KuhnKat alerted me to this article by John “Slaying the Sky Dragon” O’Sullivan,.
Thought this might be of interest:
http://www.suite101.com/news/new-satellite-data-contradicts-carbon-dioxide-climate-theory-a394975
April fools in October from JAXA??
I can’t say I know what to make of it. O’Sullivan links NHK World English which includes some text and a video that is currently telling me I need to buy a plugin. [Unnecessary tangential paragraph omitted.]
For more information, I googled “JAXA, Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, Greenhouse Gas Observation Satellite ‘IBUKI’ (GOSAT)” and the first link took me here (which John linked in his article). There I learn “This achievement will be published in the Scientific Online Letters on the Atmosphere (an online thesis magazine) issued by the Meteorological Society of Japan on Oct. 29. “
Does anyone have a link to the article so I can read more details? Is it in English? Japanese? Help locating other articles would be welcome.
Update: Found On the Benefit of GOSAT Observations to the Estimation of Regional CO2 Fluxes. Downloaded. Reading. Maybe O’Sullivan’s post discusses results revealed somewhere else?
I located the same paper, but it didn’t contain the same world maps which were in the background behind the newsreader. [By the way, I only needed Windows Media Player to see the video. You can directly access the video at http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/movie_30_13.html?256 ] There was only a map indicating the reduction in uncertainty of CO2 emission rates, due to the new satellite’s information.
I suspect the “suite101” site got a little too excited about the report, in particular this conclusion: “The researchers found that CO2 absorption in high latitude regions in the northern hemisphere, including Russia’s Siberia, was higher than earlier estimated.” I’m guessing that the four maps which show in the newsreader’s background represent seasonal emission rates. For example, in the paper’s figure 3, and it’s clear that the “temperate North America NW” region is for a certain fraction of the year, a net CO2 absorber, while at other times a net emitter. But we already know (from the Keeling curve) that CO2 has a strong annual cycle and is not monotonic when viewed with monthly granularity. So I don’t find it surprising that such cycles are visible more locally.
The low-key nature of Mr. Sasano’s comment confirms that this is *not* anything earth-shaking, merely an improvement in localizing CO2 effects. Perhaps it will help in refining the “carbon budget.”
Agreed. This paper is about reducing uncertainties. Another media frenzy with no “there” there.
HaroldW–
I have a mac. The links sent me to places promising me something for a mac but ultimately sent me to a page to download something for windows. So, I figured “bag this”.
KAP– There isn’t any “frenzy”. I googled. As far as I can see the only person discussing it were O’Sullivan and HKN who he linked. He doesn’t actually link any paper. He linked the JAXA page; they suggested some paper would be published and mentioned the Journal. So, I found that paper– which is about uncertainties. But I don’t have any reason to believe it is O’Sullivan’s source nor that for HKN. Maybe there is some other paper?
This is a hoot!
I don’t really think it is accurate, but certainly the differences are not so large as has been suggested.
John O sullivan.
he is the guy who apparently got tim Ball in deeper doodoo
apparently claimed he was representing ball
apparently not licenced to practice law
now off the case and Mann has more claims against Ball as a result.
Lucia-
Get Flip4Mac for viewing wmv files. It’s free and works great. I’ve used it for a long time with no problems. I tested it on the linked file above. Works fine. Here’s a link using the MacUpdate site:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/17787/flip4mac-wmv-player
Thanks Paul–
The link path from the HKN site either sent me someplace where I would pay at least $29 or more for “pro” versions or kept sending me to a windows thing. I just knew there had to be something free– there always is.
I’m installing now.
Mosher– Really? That’s horrible if true! (Horrible rumor if not true.)
Is there a link to that story?
Mosher–
I had to google. I’ve found this comment about O’Sullivan:
http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/denier-vs-skeptic/denier-myths-debunked/#comment-12908
I found this by the same guy– posted at Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2EG81R2VBZA75/ref=cm_cr_rev_detmd_pl?ie=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1AOTIL4MAVNUW&cdMsgNo=29&cdPage=3&asin=0982773412&store=books&cdSort=oldest&cdThread=Tx2CCTQQA922XTR&cdMsgID=Mx2W1UV1LM0A94Y#Mx2W1UV1LM0A94Y
http://www.aaskolnick.com/
is all over sullivan. you also need to have a look at the mann filings and replies in his court case against Ball.
not sure how much of that is easily found… gotta run I will see if I can pass those documents on.
You can post this link into windows media player to view the video.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/fixed/asx/30_13_256k.asx
Interesting to see Australia is green yet we are the ones introducing a carbon Tax!
janama (Comment #84918) October 31st, 2011 at 7:11 pm “Interesting to see Australia is green yet we are the ones introducing a carbon Tax!”
Well green when it is the Northern Hemisphere summer anyway. Maybe you should write to Julia and suggest the tax only be applied from October to March.
Between John Sullivan and Andrew Skolnick, it’s easier to tell what kim is trying to say.
=========
It doesn’t surprise me that Australia is green,all the garbage about CO2 emissions is spin,to make us obey the people who have our grandchildren’s interests at heart(sarcasm).People are so gullible,on one hand they tell us politicians lie,cheat and steal,on the other they tell us politicians are to be trusted when it comes to looking after our grandchildren.
The world really can sing in harmony,just ask scientists and politicians.
Kim–
Andrew Skolnick seems to be saying that O’Sullivan is seriously misrepresenting his credentials. I’ve emailed him to see if he can point to the legal documents Mosher mentioned in his post.
Ditto what Mosher said.
O’Sullivan wrote an article about that “NASA satellite scandal” which had no basis in reality.
http://co2insanity.com/2010/08/19/leading-us-physicist-labels-satellitegate-scandal-a-%E2%80%98catastrophe%E2%80%99/
Ignore it.
I wouldn’t trust John Sullivan or Andrew Skolnick. Don’t get caught up in their exchanges.
Here is their animated map of the actual fluxes over the period:
https://data.gosat.nies.go.jp/GosatBrowseImage/browseImage/XCO2_L3.gif
from this page:
http://www.gosat.nies.go.jp/index_e.html
As mentioned above, interesting, but, not the magnitude O’Sullivan stated.
The surprising thing for me is that there doesn’t appear to be any period when the oceans that are shown pull down the concentration like the land areas do. I had assumed that there would be periods of the year when ocean areas would do what we see in the summer in the NH!! The fact they are the largest producers I guess isn’t a surprise!!
What I really want to see is the Antarctica and Greenland to see how the fluxes over the glaciers compare to the rest of the world!!
Don’t forget to plant stuff if you are not snowed in!!
At this point,anything to do with O’Sullivan is so dubious as to justify its being ignored.
He has clouded the skeptical issue enough that a person into conspiracies would wonder if he was doing this to hurt skeptical reviews of AGW.
I think he is just a jerk.
kuhnkat–Is that fluxes or concentration? The article says “A global distribution map of XCO2”; the units are ppm. That seems to be concentration– but I’m not sure.
DougT–
I requested information on the documents filed in court. Andrew Skolnick has sent them to me.
Lucia,
XCO2 is “vertical column-integrated dry air mole fraction.” So you are correct, the map shows concentration.
From the maps at Kunhkat’s link: The summer boreal forest influence is quite strong, especially over norther Eurasia, where the local CO2 drops by up to 20 PPM. Based on the size of the Mauna Loa annual cycle, I would have imagined much less that 20 PPM local variation. It is too bad that the winter-time and early spring concentrations are not measured at high northern latitudes.
hunter (Comment #84940) November 1st, 2011 at 6:47 am
“At this point,anything to do with O’Sullivan is so dubious as to justify its being ignored.
He has clouded the skeptical issue enough that a person into conspiracies would wonder if he was doing this to hurt skeptical reviews of AGW.”
The whole Sky-Dragon crew would seem to be part of such a conspiracy. And yet their efforts seem to bolster populist ‘scepticism’ [insert prefered term]
Nyq–
I am open to many possible theories explaining the Sky-Dragon “crew” including that they aren’t really a “crew”. It’s possible Sullivan thought he could create a saleable book by compiling stuff, hunted around for people inviting chapters. Each contributed and really did nothing more. They didn’t look to see if their chapter would sit next to something they thought was insane or whatever. Sullivan slapped it together and began trying to promote it.
If so, the crew isn’t conspiring. They are just each willing to have their stuff bound together.
I can’t really comment in detail on every chapter. But I commented on Claes Johnson. I tried to be as charitable as I could. The chapter is dreadful.
Be highly skeptical for information from Sullivan or Andrew Skolnick. Skolnick believes and promotes the idea that Rupert Murdock is the mastermind behind the Climategate.
Re: lucia (Nov 1 14:22),
Someone at Science of Doom told me I needed to read Claes Johnson. I told him that I considered his work marginally fitted to line a bird cage. What I didn’t say was that it was marginal because it might drive even a bird insane.
The annual variation in CO2 is much stronger in the far northern sites than ML and about zilch in southern latitudes. Eli recalls similar stuff about Siberia and northern Canada from years ago. Maybe this is just a better set of measurements.
Re: SteveF (Nov 1 10:51),
Is CO2 data taken at Barrow, AK (71.290N) not at a high enough latitude for you? How about Alert, Canada at 82.30 N. They do indeed show greater seasonal variation than MLO while the South Pole data barely wiggles. The South Pole concentration is also lower than MLO, which is lower than Barrow, indicating that the Southern Ocean is a major sink for CO2. CDIAC data for these sites and more can be accessed from here.
This is also a good site for CO2 data…the Scripps database itself
And this is a nice graphic illustrating the change in amplitude with latitude N to S
Figure.
On a lark, I decided to plot the CO2 seasonal amplitude [(max-min)/2 because I’m being a bum]:
Figure.
It appears that there is essentially no variability at all in the Southern Hemisphere.
(By the way, the data on the CDIAC site appears to not be up to date with the data from Scripps itself.)
lucia (Comment #84965) “I can’t really comment in detail on every chapter. But I commented on Claes Johnson. I tried to be as charitable as I could. The chapter is dreadful.”
I did go back to it and sort-of finish it. Dull, strange and strangely dull.
The link to O’Sullivan’s post doesn’t go there and the post seems to have disappeared.
DeWitt, Carrick,
Thanks for the links. The rate of fall in CO2 at high latitudes in July and August is quite remarkable. I wonder if there is any useful information in those annual patterns about the net rate of carbon accumulation (as un-degraded plant debris) as CO2 rises. One description of carbon accumulation in the boreal forest is:
“The Boreal floor is covered by a dense layer of organic matter made up of peat and moss that is more than 10 feet thick in some areas. This cover is created when fallen trees, pine needles, leaves, and other plant remains fall to the ground and are prevented from decomposing by the cold boreal temperatures. This groundcover is particularly effective in storing carbon, and the boreal forests of Canada and Russia together store more carbon than any other terrestrial ecosystem on the
planet.”
.
Sounds like a a classic case of opposing processes: higher CO2 and warmer temperatures yields faster plant growth, so faster carbon accumulation, but warmer temperatures could, at least potentially, increase decomposition and release of CO2. Which is more important? Donno. The key would seem to be the sensitivity of peat decomposition to temperature… but that is not the only factor. Lack of oxygen, high acidity and high tannin concentrations can suppress decomposition almost completely for many thousands of years, even where the local average temperature is mild.
.
Anybody have information on this subject?
Nick–
Should have taken a screen shot. Dang!
Anyone interested in finding out more about John O’Sullivan, his dwindling band of “Slayers†and the original plans for their politically-motivated (unorthodox)-science organisation Principia Scientific International can do worse than pay a visit to Professor Judith Curry’s “Letter to the dragon slayers†thread (http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/15/letter-to-the-dragon-slayers/#comment-125570).
Vernon Kuhns (AKA kuhnkat) didn’t seem interested in their pedigree (http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/15/letter-to-the-dragon-slayers/#comment-127773) but he’s in a minority.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
SteveF: “The rate of fall in CO2 at high latitudes in July and August is quite remarkable.”
Don’t believe half of what they are telling. This is Ireland after they deleted all the unconvenient data:
http://gaw.kishou.go.jp/cgi-bin/wdcgg/quick_plot.cgi?imagetype=png&dataid=200906040013
And this is Germany with all the data:
http://gaw.kishou.go.jp/cgi-bin/wdcgg/quick_plot.cgi?imagetype=png&dataid=200702142827
As far as I could tell only Germany and Japan (in some cases) don’t delete the unconvenient datapoints.
As for the poles, here is Summit, Greenland:
http://gaw.kishou.go.jp/cgi-bin/wdcgg/quick_plot.cgi?imagetype=png&dataid=200702142206
And here is South Pole:
http://gaw.kishou.go.jp/cgi-bin/wdcgg/quick_plot.cgi?imagetype=png&dataid=200702142995
And as the last links: here is the global distribution per latitudinal bands and with deseasonalised groth rates:
http://gaw.kishou.go.jp/wdcgg/products/summary/sum35/11_plate2_co2.pdf
All data is freely available from the World Data Centre for Greenhouse Gases:
http://gaw.kishou.go.jp/wdcgg/wdcgg.html
Hey that’s very nice! Thanks, Joel!
SteveF:
I didn’t show it, but the seasonal variation also appeared to vary with year (it was increasing). Lots of interesting questions to ask here.
