Climate-gate: Don't believe the hype.

(Note: This is the full version of an editorial that will appear in this Sunday's edition of the Eagle Tribune and includes links to resources)

This week, negotiators from around the world are meeting in Copenhagen in an attempt for forge an agreement to deal decisively with the existential threat of anthropogenic (man-made) global warming (AGW). While the world’s leaders are largely in agreement on the need for such an agreement, the world is, yet again, held hostage to American domestic politics. Without American political, scientific and economic leadership, the world will be unable to face this growing threat.

At home we have been bombarded with news of the so-called “climategate scandal” and powerful groups with radical ideologies have worked to undermine the public confidence in the scientific consensus that has emerged on AGW. It is ironic that many of the same scientists, lawyers, lobbyists and media figures leading the AGW denial campaign learned their craft of disinformation while defending the tobacco industry, all the while claiming that cigarettes were not addictive or harmful to human health. While the threat is larger and the stage global, the play-book is the same – stress the uncertainty that is present in any scientific endeavor and smear the credibility of scientists. Despite being told by their own scientists as early as 1995, that “the impact of human industrial activity on the climate is undeniable”, the petroleum industry launched an organized campaign to undermine the scientific research and spread confusion, shaking the confidence of the public. In light of the long established, well funded and ongoing war against science, the theft and posting of private emails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia University could not have been timed better.

But what do these emails say? Do they “nail the coffin shut” on AGW or are they a tempest in a teacup? According to the contrarians (including the Eagle Tribune editorial board) the scientists at CRU were falsifying data, manipulating research to “hide the decline” in global temperatures, destroying evidence to avoid Freedom of Information Act requests, blocking publication of research that contradicted their claims and forcing editors of journals who disagreed with them from their jobs and worst of all, knew that the earth was cooling, not warming and couldn't explain it. If you doubt all this global warming stuff, or at least don’t want the inconvenience of fluorescent light bulbs forced on you and read some of these emails without knowing their context, you will see just what you want to; a conspiracy to cook the books and hide the truth. However, if you place all of these emails in their context, with other emails and the studies and events the researchers are talking privately about, a much different picture emerges.

The most abused phrase in this saga is “hide the decline”. People who haven’t done any research beyond reading conservative blogs claim that scientists were “hiding the decline” in global temperatures to convince people that the planet was still warming when it was really cooling. There are two problems with this. First, the planet is clearly warming; 2005 tied 1998 as the warmest year in the instrument record, 2009 was globally the 5th warmest on record and 11 of the 15 hottest years have occurred since 1995. More importantly, the researchers weren’t talking about temperature decline; they were talking about the decline in tree ring proxy data that shows a false decline after 1960. Since there are no reliable instrument data prior to the 1800’s researchers need to use “proxies” like tree rings, lake and ocean floor sediments, ice cores, boreholes, even corals and stalagmites in caves to estimate what the past climate was like. For reasons scientists can’t agree on, tree rings simply aren’t good proxies after the 1950’s. The “trick” is to plot the actual instrument readings onto the graph to illustrate the actual temperature trend instead of giving a false impression that the earth is rapidly cooling.

Now some have seized on the word “trick” and claim that scientists would never use such a colloquialism and that it must be referring to a deception. Scientists counter that “trick” is commonly used in science and if one searches Goggle Scholar for the keyword “trick” over 200 journal articles can be found with the word “trick” in the title and hundreds more use the word in their abstract. Clearly, “trick” is a common term in science that often refers to a clever solution to a problem.

In open, democratic societies the expectation of transparency is everywhere and when people or organizations we are supposed to trust are less than forthcoming with information we ask for it can raise suspicion. Attempts by some scientists to withhold data or not comply with Freedom Of Information Act requests appear ominous but again, the context is important. What isn’t being brought to the public’s attention is the fact that many researchers purchase instrument datasets from the government weather services of many countries. Often, the information is provided with a requirement that the data not be disseminated to third parties. The data, in short, belongs to the organization that gathered it, not the researchers and as such cannot legally be given even when requested under FOIA. Also missing from the public discussion is the fact that over 95% of the raw data is available for anyone who looks for it. NASA and NOAA for example have vast amounts of data available online and researchers have been posting links to their raw data on realclimate.org. Ironically, this false claim of secrecy has prompted greater openness in the climate research community. It also has to be noted that despite scientists talking about deleting data, none of the raw data at CRU has been destroyed, deleted or “lost”.

The moist egregious assault from this “scandal” is the attack on peer review. Peer review is a necessary, but not always sufficient mechanism that ensures that research is valid, comports to standard practices and passes rigorous scrutiny before being published in prestigious journals. Sometimes however, poorly written articles or flawed studies survive peer review. Such was the case when an article was published in the journal Climate Research that the climate research community, and many scientists from other fields, found to be so poorly written and flawed it became clear that the peer review process at that publication had broken down. In protest, three of the editors of that journal resigned in protest. The publisher of Climate Research later admitted that he should have requested a number of changes in the article prior to publication. Despite the clear desire to exclude this poorly written anti-AGW piece from the IPCC assessment report, it was, in fact, included in that reports review of published literature.

So there you have it. No faked data, no conspiracy, no cover up. No emails were deleted, not a single piece of data lost or destroyed, no suppression of science. There is something unscrupulous going on however and that’s the well organized, well funded effort to attack science and confuse the public to protect the profits of a small number of multinational corporations and promote a quasi-religious ideology of radical libertarianism. What’s at stake isn’t whether we get to use incandescent light bulbs or drive hummers, it’s whether the human race can sustain itself and prosper on this small, and increasingly fragile world. We all, today, literally hold the future of the human race in our hands. Do we have the courage to do what is right today, for the generations that will follow?

Sobering perspective on Climate Change

With all of the hoopla over "Climategate" and the stolen emails from East Anglia University's Climate Research Unit (CRU)some important and basic points that have been well established are being overlooked. This isn't surprising as the "CRU hack" provided just enough out of context fodder for the denialist to launch a partially effective attack on Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) and the scientific community. A salvo in this attack was launched locally by the Eagle-Tribune in a poorly written, ill informed editorial that appeared in this past Sunday's paper. Missing from the Merrimack Valley's daily paper of record was objective coverage of the CRU emails as not a single story appeared in the paper prior to the editorial being published. That's a shame because the E-T missed an opportunity to fully inform the public instead of piling on talking points. The potential fallout from this theft is so great that it prompted a strongly worded editorial from the journal Nature, one of the most respected scientific journals in the world.

As with many stories like this, context means everything and is usually left out. CRU's Phil Jones now joins an illustrious list of people from Charles Darwin to Sonia Sotomyor who have been misquoted and attacked by statements taken to far out of context that they have almost no real meaning. I won't go into detail about the specific emails and their context as our friends at Real Climate have done an excellent job of that already. AGW deniers will look at these emails and see exactly what they want to see, and even then will make shit up. One of the biggest offenders is serial denier George Will (who really should stick to baseball and politics). As Media Matters pointed out, Will has gone completely over the edge.

What is being lost in this debate is that even if the 2 or 3 studies referred to in the stolen CRU emails were to be invalidated it would mean nothing. I say that, not because I'm so convinced that AGW is real that I refuse to consider other evidence to the contrary, but because there are multiple lines of inquiry and robust evidence that supports AGW. Deniers would have you believe that there are 4 or 5 studies that all AGW theory rests on or that CRU was the nerve center of all climate research. In fact there are researchers from the Hadley Center, NASA's GISS, NOAA, Woods Hole, Scripps Oceanographic Institute the EPA, Universities all over the world including locally; MIT, UNH, College of the Atlantic, Lesley, Tufts and hundreds of scientists not connected with any of the major research centers all producing published research. Despite claims to the contrary, the majority of the raw data produced by this research is available as well as the computer code used for modeling and analysis. NASAs raw data and code have been in the internet for years and researchers are coming out of the woodwork, posting links to their research on realclimate. If anything is unraveling, its the false claims of the conspiracy nuts.

