I'm starting to see more clearly what's happening with "Mike's trick to hide the decline". There was no decline in Mann's hockey stick - there was very little tree-ring density in his 98/99 hockey stick data so there was no need for him to remove post-1960 tree-ring density data. So "Mike's trick" and the hockey stick have nothing to do with Briffa's "decline". That was the main point I was making in Muller Misinformation #1.

Then Marc Morano runs with this headline:

Analysis: Warmist 'John Cook Hides The Decline In Scientific Integrity'

which links to Steve Goddard's

John Cook Hides The Decline In Scientific Integrity

Steve does exactly what I was trying to speak against - conflates Mann with "hide the decline":

Cook explains that the correlation between tree rings and thermometers is not reliable, so Mann should selectively throw out the data for any years which don’t support the hypothesis he is determined to prove.

I think the root of this misconception is a desire for deniers to connect their hated hockey stick with "hide the decline". Anything to discredit the hockey stick, that most reviled of graphs. In hindsight, I might have spoken on this theme a little more clearly in the Muller post as it goes beyond Muller's misconception and is a general theme among the denialosphere.

Anyway, something to think about :-)

It's really amazing to me how fixated they are on the hockey stick.  It's like they are blinded by their own hatred of a... shape.