Carrick,
I noted that as well; looked to me like somewhere between 5% and 10% increase in the size of the annual cycle at high latitudes over the past 35 years or so. Is that clear evidence for increasing plant uptake rate? Sure seems like it. How one might relate that to any additional net sequestration is the question. It is pretty clear that about half of all emissions since the 1950’s have not ended up in the atmosphere, but I have seen a wide range of estimates of how the ‘missing fraction’ partitions between ocean uptake and increased plant growth… from about 60:40 ocean:plants to about 90:10 (or less!). I imagine that a careful examination of the change in C12/C13 ratio in the atmosphere compared to the C/12C13 composition of fossil fuels might shed some light on it, since plants discriminate and ocean absorption does not…. but I fear there would be complicating factors. Examining the annual cycle in C12/C13 in atmospheric CO2 might also be informative. Yup, lots of questions.
Re: SteveF (Nov 2 10:49),
Nitpick: Compared to plants, the kinetic isotope effect of absorption/emission and exchange with carbonate and bicarbonate in water is small, but not zero.
DeWitt,
“the kinetic isotope effect of absorption/emission and exchange with carbonate and bicarbonate in water is small, but not zero.”
.
That surprises me; I was certainly never aware of any difference. Do you have some idea of the relative importance? References?
Re: SteveF (Nov 2 15:03),
That sort of thing is a function of the molecular mass. It’s the reason why δ18O and δD can be used to determine temperature from ice core data. The rate of evaporation is a function of temperature and the different masses of the isotopologues of water change the relative rates and the activation energies so the rates are different at different temperatures, or something like that. The difference between 45 (13C16O2) and 44 (12C16O2), though, is a lot smaller than the difference between 20 (18OH2), 19 (16OHD) and 18 (16OH2) so the effect would be smaller.
Hi Lucia,
here’s my account of John O’Sullivan’s article before this one:
http://jules-klimaat.blogspot.com/2011/09/john-osullivan-look-ma-no-brain.html
p.
To:
lucia regarding your comment (#84947) of November 1st, 2011 at 9:55 am to DougT– in which you state:
“I requested information on the documents filed in court. Andrew Skolnick has sent them to me.”
Be advised that Skolnick’s garbled bag of lies filed against me with the British Columbia Law Society has now been dismissed in its entirety. Thereafter, a wounded Skolnick was resoundingly humiliated on the Climate Change Dispatch blog when he then challenged me on there to debate him. See it here:
http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/home/9557-canada-bar-association-rules-no-misconduct-by-tim-balls-legal-team
It turns out Skolnick has been the REAL fraud misrepresenting his credentials and falsely claiming to have won two suits that he actually lost. It seems he was fired from his job at the AMA for making stuff up about people. Figures!
The rest of the guff written above about my colleagues and our work is just as easily debunked by anyone with the wit to properly do their background reading rather than spout brainless ad homs.
John O’Sullivan–
The documents Skolnick sent were things Mann’s team supposedly filed. Mosher had suggested I “look at the mann filings and replies in his court case against Ball”. Assuming Skolnick didn’t concoct the mann filings, it looks like he at least got Mann’s team to believe things enough for them to present this material to a judge.
I’ll go read what you wrote.
Lucia,
read the actual ruling by “British Columbia Law Society has now been dismissed in its entirety. ”
O Sullivan misrepresents it here. it was not filed against him. It was filed against Ball’s real lawyer. The way John writes it the complaint was filed against him. It wasnt. It was filed against Ball’s attorney for actions that O sullivan engaged in.
He is hurting Dr. Ball.
Lucia,
The documents I provided you were NOT just Prof. Mann’s filings — they included the court filings from Ball’s attorney Mr. Scherr.
If you doubt they’re valid, you should do what I had to do, purchase them from British Colubmia’s Court Services:
https://eservice.ag.gov.bc.ca/cso/esearch/civil/searchPartyResult.do?serviceId=10109247
Stephen Mosher is absolutely correct. I filed a complaint ONLY against John O’Sullivan for falsely posing as a lawyer and legal counsel working for Pearlman Lindholm, the law firm defending Tim Ball in British Columbia. However, since he’s not a lawyer in BC, the Law Society of British Columbia has no power over him. So it opened an investigation of Pearlman Lindholm’s attorney Michael Scherr for possibly bringing disgrace to the BC law profession by engaging a fraud.
Mr. Scherr’s defense was that he had no idea O’Sullivan was making his fraudulent claims. With no evidence to prove otherwise, the Law Society closed the investigation against him with a warning to be more careful to check out the credentials of people he associates with.
And that’s what this shameless con-artist is calling complete vindication. He also calls down up and global warming global cooling. He lives in a world of lies and delusions.
BTW, the chapter is not closed on Mr. O’Sullivan’s skullduggery in British Columbia. I’m awaiting a public statement from the Law Society, as well as a statement about Mr. O’Sullivan’s membership from the New York County Law Association.
Stay tuned because things are likely to get considerably worse for this humbug.
In just the last month, Mr. O’Sullivan was fired from his writing gig at Suite101.com. He had to remove his bogus claims of being a member of the American Bar Association and legal consultant with Pearlman Lindholm from his online bios. The British Columbia law firm Pearlman Lindholm and Tim Ball’s attorney Michael Scherr were professionally embarrassed by associating with the dishonest humbug, and he has just compounded all this deceit with an apparently fraudulent law society membership that looks as if it’s going to bite him in the kiester.
Andrew–
I’m not saying I doubt they are valid. However, I haven’t done independent investigations– like purchasing them myself.
In the US, many of these things are available freely online so people can just link to the originals. I notice this isn’t happening in this case. I don’t mean to imply anything about anyone’s honesty in providing documents. But reading the words I chose I can see why you might have interpreted what I said to imply you might have concocted them.
I have no reason to doubt they are real. Sorry if expressing the contingency gave anyone the impression I did.
Yes. I saw this. (Once again, I am assuming that the documents Sullivan provides are true. But you don’t dispute the letter from the Law Society.)
It seems to me that at the present time, Sullivan’s claim he was vindicated by the LSBC is weak. The wording of letter from The Law Society of British Columbia (marked confidential) suggests they have not investigated the truth or falsity of Sullivan’s claims. It appears Scherr is not to be disciplined as what he did would not be seen as negligent even if Sullivan is a total humbug. Since Sullivan’s behavior actually doesn’t affect their ruling, the LSBC didn’t need to look into the issue of whether Sullivan is or is not a humbug and they didn’t. (Law things often seem to go that way.)
Unless I’m missing something, it seems to me so far the LSBC neither vindicates nor condemns Sullivan in anyway. They appear silent on the dispute about the truth of any claims he has made about his credentials.
By “he” here, you mean Sullivan, not Scherr… right?
My general take:
* As a book, the Sky Dragon is awful. God awful. Pathetic.
* When touching on technical points having to do with C02, climate change and science in general. Sullivan is at sea (yet he elected to spearhead publication of book on global warming).
* Sullivan’s career path is rather unconventional and the details are rather opaque to me. If I have correctly untangled the various things I’ve read, he claims to have worked as a teacher in the UK and also been involved in some legal capacity in NY. He expresses the former this way “As such for 20 years I taught at various institutions in the UK including Nene College, University of Northampton and high schools in the East of England.”
and latter this way:
…engaged in litigation over a 13-year period in the New York Court system, either on my own behalf, pro se, and/or as de facto in house attorney alongside licensed attorneys. Under New York’s rules of civil procedure (CPLR) with the qualifications I posses, I am fully entitled to engage in such professional legal services.
(Maybe I could assemble a timeline if I were so inclined, but I’m not. I don’t know if his 13 years of legal work in NY happens in parallel with his 20 years of teaching in the UK or whether this was in sequence. )
* Some of resume fluffing and credential inflating may have been involved in online resumes. I don’t personally know how much partly because I haven’t looked at screen shots of the various Linked in files and partly because I don’t know all that much about Sullivan’s credentials. Even if I did, I don’t know enough about legal credentials to detect whether a precise wording misrepresents a particular qualification. Moreover, I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this– I’m happy to sit in the wings and watch as it unfolds.
* I have no idea what the law in any jurisdictions says about misstating various types of credentials on online resume services or any particular area. (I know various jurisdictions have laws governing taking money to provide honest to goodness specified legal services like drafting will or representing someone in court and so on. But I don’t even know what Illinois would say if I merely claimed I was a licensed attorney on an online resume, but never took any clients. )
* Sullivan is enhancing the circus sideshow aspect of the Mann-Ball suit. This might be on purpose. I think his blogs posts are tendentious and designed to preach to a choir. On the other hand, the filing with the LSBC had to be a time consuming distraction for Scherr. (Note: there are people on the Mann side also writing tendentious things to increase the sideshow aspect of the case.)
* Sullivan is now threatening to consider suing you writing
“I shall now be considering my options for a libel suit against him. “. I have no idea whether he is serious about this. I suspect that threat is a rhetorical flourish aimed to increase the side show element. The reason I suspect this is suing is time consuming, and I don’t know how much he could possibly collect. Unless I’m missing something the alleged libel would be “by imputing that I falsely asserted my standing was that of a fully licensed attorney”. Assuming he proved in court that both that a) you made specifically alleged he made that false assertion and b) he made no such false assertion, I’m not sure what his monetary damages could possibly come to. (That said: INAL. I also don’t know Sullivan. So I don’t know how inclined he is to sue. )
* At least in this post, Sullivan appears to be being very careful in his choice of words when discussing any allegations that he fraudulently misrepresented his credentials, and in describing what you have alleged. He is not, for example, saying what he taught in the UK, giving a timeline, being particularly specific about what you alleged or said, and is choosing words like “imputing” rather than “said” or “claimed” when describing what you have communicated to people.
* On the balance, I don’t know whether the side-show aspect hurts Ball’s legal case. Among other things, I don’t know much about law. But given the limited information I have, I’d be nervous about having Sullivan linked to my side of a court case. Mind you, Ball may know things I don’t know that would change my view. Or not.
I do know I’m somewhat interested in watching the sideshow. I guess we’ll see what happens.
Lucia,
Whatever side of the story you choose to believe, anyone will surely agree Dr. Ball has the right to select whomever he wants as his legal counsel. Both Dr. Ball and his Canadian attorney, Michael Scherr will concur that I never claimed to be licensed to practice law in Canada. So Skolnick’s failed gambit to complain about me to Canada’s LSBC was never taken seriously by any of us.
Skolnick says I claimed to be a licensed attorney. But I have never made any such claims. Moreover, if you notice, Skolnick won’t post weblinks to any statement of mine to prove his bogus accusations.
You have all too easily taken Skolnick’s word on everything as if he is a trustworthy source. Yet he fails to advise you that he was fired from his journalism job with the AMA for misrepresentation. It appears he lied when he claimed he has a master’s degree, won two lawsuits that he actually lost and faked his “Pulitzer Prize nomination.â€
By contrast, I have truthfully stated I possess a law degree and have considerable related teaching and litigating experience to warrant my position. When Mr. Scherr contacted me about the LSBC investigation I provided him with more details than he asked for to substantiate my qualifications. I gave him contact information to the relevant institutions and my permission to verify them. If you doubt this then contact Mr. Scherr.
I also have published online numerous legal articles addressing climate science fraud in the last 3 years. Has Skolnick ever identified any legal expert who controverts any of my legal analyses? No. He can’t because none do. Indeed, it is chiefly because of my writings that I enjoy a very good reputation with so many lawyers around the world and maintain my position at the forefront of the Slayers.
The Skolnick escapade, rather than weakening my working relationship with Dr. Ball, has actually strengthened it.
While Skolnick’s latest pernicious lie that I falsely claim to be a member of the New York County Lawyer’s Association (NYCLA) is also easily refuted here:
http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/index.php?start=14
The letter shown in the link above proves I am indeed a member of NYCLA. But will Skolnick ever retract this latest lie and apologize? I’m not holding my breath. May I suggest that in future, to enhance your own credibility, you demand that the charlatan provide weblinks as evidence to back his muck racking.
But the fact that you and Steve Mosher pander to the charlatan and don’t call him out for his fakery makes you no better than him.
Ultimately, Skolnick (working in cahoots with Michael Mann’s lawyer, Roger McConchie) lost his gambit of trying to drive a wedge through Ball’s legal team. Now that he’s been exposed as a fraud it is time for Skolnick to move on and learn from the experience; and for others should stop taking his utterances at face value.
Correction: a better link to the above-cited NYCLA letter is here:
http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/home/9557-canada-bar-association-rules-no-misconduct-by-tim-balls-legal-team
John
I neither believe nor disbelieve either side of the story. I can tell that I am in a state of general ignorance about lots of stuff. And I don’t plan to spend a lot of time trying to figure out everything there is to know about your background merely to learn for myself whether Andrew Skolnick’s version is more correct or your version is more correct. It seems to me that if there is something important to learn or be revealed, Andrew’s efforts to investigate and request reviews by various judicial and review bodies will reveal whatever can be learned.
I agree. Entirely. I even approve of laws in various states that have lower licensing requirements rather than higher ones.
True enough. My impression is he says you deleted information from various online profiles. It’s not possible to prove or disprove that by providing links. Presumably to support this he would need screenshots or information from the way back machine or reports from other witnesses. I don’t know if such things exist because I haven’t seen such things. Then again, I’m not making investigating this my mission in life.
I don’t think everyone has taken Skolnick’s word on everything. I haven’t. Notwithstanding your suggestion Steve Mosher, it seems to me he hasn’t. I don’t know why you have developed the impression that anyone has taken Skolnic’s wort on everhting. I think both of us, and likely others are suspending judgement on whether people are truthful or not.
That said: For example, if you read comments you will see that I did request documentary evidence from Skolnick. This should indicate that I’m not taking things merely at his work.