Also specious are claims that climatologists are suppressing the work of contrarians who oppose the AGW orthodoxy. Claims of scientific fascism have been made form the floor of the US House of Representative (few things anger me more than words like communist and fascist being tossed around so loosely). Not only is it untrue, but consider the claims of the few contrarians against the mountain of research suporting AGW:

The current thinking of scientists on climate change is based on thousands of studies (Google Scholar gives 19,000 scientific articles for the full search phrase “global climate change”). Any new study will be one small grain of evidence that adds to this big pile, and it will shift the thinking of scientists slightly. Science proceeds like this in a slow, incremental way. It is extremely unlikely that any new study will immediately overthrow all the past knowledge. So even if the conclusions of the Shaviv and Veizer (2003) study discussed earlier, for instance, had been correct, this would be one small piece of evidence pitted against hundreds of others which contradict it. Scientists would find the apparent contradiction interesting and worthy of further investigation, and would devote further study to isolating the source of the contradiction. They would not suddenly throw out all previous results. Yet, one often gets the impression that scientific progress consists of a series of revolutions where scientists discard all their past thinking each time a new result gets published. This is often because only a small handful of high-profile studies in a given field are known by the wider public and media, and thus unrealistic weight is attached to those studies. New results are often over-emphasised (sometimes by the authors, sometimes by lobby groups) to make them sound important enough to have news value. Thus “bombshells” usually end up being duds.

This month, world leaders will gather for the climate change summit in Copenhagen. It is unlikely that any serious agreement will be produced and that's nothing for anyone to cheer about. As a recent report issued points out, the indicators of climate change are far stronger than anyone expected based on the last IPCC assessment. Despite the current temporary cooling (caused by exceptionally low solar output), global warming hasn't stopped and the need for action has never been clearer or more urgent.

My video @ Repower America

While waiting in line for the Al Gore book signing in Cambridge 2 weeks ago, I got the chance to record a short video for RePower America.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIyS2vTBVRU

Michael Graham = Coward

This week WTKK radio personality Michael Graham had another fit of climate change denial. Not surprisingly, Graham (along with fellow WTKK personality Jay Severin) have latched onto the non-scandal stemming from the hacking of the servers at Brittan's Climate Research Unit (CRU). This criminal act of breaking into secured computers at a government research facility resulted in the release of about 3,000 private emails without the consent of the researchers who wrote them. Also released was a file full of computer code (some of it proprietary) used to analyze data. A few dozen e-mails raise eyebrows with phrases like "trick", "MAGIC math" and "Hide" as well as a umber of references to fighting efforts to force the release of raw data used by some researchers. These e-mails were presented without context and were private communications. People see what they want to see in them; denialists and Glenn Beck style whack-jobs see "lies" conspiracies and "proof" that global warming is a hoax while others see collaboration, debate, efforts to present data that give an accurate representation of the truth as well as efforts to keep proprietary work confidential.

One thing that is clear is that there is no smoking gun and no hoax. Two excellent discussions of the CRU hack are found here and here. Despite this, Michael Graham continues to make people dumber. His latest posting is partially a rehash of earlier bad arguments that I've dealt with non-specific references to the CRU hack and some news stories about the recent (relative) cooling being "proof" that Greenhouse Gases don't warm the planet. My beef with Michael Graham isn't that he's making people stupid (he is) but that he is such a coward about it. When I tried to engage Graham in an on-air conversation about Hybrid cars and carbon footprints he mocked me, cut me off and hung up. When I tried to respond to comments on his most recent blog I found the following message:
"The site has blocked you from posting new comments.". Apparently I have been "banned" from posting to Graham's blog

Now, Michael Graham is free to moderate his blog in any way he pleases; nobody is entitled to post anything they want on anothers blog but he is a public figure, one who has access to the public airwaves, whose blog is very popular and apparently wants people to take him seriously when he comments on political and social issues. I think it's telling that anyone who offers a strong argument or challenges the mindless bullshit Graham is pushing gets mocked, cut off and prevented from presenting opposing views.

Keith

My nephew Keith died yesterday. He was 26 years old. When Keith was young he suffered from a bacterial infection that damaged his heart. A few weeks ago, that damage caught up with him. Stricken with cardiomyopathy, Keith was facing a life changing illness. I know the limitations that this placed in him were hard to deal with but Keith was young and otherwise healthy and strong. There was always hope; treatment, transplant, some new therapy. We all still believed Keith had a long life ahead of him. Despite the heroic efforts of Keith's parents and EMTs, that life was cut short. Keith was much too young.

My nephew was one of those people who enjoyed life. He was gregarious, friendly, full of energy. He was liked by everyone who met him and loved by everyone who knew him. Ever since I chaperoned a field trip for Keith's class at the General Donovan school to the Museum of Science, Keith had a very special place in my heart. I don't know how his parents Sandy and Al are coping with this loss, but Michelle and I know in a much smaller way, the grief they feel. For my children, who literally grew up with Keith and his sisters, this is like loosing an older brother.

Keith grew into a wonderful young man. He was the type of man you liked being around. Like all of us, Keith had known heartache and loss, like all of us, he had been wronged by others yet in the 22 years I've known him, I never saw Keith lash out or speak an unkind word about anyone, even when he perhaps should have. He had grown into a good, decent, kind person who I will miss deeply. Worst of all, I will never get to know the good man, the loving husband and attentive father I know Keith would have become.

Life is hard, sometimes cruel. Bad things happen to good people and the most devastating news arrives without warning over your cell phone at 5:04 on a Friday afternoon. There is no sense to be found in this loss. Nothing but time will stop the tears, fill the empty space in our hearts, or ease the pain. If there is a lesson in this, it is that we should all live our lives more thoughtfully, be kind to each other, and never let the people we care about doubt how we feel about them.

Rest in peace Keith.

Letter: Act now to stop global warming threat - EagleTribune.com, North Andover, MA

Letter: Act now to stop global warming threat - EagleTribune.com, North Andover, MA

Posted using ShareThis

Great analogy on climate change

My friend and Lesley classmate Celine McElvery recently presented her thesis on climate change and peak oil. This analogy of the current debate (found on pp68-69 of her thesis) is worth reading.

'Feeling a bit under the weather for a while, you visit your physician who sends you to a specialist. This specialist conducts many tests which indicate a very strong likelihood (greater than 95%) of a rare disorder with an alarmingly poor prognosis if left untreated. Naturally, you seek a second opinion, which only reaffirms the initial finding. In fact, the condition you have is so rare that while many specialists have studied it at length, none have actually treated this disorder before. However, 96 of the 100 global experts on this disorder are quite certain you do indeed suffer from it, although they aren‟t quite as sure about the prognosis. The remaining 4 are not able to reassure that you don’t have the disorder only that they think it unlikely that you do.

While the treatment is quite expensive and will require some dramatic lifestyle changes, the sooner you begin treatment, the cheaper it is and the far better your prognosis. And even if you want to hold out hope that perhaps by some miracle all of these experts are wrong, the treatment, beyond being quite expensive, has no ill side-effects – on the contrary, it will make you healthier regardless. However, should you delay treatment, it becomes exponentially more costly and the prognosis quite dim, even fatal. Additionally, just when you thought this couldn‟t get any worse, you are informed that it is genetic and that all three of your children have it as well – left untreated, their prognosis is even poorer than yours. The good news is that it isn‟t any more expensive to treat them in addition to yourself, and because of their youth, they are more readily adaptable to the necessary lifestyle changes.

Your accountant, health insurance provider, and the school nurse argue that the expense is exorbitant especially for a previously unseen, and therefore questionable, disorder.

