I don't have anything substantial to write today, but I wanted to post a quick update. First off, in terms of health everything is good. Feeling completely recovered from the incident I mentioned in the last post.

Second, a webcam I ordered was supposed to arrive yesterday, but the package is late. Once it arrives, I plan on doing a couple test recordings for the video I want to make about Michael Mann's (in)famous Hockey Stick. Not sure if I"ll include video of myself, but I want to have the option. Also, I'm pretty sure I'll be breaking it up into several smaller videos. Feedback on the script I posted before consistently said it was too much information for one sitting.

Third, and finally, the defamation lawsuit Michael Mann filed against Mark Steyn and several others has had some interesting developments. In some good news, the lawsuit against Steyn's publisher, the National Review, has been dismissed. Steyn is still on the hook for now though, and he had to give a deposition for Mann's lawyers. The transcript of it has been posted online. You can find it here:

https://www.steynonline.com/documents/11106.pdf

It is a doozy. Not in a good way, mind you. It is terrible. Mann's lawyers rae probably giddy over it. Steyn's behavior during the deposition was unprofessional, and his answers to questions often bordered on incoherent. He spent a great deal of time responding to questions by talking about things that had nothing to do with the questions, often in weird and confusing ways. Much of it was empty bloviating, but some of it was truly disturbing. Mark Steyn clearly has no idea what he's talking about.
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So I had plans for how to start the new year, and I really wanted to stick to them. However, there was a setback. I want to get back on track, but I feel like it's worth discussing what happened because of how it interfered with my plans. There are a lot of details that aren't important, but I'll give a short version.

I'm a dart player. I grew up with the game, and I love it. I'm not very good at it, but one thing I've become good at is running events for it. I've worked hard at figuring out how to run dart tournaments, and I like to think I've come to do a good job of it. Everyone I've talked to seems to agree. That's why I was asked to help run a tournament a couple weeks ago where 200+ people signed up. I was happy to run it, and while there were difficulties as could happen during any event, I think it went pretty great.

The problem came after the event was done. You see, I had gotten a ride to the tournament with another person. It's exhausting to run a 200+ person event by yourself so it's nice to have someone to drive you home afterward. Unfortunately, this person... was not reliable. It turns out they drank too much. Or at least, I think they did. They claim they were simply too tired not that they were drunk I'm not sure it matters. The point is, they were not fit to drive. I realized this, and I asked them to stop the the car. They did, and I got out of the vehicle.

The problem is they then left. This meant I was stuck on the side of the road. In the middle of the night. In subzero temperatures. In clothes not designed for that sort of weather.

It was rough. I'm not going to go into more detail, but suffice to say I wound up suffering a moderate case of hypothermia before managing to arrange a ride home. Since then, there have been some complications, but I am recovering. It sucks, and I still feel cold no matter how high I turn the heat up, but the point is I am recovering. Things will get back on track. I just wanted to say something since I had planned to get content published that isn't available yet. I still plan to do everything I had planned on doing, I just needed a couple weeks to recover from... well... nearly freezing to death.

(It actually wasn't *that* bad. It certainly wasn't life threatening. It was just really unpleasant.)

So it's been quite a while, and I have no idea how many people will see this post, but I wanted to make a note to show I'm not dead and announce a small project I've been working on. The project idea came from realizing how much history the climate blogosphere has which is largely being forgotten.

I've never viewed myself as a primary actor or researcher in the climate blogosphere, but as a person who's followed it for a long time, I have seen and learned a lot of things I suspect most people have never learned or heard about. I think it's a shame so much information could get forgotten or lost so I've started a project to combat that a bit.

I'm not looking to do anything fancy. My plan is just to create a series of lectures, and possibly accompanying notes, that summarize/document things I feel are important in a digestible format. I'm not looking to immortalize every factoid I've ever learned, but I will be trying to condense some of my many years of reading into a form that's presentable to anyone who might be interested as time goes on.

The first topic I'll be covering is Michael Mann's (in)famous hockey stick. I've worked on a first draft of a script for this lecture, and I've done a first pass at recording it with the tentative title, "Anatomy of a Scam - The Hockey Stick":

As a first pass at a first draft it's obviously very rough, with the most notable problem being the entire ntroduction is missing. The reason I skipped the introduction is the Hockey Stick was incredibly important when it was first published, and I don't know how to convey its influence well. I want to explain how it truly was the figurehead of the global warming movement, but I haven't figure out how to yet (suggestions are selcome).

Without the introduction, this recording doesn't cover the scope/purpose of the video or a basic explanation of what the Hockey Stick is, but I think it is still worth putting online. My hope is I explain some issues most people nowadays aren't aware of clearly and accurately enough to provide an easy "starting point."

To be clear, this is not my normal sort of thing. I can't claim to be any good at making videos or public speaking, but it doesn't seem anyone else is going cover these issues, and I think it's important someone try to. Once I get the script for this one finished I plan to try making visuals for the video and put a finished version online. From there, I'll work on videos for some more issues. I've already begun outlining scripts for several issues:

Stephan Lewandowsky's Fabricated Results
Skeptical Science's Fake "Consensus"
Michael Mann's 2008 Hockey Stick

i may also toy with trying shorter presentations that cover individual aspects of these broader topics. I'm not sure yet. I honestly don't know what demand there will be or how good a job I can do. All I know is, I think it's something worth trying.