As it happened, Skolnick did send me links or documents for things I asked for. So, I know the court filings I specifically asked for contained what he said they contained. As you can read above, I did say assuming he didn’t concoct them which he took to insinuate that I thought he concocted them. I responded that I didn’t mean to insinuate that he did concoct them– but I am aware that I did not purchase them myself, they are not online and so on. So, I do not have first hand evidence.
(Note, as conversation ensued it does appear you do not dispute the court filings. So I would suggest Skolnick appears to have been entirely forthcoming and truthful when providing documents I actually asked for. But equally: It seems to me that you are somehow jumping to the conclusion that if I have suspended judgement whose side of the story is correct, that means that I have somehow decided Skolnick’s version is 100% correct. This is not the case.
Right now, I don’t know what the balance of truth says.
[sarcasm] I always find arguments so much more compelling when someone suggests I need to do something to enhance my own credibility. [/sarcasm]
As you can see above– I did email him to obtain specific information that I thought relevant to his claim. You may wish him to provide other links for other claims–but there are some I don’t think require links. For example, I know he has claimed you once worked as a teacher in the UK. You’ve admitted such. I’m not going to demand he provide links to prove this as it’s not in dispute.
Now to press you on some of your specific claims:
As you requested Skolnick be pressed for links, I’m going to ask you to produce some to prove your claim that Skolnick has been exposed as some sort of fraud. Do you have links to information to support these specific claims:
That is, if I understand you correctly, your claims are:
.
If I’ve misinterpreted what you are suggesting, please clarify. If I have correctly interpreted, I would like to see links to support each of the four claims.
In addition, I am going to comment on a link you provided to support a claim you have refuted Skolnick:
That link goes to the top of a page with numerous articles starting with “Oxford University Report: GWPF Has Been Very Successful Think Tank”.
Further down, I see an article related to you.
http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/home/9557-canada-bar-association-rules-no-misconduct-by-tim-balls-legal-team
It contains a jpg
http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/images/stories/NYCLA%20letter.jpg. This would suggest you became a new member of the NYCL quite recently on October 28, 2011.
I assume what you are meant to suggest is the letter in that .jpg letter refutes Skolnick’s claim.
But the fact is: I can’t tell.
In order for me to judge whether it refutes Skolnick’s claim I would need you to quote Skolnick’s specific words and provide the date on which he made the claim and– ideally provide a link to show to the quote.
I would suggest for example, that if you claimed to be a member way back on October 15, 2011, and Skolnick says your claim was not accurate, then that letter tends to support Skolnick not you. On the other hand, if Skolnick said you claimed to be a member on October 29,2011, the letter supports your version.
Since you have not quoted what Skolnick claimed nor mentioned the date on which he made the claim, I can’t judge whether your interpretation that this refutes the claim is correct or incorrect.
As a general observation: It seems to me that both you and Skolnick are being specific when that suits you and non-specific when it doesn’t. This is not unusual– but I am observing it. I am suspending judgement on who is more correct. Both of you seem to be assuming that by suspending judgement I have taken the part of the other side. My position is: I don’t know whose version is closer to correct.
Lucia,
Thanks for your even-handed posting. I should have been more specific, as you suggest, and made it clear that by reading through all the comments on that link I gave you will see for yourself the dates when Skolnick’s accusations were made. Mosher is technically correct, but strategically wrong in stating Skolnick filed his complaint against Mr. Scherr, Ball’s Canadian libel attorney.
Skolnick has been explicit in his online postings that it is me that is his target. But being that I never claimed to be a Canadian lawyer (thus making a central aspect of his argument moot) Skolnick quickly found that Mr. Scherr provided evidence that I was a paid legal consultant on the case at the request of Dr. Ball.
I don’t have time to trawl the internet and make precise notes of when Skolnick made his attacks and the details of each and every one. I rely on others to tip me off when he appears to be gaining some traction. But scroll down the above link I gave you -see again here:
http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/home/9557-canada-bar-association-rules-no-misconduct-by-tim-balls-legal-team
and see the first comment by Skolnick: Andrew Skolnick 2011-11-10 13:25:
The lies in that comment are as follows:
SKOLNICK CLAIM: “Mr. O’Sullivan clearly doesn’t want readers to read the Law Society of British Columbia’s letter for themselves, since he doesn’t provide the link.â€
O’SULLIVAN REPLY: A lie because a link was provided at the top of the article. Skolnick had to apologize for that gaffe.
SKOLNICK CLAIM: “I filed a number of complaints against John O’Sullivan…As a result, O’Sullivan deleted his bogus claim of being an ABA member from some of his bios….â€
O’SULLIVAN REPLY: I deleted my reference to my expired membership of the ABA because it was out of date and I no longer required it for access to the research material I was studying.
SKOLNICK CLAIM: “….. and the Law Society confirmed in its summary letter that O’Sullivan has indeed been misrepresenting himself an attorney defending Tim Ball in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, and that he works as a legal consultant for Pearlman Lindholm. YET he’s continuing to make this fraudulent claim!â€
O’SULLIVAN REPLY: A lie. I have not misrepresented myself and the findings of the Law Society make no such judgment on my conduct. Pearlman Lindholm paid me for the legal work I performed on behalf of Dr. Ball. That, in itself, reasonably constitutes a professional relationship. Even in the letter Skolnick cites in his link, Michael Scherr affirms there was a “professional relationship†between us and that Dr. Ball paid me for such professional services via Pearlman Lindholm.
I have repeatedly stated, in response to Skolnick’s straw man claims,that I have never claimed to be a licensed attorney and as such cannot be accused of misrepresenting myself. It appears that others, perhaps even Michael Scherr, despite all the communications between us, has incorrectly assumed I was licensed.
It is so very convenient for Skolnick that the evidence he claims existed to prove I made such claims has now ‘disappeared.’
I tend to concur with one comment made on the above site by # Fred P. 2011-11-11 12:34:
He sagely observes:
“Isn’t it the case that much of this spat between Andrew Skolnick and John O’ Sullivan is due to the subtle differences in meaning of the same words, when used in Canada versus their use in the British Isles. Of course in that part of Canada where the locus of this case is centred must have a heavy United States lexicographical influence also.
For instance Skolnick’s insistance on making a big deal out of the allegation that O’ Sullivan had stated that he was involved with “Vancouver Supreme Court”, and that this was somehow deceitful because the court is in Victoria.
It is the case that Victoria is on Vancouver Island, and it is common parlance in the British Isles to simply refer to islands by their name. Therefore it would be natural to refer to the court as Vancouver Supreme Court, because that is the name of the island where it is located. I do not believe that any deceit was intended by O’ Sullivan on that score.
Again another main plank of mr Skolnick’s argument is that O’ Sullivan had incorrectly described himself as a counsel or advocate, and that he was not in fact licenced to practice as such in Victoria, BC. Similarly these words have subtly different meanings on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean. It is not the case in the British Isles that a Counsel, Counsellor, or Advocate even requires any sort of degree at all, or registration with any “bar association” or “law society” because the use of those words does not imply any such qualification in British English. It may do, but is not denotive.
Nevertheless it is clear and undeniable that O’ Sullivan does have a Law degree,
whereas on the other hand Andrew A. Skolnick has no legal qualifications whatsoever. Perhaps Skolnick might beat O’ Sullivan in a photography contest, but it is unlikely that he will be able to outmaneuver O’ Sullivan who has some long experience in pleading replication, rejoinder, surrejoinder, and rebuttal.â€
SKOLNICK CLAIM: “O’Sullivan said he got his law degree from the University of Corkâ€
O’SULLIVAN REPLY: A lie. Skolnick shows a screenshot to what appears to be an ambiguous comment I made about whether he had “asked Cork about my law degree.†This appears to be his best evidence on this question. See here:
http://www.aaskolnick.com/global_deniers/cork_capture.jpg
But even from that “evidence” I cannot be imputed to have made any such claim.
Skolnick won’t admit he’s lost his core claim: his persistent and false assertion that I am not now nor have I ever been permitted to practice law. This is patently false. Indeed, under the laws of New York (CPLR) I am more than qualified to work as de facto attorney i.e. ‘in house’ under the supervision of a licensed law practitioner. This is how I have been employed in the past and was assuming I was working for Dr. Ball and Pearlman Lindholm. Clearly, the rules in B.C. are different from N.Y.â€
FINALLY, I will leave the last word to Fred P (see above link) who concluded: â€In my opinion, Skolnick thought he could bully O’Sullivan into submission, but that hasn’t worked, and now he has painted himself into a proverbial corner.â€
Lucia, I don’t believe you are fully being fair. I immediately provided you with all the documentation you requested from me. If you need other documentation, then ask by email, as you did for the Mann vs. Ball filings and you will get it. I don’t regularly read this web site. If you want something, email me.
I provided the link (somewhere, if not here) where you can download all the Mann vs. Ball court filings I provided you. If you doubt the legitimacy of these documents, go buy them yourself and stop suggesting that there might perhaps be a chance that they could possibly be fakes.
https://eservice.ag.gov.bc.ca/cso/esearch/civil/searchPartyResult.do?serviceId=10109247
I make NO accusations of wrong doing against ANYONE without being able to document the truth of my statements. Why do you think this humbug won’t take me to court? (And that only one party ever tried that 20 years ago, only bringing further embarrassment to himself and his group of snakeoil pedlars. And yes, I’m talking about Deepak Chopra and the Transcendental Meditation organization.)
If you want documentation, ask for it instead of suggesting that they may not exist or that they might possibly be faked.
You mention wanting screenshots. I have the HTML files of the entire web page as well as screenshots of the pertinent parts. All you have to do is ask and not suggest that I may not be able or willing to provide them.
“You have all too easily taken Skolnick’s word on everything as if he is a trustworthy source. ”
politically I disagree with everything Skolnick stands for and says. But WRT O’Sullivan he is accurate and trustworthy.
sorry O’sullivan, you have hurt and you continue to hurt Tim Ball.
Andrew, you are wound a bit tight. It does not help your presentation.
ASkolnick–
I agree you provided me with all the documentation I requested. That’s what I meant when I wrote
In fact, I went further to point out that– as far as I can tell– John O’Sullivan does not dispute the authenticity of the things you supplied. I wrote:
So, while I have not done anything like spending my own money to obtain originals from Canada and I am not going to claim to have authenticated things, it seems that the evidence suggests you have been entirely forthcoming and the documents are true. Moreover: I say this even though I do not simply take your word for it. I consider factors other than your word when deciding what I think.
In contrast, John is accusing me of simply taking your word for everything– when in fact– it’s quite clear that I didn’t. I have been skeptical, but as far as I can see, you’ve been forthcoming and truthful.
You know we’ve never met. I hadn’t even heard of you before all this. Does it really bother you that I am say I am not simply assuming you truthful, but saying that I bear in mind the possibility that could be concocted– but that looking at what you sent me in context it seems to me that the balance of the evidence suggests the stuff you provided me was authentic?
Given that you provided what I asked for before, I tend to believe what you say. But I don’t need or want other documentation. As I wrote
I don’t think I was suggesting that you might not be able or willing to provide them. I thought I was communicating the notion that my not having seen them is not evidence they don’t exist. To repeat:
I’m getting the impression that both you and John would like me to decree which person I think is more likely telling the truth. But I know myself to be ignorant of quite a few facts and I don’t want to spend a lot of time gathering together a dosier on everything about John O’ Sullivan.
I’m perfectly happy to wait to see the various letters or rulings published by the various bodies. If those are supported by documents you or he filed describing the actual accusations, claims, evidence counter evidence, I’ll probably read them when they come out. But in the meant time, I’m happy to wait.
Did Deepak Chopra take you to court? If yes, cool! That’s awesome. (Note: No sarcasms tags. Others note: This is sufficiently cool that I’m going to suspend lectures on the “arguing by rhetorical question” rule!)
Steve
Oh. I understand where Andrew is coming from. I asked him for stuff. He sent it. We had some communications, and I am under the impression he has more stuff. But I didn’t ask for it.
From his point of view, I think he is perfectly willing to send what’s asked, but by the same token, doesn’t want to bombard me with things I didn’t ask for. (I thank him for this!)
By the same token, when he read this, it seems to him this communicates that I doubt stuff exists.
Andrew hasn’t been at this blog long enough to understand that if I say I haven’t seen something I am likely to mean precisely that I haven’t seen it. If I doubted it existed, I’d likely follow that with, “I doubt it exists”.
In contrast, if I wrote: “I still don’t know when or where John O’Sullivan got his law degree.” That would mean I still don’t know. This happens to be true. I’m a bit curious based on the discussion about Cork and University of Cork– where, it seems he did not get his Law degree. But, of course, my not knowing where he got his degree means nothing. I haven’t asked John. I haven’t checked. And so on. (And I’m not going to!)
Skolnick is wound a bit tight. He’s fun to watch.
not very bright, but entertaining nonetheless
Wow – I wandered back to this thread and found what reads like a post-modernist piece of narrative fiction. Bravo to all concerned – if it turns out that Solnick and Sullivan are the same person all along then I won’t be disappointed.
Nyq Only–
I’m pretty sure Skolnick and O’Sullivan are not the same person. Skolnick is pretty determined, and pretty convinced he has something here.
It appears based on his background that Skolnick is bright and also likely to stick to this. I think this means by the end of this paper work available from various presentations will be compiled in a few convenient packages and those of us who don’t want to dedicate our lives to hunting around for everything to know about O’Sullivan will know things like:
1) Precisely what type law degree, Bachelor degrees and teacher certificates he earned, which institution granted then and when they were granted.