What do you do?"

From: Re-Framing the Conversation:
Perceptions & Strategies for Communicating with Business Leaders Regarding
Climate Change & Peak Oil, Celine McElvery (2009) Thesis, Lesley University.

Michael Graham and climate change denial.

As many of you know, I've been having a running argument on climate change with WTKK radio personality Michael Graham. Michael's latest post is yet another example of climate change denial and the larger problem of blog science. I've sent a lengthy critique of the article to michaelgraham.com and hope it will be published in its entirety but I will include my comments on this post as well.

Suffice it to say that I find the challenge of the bloggosphere a daunting and discouraging one. Scientific literacy is a passion of mine and since I read Carl Sagan's "Broca's Brain" at the tender age of 12 (thank you Nana) I've tried to see the world as it is, no matter how uncomfortable that may be at times. I like to think I can navigate the choppy gulf between truth and bullshit but I am troubled by the ideologically driven anti-science commentary on the internet and cable news. It all seems so clearly biased and insufficient to me, I have trouble understanding why intelligent people are so easily deceived by nonsense? WHY? Why is it that I can so easily see through the lies and badly formed arguments but so many people are sucked in? Is the truth really that frightening that people will buy into a comforting lie, no matter how absurd it clearly is? What I am really grappling with is my future. I'm in my second semester at Lesley and my long term plan is to teach. I want to find a way to communicate clearly to students, to inoculate them from the nonsense and anti-rationalism that is so pervasive in the media. My arguments with Michael Graham and some of my co-workers who are fans of his show (and Glenn Becks) become evermore frustrating as I can see the grotesque bias in their arguments. These are the arguments of impassioned ideologues, not rational citizens, and I am at a loss on how to get through to them. If we cannot convince our fellow citizens, even the brightest of them, of the truth, what does that say about the future of our nation? If I think of an answer to that question, I'll let you know.

As for Michael Graham and his absurd posting; my comments, sent to his blog, are below.

This is hysterical. Last week I read about this so-called debunking of global warming and posted a link to it on my Facebook page with the caption "Wait for it folks; THIS will be the next big climate change denial story" and right on schedule Michael, you proved my point. Thank you. The posts supporting you also prove that people are either too scientifically illiterate to discern B/S from actual science or so frightened by the truth that they will embrace any comforting lie no matter how absurd it may be.
This is the case here with your posting. Everything you said is simply wrong. Let's look at this piece by piece. First, the George Will article is hardly an irrefutable take down, it's an absurd screed filled with distortions. A detailed discussion of the articles shortcomings can be found here: http://www.grist.org/article/memo-to-george-will-washington-post . It needs to be noted that while George Will is a respected political commentator, he has a notorious reputation for inaccuracy (and at times outright dishonesty) on climate change (http://www.realclimate.org/wiki/index.php?title=George_Will).

The remainder of your post is just another example of your flawed approach to climate science; specifically, that you just don't know the difference between actual peer-reviewed hard science and "blog science" that follows no standards and isn't subject to any rigorous peer review. Let's pause for a moment and consider what people are saying about the so-called controversy surrounding the Yamal dendro-chronology. Do you really believe that global warming theory is based on the rings of 12 trees? Could it really be that the mountain of peer-reviewed research accumulated over decades is all wrong because of a mathematical error or worse, intentional malfeasance? The specific details of where theses claims are flawed is found here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/09/hey-ya-mal/

The claims that the Yamal studies (there are actually several) are flawed all flow from the work of Steve MacIntyre who claims to be a climate scientist though he's never been published. MacIntyre's claims have been picked up in the bloggosphere and embellished upon but his work in this case has been posted on his blog NOT in a peer reviewed scientific journal, where it should be if it to be taken seriously. Accusations that the researchers in the Yamal studies intentionally "cooked the books" are baseless and unsupported. It may be the norm to attack someone’s reputation in the blog media but to claim that a scientist knowingly committed such misconduct without a shred of evidence is a serious matter. The realclimate posting above gives a clearly written rebuttal to MacIntyre's claims and this response from one of the Yamal researchers strongly denies any wrongdoing and points out a number of factual errors: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/yamal2000/ . Anyone claiming to be a serious researcher (as MacIntyre claims to be) who has discovered a flaw in the methodology of a published study should make their case in scientific journals where their claims can be subjected to the same rigorous peer-review. Scientists disagree and argue all the time, that’s part of the process. What’s not part of the process is to make unsupported claims and engage in sloppy research, as MacIntyre appears to do in this case.

What’s most interesting is to weigh the actual impact of the Yamal research on paleo-climate reconstructions. If you look at the graphs here (posted on wikipedia but linked to source material and easily verified) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png and discussed in detail here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/02/a-new-take-on-an-old-millennium/ It becomes clear that there are many different proxy data reconstructions that do not depend on the Yamal chronology. The key point is that the proxy record is fairly robust and that you can eliminate one or two reconstructions and still get the same pattern of warming and cooling.

Michael, you have a microphone in front of you, people listen to you. You have an obligation to take the time to verify the facts before posting something on your blog. Linking to opinion pieces and unscientific blogs isn't supporting your argument, it's recycling long discredited but comforting lies. Global warming is real (it hasn’t stopped, http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/Fig1.gif) man is causing it and the sooner we deal with it the better off we will all be.

The Media Lynching of Van Jones

I've been seething over the noble (but misguided) resignation of Van Jones for the past few days. I first heard of Van Jones while on a fellowship with the Environmental Leadership Program. Having been involved as an environmental justice organizer for some time I wanted to know what all the fuss was about over this neophyte. Once I learned about his background as a community activist from Oakland I began to take him seriously. I read some of his articles and was impressed with what I read. When the opportunity to see Van Jones speak at Tufts on Earth Day last year, I jumped at the chance. Anyone who watches Van Jones speak can't help but be impressed.

Now enter Glenn Beck. How anyone could watch or listen to Glenn Beck and think he is anything but an unhinged lunatic is beyond me. His claims of a vast left-wing conspiracy would be laughable if they were not swallowed whole by so many well meaning, frightened members of white-bread middle America. Glenn Beck engaged in a smear campaign that would make Joe McCarthy green with envy. While so much of it has been rebutted already, just a few points need to be made.

First, Van Jones is not a "truther", one of those conspiracy nuts who believe 9/11 was an inside job, all the Jews called in sick that day, the twin-towers were brought down with explosives, etc. . The record is pretty clear on this. Van Jones name appears on a letter in 2002 signed by dozens of activists from the Bay Area demanding answers about the 9/11 attacks, and on a petition from 2004, giving a long list of questions that the group 9/11 truth felt were not sufficiently answered by the Bush administration's 9/11 commission. The rhetoric in both documents is typical activist speak but nowhere does it state that 9/11 was an inside job. Van Jones isn't a member of any organization that was affiliated with the 9/11 truth group nor did he engage in anything beyond signing two petitions. As fringe as the 9/11 group has gotten in recent years, at the time those petitions were signed, the questions they asked were pretty common. I know from my own experience as an activist that when you attend events, "tabling" or speaking you often get inundated by other activits or groups asking for your support with this or that. I signed dozens of petitions, sometimes out of genuine agreement, sometimes out of courtesy, in my years as an activist and I would be hard pressed to remember any of them. These documents were signed 5 and 8 years ago (respectively)long before Van Jones joined the Obama Administration, to use them against Van Jones is absurd.

Second, Van Jones is not a communist, self proclaimed or otherwise. When Van Jones commented that he went from being a "black Nationalist to a Communist", he clearly was talking in a rhetorical sense about the progression of his politics. Van has never been "card carrying", attended meetings, voted communist (yes folks Communists do run for office), or self identified as a communist (other than at I noted previously). I think it;s pretty clear that he isn't a fellow traveler. Van Jones has traveled in some radical circles as most community activists have. Like many in our line of work, exploration and flirtation with radical political ideologies is pretty common. There is little doubt that Van Jones has, for a good number of years now, embraced a very tame progressivism focused on job creation and economic and environmental justice, hardly anything new or radical.

