are a very small minority). While Leftists and communists share the appeal of altruism as a moral ideal, communists are not interested in fostering a "greater good" (however flawed that concept may be for Leftists in general).

What differentiates communists in particular are two defining mental traits: first, a sort of megalomaniacal belief in their own superior intelligence (observe Obama's nomination and inauguration), and second, an unbridled power lust (look what he's done and who he has surrounded himself with). The second breeds their over-arching hatred of individualism and capitalism (how can you be superior to everyone if you can't control them?), and the combination leads communists to concoct conspiracies. Altruism is what gives them the means to that end, and conspiracies are their modus operandi. The psychology of a communist is ultimately that of a pathological liar and killer. For more on this, see my post "Good Night, America" (6/28/09).

This reasoning may sound like a self-licking ice cream cone -- "their love of conspiracies is why you have to believe my conspirializing about their conspiracies"-- but I'm not a big fan of chance. As Auric Goldfinger said, "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action." Labels can occasionally be useful, and a communist by any other name is a large Rodent of Unusual Size in Grandma's clothes, waiting to devour little Red White and Blue Riding Hood.

The First Horseman of the Apocalypse

A friend recently remarked with regard to media bias in support of the Obama agenda (ABC/NBC/CBS/MSNBC/CNBC/CNN/NYTIMES/WASHINGTONPOST and 99% of the newspapers in this country),

Reading an essay on the dissemination of ideas in the Revolution, it was depressing (for our situation) to read that the Founders' ideas were also held by almost totally all the printers in the colonies. The printers were very much in sympathy with overthrowing the Brits. That made disseminating of the ideas much easier. Unlike our own situation.

That is, the ideas of individual rights and liberty. I can't help but note that there's a lot more depressing differences besides lack of "media" support.

1.) The Colonists had the enormous advantage of a great distance -- they could organize in large numbers and build an army over several years with little fear of being stopped. In our country today you couldn't organize 10 people for a few months without FBI SWAT teams arresting everyone.

2.) The Colonists hadn't even a millionth of the surveillance that we have today. A few spies. We have the entire internet and telephone networks and U.S. mails monitered, our cell phones and GPS units and automobiles (with features like "On-Star") and wireless toll passes all report the exact locations of large numbers of most people 24/7. RFID chips in our credit cards track everything we buy and even where we go. The Feds have 100% access to any record, including medical and purchases. Throw in low-cost traffic surveillance cameras on a growing number of streets (soon we'll be like Britain -- they'll be on every street), security cameras inside every business, and god knows what else. (One British town even put cameras inside recycling bins to make sure people aren't mixing the bottles with the baby diapers.) A video camera with a microphone and a transmitter can be smaller than a shirt button (less batteries) and literally put anywhere (ever see the movie "Truman"?), and post 9/11 there are virtually no legal obstacles.

3.) The public education system has a death grip on the minds of most people in this country, brainwashing them from almost birth with dogma, ignorance of their birthright, and a psychology of dependency. Very hard to overcome.

4.) A much higher percentage of the population today supports encroachments on freedom than the Colonists ever did or ever would, including the Tories. Even those who oppose what is being done to enslave us are of such mixed premises that they can easily be manipulated, as the health care vote demonstrated, when Obama handed out "favors"--that is, the removal from the health care bill of threats to destroy them--to the AMA, AARP, and the drug and insurance companies. (see http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/healthcare/66717-obamacare-endorsements-what-the-bribe-was)

For now. In the name of such pragmatism are we being enslaved. Who says philosophy doesn't rule the course of history? Read Atlas Shrugged if you need to understand this more clearly. Wait a few years if you need to grasp it more palpably.

Should true dictatorship come to this country in the near future (or any future), all four of these points, and more, make it impossible that we will ever be able to use the Hollywood approach to save us (aka, Star Wars). I'm afraid that there is very little historical precedent for overthrowing dictators with brave bands of rebels led by a charismatic leader and moral superiority. The United States was utterly unique in the annals of time.

There are three kinds of people in the world at any epoch of time: those who want to be free, those who want to be enslaved, and those who want to enslave free people. A much higher percentage of people today want to be in those last two categories than ever have in the history of this country. Marxism and public education breeds slaves and enslavers very efficiently. They are "Borg".

There's much more one could say to dissuade potential "Revolutionaries". Anyone in this country who might be thinking of organizing opposition to the "Crown" in Washington in the manner of America's Founders will find it is an impossibility in this day and age--so long as the government has the money to pay people wedded to being slaves or enslavers to do their bidding. If I ever met a wannabe "Revolutionary", my advice would be: never fight a battle you're going to lose. Far better to grit your teeth and bide your time.

If there is to be any way out of this mess, in the long run it is only going to be by spreading the right ideas to a much larger number of people, and in the short run by rallying the great mass of outraged citizens around single issues like health care or voting bad politicians out of office.

That said, right now I'm very pessimistic. Despite the galvanizing effect he has had in building an opposition, with Obama in office I think our odds are poor. He is smart and evil in a degree that's never been seen in this country, in that office. I thoroughly expected what happened with the passage of the health care bill--feign weakness and pass in the dead of night. Watch for more of the same in the Senate. And the same for Cap and Trade. This is why I was so opposed to Obama's election. He is too slick and too good at manipulating people and the system, and he's got way too many behind-the-scenes advisors and puppetmasters. (There's a reason he uses those teleprompters so slavishly.)

