stickler - April 22, 2010 | 7:16 pm · Link

Heads up on the science front: Lars Larson and Michael Savage were both talking about how great DDT is this afternoon. And, of course, how the environmentalists have the deaths of millions from malaria on their hands. Someone somewhere must have turned on the Wingnut Science Batschitlamp. Savage was being particularly ludicrous, going on at length about how harmless DDT was and making fun of Rachel Carson (!) as an ignorant fearmonger.

No doubt this will somehow become part of the argument that Levin is making about AGW.

freelancer - April 22, 2010 | 7:18 pm · Link

Comment #1 from RS:

Manzi’s hit piece – raving, angry, and irrational
Levin’s reply – concise, reasoned, and rational
Now, which presentation belongs in a place like NRO, and which doesn’t?
I hope this was a slip-up by the editors, and not a bellwether of things to come.

They are SO lost.

dmsilev - April 22, 2010 | 7:18 pm · Link

Typo: Last bit should be “cut off over this”.

That said, the modern conservative movement is becoming more and more similar to Communism. Have they instituted secret police and show trials yet?

dms

handy - April 22, 2010 | 7:22 pm · Link

Levin:

Call it the lunacy it is, or even call it “wingnuttery”?

They real get butt-hurt over that one, don’t they?

By “that one” I mean the wingnut label

DougJ - April 22, 2010 | 7:22 pm · Link

@Warren Terra:

I fixed it. Thanks.

Midnight Marauder - April 22, 2010 | 7:25 pm · Link

Mark Levin’s response is just chock full of awesome sauce:

Here are the facts: There is an enormous amount of fraud and politics involved in global-warming science, some of which I mention in the chapter, much of which I didn’t have room to, and none of which Manzi acknowledges. But the research and evidence are available and extensive. I touch on it as best one can in a book that is not focused exclusively on the subject.

I mean, come on! Just look at all of those facts right there! Like…politics involved in global warming science! BOOM, BABY! FACTS IN YOUR FACE!

I would also encourage you to look at the petition Manzi disparages, having, I’m sure, carefully reviewed the qualifications of each and every expert listed, as he dismisses the entire lot of them. He mentions that 20,000 of the signatories don’t have doctorates. But more than 9,000 do.

OH! SNAP! SON! 9,000+(?) > 20,000. That is just science. Duh.

Desert Rat - April 22, 2010 | 7:27 pm · Link

Hmm. Looks to me like another recipient of Wingnut Welfare just got cut off from the teat.

TooManyJens - April 22, 2010 | 7:28 pm · Link

Anybody else notice how Manzi singled out the academies of three African countries for particular scorn? That was really the turd cherry on top of the bullshit sundae.

Mark S. - April 22, 2010 | 7:28 pm · Link

Manzi will be told he can stay on as long as he gives up his salary.

Ann B. Nonymous - April 22, 2010 | 7:33 pm · Link

I am loving the right’s repeated violations of Reagan’s eleventh commandment. It’s treyf and haram and transgressive subway frottage all rolled into one quivering Republican mass, all lovingly recorded for your viewing pleasure.

celticdragonchick - April 22, 2010 | 7:34 pm · Link

@Dr. I. F. Stone:

Manzi said that the things he found wrong in that one section call everything else into suspicion.

Midnight Marauder - April 22, 2010 | 7:34 pm · Link

Seriously, if you have not read Levin’s response to Manzi, you are missing out on some world-class LOLs. And cognitive dissonance. But you already knew that:

Science requires proof. Where’s Manzi’s? Knowledge is something you can acquire. Class, apparently, is not. — Mark Levin, April 22, 2010

LOLWUT?

“Let me break this down for you, folks. Barack Hussein Obama has a hate on for Israel. He always did. And he has surrounded himself with anti-semites.” — Mark Levin, April 14, 2010

“Al Gore is the Jim Jones of the environmental movement.” — Mark Levin, 14, 2009

LEVIN: Answer me this, are you a married woman? Yes or no?

CALLER: Yes.

LEVIN: Well I don’t know why your husband doesn’t put a gun to his temple. Get the hell out of here.

Yeah, stay class, Mark.

Calouste - April 22, 2010 | 7:40 pm · Link

@Midnight Marauder:

There is an enormous amount of fraud and politics involved in global-warming science, some of which I mention in the chapter, much of which I didn’t have room to

So Levin is going to put up a post somewhere with evidence of this “enormous amount of fraud”? Considering he said he “didn’t have room” to put it in his book, I guess he has all his research still somewhere ready to be unleashed?