The sad thing here is not just that Van Jones, a good man, exquisitly well qualified for the job that he was given, was forced out of his office; it's that we have created an absurd "patriotic correctness" whereby only people who attend the right church, belong to the right groups, associate with the right people, say the right things in public, and sign the right petitions can be judged as "patriotic Americans" and fit for public office. We have taught a shaefull lesson to our children. As Ariana Huffington eloquently notes:

"If the sliming of Van Jones is an indication of how things are going to be, a lot of 20-somethings posting to their Facebook pages as we speak better start worrying about the digital crumbs they are leaving behind for the future Glenn Becks of the world.

Isn't it time we acknowledge that no human being with any passion and deeply held beliefs ever emerged flawless into the world? And that if every mistake, misstep, boneheaded decision, or error in judgment becomes an automatic disqualifier for public service, then we're going to be left with a political landscape filled with nothing but wrinkle-free, foible-free, passionless automatons who have never made a mistake because they never took the risk of having an original thought.".

This is a dangerous, shameful time in America. We are sharply divided as a people and thanks to talk radio and Fox News (and sadly, a generous helping not so thinly veiled racism), over 1 third of America believe that radical black nationalists and communists are conspiring to destroy America. I have never seen people so ginned up over so much bullshit. What's even more disconcerting is the painfully tepid response in Van's defense. Van's resignations has only emboldened Beck and his supporters. They smell blood in the water. What's needed is for progressives to stand up and fight back. There is a war being waged for the hearts and minds of America, the bad guys are winning folks. It's time to put a stop to this nonsense.

A visit to WBUR

This afternoon I was treated to a unique pleasure. For about 20 minutes, I recorded an interview to be used as a "Listener Testimonial" for WBUR, Bostons NPR affiliate. I sat in studio 3C where On Point is broadcast. The WBUR studio, nestled against the Boston University campus, is unlike anything I've ever seen and yes, I've seen the inside of a few radio stations (and local cable TV studios). I was greeted warmly and the staff seemed to genuinely appreciate that I was willing to come in and be interviewed. I was fortunate enough to be asked for a listener testimonial, in part because I've been a WBUR member since 2002 and I've been making monthly contributions to the station for the past three years with regularly scheduled credit card payments (a convenient and affordable way to support WBUR ). One of the questions I was asked was why was it important for me to take time out of my day and drive to Boston from Lawrence, just to talk about why I listen to WBUR. The answer is important enough for me to share with everyone.

I've been a fan of public broadcasting for as long as I can remember. As a child growing up before cable TV, the Internet and the wasteland of talk radio, PBS was the gold standard for quality television. Channel 2 was on constantly around the house growing up. My grandfather, who lived through the great depression and World War 2 had a 6th grade education and literally worked himself into an early grave supporting his family (that included my divorced mother, my sister and I) was an avid watcher of Public Television. Monty Python, The World at War, The McNeil-Lehrer report, NOVA, Masterpiece Theater all held my grandfather's attention and competed with lesser programming for mine (often winning). Like many people of his generation, My grandfather understood the importance of education and he did not mock intellectuals as "elites" to be distrusted. My Grandfather was not well educated but he was smart and most importantly, he aspired to be more than he was, to understand the world and to grow. I created my own relationship with PBS in 1980 with Cosmos and Carl Sagan and my own children grew up watching PBS.

I rarely listened to public radio however, until I started a new job in Waltham and had to face an hour long commute from Lawrence. Desperate for anything intellectually stimulating I surfed the dial those first few days until I found 90.9FM and I was hooked ever since. While I listened to NPR throughout the 90's, I never contributed until after September 11th. In the hazy and confusing days after the terrorist attack people were desperate for answers and the corporate media moved overnight from being the watchdog of democracy to a defacto public relations arm of the government. I began to notice a change in the tone of public discourse and news coverage. From Fox news anchors wearing flag pins to Ari Fleischer telling Americans to watch what they say, the news media we desperately needed willingly shut down, except for public radio. While NPR didn't assume the role of the loyal "opposition" like the Pacifica Radio network (also part of PBS but looked at as the rarely seen hippie cousin of the public broadcasting family), it nevertheless provided the only comprehensive, objective news reporting available in the first few months of the "war". So, in 2002 I finally put my money where my ears were and became a WBUR member.

In the years since, the corporate media landscape has only gotten worse. Even on cable TV with it's 24 hour news cycle there is precious little comprehensive, in depth news coverage. This superficial coverage is exacerbated by the plague of wretched commentary shows like Hannity and Colmes, O'Reilly factor, and Countdown (sorry Olberman, even though I may agree with you most of the time you are a piss poor journalist). ( It should be noted that C-SPAN is a noteworthy and praiseworthy exception to this trend) Talk radio is even worse. Gone are the days when people could actually learn about complex issues on the airwaves. One need only listen to WTKK FM for a day to see how low we've sunk. Can anyone honestly say that Michael Graham, Jay Severin, Michelle McPhee or Jim & Margerie actually inform anyone or promote anything resembling a deep conversation about the difficult issues we face? The airwaves are filled with pontificating jack-asses telling us what THEIR opinions are. Commercial radio is a wasteland of irrational, anti-intellectual propaganda. The American people are literally being made dumber by talk radio. (take a look at my older postings here to see what I think of Michael Graham)

By contrast, public radio serves the public interest, just as all radio and TV stations once did. Without the headaches of stock holders and the need to turn a profit or satisfy advertisers, public radio is free to focus on doing what its supposed to do; provide objective, comprehensive, in depth news and public affairs programming that will inform the public, promote understanding, and incite public discourse. Bill Moyers once said that real news is the news we need to remain free. NPR and WBUR is the only reliable, trustworthy source of "real news" we have left and it deserves our support. Public broadcasting isn't government run though its partially government funded. This is PUBLIC radio, it's OUR radio station and WE need to pay our fair share. I support WBUR because its MY station. It's your station also...give it a listen and judge for yourself: www.wbur.org

You can also check out:
www.npr.org
www.pri.org
www.pacifica.org/

Michael Graham gets climate change wrong, again.

Here we go again.

WTKK radio personality, right wing-nut and climate change denier Michael Graham has posted another poorly written hack job on climate change. Graham borrows heavily from equally poor piece from Fortune Magazine. Graham's own interpretation and spin on this make a bad article even worse. The premise is basically that John Christy,( one of less-than-half-dozen credible climate scientists who either deny anthropogenic climate change (man made global warming) or think it's not going to be as bad as we think) destroyed Jame Hansen in recent congressional testimony. Actually, Christy's own words and published commentary show that he does believe man is warming the climate and that greenhouse gases are contributing to the warming. Christy seems to put more emphasis on land use changes than most scientists and continues to make bad analysis of satellite data.

What I find interesting is the horrible spin Graham puts on this:
"Unlike most alleged journalism on climate change, this is an interview with an actual climatologist (John Christy) as opposed to some politically active biologist/geologist/etc. who is speaking outside his field."

This statement is laughable because it actually turns climate change denial on it's head. Usually it's the anti-global warming crowd that churns out unqualified "scientists" to attack the truth. I'm not sure who Graham is talking about here but most of the scientists I've seen or read about in the media are actual climate researchers. Graham continues with: "He noticed that Hansen--Al Gore's stooge--wasn't just wrong about increased temperatures, he was ridiculously wrong."
What's really interesting here is that John Christy, who is a respected climatologist but one who is at odds with about 98% of the climatologists in the world is treated with deference, Graham (and his minions who post to his blog) claims to have a "real" scientists while James Hansen, arguably the most respected climatologist in the US, winner of numerous honors and a climatologist who has been published more often than most scientists, is Al Gore's "stooge". This subjective bullshit would be laughable if it were not for the fact that Graham actually has an audience. The worst part of this is that Hansen's climate model predictions actually turned out to be quite good as a 2005 analysis pointed out. The book Censoring Science is a must read for anyone who really wants some insight into James Hansen.