And if anyone has feedback on how I can do a better job, I'd love to hear it!

I've been wanting to talk about the latest impeachment craze for President Donald Trump because the reactions are fascinating, but the story is complicated and developing quickly. It's difficult to figure out how to give an introduction to the topic while explaining just why what Trump did is so wrong. After three half-written posts, a person I was talking to about them suggested I watch this video:

It does a much better job than I could hope to. I think comparing what that video says to what you'll see elsewhere is fascinating. I challenge anyone to start here and not laugh. Trump famously boasted during his presidential campaign

I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters,

People's reactions to Trump's recent call with Ukraine make me suspect that might be true now.

So I've been trying to get more disciplined in how I handle some things so I don't let pessimistic moods prevent me from doing things I'd like to get done. Part of how I plan to do that is to look for sources of enjoyment within the things which make me unhappy. Today's post will be an attempt at doing so. I sm going to look at a discussion and highlight just how ridiculous pathetic, and at least in a certain light, funny, it is.

The discussion in question happened in the comment section of this post by David Appell. The post is about the recent dismissal of a defamation lawsuit filed by Michael Mann against Tim Ball. Mann is (in)famouse for his "hockey stick" temperature reconstruction while Ball is... a relative nobody.

The case was recently dismissed, and this is uncertainty/dispute about what the reason for the dismissal was. One idea is the case was dismissed because Ball requested material underlying Mann's hockey stick, Mann refused to provide that material for years, and the judge dismissed the case because of the delay. Another idea, one discussed by Appell, is the judge concluded Ball's words were read by too few people to have harmed Mann in any meaningful way, plus he's too old and sick for a trial.

Appell has long been a fervent defender of Mann, and naturally, he embraced this latter idea without question. In his mindless zeal to defend Mann, Appell... well, let's just look at what he said. Continue reading →

Sorry for being silent lately. I keep wanting to write out thoughts, but whenever I start, I find myself wonder, "What's the point?" I don't aim to change the world. What I want is for discussions to cause me to think about new things. That hasn't been happening. I've been having a hard time finding material that makes me think. It may just be I've been feeling kind of down. I'm not sure.

But think about this. Millions of people across the world genuinely believe there is an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving god who will condemn to eternal suffering for all eternity anyone who fails to beg him for his acceptance. That's... really weird. The idea of a loving god torturing people for all eternity, if only by proxy, is strange enough. But what's truly bizarre is there's no biblical basis for this belief. The idea of "hell" as a place of eternal suffering is not rooted in the Bible. There is no scholarly basis for saying unbelievers will be tortured for all eternity.

But does this matter? No. People came up with the idea of a hell of fire and brimstone where "sinners" would suffer for all eternity, and that idea is so accepted by so many people they invent justifications for it. It's done in the same way so many people claim the Bible says homosexuality is a sin, even though it, as a matter of indisputable fact, does not label homosexuality a sin.

Seriously. For Centuries gay people have been victimized on the basis the Bible says homosexuality is a sin even though any examination of its text shows it does not. That's insane. Millions of people for hundreds of years believe something that flies in the face of any factual examination, and... how can we expect rational conversations?

I'm not saying this to single out Christians or people of other religious faiths. I could just as easily point to how many people believe Christopher Columbus set out to prove the world was round, an insane idea which flies in the face of any and every piece of evidence that exists. The problem isn't one idea people hold is nuts. The problem is, humans don't seem to care if there is any real basis for what they believe.

That's why I haven't been talkative lately. I'm finding it hard to care about exploring evidence or ideas. What kind of conversations can I hope to have when people seem not to care if there's any actual basis for what they believe or think? I'm not troubled by the idea I won't convince people of things. What I'm troubled by is the expectation people's views will be so set in stone I can predict everything they will say before they say it. If facts and evidence don't matter, what can people offer to discussions that's worth the trouble?

I had a different post planned, but I feel it's important to examine a continuation of what's been covered here recently about paranoia over "illegal immigrants stealing our election!" My discussion of this began when I saw a post by a notable global warming Skeptic which began:

I called him out on this as it is utterly insane to believe thousands of voters "self-identified as illegal aliens." it was trivially easy to show there was no evidence to support his description of people as being "literally the people who admitted to [being an illegal alien] in a government office!" He responded by changing the subject, and now, he has a new post which changes the subject yet again, referring to:

an immigrant dumb enough to self identify as a non-citizen and got caught voting in Illinois in a federal election.

I'd like to discuss this specific example, and the more general "evidence" offered, to show just how desperate this person is to justify his paranoia about voter fraud. It's not because I want to single him out, but because many people share his views (including at least one commenter who came here to make the same arguments).
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Neither were the South. The Civil War was not a battle between "good" and "evil." Slavery is evil, but the South doing lots of evil things is not the end of the story. Many conflicts are between bad and less bad people or groups. I want to talk about this because of a set of really bad arguments about the Civil War I came across in this YouTube video:

But before I do, I want to answer the question this video asks. No, we should not still be watching Gone With the Wind. It's a bad movie. Continue reading →