2) Precisely which schools he worked at and when.
3) Precisely how many and which court cases he was involved in and in what capacity and what the outcome was.
4) Possibly details of his personal life, particularly as they might
relate to any law cases and
5) Precise quotes, screenshots etc. showing various statements by both Skolnick and O’Sullivan will be supplied.
We may end up with similar information on Skolnick, but I judge that less probable. Given the two men’s backgrounds, I think Skolnick is a dogged investigative journalist and will bring forward a big packet of stuff. However, the stuff is not all currently in locations where it can be linked. The packet may contain some mistakes– but will contain lots of correct stuff. Skolnick may not be able to get anything to “stick” to O’Sullivan in the sense that whatever O’Sullivan did may turn out not to be subject to discipline by any legal or review body. (For example: I don’t know what happens in the US if one claims to be a lawyer when one is not– but never takes any legal cases!)
But even if Skolnick doesn’t end up with some sort of official finding against Sullivan, I think Skolnick may end up with a pretty readable article with things put in place in an organized manner. Maybe he’ll make it an ebook. I’m sure I’ll read it.
Hi Nyq, you made some interesting observations in your comment of November 1st, 2011 at 1:04 pm. As for your latest one no, John and Andrew aren’t the same person. Nor, as Vernon (Kuhns – kat) has suggested on Professor Judith Curry’s “Letter to the Sky Dragons†thread (http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/15/letter-to-the-dragon-slayers/) am I one of Andrew’s sock puppets. Several of the participants here are also involved in that thread of Professor Curry’s, with Andrew and others making some interesting observations.
John is not only head “Slayer†but is also CEO of their unorthodox-science association Principia Scientific International. Lucia said back on 1st Nov. that she is “ . open to many possible theories explaining the Sky-Dragon “crew†including that they aren’t really a “crewâ€. It’s possible Sullivan thought he could create a saleable book by compiling stuff, hunted around for people inviting chapters. Each contributed and really did nothing more .. â€.
In my opinion, based upon my close involvement with the “Slayers†and PSI since about Dec 2010, Lucia’s speculation is partly correct – about creating a saleable book. John claims repeatedly that it is a best seller but I have great doubts about it having sold many copies. This was discussed during “PSI & Due Diligence†exchanges back in Jan. but I was unable to persuade John to disclose how many copies had been sold.
Lucia speculates that other than contribute chapters to “Slaying the Sky Dragon†most of the “Slayers†did little else but there is more to it than that. John confirmed on 1st Jan. that “ .. Most of my conversations about a vision for PSI have been with Hans Schreuder and Joe Olson. We realize that the UK govt will not permit us to set up a charity for the express purpose of suing government agencies .. â€.
It was in my response to that E-mail (which involved “Slayers†John O’Sullivan, Hans Schreuder, Joseph Olson, Dr. Tim Ball, Professor Oliver Manuel, Dr. Martin Hertzberg, Professor Claes Johnson, Alan Siddons, Dr. Charles Anderson, Rev. Philip Foster, along with “Slaying the Sky Dragon†publisher Ken Coffman, Geraldo LuÃs Lino, Jerry Oliver, Miso Alkalaj, Fred Goldberg and others on the sidelines) that I started the “PSI & Due Diligence†exchanges.
My understanding from those numerous exchanges, which went into great detail about John’s original plans for the “Slayers†and their organisation Principia Scientific International, is that John, Hans and Joe dreamed up this fiasco but had the full support of most of the “Slayersâ€. Lucia may not be too far off with her “ .. Sullivan thought he could create a saleable book by compiling stuff, hunted around for people inviting chapters .. â€. John even discussed the possibility of me contributing a chapter on the validity of the ice-core record of past atmospheric CO2 content, saying in one of his E-mails to the group (or “crew†as you described it) on 24th Dec. “ .. Your involvement with PSI is most welcome. Many thanks ..for .. drawing our attention to the .. ice core fiasco that has stupidly been set as a “Gold Standard” of climate proxies. .. I would certainly welcome your submission of a chapter .. for our next ‘Slayers’ book.. I would heartily recommend that you speak with Hans Schreuder who .. is well placed in advising on the complex chemistry of atmospheric gases .. †(Hans was not able to give me any worthwhile advice on anything about the ice-core record and in my opinion he has little to add to our understanding of the processes and drivers of the different global climates).
It appears that several of those original “Slayers†may have decided to dissociate themselves from the group. Professor Johnson said on 15th Jan. “ .. the vision of PSI as presented is inflated beyond my comprehension .. â€. On 15th October he stated quite clearly that “ .. I am not a member of any group subject to group thinking, in particular not the slayers group .. †(http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/15/letter-to-the-dragon-slayers/#comment-122522) and during the “PSI & Due Diligence†exchanges Rev. Philip Foster (PSI Compliance Officer!) said not a word. More recent recruits may also have changed their minds.
Lucia’s speculation that John “ .. hunted around for people inviting chapters .. †may not be far off the mark either and it seems that in order to boost the dwindling “Slayer†numbers he is trying hard to recruit others. I raised this point with the “Slayers†on 26th Sept. with QUOTE: ..
It appears .. that Dr. Latour is another individual who you have attracted into what appears to be a dwindling group of “Slayersâ€. If so you may find that Roger Sowell may be prepared to give you some advice, both on the science as well as the legal side. .. I have no reason to doubt what he says about himself (http://www.resowell-law.com/). .. Mr Sowell could be the ideal person to do an in-depth review of “Slaying the Sky Dragon†Chapter 21 “Legal Fallout from False Climate Alarm†in the light of the “PSI & Due Diligence†E-mails .. UNQUOTE.
Naturally John took exception to me opining that the “Slayers†were in decline, calling it an “ .. unsubstantiated claim ( in effect, a lie) .. â€. After I encouraged John to name the current “Slayers†he managed to muster only 33 names. As I said to John QUOTE: ..
On 17th January you appeared to be proudly boasting that there was a “ .. group of 36 respected international scientists and related professionals .. †(http://www.gofundme.com/1v39s). Nearly 9 months later you name only 10 individuals who are “ .. currently the most active/influential members of the Slayers team.. â€. .. the total count .. 33 .. includes those that you “ .. would hesitate to call ‘Slayers’ per se just yet .. †(and Dr Matthias Kleepsies has just advised that he is a former member of the “Slayersâ€). Falling from 36 to 32 (at best) certainly appears to me “ .. to be a dwindling group of “Slayers†.. â€! .. (I won’t hold my breath waiting for an apology) .. UNQUOTE.
There was no apology, with John simply trying to change the subject away from “PSI & Due Diligence†to the unorthodox science that the “Slayers†keep pushing, much of which has already been shown to be highly questionable.
John said on 29th Sept. “ .. Roger Sowell .. is in discussion with us as a potential new recruit, but his decision is pending because he is currently reviewing our Sky Dragon book .. â€. I invited Roger to review John’s Chapter 21 “Legal Fallout from False Climate Alarm†in the light of the “PSI & Due Diligence†E-mails but have heard nothing more from Roger since 12th Oct. when he said QUOTE: .. I am still digesting and investigating the claims made in Chapter 21 .. I will give my analysis on that at some later time. I am not familiar with the other issue, “PSI & Due Diligence emails .. UNQUOTE.
I responded with another copy of my 60-page Word document which holds some of the “PSI & Due Diligence†E-mails but I haven’t heard from Roger Sowell since, even though I E-mailed him on 17th Oct. on the subject. Roger Sowell is a well-established California attorney who had been involved in the “John O’Sullivan’s specious claims†exchanges (started by Professor Grant Petty) and in the “PSI & Politics†exchanges. I speculate that Roger has decided to distance himself from the “Slayers†and their unorthodox-science publishing company Principia Scientific International just like Professor Johnson and others.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
“I’m pretty sure Skolnick and O’Sullivan are not the same person. Skolnick is pretty determined, and pretty convinced he has something here.”
Well yes – but if they were the same person then as a piece of fiction the whole thing would be genius, which was sort of my point. It wasn’t a very good point 🙂
More seriously I appreciate Skolnick’s determination and digging but at the same time there has to a line where digging into somebody’s background online ceases to be a public-service (exposing a humbug) and becomes an invasion of privacy.
Lastly, I doubt this is the case, but it worries me that a ‘warmist’ might indulge in a hoax on the more gullible end of the debate (such as our Sky Dragon pals) and end up over his head. I’m not saying Sullivan is doing that (i.e. I don’t think he is actually an agent-provacteur [sp?]) but his actions resemble one.
Pete Ridley (Comment #85914) November 21st, 2011 at 11:52 am
Thanks for the message Pete.
My comment about them being the same person was because of the strange absurdity of the exchanges. I’m sure this is primarily because Solnick finds himself investigating an absurd situation rather than some more wierd situation. What would make it most absurd (and most interesting as fiction) is if they were actually the same person. They probably aren’t and at least one of them is not engaged in writing fiction (and at least one of them is).
As I mentioned to Lucia, I do have two other concerns.
1. I’m worried about the border between legitimate investigation and an invasion of privacy.
2. The extent to which the Sky Dragon book reads like a parody of sceptical/denier/contrarian arguments worries me. As far as I can tell they are genuine believers who have gone to some lengths to create multiple straw men for people to knock down (Oliver Manuel being the best example)
Nyq-
Yes. In fiction it would be funny if O’Sullivan and Skolnick were the same person. I don’t think O’Sullivan is secretly a warmist playing the head of the Slayers. It would be funny in fiction, but I don’t think it’s the case.
Nyq–
Could you clarify: Are you suggesting Oliver K Manuel isn’t a person who really believes the whole Iron Sun thing? That’s he’s a character made up by someone else? I think Oliver K Manuel is a real person but I also think practically no one in any camp takes his iron sun hypothesis seriously.
In my opinion, one of the disservices of the whole “Slaying the Sky Dragon” book is to foster the impression that people in the skeptic camp take Oliver’s notions seriously.
So far, I’m not worried Skolnick has invaded Sullivan’s privacy. I simply don’t see any evidence privacy has been invaded. Skolnick seems to be focused on the truth of claims O’Sullivan presented to the public and sometimes in court. The precise dividing line between private and public is sometimes difficult to identify. But determining whether claims presented to the public are true seems to me to fall outside the shield of personal privacy.
OTOH the dragon-slaying stuff has been useful in identifying a couple of raging loons.
.
Besides, you can’t argue with the entertainment value of Claes Johnson taking on the great conspiracies of science – like special relativity, for instance.
The idea that warmists would create “fake” skeptics who launched crazy ideas (Iron Sun) is one I floated a long time ago.
As a whole I think skeptics would do well to focus their arguments and disgard the junk ( like sky dragons )
The real fight is over sensitivity
“Could you clarify:” – apologies, it wasn’t clear what the straw man was.
1. The iron sun is, for the purposes of ‘warmists’*, a straw man argument
2. the argument was, as far as I’m aware, created by a real person who believes the argument
[* we really need better terms for the numerous sides, groupings, factions and PoV in these discussions. I’m OK with being called a ‘warmist’ or even a ‘warmista’ but others might not be]
Nyq–
What to call people in different camps is a thorny issue with more hands than Kali.
On the one hand, some terms are either seem or are crafted to be derogatory. Warmista sound a bit like Sandanista. Denier can sound a bit like “Holocaust”.
I prefer “warmer”, “lukewarmer”, “cooler” and if necessary, adding adjectives. But on the other hand, clearly neutral descriptive terms tend not to be used.
Plus, lots of coolers — and I mean people who say they think the next 50 years are more likely to exhibit cooling than warming– like to claim they are lukewarmers. Why do they like to claim this? I don’t know.
Seems to me they should have the courage of their convictions and call themselves coolers. In fact, I think anyone who takes umbrage at the use of denialist should suggest others use terms like warmer, lukewarmer and cooler. Moreover, if they are coolers, they are a cooler and not try to use grouchiness to insist people call then ‘lukewarmer”. Similarly, warmers should admit they are warmers. (Most do– but I don’t think they’ve embraced the word.)
toto:
Mocking fools as a sport has worn thin for me, as has throwing food at other groups for the sake of throwing food. So, yeah, I can argue about the arguable entertainment value of mocking loons.
Simples, lucia, and we’ve gone over this before. I’m a lukewarming cooler because I believe that CO2 has a lukewarming effect on climate and because I believe that the next few decades will see global cooling. It is not dishonesty, it is using the terms to describe two different things; one the effect of CO2, the other the temperature course of the future.
============
Kim–
Yes. We’ve gone over this before. The term “lukewarming-cooler” doesn’t make sense. I didn’t say it was dishonesty. I say that you are, for some reason trying to create a term that doesn’t make any sense. As far as I can see, despite the fact that you think cooling is more likely than warming for the next few decades you want to describe yourself as lukewarmer.
This is a confusing usage– but for some reason, some coolers want to use it.
Of course, I don’t own English. You may call yourself whatever you wish. As I’ve said before, I would not call you any sort of warmer whatsoever. Today, I am simply observing that one of the difficulties with coming up with descriptive words is that some people want coin usages that sound contradictory.
Kim: “it is using the terms to describe two different things”
I see your point but I was hoping for some taxonomic simplicity and I’m afraid your choice creates further complexity! 🙂
When I’ve tried this in the past people have got upset – probably because nobody likes to be put in boxes – however let me suggest some ways forward and we’ll worry about labels later.