Graham goes on to claim that glaciers are not a problem:

"On glaciers:

Ice melts. Glaciers are always calving. This is what ice does. If ice did not melt, we'd have an ice-covered planet. The fact is that the ice cover is growing in the southern hemisphere even as the ice cover is more or less shrinking in the northern hemisphere. As you and I are talking today, global sea ice coverage is about 400,000 square kilometers above the long-term average - which means that the surplus in the Antarctic is greater than the deficit in the Arctic.

WHAT? I don't know who's more confused. Graham or Christy. Glaciers, "ice cover" and sea ice are all different things. Christy is really talking out of his ass here and Graham is eating it all up. Glaciers are losing mass at a rate twice as fast as they normally do and that rate of loss is increasing. The long term outlook for glaciers is bad and the likely results; raising sea levels and a loss of fresh water storage are a direct threat to human life. As far as the ice cover in the south "making up" for loss in the Arctic, it would be wise to look at the Antarctic in it's entirety before making pronouncements about an entire continent.

Graham then moves into a critique of "Al Gore's" proposed solution to global warming (I thought it was President Obama's): "The problem is that the solutions being offered don't provide any detectable relief from this so-called catastrophe. Congress is now discussing an 80% reduction in U.S. greenhouse emissions by 2050. That's basically the equivalent of building 1,000 new nuclear power plants all operating by 2020. Now I'm all in favor of nuclear energy, but that would affect the global temperature by only seven-hundredths of a degree by 2050 and fifteen hundredths by 2100. We wouldn't even notice it."

Excuse me but I thought we were talking about climate science, not policy decisions. This is the typical "kitchen sink" tactic at work, insist that the science is flawed AND attack to solution. Forget for a moment the utter lack of reason in this, Christy/Graham are also flat out wrong. They wrongly assume that only the US will move aggressively to curb GHG emissions, something that simply isn't going to happen. This is a favorite new argument, one that is getting more traction than it deserves. Stabilizing the climate is both possible and necessary.

Graham concludes with a link to this story, actually using it as "evidence" that global warming theory is in trouble. I wonder if he actually read the article as it points out that likely sea level rise if the West Antarctic ice shelf collapsed would be "only" 3 meters instead of the projected 6 meters though the article notes that such a massive shift would actually shift the earths rotational axis. You're right Michael, nothing to worry about.

Once again, Michael Graham has made people dumber. Why does this man still have a microphone in front of him?

The Boston Phoenix - decadent?

Tom Duggan and I have e-mail arguments on a regular basis. Often they are well reasoned debates about issues that both Tom and I have deep, heartfelt disagreements on. Sometimes they are superficial, occasionally they degenerate into glorified pissing contests. An unwritten understanding we've had over the years is that exchanges we have over private email stay, for the most part, private. I also believe that regardless of how heated an argument gets the first one to attack the other person (instead of the persons position or ideas) loses. Our recent exchange over the Boston Phoenix is one that Tom saw fit to drag into the public arena on his weekly radio program, "Paying Attention" on WCAP.

The argument started after I linked 2 articles from the Phoenix to my Facebook page. Tom's comments basically stated that the Phoenix was a decadent, left wing newspaper and that the National Enquirer provided better news coverage. One need only do a Google search on the Phoenix to learn that is has won dozens of awards for its news coverage and provides some of the best coverage of the arts, entertainment and media in the Boston area as well as first rate reporting. It was the paper that broke the clergy sex abuse scandal and while it is an alternative paper complete with an "Adult" section, it is hardly decadent.

For the sake of argument, lets take a look at this weeks Phoenix; For starters YES there is an adult section - let's put that aside for a moment (Tom claims it's pornographic, well see about that). Hmmm front page, coverage of the struggling Rose Art Museum and the possibility that Brandies University may sell it (Page 29), snippets about stories inside on film, music, the Dali Lama in Foxboro. Nothing decadent here...it must be inside. A full page ad for the House of Blues, we will see many full and half page ads throughout the paper for local clubs, concert venues, museums, theaters, etc.

We find extensive coverage of the troubles at the Boston Globe, the Dali Lama's visit to Massachusetts and holding court at Gillette stadium, MIT's media lab and the latest breakthroughs in music technology, a story on Dewaun Parker a graduate of Berkley (school of music) and his work with Dr. Dre (THAT must be the decadent stuff), a review of newly released films including Angels and Daemons, reviews of local theater action including Grey Gardens-the Musical. Local restaurant reviews, club listings, sports, Pretty tame stuff, on the back page there is an interview with former adult film star Sasha Grey, but not because she is a porn star, but because she is attempting to cross over into mainstream films. To say that the National Enquirer is a better source of journalistic excellence is, at best, a bad joke.

The letters-to-the-Editor are both supportive and critical of the Phoenix's recent editorial urging that Jay Severin not be allowed to return to the airwaves on WTKK (that was one of the pieces I linked to Facebook that started all of this). The editorial takes former Vice President Dick Cheney to task for defending torture and working the cable news show circuit attacking President Obama. The Phoenix is a liberal-left paper to be sure and it makes no bones about it but it is tame by most standards. In 2000 the Phoenix endorsed Al Gore over Ralph Nader for president, hardly a left wing position.

Now on to that "pornographic" Adult section. The cover model this week actually looks less "slutty" than usual, pretty, curvy, quite healthy, rather "normal"and sporting a bikini, she is about as pornographic as a sears catalog photo. The ads run the gambit from telephone "chat" lines to escort services, every taste can be catered to; gay, strait, transgendered and every flavor and combination imaginable. There are ads from adult bookstores in the area and mail order paraphernalia is easily available. The pictures that accompany the ad are provocative, titillating and appropriately blocked out in the right spots. They are suggestive and surely not suitable for kids or adolescents but they are also clearly NOT pornographic. There are no graphic depictions of sex, no frontal nudity, nothing that crosses the line into porn. One thing Tom and I both know well is what porn looks like, believe me, this isn't it.

The Phoenix is niche paper. It's liberal editorially, covers news and events from an alternative or progressive vantage point. It covers the arts, entertainment, academia, the club scene. It is in the same vein of the Village Voice and like the Voice, is quite honest about what it is (and is not). Comparing it to the Globe or (laughingly) the Valley Patriot or the Enquirer is pointless. Several things should be obvious; The Phoenix is very good at what it does, the quality of it's journalism is excellent, it is far from pornographic and it is not "decadent".

The Boston Phoenix - decadent?

Nature editorial on climate change.

Published in the latest edition of Nature, one of the most prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journals in the world.

*************************************************************************
EDITORIAL

Time to act

Without a solid commitment from the world’s leaders, innovative
ways to combat climate change are likely to come to nothing.

It is not too late yet — but we may be very close. The 500 billion tonnes of carbon
that humans have added to the atmosphere lie heavily on the world, and the burden
swells by at least 9 billion tonnes a year (see page 1117). If present trends continue,
humankind will have emitted a trillion tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere well
before 2050, and that could be enough to push the planet into the danger zone. And
there is no reason to think that the pressure will stop then. The coal seams and tar
sands of the world hold enough carbon for humankind to emit another trillion tonnes
— and the apocalyptic scenarios extend from there (see page 1104).
Nations urgently need to cut their output of carbon dioxide. The difficulty of that
task is manifest: emissions have continued to rise despite almost two decades of rhetoric,
diplomacy and action on the matter. But that unhappy fact should not be taken
as a licence for fatalism. Governments have a wide range of pollution-cutting tools
at their command, most notably tradable permit regimes, taxes on fuels, regulations
on power generation and energy efficiency, and subsidies for renewable energy and
improved technologies. These tools can work if applied seriously — so citizens around
the world must demand that seriousness from their leaders, both within their individual
nations and in the international framework that will be discussed at the United
Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December.