(Rethorical questions of course.)

Vance Maverick - April 22, 2010 | 7:41 pm · Link

@stickler: for some background on the DDT business, check Tim Lambert’s DDT category.

Pasquinade - April 22, 2010 | 7:42 pm · Link

Erick Erickson quote:

Trig Palin School of Investigative Journalism

Is Sarah just going to brush it off as “satire”?

Francis - April 22, 2010 | 7:44 pm · Link

It’s worth noting that Manzi’s solution to climate change is to do nothing. (see The American Scene, here. According to Manzi, the cost of mitigation so grossly outweighs the costs of living with the consequences of climate change that the appropriate course of action is to keep on living the way we do.

Others disagree. But I find it funny that Manzi is having this huge screaming match over the science with other members of the Right when they all agree on the appropriate remedy—nada.

handy - April 22, 2010 | 7:46 pm · Link

@Pasquinade:

I dunno but he gets called out for it by the very first comment to that post, which as of yet he hasn’t deleted or edited out.

handy - April 22, 2010 | 7:51 pm · Link

But I find it funny that Manzi is having this huge screaming match over the science with other members of the Right when they all agree on the appropriate remedy—nada.

And don’t think Manzi won’t emphasize that enough in his inevitable response backpedal.

Comrade Kevin - April 22, 2010 | 7:54 pm · Link

@Catsy: He’s doing it on purpose, precisely because he knows it annoys people.

Midnight Marauder - April 22, 2010 | 7:56 pm · Link

@Calouste:

So Levin is going to put up a post somewhere with evidence of this “enormous amount of fraud”? Considering he said he “didn’t have room” to put it in his book, I guess he has all his research still somewhere ready to be unleashed?

(Rethorical questions of course.)

What are you talking about? Did you see the smoking gun sentence in his epic takedown response of Manzi?

Contrary to another of Manzi’s assertions, I make no references to conspiracies in the book, although, thanks to scores of news reports a few months back, we now know that some very notable global-warming authorities did, in fact, destroy raw data and manipulate other data to advance the global-warming argument — as Manzi might put it if he were intellectually honest, they “colluded across decades and continents to fool gullible” policymakers. Among them is Prof. Phil Jones (who, Manzi will be glad to know, has a doctorate), who had to step down as director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit. Jones now claims that there has been no global warming since 1995. [emphasis mine] What a fickle bunch. Manzi didn’t mention any of this in his post, although he cleverly implies that anyone who isn’t epistemically open to their hoax must be wearing a tin-foil hat and obsessing over the Queen of England and the Trilateral Commission. Very compelling stuff.

WHAT HAPPENED IN 1995?!

Also, Levin totally doesn’t need to post all of his “evidence” about fraud and politicization because he wrote this:

Incidentally, there are two excellent new books out on this and related issues: Chris Horner’s Power Grab and Dr. Roy Spencer’s The Great Global Warming Blunder.

You see?! Mark Levin doesn’t just carry this heavy burden of being a scientifically knowledgeable class act all by himself! There are other books out there! With facts! Like this other sentence Levin wrote in his awesome, completely factual book:

“There is no consensus that man has influenced the earth’s temperature or that the earth’s temperature is warmer now than in past periods. And even if there were a consensus, science is not about majority rule.”

And seriously…what happened in 1995 that put an end to global warming? Of all the conspiracy theories in Wingnutistan, I think that is the most intriguing one I’ve heard in a while.

calipygian - April 22, 2010 | 8:01 pm · Link

@DougJ: Thank you. I’m not a fan of the ban hammer, but this is one of the few times I think it was overdue.

DougJ - April 22, 2010 | 8:17 pm · Link

@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):

Good for you and thank you very much. I am not a fan of banning either but this person is free to return under another name.

Yes, the name is the issue here. It’s not appropriate.

burnspbesq - April 22, 2010 | 8:30 pm · Link

@DougJ:

Thanks, Doug. Chris Stone was the best teacher I ever had, at any level, and it disturbed me to see his father’s memory being desecrated by a third-rate troll.