Clearly people engaged in the discussion on climate change differ in their views in multiple ways. Some people hold opinions that are very similar to large numbers of others. Some people hold very idiosyncratic views. It would be most respectful to only ever ascribe to each individual their exact position on every aspect of the issues – but, at the same time, there is often need to talk more generally. Apart from anything else this is a political issue and an issue in which there are, or there are percieved to be, sides (and agendas and movements and factions and groupings etc).
It is also safe to assume that on many issues a person holding one view is likely (but not certain) to hold a related view. It is conciveable that a person might think that temperatures have been rising and yet believe sea-levels are falling – but that would be a hard position to rationalise and not likely to be a characteristic of a group of people.
I would suggest that we can characterise views on a small number of issues. Because we would expect much correlation between those views there could be many ways of picking a more narrow set but I’ll suggest a few to start off with.
First we could categories attitudes towards temperatures in three categories:
Future trends: warm – lukewarm – cool
Recent past: warm – lukewarm – cool
Historical/Paleo: MWP cool – lukewarm – MWP warm
By future trends I mean the likely shape of trends over the coming century.
Recent past would refer to attitudes towards the temperatur record. Few people would be “cool” but many might thing the trend is lower than it appears in the record due to urban-heat island or evil-doing or whatever.
Historical/Paleo is a huge area but for convenience we can look at one issue – beliefs about the medieval warm period. Few thing this was ‘cool’ (if anybody) but many would think it wasn’t global and hence not particularly warm. The ‘consensus’ position (i.e. the IPCC et al position) would be a ‘lukewarm’ attitude.
Now those categories still aren’t sufficient because not only do we want to map attitudes to positions on a temperature scale but also the extent to which people are COMMITTED to those views. For example Hansen believes strongly that future trends will be warm. Lucia is at least moderately commited to the otion of lukewarm trends. However many ‘coolers’ aren’t particulalry committed to the notion that temperatures will get cooler (some are, some aren’t). To answer Lucia’s point I think some ‘coolers’ call themselves ‘lukewarmers’ because they think thinks will get cooler but aren’t very committed to that view.
So we have another scale orthogonal to those three based on strength of beleif: strong – to -weak.
A warmista like myself (i.e. a lefty ) would be:
FT: warm-strong (i.e. I’m committed to the idea that things will get significantly warmer and if they don’t and I have to seriously rethink my position)
RP: warmish-strong (i.e. I think the temperature record is basically accurate)
HP: lukewarm-weak (i.e. I think temps are probably warmer now than in the MWP but if a bunch of new evidence came along showing otherwise I wouldn’t be terribly put out).
Other more general scales we could look at might include:
Attribution: humans – non-human (i.e. how much humans drive climate)
Extreme events: increase (freq or intensity) – decrease
This one is interesting in so far as you get more variance among the warmer side. Some green activist assert extreme weather (both intensity and frequency) as definitely increasing – but the science is more equivocal.
And
Sensitivity: high – low Which is the nub of it all but which not ebverybody gets.
And broadening the scope from the science toward policy there are also economic dimensions such as the extent to which economic models of the cost of climate change should discount future costs:
Economic discounting: low – high
And the big policy question:
Government policy: heavy – light – none
[I’m not considering mitigation or geo-engineering in that – maybe those as other scales?]
Having said all that I still don’t think I could categorise Judith Curry 🙂
Need a term, lucia. There are more and more of us, lately, and ‘denialist’ is just too damn ironic, even for me.
====================
Have temperatures risen is last 100 years? – Yes
Has CO2 increase contributed to recent warming? Yes
Have humans contributed to recent warming? Yes
Have humans contributed to CO2 increase? Yes
Has UHI distorted actual recent warming? Probably yes
Has confirmation bias contributed to climate science? Probably yes
Will warming or cooling occur over the next 20-30 years? Probably cooling
Am I a warmista, a lukewarmer, a lukecooler, a cooler, or a denier? I’ve no idea.
Kim
How about ‘delusional’?
Steveta_uk-
Why do you think cooling is more likely over the next 20-30 years? But I’d say if you think cooling is more likely than warming over 30 years, you are a cooler. I would not call someone who thinks the effects of GHG’s are so weak that natural variability not only might, but likely will overwhelm it over the next 30 years a warmer of any type.
If we call that group lukewarmers then there is simply no distinction between a lukewarmer and a cooler. None. Mind you, that can happen in English– synonyms exist. But in this case we are discussing terms that are being coined and the purpose of coining them is specifically to distinguish between people with different beliefs about the likelihood of warming vs. cooling and/or the magnitude of climate sensitivity. To my mind, if lukewarmer includes cooler, it becomes useless.
But as I said– I don’t own English. But I don’t call people who anticipate cooling more likely than warming– over 3 decades “lukewarmers”. This is an entirely different thing from diagnosing whether or not they might be correct.
Kim
I don’t know what group you think there are more and more of.
People who believe cooling more likely than warming but want to call themselves and have others call them lukewarmers? Sure. There seem to be a lot of coolers who want to be called lukewarmers. Some, like you, present convoluted explanations why you should be called a lukewarmer.
Is the growing group people who think cooling more likely than warming? I don’t think that group is really growing. I think it’s stable. Surveys get worded differently and you get different results from time to time. I think, as always, the group who don’t think about the issue very often and have no fixed opinion is the largest of all.
BBD, I know you are a strong believer in CAGW from your postings at the Bish’s, but please show me, where is it? I’d hate to be deluded.
lucia, the number of people understanding that the sun’s role has been diminished in the literature is growing. And then we have the Cheshire Cat Sunspots grinning at us all.
========================
Kim
I look at it like this:
Short-term cooling trends in BEST 1970 – 2010.2.
Over-enthusiastic sceptics could have called time on AGW in:
1980
1988
1995
2001
2005
They would have been wrong then, as you are now.
kim –
tepidistra?
I guess BBD is over here now because he lost his mojo over at BH.
Andrew
“Am I a warmista, a lukewarmer, a lukecooler, a cooler, or a denier? I’ve no idea.”
As you think temps will get cooler then you are a cooler – but I don’t think we’ve really established what timescale these labels should apply to (maybe 100 years is better). As you seem accept reasonable evidence then “denier” wouldn’t be appropriate. Presumably you believe some factor or factor other anthropogenic greenhouse gases will play a bigger role in the climate. It might be that you believe that other emissions with a cooling effect will dominate as India and China’s industrialisation accelerates. Or you might think solar actvity is playing a big role and so on.
‘warmer’ or ‘lukewarm’ might be sensible labels if you think, in the long run temperatures will get warmer. ‘Denier’ might be a reasonable label if you held tightly to one of your beliefs regradless of the evidence [e.g. it is not denial to think there is a monster in your closet – it is denial to think there is a monster in your closet after double checking it for monsters :)]
‘warmista’ would be reasonable if you marry leftwing/green activism with the issue of global warming but unreasonable if you are a moderate-liberal/conservative who supports reasonable action on global warming [unreasonable because it would portray you as a leftist when you weren’t – it might still be pejorative to call me a warmista but it isn’t misleading because I really am quite leftwing]
Other labels: ‘delayer’ liked by some but it touches on motive [i.e. it suggest positions arent scincerley held and are simply adopted to try and delay political action]
‘contrarian’ – a bit like denier but less inflamatory [i.e. it suggests that positions are being adopted simply on the basis of being the opposite of what appears to be the case]
‘sceptic’ – ah, but you clealry do believe SOMETHING. You believe that for some reason temperatures will get cooler over the next few decades. It is fair to say that you must be relatively credulous rather than sceptical when it comes to whatever it is you think will cause cooling.
Andrew_KY
Oh God. Are you ‘Bad Andrew’?
Bad start, making up rubbish about my commentary on another blog.
Very inauspicious indeed.
Hi Nyq (21st Nov. at 1:07 pm), Andrew Skolnick gives the impression of being a very determined investigative journalist who at one time had a good career with the Journal of the American Medical Association (http://jama.ama-assn.org/search?fulltext=Skolnick&submit=yes&x=0&y=0). Apparently he was an associate editor during the time that Dr. George Lundberg was editor. I understand that Lundberg was sacked in Jan. 1999, allegedly QUOTE:
.. because he interjected the JAMA into United States political debate. He chose to publish a report .. which concluded that US college students did not think of oral sex as “having sex†.. Lundberg .. fast-tracked the article’s publication to coincide with US President Bill Clinton’s impeachment over the Monica Lewinsky affair. .. American Medical Association Executive Vice President .. noted that: “through his recent actions [Lundberg] has threatened the historical tradition and integrity of JAMA by .. interjecting [it] into a major political debate that has nothing to do with science or medicine .. â€.. UNQUOTE (http://ajp.physiotherapy.asn.au/AJP/vol_48/3/AustJPhysiotherv48i3Van%20Der%20Weyden.pdf). (According to that report there were numerous other Journals doing some editorial restructuring at the time.)
Apparently Andrew had been dismissed by the AMA only two months earlier, allegedly because QUOTE:
.. You were fired, said a memo from AMA employee relations, because “you did not inform your supervisor or receive consent to work on [the Post-Dispatch] articles which were on subject matters very similar to that which you were currently working on for JAMA.” .. UNQUOTE although, understandably, Andrew had a different take on it.
I’m more inclined to suspect that a political motive was involved in both of those dismissals and this article “The AMA’s Lobbyists & Political Contributions†(http://politicalcorrection.org/factcheck/200906110008) provides some evidence of that. Andrew does come across as being somewhat to the left of centre.
As is to be expected, being a thorough researcher after and reporter of truth (as he sees it) Andrew upset others along the way. Names that spring to mind are Judith Stein (http://groups.google.com/group/alt.meditation.transcendental/tree/browse_frm/month/1996-11/587f57aa51ef2ca7?rnum=141&_done=%2Fgroup%2Falt.meditation.transcendental%2Fbrowse_frm%2Fmonth%2F1996-11%3F), Bruce Morgen and Julio Siqueira (http://www.criticandokardec.com.br/skolnick_s_bitch_fit.htm), but that’s another story.
I don’t think that too much concern about “ .. invasion of privacy .. †is warranted where an individual or organisation is appealing for charitable donations. Before making any donation to an appeal potential donors need to find out as much as they can about the background of those making the appeal. My first experience of the “Slayers†appealing for funds was to support legal action by PSI against Government agencies. That was on 26th Dec. (at 7:11 AM NOT TO BE SENT) when John said QUOTE:
.. in my opinion, we would succeed if we compile our evidence and file a mandamus petition to challenge NOAA. NOAA is based in Washington DC. I am happy to work with one of my contacts in the DC area to file a mandamus in the federal court in D.C. on behalf of PSI. To do this we need to pay filing and court fees, paralegal costs land office expenses. A typical mandamus petition will ordinarily cost a client $3,000. If we can raise $3,000 I can set the legal wheels in motion. The legal skills and resources are at the ready so now the ball is in our court and that of our supporters to raise the $3,000.There is no fear of a counter suit so we cannot be sued for frivolous or malicious filing. This is as cheap a way to score a legal victory as I can suggest .. UNQUOTE.
At that time only about $500 was offered by the “Slayers†themselves. The next appeal that I was aware of was on 17th Jan. when John tried to raise £15,000 to set up PSI as a Community Interest Company (CIC) (http://www.gofundme.com/1v39s), which I was against, preferring the protections provided by being a charity. That appeal has in 10 months managed only £400, with the “ .. first donation of $350 within less than an hour .. â€. When I asked about the source of that donation John confirmed that it was donated by a member of his family.
The next appeal that I was aware of John being involved in was for funds to help Dr. Tim Ball to fight the libel action taken against him by Dr. Michael Mann. In response to my E-mail “PSI, charity v CIC v private company status & Due Diligence†to the “Slayers†enquiring about PSI’s status John advised “ .. I’m deeply involved in representing Dr. Tim Ball in his two libel cases in the Vancouver Supreme Court, BC. Part of helping Tim .. has been in raising funds via public donations. .. Dr. Ball’s supporters have .. donated well over $100,000CAD already in just a few weeks. .. â€. That appeal had been started around April (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/08/help-asked-for-dr-tim-ball-in-legal-battle-with-dr-mann/).
Then in July PSI was launched not as a charity or a CIC but as an Association, advising that “ .. PSI is intended to be funded by member subscriptions and voluntary donations. .. †(http://principia-scientific.org/about-us/why-psi-is-a-private-assoc).
After my “PSI & Due Diligence†exercise I wasn’t inclined to donate in response to any of the three appeals and won’t be applying for membership. I speculate that the “Slayers†will have to resort to what most people who wish to set up their own company have to do, fund it themselves. In my opinion a reasonable question is why QUOTE: .. a group of 36 respected international scientists and related professionals. Mostly .. the authors of ‘Slaying the Sky Dragon,’ the world’s first full volume refutation of the greenhouse gas theory that was “the talk of the Cancun Climate Conference” .. UNQUOTE need to beg for what amounts to a mere £417 each (http://www.gofundme.com/1v39s – first comment) in order to set PSI up as “ .. an active commercial publisher of science articles, compendiums and books .. †(http://principia-scientific.org/about-us/principles-of-association).
Best regards, Pete Ridley
BBD,
Good guess. ‘Tis I. If you work it here as well as you worked it there…well, we are all in for a treat. 😉
Andrew
Lucia, I’m not used to debating John O’Sullivan’s fraudulent conduct on global warming sites with honest people smart enough to find their left hand with their right. So I’m hugely impressed with your grasp of the facts and people involved. Now that I understand your view better, I withdraw my complaint that you haven’t been fully fair.
Would you be interested in seeing a “smoking gun” document that I’m not yet ready to make public? I’m waiting for the law organization to provide me with a public statement. I’ll email it to you if you do agree not to share it with others until I make it public.