As essential as it is, however, simply agreeing to cut emissions will not be enough.
The fossil fuels burned up so far have already committed the world to a serious amount
of climate change, even if carbon emissions were somehow
to cease overnight (see page 1091). And given the
current economic turmoil, the wherewithal to adapt
to these changes is in short supply, especially among
the world’s poor nations. Adaptation measures will be
needed in rich and poor countries alike — but those that
have grown wealthy through the past emission of carbon
have a moral duty to help those now threatened by that
legacy (see page 1102).

The latest scientific research suggests that even a complete halt to carbon pollution
would not bring the world’s temperatures down substantially for several centuries.
If further research reveals that a prolonged period of elevated temperatures would
endanger the polar ice sheets, or otherwise destabilize the Earth system, nations may
have to contemplate actively removing CO2
from the atmosphere. Indeed, the United
Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is already developing scenarios
for the idea that long-term safety may require sucking up carbon, and various innovators
and entrepreneurs are developing technologies that might be able to accomplish
that feat (see page 1094). At the moment, those technologies seem ruinously expensive
and technically difficult. But if the very steep learning curve can be climbed, then the
benefits will be great.

More radical still is the possibility of cooling the planet through some kind of ‘geoengineering’
that would dim the incoming sunlight (see page 1097). The effects of
such approaches are much more worrying than those of capturing carbon from the air,
however. The cooling from geoengineering would not exactly balance the warming
from greenhouse gases, which would cause complications even if the technology itself
was feasible — something for which the evidence has been circumstantial, at best.
But discussions about the possibilities offered by geoengineering could also lull the
world’s leaders into complacency — if they lead them to believe that the technology

“Even a complete halt
to carbon pollution
would not bring the
world’s temperatures
down substantially
for several centuries.”

1www.nature.com/nature Vol 458 | Issue no. 7242 | 30 April 2009
© 2009 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved

The response to "Torture"

My blog is linked to my Facebook page and not surprisingly, "Torture" got a pretty strong response from Tom Duggan and friends. I couldn't make this up folks...The comments are below.

*****************************

Tom Duggan at 7:09am April 28

how out of touch can one person be. Of course, most people can agree that torture is BAD... DUH... (MMMMKAY) but the harsh reality is you have to get your hands dirty when fighting for survival or you DON'T. You are clearly an extremist... never torture for any reason, no matter what.... is just not realistic if you want to live in the real world. ... Read MoreOne terrorist had to be water boarded more than 180 times before he FINALLY gave up the information that was used to prevent another terrorist attack. Since he DIDN'T give up the info after being water boarded 179 times what makes you pacifists believe asking "pretty please with a cherry" is going to work? I am so tired of hearing how "we need to have the moral high ground". Why do we need a moral high ground? And who do we need it with? The terrorists? THEIR moral high ground is cutting off the heads of Jews with a pen knife as slowly as they can to honor ALLAH. The only moral high ground we need to is KILL them and ill them all. SAD!

Tennis Lilly at 7:17am April 28

Thank you Tom, you just made my point. YOU my friend are a perfect example of how morally confused and cowardly this country has gotten.

DOn't you see Tom? It doen't matter what THEY would do. It doesn't matter if one OF THEM talked (by the way, more useful intelligence on the so-called Second 911 was gained from non-coercive means than torture... Read More). It doesn't even matter if doing what's right costs lives. That price, in fact, is the whole point. This isn't about pacifism (I am not a pacifist as you well know).

If we don't stay true to the values that make this country great then America is just another place and we are just another collection of people.

Tom Duggan at 7:26am April 28

Yeah you're right Tennis, it IS morally cowardice to want to SURVIVE and be willing to kick the shit out of a Muslim satan worshiper who's mission is to slowly rape and torture YOUR family. You sissy pacifists would rather see more dead Americans (including your own family) than hurt a terrorists FEELINGS or make him uncomfortable. How many ... Read Moreterrorist scum bags were tortured? FOUR? EIGHT? yeah that's a symbol of an America as a country gone Awry! (NOT!). THE REAL symbol of Americans being out of touch with the very serious dangers we face personally and as a people is that there is more outcry over four or eight HARDENED Muslim terrorists who took American lives and are in on the plot to take more than protecting American lives. YOUR QUOTE>>>> "It dosn't even matter if doing what's right costs lives. That price, in fact, is the whole point." YES, Yes it DOES matter, it matters to ME, My family and MY COUNTRY. Waterboard them, shove hot taco sauce up their noses, do WHATEVER it takes!

Tom Duggan at 7:29am April 28

YOu want to pay for YOUR pacifist sissy ideology with the blood and lives of Americans and to ME THAT is the moral confusion ... and BY THE WAY.... you know who you have yon your side on this one? ALL THE TERRORISTS AND THEIR SUPPORTERS! ... wait.... I just got a call from Bin Laden ..... he said he wants to thank YOU and all the anti war, pacifist pussies in America for making THEIR job of KILLING us THAT MUCH EASIER!

Timothy Utley at 8:23am April 28

I think Bin Laden would actually like to thank anyone who makes it easier for him to enlist other terrorist. I bet he LOVED that the USA tortured ... it helps to build the kind of anger that his kind thrive on.

Tom, instead of calling people "sissies", which is laughable, why not just accept that many people believe that what we teach our children actually works on a bigger picture too: that taking a higher ground has it's own higher rewards. that violence only brings more violence.

Maybe, just maybe Tom, it's YOUR fucked up ideology that breeds terrorism by the very acceptance of such aggressive global tactics, which is certainly not limited to a few cases of torture. ... Read More

To be fair, I do not know you, so pardon me sir, .... but it kind of pisses me off for you to label people as "sissies" simply because they do not believe violence is going to accomplish what I think we all want: a peaceful world.

Tom Duggan at 8:31am April 28

I bet what Bin Laden loved MORE than the FOUR OR EIGHT Muslim terrorists being waterboarded (not tortured)is all the AMERICANS who are spreading pictures around the world of ABU gharab making america look bad, all the ostritches who advocate open borders, all sissies who say DON"T TORTURE the terrorists and all the IDIOTS currently in this ... Read Moreadministration who are making their lives easier by exposing our methods of extracting information. What breeds terrorism is NOT our response to it, How utterly backwards. To say a RESPONSE to terrorism CAUSES terrorism holds no water if you EVEN HAVE A CLUE about what your talking about. Prior to 911 we weren't responding AT ALL to terrorist attacks (COLE, african embassies etc) and THEY STILL FORMED, PLANNED AND ATTACKED. REality is a BITCH isn't it? The proplem with you sissies is that it is SAFER for you to fight against OUR government as if WE are the bad guys than it is to fight against REAL bad guys becasue that requires FACING DANGER and ...
Tom Duggan at 8:33am April 28

....GETTING YOUR HANDS DIRTY.... and sissies NEVER like to do either of those things, they would rather run around attacking the people FIGHTING the bad guys, trying micromanage the manner in which they provide such protection from such bad guys because they just aren't MAN enough to fight REAL EVIL.