Right now my thinking is that if nationalized health care passes, Cap and Trade will soon follow and we will enter a free fall towards dictatorship within the next 5 years. We can debate what "dictatorship" means, but I submit that when everyone is forced to buy a $15,000 government-mandated insurance policy as a condition of citizenship or face large fines and 5 years in prison, then the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and any restraints on government power have been thrown out with the bathwater, the swimming pool and even the Atlantic Ocean. We are at the waters edge and the rip-tide is strong and the bottom deep.

If it can happen fast enough, I think a general uprising in the country could stop it. We aren't Europe. Yet. A bald-faced attempt to seize real dictatorial powers (read those "Executive Orders" in my previous post ) would be a good thing: I do not think the military and police and intelligence agencies and others in government would go along with it. I think the majority take their oaths seriously and believe they are the good guys, like super-agent Sidney Bristow from the TV show Alias -- they would be aghast to find themselves working for "SD-6", an organization of murder, larceny and terrorism, the very people they thought they were working against.

Most people will scream bloody murder if the danger is thrust on them wholesale before their spirit is broken with the Chinese water torture of incrementalism. But if the result isn't Obama's impeachment, the end of the sudden dictatorship scenario is potentially bloodshed, possible civil war, and the very good chance of replacing one dictatorship with another. We must avoid that at all costs.

It is far better to find ways to do the most effective job we can to disseminate the right ideas--the legacy and meaning of individual rights and the mantle of reason--and teach more people in this country what it stands for and why it's worth fighting for now, with pen and voice and marches and phone calls and ballots, rather than post-poning till it's too late. We must teach them what they were never taught in the government-run schools which teach dogma, obedience and servility.

But unless we get a lot better at this and a lot better organized--and more creative--in how to reach and persuade large numbers of people of the extreme danger we are facing in the very near future, I think the odds are low that any kind of uprising (peaceful or not) against a real dictatorship can succeed. For more on this, read the history of Rome.

In the short run the best possible chance to stop Obama would be court cases. At least gum up the system temporarily and get injunctions to halt the implementation of the health care bill and Cap-and-Trade and any number of other things Obama is ramming through. Even if these cases eventually lost in the Supreme Court, they can be dragged through the appellate system for awhile, hopefully till there is a big turnover in Congress--one year!--and then we can get those bills rescinded.

What frustrates me is that I don't see anyone filing or speaking of filing court cases! Surely there's someone in this country who has noticed that there is no authority in the Constitution for Congress to force Americans to buy something (such as health care insurance) as a condition of citizenship. Surely there is someone who has noticed that national health care enslaves the entire medical profession. Surely someone has noticed that the government is seizing our right to the most basic decisions about our lives and thereby destroying the concept of rights. Surely someone has noticed that Congress and Obama are making a mockery of the Constitution (Nancy Pelosi's "Are you serious? Are you serious?" when her power was questioned even momentarily the other week.)

There are so many legitimate grounds to challenge these laws that it astounds me there isn't a single lawyer in the country who isn't contemplating a legal challenge. At least, I haven't heard them speak out. (They didn't when Obama took over the auto and banking industries.) I haven't read of any briefs being filed. Why? Are they that afraid? Are they that indoctrinated? Are they so poor they can't band with others to raise the money for the cases? Are they so impoverished of spirit that they don't even care?

For anyone willing to file the case, I'd like to suggest one ground that I've never heard before, and attempt to get it established as precedent: I would like to see charges brought against any Federal official and Representatives and other officers of the government who are guilty of willful and knowing violation of the Constitution of the United States in supporting the passage of legislation that is egregiously unconstitutional. Obama and Pelosi and every member of Congress have taken an oath to "preserve and defend the Constitution". We can debate whether honest mistakes are made for routine legislation, but I submit that an abomination such as the health care takeover constitutes such an egregiously "willful and knowing" breach of fiduciary duty to their oath that it is treason to the people of the United States. I would like to see them prosecuted as such. Legislators and officers of the government should not have carte blanche "see if they can get away with" whatever they want. As representatives of our government, they should be held to the highest standard possible, or no standards are possible.

Moreover, I would like to test a second principle: If any act of legislation is found to be unconstitutional, members of Congress and the President of the United States should be personally liable for any damages that are incurred to the citizens of the country and subject to civil and criminal suits. I can't think of a better brake on unbridled power.

At the very least, breach of trust in the execution of the oath is grounds for immediate removal from office. Can the Supreme Court, or at least the Chief Justice who administered the oath to the President, make that call? I don't know. But it would make an interesting case.

Another, less likely way to obstruct Obama's agenda, though not out of the realm of possibility, would be to make enough people in police and intelligence agencies (and career prosecutors) realize the danger of what Obama is doing (a communist, bent on communist rule with foreign assistance, in my opinion), and start bringing down the people around him on corruption and espionage charges, starting with people like Rahm Emmanuel and Obama's inner circle. Congress at present won't support impeachment, but you can weaken Obama tremendously by taking down his lieutenants and shock troops.

There will be tremendous battles if this was started. Obama and his cohorts will do everything in their power to stop investigations, and fire and punish investigators who are attempting to frustrate a plan--the takeover of the Presidency--that has been dreamed of by the Left since Roosevelt.

I would not be surprised to see even worse happen. These people play for keeps. The evidence, which I'm sure exists, would be best acquired covertly to protect the investigators. You'd need a "Fifth Column" of people in the government to do this in secret, but it could probably be done legally as long as it stayed secret. I have no idea how you get this done, but it would save the Republic--in the short run.

The First Horseman of the Apocalypse was "Conquest". I say, find a way to throw the rider off his mount before he leads his charge against us.