Regarding Climategate 2.0, you may find this site of interest http://junkscience.com/2011/11/22/climategate-2-0-is-here/
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Pete, I don’t often compliment you for correctly shedding light on matters, but I gladly do so over your comment about the reasons I was fired by the AMA.
Of course, that was the reason the AMA stated — it was not the actual reason. I was not only free to write for other, non peer-reviewed science publications, my employment record contains a commendation for increasing the public’s appreciation of JAMA through my articles in other publications.
I was fired to prevent Correctional Medical Services from suing the AMA for my article on its misconduct. Though the AMA threw me under the bus, my and my colleagues’ articles were honored with awards from many journalism and human rights organizations.
After getting me fired from the AMA, the head of Correctional Medical Services went to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch with a talking-point memo in his hand saying, “AMA fired Skolnick — what will you give us.”
What the Post-Dispatch gave him was directions to the door in which he came in through.
And while your explanation why JAMA’s editor Dr. George Lundberg was being fired 2 months after I was is not inaccurate, it is incomplete and therefore not a fair account.
The reasons cited by AMA’s CEO Dr. E. Ratcliff Anderson for firing Dr. Lundgerg were widely criticized as bogus and an attack on the editorial independence of the renowned journal. Anderson was a corrupt official who brought embarrassment to the AMA and was himself fired after generating a lot of unflattering news.
I was invited to write an account of Dr. Lundberg’s firing by Columbia University’s magazine 21st C:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/21stC/issue-4.2/skolnick.html
(By the way, at the bottom of my Columbia University magazine article, I’m identified as a graduate of Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism — which the con artist John O’Sullivan claims I never attended! Mr. O’Sullivan’s way of dealing with those who expose his misdeeds is to look into a mirror and then call them what he sees.)
You’re wrong, Pete, in tying my firing with Dr. Lundberg’s. They were not directly related. The AMA had just fired one EVP over the humiliating “Sunbeam” corruption scandal. To a many people’s shock and disgust, it hired Dr. E. Ratcliffe Anderson to take over as EVP and repair the medical association’s damaged reputation.
It was a shockingly stupid move considering Anderson was involved in an academic scandal of his own and was just fired as Dean of the University of Missouri, Kansas City, School of Medicine.
That was in June 1998. As soon as he took over, he began a clumsy effort to get rid of Dr. Lundberg, and pulled it off seven months later, in Jan. 1999. Two years later, the AMA fired Anderson over perceived hanky panky, and lawsuits flew back and forth between them.
Pete should have also noted that many leading medical authorities and journals had defended Dr. Lundberg’s decision to publish the JAMA study for which he was wrongly fired him.
And I do mean wrongly. When Dr. Lundberg sued the AMA, the association settled quickly for a very large, but undisclosed amount.
Pete, I don’t often compliment you for correctly shedding light on matters, but I gladly do so over your comment about the reasons I was fired by the AMA.
Of course, that was the reason the AMA stated — was not the reason. I was not only free to write for other, non peer-reviewed science publications, my employment record contains a commendation for increasing the public’s appreciation of JAMA through my articles in other publications.
And while your explanation why JAMA’s editor Dr. George Lundberg was being fired 2 months after I was is not inaccurate, it is incomplete and therefore not a fair account.
The reasons cited by AMA’s CEO Dr. E. Ratcliff Anderson for firing Dr. Lundgerg were widely criticized as bogus and an attack on the editorial independence of the renowned journal. Anderson was a corrupt official who brought embarrassment to the AMA and was himself fired after generating a lot of unflattering news.
I was invited to write an account of Dr. Lundberg’s firing by Columbia University’s magazine 21st C:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/21stC/issue-4.2/skolnick.html
(By the way, at the bottom of my Columbia University magazine article, I’m identified as a graduate of Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism — which the con artist John O’Sullivan claims I never attended! Mr. O’Sullivan’s way of dealing with those who expose his misdeeds is to look into a mirror and then call them what he sees.)
You’re wrong, Pete, in tying my firing with Dr. Lundberg’s. They were not directly related. The AMA had just fired one EVP over the humiliating “Sunbeam” corruption scandal. To a many people’s shock and disgust, it hired Dr. E. Ratcliffe Anderson to take over as EVP and repair the medical association’s damaged reputation.
It was a shockingly stupid move considering Anderson was involved in an academic scandal of his own and was just fired as Dean of the University of Missouri, Kansas City, School of Medicine.
That was in June 1998. As soon as he took over, he began a clumsy effort to get rid of Dr. Lundberg, and pulled it off seven months later, in Jan. 1999. Two years later, the AMA fired Anderson over perceived hanky panky, and lawsuits flew back and forth between them.
Pete should have also noted that many leading medical authorities and journals had defended Dr. Lundberg’s decision to publish the JAMA study for which he was wrongly fired him.
And I do mean wrongly. When Dr. Lundberg sued the AMA, the association settled quickly for a very large, but undisclosed amount.
Andrew Skolnick–
I’m happy to wait until you publicly reveal any smoking gun document. On the one hand, that means I will continue to say I haven’t seen it. I’m aware some people will interpret “I haven’t seen” to insinuate it doesn’t exist or could never exist– but I’m not sure how to remedy that.
But, it also means, I won’t be in the weird position of saying “I know this based on stuff I can’t share”. And also, once the document and your interpretation of what it means are public, O’Sullivan will be able to provide his own response to the document and share with us his view of what the document means. I think this is the best way all around.
I suspect as a journalist you are used to waiting until you have all your ducks in a row and then writing. In this particular instance, knowing that, I’m happy to wait to see your whole argument lined up.
LOL, didn’t I tell you not to get mixed up with these guys crazy arguement?
Hi DougT (1st Nov. at 12:07 am) you said “ .. I wouldn’t trust John Sullivan or Andrew Skolnick. Don’t get caught up in their exchanges .. †then posted several similar messages. Although I do not see eye-to-eye with either John or Andrew I do respect them for the fact that they have the courage of their convictions and don’t hide behind false names. I’m reluctant to trust anyone who does that.
By the way, which Doug T are you? – Cottonwood concerned about poisoned cows? Worried about population explosion and resource shortages? worried about the source of new money to meet the nations climate debt?
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Pete,
I am the DougT Anonymous. I used to just go by just Anonymous.
Google me, I have lots of concerns.
DougT–
What’s your point? As far as I can see, nothing bad has happened to me as a result of discussions with Skolnkick and O’Sullivan. Also, the two of them are posting some material here in a fairly neutral environment. I consider this a good thing.
Hi DougT Anonymous (or whatever else you might call yourself. I can see no other reason for anyone hiding behind a false name other than that someone being very concerned that family, friends and enemies will be able to identify who he/she is. That’s what I call cowardice.
It always makes me suspicious when someone uses a false name (or an alias). That reminds me of an exchange that I was having recently with Andrew about John O’Sullivan and his Bracci in-laws in Delhi, New York County (http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/15/letter-to-the-dragon-slayers/#comment-138792). Professor Curry wouldn’t allow the discussion to continue but as Andrew said ” .. Quite an interesting family, I think you’ll agree .. “.
Well, I can’t disagree with that and maybe Lucia will permit Andrew and me to have a chat here about it. It does all relate to John, his past activities and his possible future plans.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Pete,
Pseudonyms are pretty common on the Internet. You may have to just deal with the “cowardice” of the Internet.
Sure I am showing “cowardice”. Why would I want you, of all people, to creep me?
You claim you do not see eye-to-eye with these guys but you sound like you are in bed with Andrew. The three of you are dumpster divers.
If Lucia wants to host this sort of thing then thats Lucia’s prerogative.
Andrew Skolnick has had quite a lot to say about whether or not John O’Sullivan is a lawyer. John has claimed that he is engaged by Dr. Tim Ball in relation to his defence of Dr. Michael Mann’s libel action (e.g. see http://johnosullivan.livejournal.com/41331.html).
I expect that Andrew will be interested in yesterday’s disclosure by John O’Sullivan of an E-mail statement by Dr. Ball about the Climategate 2.0 release of UEA CRU E-mails QUOTE:
.. Commenting by email Dr. Ball said: “These comments are even more damaging than the last. They show the political bias, the control of publications and the fact they were very aware that what they were doing was wrong. I am taking it to my lawyer this morning.†.. UNQUOTE (http://co2insanity.com/2011/11/22/climategate-2-sensational-email-release-durban-conference-derailed/).
He’ll possibly find that ” .. taking it to my lawyer .. ” bit most interesting.
Best Regards, Pete Ridley
DougT, you’re way off-beam with your ” .. in bed with Andrew .. “. I think that “incompatible” best describes our relationship (agreed Andrew?).
BTW, what’s a “dumpster diver”?
Best regards, Pete Ridley
DougT’s profession, if I had to guess.
It’s gone very quiet on this thread. Have you all lost interest in the “Slayers” and their publishing company Principia Scientific International?
I’m surprised that Peter Hartmann hasn’t been back here since his comment on 9th Nov. (at 7:25 am. NOT TO BE SENT). In September Peter wrote and article “John O’Sullivan: Look Ma, no brain!†http://jules-klimaat.blogspot.com/2011/09/john-osullivan-look-ma-no-brain.html but as soon as John turned up here Peter vanished. Perhaps John O’Sullivan’s comments frighten him off. John may be many things but he is not the brainless idiot that Peter implied in his article.
Peter said of the “Slayers†” .. you really need to know some of these people’s works to get the full joke .. “. I disagree. What people really need to do is get to know what motivates the “Slayers” and they’ll realise that making money is no joke. As John said on 2nd January, two weeks before his ludicrous appeal for charitable donations (http://www.gofundme.com/1v39s) was made ” .. Personally, I have no time to not earn a living. I know from my own private conversations that my coauthors may also not have time to devote unpaid to setting up and running a charity .. The ‘Slayers’ project is first and foremost a commercial operation because, for all our hard work and endeavor, we wish to be paid .. â€.
Despite the promotion of PSI as “ .. a business trading with a social purpose .. †that “ .. serves the community .. †“transparency†and that its members “ .. all are supportive of honest and transparent science .. †(http://principia-scientific.org/) Principia Scientific International is “ .. PSI is an active commercial publisher of science articles, compendiums and books. We share the financial rewards from sales .. †(http://principia-scientific.org/about-us/principles-of-association).
Perhaps the “Slayers†should consider whether or not “PECUNIAM EX CONSOLATIONE†is a more appropriate slogan than “AD VERITAS AD VICTORIAM”.
For more information see Professor Judith Curry’s “Letter to the dragon slayers” thread (http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/15/letter-to-the-dragon-slayers/#comments).
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Pete–
It is the nature of threads to die down. 🙂
I don’t so much mind that people want to make a living or even a fortune. Nor do I mind much that some might seek fame. That said, I have no intention of donating to PSI.
I’d say the following appears to be carefully crafted by a skilled copywriter:
As Skolnick is looking into this, I suspect we will eventually know what “has taught both science and law in a 20-year academic career” means.
For example: “has taught both science and law in a 20-year academic career” taken literally could mean a huge range of things. Did John show filmstrips explaining menstruation to a class of 11 year old girls taking physical education? As for law, did he do something equivalent to teaching a US constitution course for Illinois High School students who are (or at least once were) required to pass a constitution test. (You need to know things like what are the bill of rights. It’s somewhat similar to the test required to naturalize. As a mater of literal truth, doing that little could be characterized as “taught both science and law in a 20-year academic career”. But if the statement turns out to be true in this way, many will consider the choice of words to amount to puffing up credentials so as to give the impression of greater range and depth.
But of course the same sentence could describe to someone who’d taught both quantum mechanics and torts at University of Chicago. I’ll be interested in learning the specific academic institutions where John taught, the age and educational background of is students, the time when he taught this things and the exact subjects John taught. I don’t think John has been particularly forthcoming on these.
Hi Lucia, we all have to make a living but there are different ways of going about it. I refuse to give money to street beggars and prefer businesses that I have dealings with to be open and honest. Unfortunately not all businesses are that way inclined. I agree with you about “ .. carefully crafted .. †but John has made other claims that are not so open to interpretation, such as “ .. As an analytical commentator, O’Sullivan has published over 150 major articles worldwide. In the U.S. his work features in the ‘National Review,’ America’s most popular and influential magazine for Republican/conservative news. Among other internationally esteemed publications he has appeared in ‘China Daily,’ the Number One English portal in China, as well as ‘India Times,’ the prime source of business news in India. .. †(http://www.osullivanclan.com/halloffamegalleryiv.html).
During the September/October exchanges that I had in September with the “Slayers†I asked “ .. John, please can you once and for all shut up Andrew, Gareth and any other vile detractors by providing links to irrefutable evidence of your educational, academic and professional claims and telling us precisely which articles of yours featured in the National Review and which appeared in China Daily and The India Times. It is common practice for accredited academics to give full details of their achievements so why don’t you? In my opinion the information provided in Friend Re-united and Linked In doesn’t really adequately support the claims that you make elsewhere .. â€. As I had expected, in his response to that E-mail John ignored what I had said and moved on to other matters “ .. All your questions have already been asked and answered .. I suggest you address the ‘meat’ of this debate which is the validity or otherwise of the science supporting the GHE ,. â€. (see my comment of 25th Oct. at 9:27 am. at http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/15/letter-to-the-dragon-slayers/#comment-127566 ).