Trina Hofreiter at 8:34am April 28

Torture's wrong, no matter who does it. Thanks for the post, Tennis! :-)

Tom Duggan at 8:39am April 28

It is a SAd but true reality, people like you want to sanitize the language used when discussing Muslim Terrorists, you want to call the 911 ATTACKS a "disaster" as if it was a tornado, you want to CODDLE hardened Muslim soldiers (and FREE THEM) who have no soul and worst of all you want to pay for all that self gratifying DOGMA with American blood... Read More so YOU can all FEEEL better about what moral high ground you stand on...... Well I have news for all your regressives, the only high ground you will end up on with that philosophy is Saint MAry's cometary. I only pray someone I care about doesn't end up there too because some spoiled American ostritch was too much of a wuss to fight back and didn't have the stomach to be a real man and do what needed to be done.

................AH now I feel better!

Tom Duggan at 8:42am April 28

Trina, is torture ALWAYS wrong for ANY reason no matter what?

Barbara Ann at 3:12pm April 28

Torture is wrong in any case I don't care what you say. And when there is retaliation for occurances of torture and more people are killed is it still justified? Blah. there are other ways. got to be.

Tom Duggan at 5:59pm April 28

What "OTHER WAYS" would you have employed for the guy who was still holdingh out after being water boarded 179 times? Offer him a gift certificte to chuckie cheese? THe sad reality is these are dangerous people involved in very dangerous and catastrophic activities and if our military or CIA has to resort to interrogation methods that make decent ... Read Morepeople squirm, then so be it, unless those "decent" people want to come up with a BETTER way that yeilds the same information in the same (or less) amount of time. This isn't POLITICS or criminal justice we ar etalking about it is war, a war that was declared on you me and every one we know by millions of Right Wing Muslim religious fascists. Sometimes in the real world you have to make a decision between TWO bad choices, debating and ponrificating and having a sub committee meeting to find "another way" only gives killers more time to kill.

Barbara Ann at 7:11pm April 28So they water boarded the guy 179 times. That's 179 times they tortured him.. Hmmm....doesn't seem to be working

Tennis Lilly at 9:30pm April 28

So Tom...I'm not sure but if I am interpreting your purely emotional, adolescent, insulting poorly formed rant correctly, you disagree with my position that torture is wrong. Would that be correct?

I'm not sure because once you went down the road of ad homonym* attacks and insults you sounded more like Ann Coulter.

* That means personal attacks – it’s Latin.

Tom Duggan at 10:19pm April 28

Hey BARB, on teh 180TH time IT DID WORK THAT IS MY POINT!
Tom Duggan at 10:22pm April 28I am disagreeing with your position that we should NEVER torture. When our national security and our very lives are at stake NOTHING should be off the table. THAT is my position, it is just too bad that some americans are SO spoiled and SO comefortable and completely out of touch with the dangers of the real world that they see OUR government as the biggest threat to humanity instead of the Muslim terrorists and those who support them

Tennis Lilly at 7:05am April 29

See...that wasn't so hard now was it?

Tennis Lilly at 7:16am April 29

And MY point is that we ARE spoiled and fat and lazy and privileged. And because we think we are entitled to these things, that we are better than everyone for no other reason than where we are born without understanding what it MEANS to be an American, we have fallen into the trap, the trap set by people like YOU Tom, that if our physical safety ... Read Moreis at risk, anything goes. That may be an understandable instinctive (and purely emotional) reaction from an individual under attack, but it is NOT an appropriate policy position for the greatest democracy to take. By standing firm on such an important moral question, we are defending the IDEA of America.
Tennis Lilly at 7:17am April 29

The IDEA of America is what matters, not the physical place or the collection of individuals. The IDEA of America is stronger than any weapon and it can’t be killed by any terrorist. It’s the IDEA of America is what give hope to people, it’s what leads when others only follow, it’s what sets a standard for civilized behavior. The only people who can destroy America are Americans, not by failing to torture our enemies, but by failing to BE Americans.

Barbara Ann at 9:19am April 29

Oh no Tommy, I see the dangers of the real world very very clearly. Torture is one of them. another is the twisted logic you use to justify its use. Talk about spoiled!

Tom Duggan at 9:27am April 29

Tennis says>>> "The IDEA of America is what matters, not the physical place or the collection of individuals."
THis explains why you are for open borders not defending our country against threats foreign or domestic and are MORE concerned with the safety and comfort of Terrorists over Americans.

Tom Duggan at 9:32am April 29

Oh and Barb, with all due respect, if you think the point makes no sense when the point is that a guy had to be waterboarded 180 times before he gave up information that DID IN FACT save American lives from another terrorist attack ....then I really don't think you ever will.

You and Tennis, with all due respect, are so extreme in your IDEOLOGY ... Read Moreand your "IDEAS" that facts, real world dangers and ACTUAL events don't seem to matter. As long as you all fFEEL good about yourselves and can tell YOURSELVES you have a MORAL HIGH GROUND, Ameirican lives mean nothing.

Truman interned the Japanese to keep us safe, Lincoln suspended Habeus Coorpus etc. While it is true anyone willing ot give up a little liberty for a little security ends up with neither, those who are willing to give up a little liberty for A LOT Of security Survive long enough to have these kinds of silly debates about waterboarding four terrorists.

Tom Duggan at 11:02am April 29

That is called MORAL RELATIVISM and you have exhibited it perfectly on this posting. For example it is NOT ok to punch someone in the face because you don't LIKE them, (one instance) but it IS OK to punch someone in the face if they have a gun to someone else's head to take the gun away (ANOTHER INSTANCE). To YOU there is no difference, punching ... Read Moresomeone in the face is WRONG... ALWAYS WRONG, No matter what (which by definition is extreme) And NO circumstance will ever change that in your opinion (which you are perfectly entitled to) . But EVEN MURDER has exceptions depending on circumstance, I just think you are putting your head in the sand if you are so extreme in your position as to NOT be able to distinguish situations of HAVING to do something BAD to accomplish a greater good. You must be in college! LOL

Jimi Carter at 11:11am April 29

Question - What the hell do you smoke and/or drink Tennis because I would love some.. it puts you in such a La-La land that it must be wonderful to live as a 'Child' while you try to be a functioning adult.

Are you honestly stating for the world to read that if there came a time when your family's life was at stake and the ONLY way you could gain information that would SAVE their lives was to 'pour water over the head of a hooded man' - you wouldn't do this? Do you care SO LITTLE about the lives of Americans?

As someone who prides himself on being 'Intelligent' and/or 'Compassionate' you would sacrifice innocent people in order to avoid a vile human from having to listen to 'Loud' music or go without sleep for hours... ... Read More

Are you OK? No, I mean are you actually understanding that the PIGS who wish to destroy.. not simply hurt... but WIPE OUT American and Israel... could CARE LESS about our "Morale Standing"..

Wake Up!

Jimi Carter at 11:14am April 29

Ms. Barbara - you need to realize who were are fighting and why they HATE . not dislike.. but HATE US!... Obama's America that 'does not Torture' will not prevent them from attempting to Kill us...
Jimi Carter at 11:17am April 29

I'm sorry ... actually Tennis you're correct... why don't we simply all commit suicide in America.. this way the Terrorists (oh that's right in Obama's America there are no Terrorists) can simply take over and we never have to worry about possibly stubbing their toes... or farting in their direction...
Jimi Carter at 11:31am April 29

Tennis wrote: The IDEA of America is what matters, not the physical place or the collection of individuals. The IDEA of America is stronger than any weapon and it can... Read More’t be killed by any terrorist.

