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Month: June 2010

“Climategate” deflated, but the damage is done

“A lie can get halfway around the world while the truth is still putting its boots on.”

Some media outlets have finally come around to admitting their mistake in the “Climategate” fiasco, but it may be too little, too late.  After the computer break-in that revealed supposedly damaging emails from scientists at the East Anglia Climate Research Group, much of the media perpetuated the same mess of errors and misrepresentations, mostly cherry-picked quotes taken out of context and spun to support the anti-science crowd’s suspicions of the “Global Warming Swindle.”

“Sharp eyed investigators began to apply a seldom used analytical technique: they actually read the email.”

Since then of course, the scientists involved have all been cleared and people who actually read the emails and took the time to understand the context have revealed “Climategate” for the shameful spinfest that it was.  Of course, that hasn’t stopped the deniers, and unfortunately the damage done is not so easily undone.

I’ve been following a really great series on YouTube, Greenman3610’s Climate Denial Crock of the Week with Peter Sinclair.  Sinclair does a great job of taking apart the “Climategate” claims in the following short set of videos, and has some fun doing it too.  Be sure to pass these around to the deniers in your life.

A suggestion for the Pope

PZ Myers has a suggestion for the Pope in regards to his “outrage” over the Belgian raids of Catholic church offices:

He’s doing everything all wrong. Here’s what he should be doing: he should be calling the actions of priestly sex abusers deplorable and wrong, and insisting that the church will do everything in its power to correct the deep problems that have led to these awful acts. Then he should announce that the church will cooperate fully with all legal secular actions — and the Belgian raids were fully authorized by the Belgian state — in getting down to the heart of the matter, and go even further, offering to open up all relevant records to inspection. Then I might be convinced that the church is sincere in its pursuit of justice for all, not just its priests, but also its parishioners.

via Pharyngula.

Paris and London 2010

Danielle and I took a trip to Paris and London recently.  I’ve been holding off on sending around our photo album because I wanted to curate it a bit more – I’ve whittled it down to mostly the better pictures, but I wanted to add some more captions and reorganize them a bit.  We took pictures with two cameras while we were there, and one of them had its date set incorrectly so the photos are a bit out of order.  Alas, the summer is here and I’m not feeling much like curating this album any further at the moment, so perhaps I’ll save it for a rainy day.  In the meantime, here are our slightly-out of order photos of our fabulous trip to Paris!

Elsewhere: When Fat-Free Makes No Sense

…or Why I NEVER Buy Reduced Fat Sour Cream!  From the always great Fooducate Blog:

Regular’s Ingredients [3 of them]:
Cultured pasteurized grade A cream and milk, enzymes.

Fat Free’s Ingredients [12]:
Cultured Lowfat Milk, Modified Corn Starch,Whey Protein Concentrate, Propylene Glycol Monoester, Artificial Color, Gelatin, Sodium Phosphate, Agar Gum, Xanthan Gum, Sodium Citrate, Locust Bean Gum, Vitamin A Palmitate.

When something as simple as Sour Cream is re-constructed in a science lab, something is definitely lost (and a helluva lot of chemicals gained).