Although John claimed to have answered all of my questions he has never provided anything that substantiates his claims about his articles in the National Review, China Daily or The India Times. I have drawn attention to these uncertainties on the “O’Sullivan Clan Discussion Board†(http://osullivanclan.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/hello-world/) because they should be able to obtain confirmation or otherwise of one of “Slayer†John’s claims from John O’Sullivan, one time Editor-at-Large of the National Review. I eagerly await a response from the “Clan†but am not holding my breath..
I cannot disagree with your “ .. I don’t think John has been particularly forthcoming on these .. †despite the claims made about how important “transparency†is for PSI (again see my comments on Professor Curry’s thread e.g. http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/15/letter-to-the-dragon-slayers/#comment-125570).
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Andrew Skolnick successfully held a position as associate editor with the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) pretty-well throughout the 1990s when that journal was highly regarded globally under the leadership of George Lundberg (http://www.bmj.com/content/318/7178/210.extract). Investigative journalist Andrew has no hesitation in providing evidence to substantiate the claims that he makes about his qualifications, his achievements and his articles.
As I indicated in my comment on 28th Nov. at 2:31 pm. I am still waiting for John to provide “ .. links to irrefutable evidence of your educational, academic and professional claims and telling us precisely which articles of yours featured in the National Review and which appeared in China Daily and The India Times .. â€.
On 14th Nov. at 6:54 pm John O’Sullivan said “ .. Skolnick’s garbled bag of lies filed against me with the British Columbia Law Society has now been dismissed in its entirety .. †and linked to his own article “Canada Bar Association Rules ‘No Misconduct’ by Tim Ball’s Legal Team†(http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/home/9557-canada-bar-association-rules-no-misconduct-by-tim-balls-legal-team) in which he proclaims that “ .. The Law Society of British Columbia (LSBC) has now ruled that green activist Andrew Skolnick’s official complaint concerning Dr. Tim Ball’s libel attorney, Michael Scherr and science writer, John O’Sullivan, was baseless. .. â€. John then provided a link to the copy of the LSBC decision that Andrew made available on his web-site (http://www.aaskolnick.com/global_deniers/BC_LawSociety_4-nov311_Skolnick.pdf).
My understanding of that LSBC decision is somewhat different, as it apparently found that there was no misconduct by Mr Scherr. In its “Analysis†the LSBC said that “ .. There is no evidence that Mr Scherr .. was responsible for the false assertions published by Mr O’Sullivan .. â€. That does not seem to me to support John’s claim that the “ .. lies filed against me with the British Columbia Law Society has now been dismissed in its entirety .. â€. It appears reasonable to me to understand the LSBC to consider that Mr. O’Sullivan made false assertions. Of course I could be misreading what the LSBC said and if so I will apologise to John.
Before doing that I’ll await the response that Andrew gets from the LSBC to what appears to be his complaint about John (not Mr Scherr). As Andrew advised us on Professor Curry’s “Letter to the dragon slayers†thread
QUOTE: ..
John O’Sullivan spins another whopper: “Skolnick and Ridley need to face the facts that the British Columbia Law Society thoroughly investigated all the above allegations against me and then dismissed them all as baseless.â€
The Law Society of British Columbia confirmed today that the complaint I had filed against John O’Sullivan – not Michael Scherr – was NOT closed. It is still being investigated:
“As we are in the midst of reviewing a complaint of unauthorized practice, we cannot comment specifically. … The Law Society investigates complaints of people who aren’t lawyers engaged in the unauthorized practice of law. These investigations are based on specific facts and circumstances. Where there is a question of public protection the Law Society seeks undertakings from unauthorized practitioners that they cease. If someone refuses to sign an undertaking we may seek an injunction from the courts.â€
.. UNQUOTE (http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/15/letter-to-the-dragon-slayers/#comment-144198).
Best regards, Pete Ridley
To answer one of John O’Sullivan’s worst bald-faced lies, I did NOT file a complaint with the Law Society of British Columbia against attorney Michael Scherr.
My complaint was filed against Mr. O’Sullivan for unauthorized practice of law in late June. In response to my complaint, the Law Society also began an investigation of Mr. Scherr’s role in O’Sullivan’s unauthorized practice of law.
On Nov. 3rd, after finding no evidence Scherr had approved or was even aware of O’Sullivan’s dishonest conduct,the Society closed its investigation of Mr. Scherr.
However, contrary to all of the humbug’s lies and spin above, my complaint against O’Sullivan’s unauthorized practice of law is STILL under investigation. Yesterday, the Society finally confirmed by email:
“As we are in the midst of reviewing a complaint of unauthorized practice, we cannot comment specifically. … The Law Society investigates complaints of people who aren’t lawyers engaged in the unauthorized practice of law. These investigations are based on specific facts and circumstances. Where there is a question of public protection the Law Society seeks undertakings from unauthorized practitioners that they cease. If someone refuses to sign an undertaking we may seek an injunction from the courts.â€
I will be happy to forward the email to anyone who wishes verification.
And I’ll continue posting updates as the investigation proceeds at this dizzying glacial speed.
Likewise, I will report back what action the New York County Law Association takes now that I brought to the Association’s attention that Mr. O’Sullivan cited phony credentials in his membership application.
Pete said above, “As Skolnick is looking into this, I suspect we will eventually know what ‘has taught both science and law in a 20-year academic career’ means.”
Despite repeated requests for evidence from Mr. O’Sullivan that he taught science or law in high school or college, I’ve found absolutely no evidence that he did. What I learned from a former art school classmate — with whom he had shared a house — after earning an art degree, O’Sullivan went on for teacher training to become a “sports” teacher.
As far as I have been able to find, Mr. O’Sullivan spent the next two decades of his life probably teaching gymnastics and/or art in high schools. I’m still waiting for him to provide evidence that he taught science and law either in either high schools or colleges/universities.
On 17th Nov. John O’Sullivan commented to Lucia QUOTE: .. You have all too easily taken Skolnick’s word on everything as if he is a trustworthy source. Yet he fails to advise you that he was fired from his journalism job with the AMA for misrepresentation. It appears he lied when he claimed he has a master’s degree, won two lawsuits that he actually lost and faked his “Pulitzer Prize nomination.†.. UNQUOTE.
Andrew, like John, does not shy away from making claims about his qualifications, his achievements and his articles but John has not provided any evidence to disprove Andrew’s claims. I have no reason to believe that Andrew would not be able to provide evidence to substantiate his claims. I do not agree with everything that Andrew says however, despite his aggressive style, I have no reason to believe that he is dishonest.
What John failed to advise Lucia was that Andrew Skolnick successfully held a position as associate editor with the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) pretty-well throughout the 1990s when that journal was highly regarded globally under the leadership of Dr. George Lundberg (http://www.bmj.com/content/318/7178/210.extract). From what I have found out about Dr. Lundberg he would not have tolerated a dishonest associate. It seems to me that investigative journalist Andrew has no hesitation in exposing what he regards as fraud and does so in a forceful manner which others find annoying, especially those who he is targeting, but is that uncommon in his line of business?
In that comment of 17th John went on to say of himself “ .. By contrast, I have truthfully stated I possess a law degree and have considerable related teaching and litigating experience to warrant my position. .. I also have published online numerous legal articles addressing climate science fraud in the last 3 years .. â€.
We can all make claims but the acid test of honesty is verification. As I indicated in my comment on 28th Nov. at 2:31 pm. I am still waiting for John to provide “ .. links to irrefutable evidence of (his) educational, academic and professional claims and telling us precisely which articles of (his) featured in the National Review and which appeared in China Daily and The India Times .. â€.
On 12th Nov. in another of the many appearances of John’s article “Canada Bar Association Rules ‘No Misconduct’ by Tim Ball’s Legal Team†(http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/home/9557-canada-bar-association-rules-no-misconduct-by-tim-balls-legal-team) Andrew commented “ .. John, it’s great to finally see you stand and try to defend your credentials instead of running off and hiding. I’ll make this simple. Here’s what you have to do to stop me from accusing you of being a humbug and pathological liar: .. †listing 6 items, including “ .. — Cite the title and date of publication of the articles you published in National Review and Forbes magazine. Be careful, John. If you try to pass off articles written by the National Review’s editor-at-large again, they might take action this time .. â€.
John provided an immediate response but completely ignored the matter of those claimed articles in the National Review and Forbes magazine. I find it very puzzling why John remains so reluctant to provide links to irrefutable evidence about those articles, others in China Daily and The India Times and his claimed qualifications. To do so would remove any doubt about whether John or Andrew are distorting the facts but his refusal may simply increase suspicion.
As I commented in an E-mail to John and the rest of PSI’s “Slayers†on 28th Sept. QUOTE: .. You no doubt remember the exchanges with Andrew Skolnick .. on Professor Curry’s thread “Slaying the Sky Dragonâ€. Andrew (and others involved) were never satisfied that you had responded properly to his questions about your claimed academic and professional credentials .. There are also some interesting comments made and links provided in “So many lies – and the liar who tells them†by Gareth Renowden .. I get the impression that Andrew Skolnick (and other like-minded individuals) might consider the claims made .. about the credentials of its principal founder are just another .. brand of BS .. I expect that you are aware of what is said in “Criminal Justice: Does Silence Mean Guilt?†(http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,899502,00.html).. “ .. silence can still leave a strong suspicion of guilt in the minds of the lay public .. â€
.. UNQUOTE.
On 30th Sept. I E-mailed John et al. on .. the dwindling “Slayer†numbers .. and about the derogatory comments .. made by Andrew Skolnick and Gareth Renowden (http://sciblogs.co.nz/hot-topic/tag/osullivan/). In that E-mail I said “ .. John, please can you once and for all shut up Andrew, Gareth and any other vile detractors by providing links to irrefutable evidence of your educational, academic and professional claims and telling us precisely which articles of yours featured in the National Review and which appeared in China Daily and The India Times. It is common practice for accredited academics to give full details of their achievements so why don’t you? In my opinion the information provided in Friend Re-united and Linked In doesn’t really adequately support the claims that you make elsewhere .. â€.
In my opinion John never did provide any evidence to refute the claims made by Andrew and Gareth. offering is hand-waving and diversionary tactics, despite all of the opportunies that he has had to convince everyone that those contentious claims he has made about his achievements are valid.
Here on 14th Nov. John O’Sullivan said “ .. Skolnick’s garbled bag of lies filed against me with the British Columbia Law Society has now been dismissed in its entirety .. †and linked to his own article “Canada Bar Association Rules ‘No Misconduct’ by Tim Ball’s Legal Team†(http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/home/9557-canada-bar-association-rules-no-misconduct-by-tim-balls-legal-team) in which he proclaims that “ .. The Law Society of British Columbia (LSBC) has now ruled that green activist Andrew Skolnick’s official complaint concerning Dr. Tim Ball’s libel attorney, Michael Scherr and science writer, John O’Sullivan, was baseless. .. â€. John then provided a link to the copy of the LSBC decision that Andrew made available on his web-site (http://www.aaskolnick.com/global_deniers/BC_LawSociety_4-nov311_Skolnick.pdf).
My understanding of that LSBC decision is somewhat different, as it apparently found that there was no misconduct by Mr Scherr. In its “Analysis†the LSBC said that “ .. There is no evidence that Mr Scherr .. was responsible for the false assertions published by Mr O’Sullivan .. â€. That does not seem to me to support John’s claim that the “ .. lies filed against me with the British Columbia Law Society has now been dismissed in its entirety .. â€. It appears reasonable to me to understand the LSBC to consider that Mr. O’Sullivan made false assertions. Of course I could be misreading what the LSBC said and if so I will apologise to John.
Before doing that I’ll await the response that Andrew gets from the LSBC to what appears to be his complaint about John (not Mr Scherr).
Getting back to John’s comment about “ .. addressing climate science fraud .. â€, some of his most interesting comments about that were made in numerous “PSI & Due Diligence†E-mails during Dec./Jan. after having declared on 28th December “ .. I’ve staked my reputation, sweat and own money on beating the AGW fraud in the courts-its the ONLY SERIOUS GAME IN TOWN .. †(my emphasis added).
John had outlined his plans in his Chapter 21 “Legal Fallout from False Climate Alarm†in “Slaying the Sky Dragon†and filled in much of the detail during those “PSI & Due Diligence†exchanges. Nearly a year later it seems that John has now changed his opinion of 4th Jan. about “ .. how the law will need to be used by our lawyers in English common law nations to win climate cases .. â€. PSI is now declared to be simply “ .. an active commercial publisher of science articles, compendiums and books. We share the financial rewards from sales .. â€.
On 2nd Jan. John said “Personally, I have no time to not earn a living. I know from my own private conversations that my coauthors may also not have time to devote unpaid to setting up and running a charity .. â€. Taking that into consideration alongside the difficulties that established publishers like Bloomsbury and McFarland & Co are facing I don’t see much future for a minuscule publisher like PSI with such a large “executive†looking for income.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
This is a test comment only
Pete–
Looks like you passed the test!
A couple of my posts didn’t get posted so maybe they were too long. I’ll try them in parts.
PART 1
On 17th Nov. John O’Sullivan commented to Lucia QUOTE: .. You have all too easily taken Skolnick’s word on everything as if he is a trustworthy source. Yet he fails to advise you that he was fired from his journalism job with the AMA for misrepresentation. It appears he lied when he claimed he has a master’s degree, won two lawsuits that he actually lost and faked his “Pulitzer Prize nomination.†.. UNQUOTE.
Andrew, like John, does not shy away from making claims about his qualifications, his achievements and his articles but John has not provided any evidence to disprove Andrew’s claims. I have no reason to believe that Andrew would not be able to provide evidence to substantiate his claims. I do not agree with everything that Andrew says however, despite his aggressive style, I have no reason to believe that he is dishonest.