You are seriously losing your perspective! Dude where else in this world is the 'Idea' of America' taking shape? UM.. NO WHERE! So once we are done... and with the big O in charge.. it's becoming more sooner than later.. once we are DONE.. there will be no more "Idea of America".. that's what makes us unique.. and why so many Legal Immigrants and unfortunately.. ILLEGAL SCUMBAGS want to be here and not where they are presently living. Does this not make sense to you?
Tom Duggan at 11:32am April 29

FINALLY a little help on the subject! In Tennis' world Conservatives and Republicans are MORE of a threat to this country than Terrorists ("I'm sorry DISAFFECTED YOUTHS), those who try to STOP the terrorists are the target of their disdain and protests, nations who live, breathe, eat and sleep to subvert our government and our culture and destroy ... Read Moreus from within and from outside the country are dismissed as INCAPABLE of doing anything to harm us. BUT Don't worry when the Taliban or AL Quaida finally DO take over America Tennis and his cohorts can try to advocate for issues like GAY MARRIAGE, ABORTION, ETc. .... Oh yeah, they wont be able to because if they are ALIVE at that point anyone who even tries to publicly REVEAL their homosexuality will be castrated and then their family killed slowly in a vat of acid while they watch. Amazing how the CATHOLICS and Christians in this country are the RIGHT WING RADICAL ENEMIES of America to so called "progressives" but Muslims, THEY"RE THE BEST!

Tom Duggan at 11:44am April 29

You are fighting for the aid and comfort (and RELEASE!) of terrorists who killed American soldiers, plotted and had a hand in 911, shot at and planted bombs in the way of our troops (I KNOW YOU SUPPORT THE TROOPS!) and to tie the hands of those woh put their lives on the line to protect US>

I, on the other hand am fighting people like YOU who ... Read Moreput our troops lives in jeopardy, want to hand cuff our government from protecting our families and are more outraged by FOUR Muslim Terrorists being water boarded than those who commit REAL acts of terror against US.

I think that covers it
Barbara Ann at 11:34am April 29I do realize who and what we are fighting; do you
Tom Duggan at 11:44am April 29

You are fighting for the aid and comfort (and RELEASE!) of terrorists who killed American soldiers, plotted and had a hand in 911, shot at and planted bombs in the way of our troops (I KNOW YOU SUPPORT THE TROOPS!) and to tie the hands of those woh put their lives on the line to protect US>

I, on the other hand am fighting people like YOU who ... Read Moreput our troops lives in jeopardy, want to hand cuff our government from protecting our families and are more outraged by FOUR Muslim Terrorists being water boarded than those who commit REAL acts of terror against US.

I think that covers it
Jimi Carter at 11:56am April 29

Tom is so-right! Radical Islam has no place for 'tolerance' or 'accepting' of 'other cultures'.... They HATE us! And with the Big O in charge.. They are not going to 'Fear' us.. so

Congratulations!
Tom Duggan at 2:05pm April 29

When millions of people vow the extinction of an entire race of people and an entire country of people I would say FEAR is a NATURAL and IMPORTANT human response, if we did not FEAR teh Nazi's taking over the globe we never would have fought them, if we did't FEAR criminals killing us or raping our children we wouldn't hire police officers. I am ... Read Moreunsure what this FEAR comment is suppose to mean. When there is something to FEAR should we all seek a "HIGHER MORAL GROUND" and refuse to react and let others destroy us?

Tom Duggan at 2:11pm April 29

Oh and speaking of SWEEPING GENERALIZATIONS.. for the record, I DO watch Fox News (which regressive hate because they are one of the few news sources not controlled by the left) I also watch CNN, MSNBC (though not often), PBS, NPR, and every other news station and source I can. I also read the Globe, the Herald, Wall Street Journal, the New York ... Read MoreTimes, The Eagle TRibune, Rumbo, Siglo 21, El Plantea, The Manchester Union Leader and listen to SEVERAL different news radio stations.... and your point is.............???????????????

Tom Duggan at 2:14pm April 29

And as a side note, I just HAVE to know... how old are you Barbara? I know Tennis is in his 40's so he has no excuse for thinking like an out of touch teen ager who despises authority and thinks our government is the bad guy but I am curious about you.
Tennis Lilly at 4:49am April 30

Tom and Jimi...I am so completely blown away by the moral relativism that the two of you have displayed. Where in Gods name did either one of you allegedly educated men go to school? The utter lack of logic, of reason, of FACTS supporting the purely emotional "arguments" the two of you have made is incredible. I mean really, seriously, these are ... Read Moresome of the worst arguments I've ever read, you're all over the place..crime? immigration? those subjects aren't mentioned anywhere and the continued personal attacks are off the wall guys. Both of you take your Ritalin please. Clearly neither one of you actually read the piece in it's entirety or if you did, failed to understand it.
Tennis Lilly at 4:58am April 30

I've said nothing about NOT defending the country from our enemies, I understand very well that we are at war and that we have enemies, I DO support our service men and women (the phrase "the Troops" is insulting and objectifies them) and I have friends and close family members who have served in Iraq so do NOT lecture me Tom. As for these absurd ... Read Morearguments; "what is your daughter was locked in a box BLAH BLAH BLAH" culled right from high school critical thinking class, you cal ALWAYS concoct a situation where an individual would be compelled to do something clearly immoral to protect themselves or their loved ones, I would do the same thing anyone else would in a situation like that. The 2 differences are; A. Unlike Tom I wouldn't call myself a hero and brag about it and B. I understand the difference between a justifiable, but purely emotional and still immoral act on the part of an individual, and the officially sanctioned intentional conduct of a nation.
Tennis Lilly at 5:09am April 30

The sum of the argument here seems to be that the ends justifies the means. Sorry boys, it doesn't. Torture doesn't work, claims that it does are bullshit. And even if it did, it's still wrong. And when Tom brings up the internment of the Japanese ( by Roosevelt, not Truman) and the suspension of Habeus Corpus, the overwhelming majority of ... Read Morehistorians, legal experts and most Americans, agree that both of those acts were shameful, unnecessary and reactionary. Those who sacrifice freedom for safety get none and deserve neither. When we condone torture out of fear (and that is CLEARLY what both of you are filled with) for "those people", the "pigs" terrorists" "islamo-fascists" etc. we open the door for it to be used on whomever the next "evil doer" is. That could be any one of us.

I think the two of you have done a fine job of making my points (and embarrassing yourselves in the process). Thanks
Tennis Lilly at 5:10am April 30

It's ok Barbara...they just don't get it. try talking to them about global warming...it's even worse.

Jimi Carter at 8:35am May 1

final comment/question... even if you could 'save' innocent lives as a result of 'having someone endure loud music' or 'deprive them of sleep' or 'waterboarding' - you are stating publicly that neither of you would do that? you would allow innocent people to DIE so that you could beat your chest and claim the 'higher morale ground'? is this correct?
Tennis Lilly at 7:51pm May 1

I am saying torture is wrong and we shouldn't do it. I don't consider loud music or sleep deprivation torture but waterboarding clearly is. If I were in the position to make the decision, the answer would be no, I would not authorize torture. Clear enough for you?
Jimi Carter at 8:28pm May 1

That's very troubling Tennis. I'm not even suggesting in the slightest that you would 'kill' and or 'mame' an individual only 'scare' them so much that they would revel information that could/would save 'innocent' lives. Yet, you wouldn't even do that to save someone?

You believe that Tom and I use a thought process " culled from 'high school ... Read Morecritical thinking class" - Yet your statements are that of a 'child' who's afraid of the 'boogie man' and 'shakes' when 'bigger children' yell at him. Why have you no will to 'Live' and/or at least help a fellow human who may be in danger?

It doesn't make you a better person to sacrifice the life of an innocent person in order to claim to your enemy 'Nah Nah at least we don't torture'...

Tennis Lilly at 9:31pm May 1

Jimi...I don't think you've read anything that I've written. Torture, and that is what I am talking about, is illegal and immoral. Waterboarding isn't a fucking prank, it's not meant to "scare" someone, it's not "dunking someone in water"
, it's controlled drowning. That it MAY, under some concocted, extreme situation provide information that MAY save lives doesn't make torture moral or legal. MY statements are that of a child? Are you serious?