matoko_chan - April 22, 2010 | 8:31 pm · Link

ekshually Dr. Manzi has his own company and looks almost exactly like Vin Diesel as Riddick in Pitch Black.
:)
He is a very decent guy that has been trying to behave honorably….by his standards….. by representing the losing side in an intellectual debate that has been going on since Pythagoras and Kylon.
I just think he just had enough.
He has devoted himself to a true intellectual conservative position on climate change, arguing that we need to make small changes because we can’t afford the large ones.
He has exhaustively researched and analysed the cost-viability/risk-threat matrix and presented empirical data.
He has a tonne of work on this.
I think the chapter of raw dishonest denialism in Levin’s book just blew up his belief matrix.
I can only hope he joins Cole and me on the Darkside.
:)

matoko_chan - April 22, 2010 | 8:36 pm · Link

Can i ax….how it happened for Cole?
For me it was Bush lying on terebi about aSCR and eSCR.
He rubbed my nose in it….he forced me to see he was lying.
Then my belief matrix collapsed and I could see he was lying about a lot of things….torture, Iraq, etc.
I heard it was over schiavo.
Is there a link?

kid bitzer - April 22, 2010 | 8:38 pm · Link

yeah but something about sully sniffing clorox in a urinal….

just, ew, somehow. maybe even ewwww.

D. Aristophanes - April 22, 2010 | 8:55 pm · Link

@Mumphrey:

They’ll crawl naked through a trough full of broken glass to defend whichever of their cult figures is getting what they think is a raw deal.

They certainly will, but not before gushing, ‘X doesn’t need widdle old me to defend him, and I’m sure that any moment now he will be whipping out his massive Authoritarian cock to slap the enemy in the face … but let me say something really stupid in X’s defense anyway!’

frankdawg - April 22, 2010 | 9:04 pm · Link

Funny, every time I read Sully I think URINAL and after I am done I wish for bleach.

Maybe thats not fair but usually he deserves it.

Church Lady - April 22, 2010 | 9:33 pm · Link

I’m a little shocked that you’ve banned someone for the name they choose to post under. Given the insults hurled on this blog on a daily basis, I guess censorship is ok, as long as what you are censoring is something you don’t like, or offends you. Is that how it works? In what way does this make you any different than someone on the right banning someone for using a nom de plume they didn’t like? Heck, for that matter, how do you know that Dr. I. F. Stone isn’t his real name?

DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal) - April 22, 2010 | 10:09 pm · Link

@Church Lady:

They weren’t banned, the use of the name was and they are free to return under another name. You’re calling it censorship?

Well isn’t that special.

Church Lady - April 22, 2010 | 10:18 pm · Link

@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): Yes. DougJ is censoring the name used by the poster. Has that ever been done here before? I don’t remember it happening is the four or so years I’ve been reading this blog. The only banning I can remember is BOB a few times, on a temporary basis, and I think that PaulL guy has been banned on occassion, but I could be mistaken on that. I just don’t remember anyone ever being told that they couldn’t post comments under the name they chose, because if offended another commenter. Commenters here offend other commenters day in and day out.

TooManyJens - April 22, 2010 | 10:46 pm · Link

@Church Lady:

Has that ever been done here before?

Well, I don’t think anyone else has ever used their handle to piss all over the memory of a regular commenter’s family member, so probably not.

Calming Influence - April 23, 2010 | 12:40 am · Link

A point that is almost always overlooked: scientists who are climate change deniers aren’t the ones going out in the field and taking measurements, or the ones trying to develop computer models to interpret those measurements; their association with actual climate science is often one or more steps removed. Their M.O. is to read a peer-reviewed paper and then shit all over it without offering their own data. Don’t just try to knock down someone else’s research; show me the mountains of climate data measurements that contradict the mountains of climate data supporting global climate change.

One very satisfying moment of my graduate career was a journal club meeting when the presenter wasn’t aware that first author of the paper he was presenting was sitting in, and proceeded to demonstrate how “brilliant” he was by shitting all over the research. The author was gentle, probably remembering his own graduate career, but it was still an epic take-down.

The point is that it’s easy to sound knowledgeable pointing out “flaws” in someone else’s research; the devil is in offering data to support your alternative hypothesis.

Val - April 23, 2010 | 3:26 am · Link

@matoko_chan:

Why the “Dr.” Jim is a smart and rigorous guy, who I most often disagree with, but he does not have a PHD.

And yes he does not need wingnut welfare. He has a life and considerable income from his main non political work.

Persia - April 23, 2010 | 10:23 am · Link

@Uloborus: This. And it is sort of horrible that Western countries got to use buckets and buckets of it and pretty much eliminate their malaria problems, but other nations still die from the disease at a horrifying rate.

I had a former HS classmate die of malaria. She was pregnant. It’s a terrible disease.

Here’s a charitable organization that specializes in buying mosquito nets and distributing them to African nations that need them.