What John failed to advise Lucia was that Andrew Skolnick successfully held a position as associate editor with the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) pretty-well throughout the 1990s when that journal was highly regarded globally under the leadership of Dr. George Lundberg (http://www.bmj.com/content/318/7178/210.extract). From what I have found out about Dr. Lundberg he would not have tolerated a dishonest associate. It seems to me that investigative journalist Andrew has no hesitation in exposing what he regards as fraud and does so in a forceful manner which others find annoying, especially those who he is targeting, but is that uncommon in his line of business?
In that comment of 17th John went on to say of himself “ .. By contrast, I have truthfully stated I possess a law degree and have considerable related teaching and litigating experience to warrant my position. .. I also have published online numerous legal articles addressing climate science fraud in the last 3 years .. â€.
We can all make claims but the acid test of honesty is verification. As I indicated in my comment on 28th Nov. at 2:31 pm. I am still waiting for John to provide “ .. links to irrefutable evidence of (his) educational, academic and professional claims and telling us precisely which articles of (his) featured in the National Review and which appeared in China Daily and The India Times .. â€.
On 12th Nov. in another of the many appearances of John’s article “Canada Bar Association Rules ‘No Misconduct’ by Tim Ball’s Legal Team†(http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/home/9557-canada-bar-association-rules-no-misconduct-by-tim-balls-legal-team) Andrew commented “ .. John, it’s great to finally see you stand and try to defend your credentials instead of running off and hiding. I’ll make this simple. Here’s what you have to do to stop me from accusing you of being a humbug and pathological liar: .. †listing 6 items, including “ .. — Cite the title and date of publication of the articles you published in National Review and Forbes magazine. Be careful, John. If you try to pass off articles written by the National Review’s editor-at-large again, they might take action this time .. â€.
John provided an immediate response but completely ignored the matter of those claimed articles in the National Review and Forbes magazine. I find it very puzzling why John remains so reluctant to provide links to irrefutable evidence about those articles, others in China Daily and The India Times and his claimed qualifications. To do so would remove any doubt about whether John or Andrew are distorting the facts but his refusal may simply increase suspicion.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
PART 2 (please add http://www. to the incomplete links)
As I commented in an E-mail to John and the rest of PSI’s “Slayers†on 28th Sept. QUOTE: .. You no doubt remember the exchanges with Andrew Skolnick .. on Professor Curry’s thread “Slaying the Sky Dragonâ€. Andrew (and others involved) were never satisfied that you had responded properly to his questions about your claimed academic and professional credentials .. There are also some interesting comments made and links provided in “So many lies – and the liar who tells them†by Gareth Renowden .. I get the impression that Andrew Skolnick (and other like-minded individuals) might consider the claims made .. about the credentials of its principal founder are just another .. brand of BS .. I expect that you are aware of what is said in “Criminal Justice: Does Silence Mean Guilt?†(time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,899502,00.html).. “ .. silence can still leave a strong suspicion of guilt in the minds of the lay public .. â€
.. UNQUOTE.
On 30th Sept. I E-mailed John et al. on .. the dwindling “Slayer†numbers .. and about the derogatory comments .. made by Andrew Skolnick and Gareth Renowden (http://sciblogs.co.nz/hot-topic/tag/osullivan/). In that E-mail I said “ .. John, please can you once and for all shut up Andrew, Gareth and any other vile detractors by providing links to irrefutable evidence of your educational, academic and professional claims and telling us precisely which articles of yours featured in the National Review and which appeared in China Daily and The India Times. It is common practice for accredited academics to give full details of their achievements so why don’t you? In my opinion the information provided in Friend Re-united and Linked In doesn’t really adequately support the claims that you make elsewhere .. â€.
In my opinion John never did provide any evidence to refute the claims made by Andrew and Gareth. offering is hand-waving and diversionary tactics, despite all of the opportunities that he has had to convince everyone that those contentious claims he has made about his achievements are valid.
Here on 14th Nov. John O’Sullivan said “ .. Skolnick’s garbled bag of lies filed against me with the British Columbia Law Society has now been dismissed in its entirety .. †and linked to his own article “Canada Bar Association Rules ‘No Misconduct’ by Tim Ball’s Legal Team†(climatechangedispatch.com/home/9557-canada-bar-association-rules-no-misconduct-by-tim-balls-legal-team) in which he proclaims that “ .. The Law Society of British Columbia (LSBC) has now ruled that green activist Andrew Skolnick’s official complaint concerning Dr. Tim Ball’s libel attorney, Michael Scherr and science writer, John O’Sullivan, was baseless. .. â€. John then provided a link to the copy of the LSBC decision that Andrew made available on his web-site (aaskolnick.com/global_deniers/BC_LawSociety_4-nov311_Skolnick.pdf).
My understanding of that LSBC decision is somewhat different, as it apparently found that there was no misconduct by Mr Scherr. In its “Analysis†the LSBC said that “ .. There is no evidence that Mr Scherr .. was responsible for the false assertions published by Mr O’Sullivan .. â€. That does not seem to me to support John’s claim that the “ .. lies filed against me with the British Columbia Law Society has now been dismissed in its entirety .. â€. It appears reasonable to me to understand the LSBC to consider that Mr. O’Sullivan made false assertions. Of course I could be misreading what the LSBC said and if so I will apologise to John.
Before doing that I’ll await the response that Andrew gets from the LSBC to what appears to be his complaint about John (not Mr Scherr).
Best regards, Pete Ridley
PART 3
Here on 14th Nov. John O’Sullivan said “ .. Skolnick’s garbled bag of lies filed against me with the British Columbia Law Society has now been dismissed in its entirety .. †and linked to his own article “Canada Bar Association Rules ‘No Misconduct’ by Tim Ball’s Legal Team†(http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/home/9557-canada-bar-association-rules-no-misconduct-by-tim-balls-legal-team) in which he proclaims that “ .. The Law Society of British Columbia (LSBC) has now ruled that green activist Andrew Skolnick’s official complaint concerning Dr. Tim Ball’s libel attorney, Michael Scherr and science writer, John O’Sullivan, was baseless. .. â€. John then provided a link to the copy of the LSBC decision that Andrew made available on his web-site (http://www.aaskolnick.com/global_deniers/BC_LawSociety_4-nov311_Skolnick.pdf).
My understanding of that LSBC decision is somewhat different, as it apparently found that there was no misconduct by Mr Scherr. In its “Analysis†the LSBC said that “ .. There is no evidence that Mr Scherr .. was responsible for the false assertions published by Mr O’Sullivan .. â€. That does not seem to me to support John’s claim that the “ .. lies filed against me with the British Columbia Law Society has now been dismissed in its entirety .. â€. It appears reasonable to me to understand the LSBC to consider that Mr. O’Sullivan made false assertions. Of course I could be misreading what the LSBC said and if so I will apologise to John.
Before doing that I’ll await the response that Andrew gets from the LSBC to what appears to be his complaint about John (not Mr Scherr).
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Pete– They went to spam. It’s probably the number of links. When that happens, click “contact lucia” and send me a note. I don’t always notice the spam bin has stuff in it. I released a bunch. Now you won’t have to retype.
PART 4
Getting back to John’s comment about “ .. addressing climate science fraud .. â€, some of his most interesting comments about that were made in numerous “PSI & Due Diligence†E-mails during Dec./Jan. after having declared on 28th December “ .. I’ve staked my reputation, sweat and own money on beating the AGW fraud in the courts-its the ONLY SERIOUS GAME IN TOWN .. †(my emphasis added).
John had outlined his plans in his Chapter 21 “Legal Fallout from False Climate Alarm†in “Slaying the Sky Dragon†and filled in much of the detail during those “PSI & Due Diligence†exchanges. Nearly a year later it seems that John has now changed his opinion of 4th Jan. about “ .. how the law will need to be used by our lawyers in English common law nations to win climate cases .. â€. PSI is now declared to be simply “ .. an active commercial publisher of science articles, compendiums and books. We share the financial rewards from sales .. â€.
On 2nd Jan. John said “Personally, I have no time to not earn a living. I know from my own private conversations that my coauthors may also not have time to devote unpaid to setting up and running a charity .. â€. Taking that into consideration alongside the difficulties that established publishers like Bloomsbury and McFarland & Co are facing I don’t see much future for a minuscule publisher like PSI with such a large “executive†looking for income.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Hi Lucia, it seems that the problem that I had in trying to post my comment was in PART 3. I initially tried it as now posted but it failed. I then removed the links, it posted OK then I was able to insert the links using “Edit”.
Strange!
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Pete–
When you submit, the WP “core” counts links. When you edit, it doesn’t. Links are what’s limited. I’ll increase the limit.
Hmmm… it must be AKISMET that bounced you. My link limit was 10. But many spam filters are suspicious of links.
Pete Ridley,
Wow, you sure do like to write!
.
Bad news for you: it seems to me very unlikely anyone cares much about this subject; the parties should settle it in court or outside of court. People (lots of them!) inflate their credentials, experience, and education. You are trying to pick up Jello in a steamy hot room with chop-sticks… blindfolded.
.
IMO, there is no need to trouble everyone about it. Let it go.
SteveF, your “lots of people do it” excuse is nonsense.
Arguing that lots of people fraudulently pass themselves off as lawyers and legal scholars to promote themselves, their books, their company, and to solicit donations is like saying lots of people steal, rape, and murder, so there is no need to trouble everyone about it. Let it go.
And you say it’s “very unlikely anyone cares much about this subject,” yet here you are telling us to leave John O’Sullivan alone. Sure seems like you care.
Pete
“It’s gone very quiet on this thread. Have you all lost interest in the “Slayers†and their publishing company Principia Scientific International?”
yup
Pete:
:Hi DougT Anonymous (or whatever else you might call yourself. I can see no other reason for anyone hiding behind a false name other than that someone being very concerned that family, friends and enemies will be able to identify who he/she is. That’s what I call cowardice.”
Say that over at Deep Climate. Or Thingsbreak. or policylass.
that’ll take some courage. you need links?
Lucia.
“For example: “has taught both science and law in a 20-year academic career†taken literally could mean a huge range of things. Did John show filmstrips explaining menstruation to a class of 11 year old girls taking physical education? As for law, did he do something equivalent to teaching a US constitution course for Illinois High School students who are (or at least once were) required to pass a constitution test. ”
I love that. I think the locution pretty much points to something like that. I could say of myself that I’ve studied
chinese, korean, german, french, russian, linguistics, philosophy, physics, mathematics, statistics, greek history, computer science, literature, aerodynamics, optics, music, signal processing, law, psychology, wow the list goes on and on. Of course some of this means I studied the menu, looked at the pictures, and figure out that Pho meant noodles or something like that.
“taught science and law for 20 years” is so much more natural that when someone departs from that kind of locution one looks for a reason: poor writing skills or studied ambiguity. I vote for the latter but will settle for the former
steven mosher (Comment #86525)
November 30th, 2011 at 10:44 pm
Yet MBH98 is still a popular topic in many places.
Askolnick (Comment #86524),
.
I did not say “everyone does it”, and I am not suggesting that inflating ones qualifications/background is a good thing, nor that should it be encouraged. I am saying it is not uncommon. Do you really doubt that?
.
I am further suggesting that your focus on Mr. O’Sullivan is just not terribly important in the grand scheme of things, and not at all of interest to most people. Falsely claiming to be a licensed attorney and unlawfully practicing law is a criminal action which doesn’t require your loudly blaring public trumpet in order to be properly addressed. The appropriate action, if you are truly concerned about it, is to bring it to the attention of law enforcement in the appropriate district(s). If there is any truth to what you claim, they will certainly handle Mr. O’Sullivan within the law.
.
Your obvious political differences with Mr. O’Sullivan, and what you think of him as a person are simply tedious. Give it a rest.
Steven, yes, most of the locution the humbug uses on his resumes and bios are great examples of studied ambiguity.
Take for example his claim to be the most popular science journalist writing about climate science. He claims he “has published over 150 major articles worldwide” adding that “his work features in the National Review” and “Forbes magazine.” No doubt, he wrote this is such an awkward way to allow himself to claim — if he is ever trapped — that something he wrote was once quoted by someone in one of National Review’s and Forbes magazine’s blogs!
The pathological liar, however, is such an ego maniac, even when trapped, he won’t back down. That’s why, when he was aggressively challenged to “put up or shut up” and cite the articles he published in those magazines, he posted links to 2 National Review articles on climate change written by “John O’Sullivan.”
It took us a bit of research to confirm what we suspected: those articles were not written by the con artist; they were written by the John O’ Sullivan who is National Review’s editor-at-large. The Sky Dragon Sleazer had the audacity to try to steal the well-known conservative writer’s articles and pass them off as his own. I reported his literary theft to the National Review editors.
Steve F, you clearly don’t want me to keep reporting on how this global warming denier — who some call the most popular climate change writer on the Internet — is a fraud, who is posing as a successful attorney and legal scholar.
You need to understand something, I have no reason to care what you want. If you don’t want to read about O’Sullivan’s fraudulent conduct, then don’t. That’s your right.
But you already know that. What you actually want is to prevent others from learning about how the humbug is promoting himself, his books, and his global warming denier agenda by posing as a “successful” lawyer and legal scholar. That’s not your right.
I’ve already filed complaints with appropriate authorities (who move as quickly as sleepy snails). My main duty as an investigative journalist, however, is to inform the public. Don’t want to read the evidence I uncover? Then don’t. You can exercise your rights and I’ll exercise mine.
BTW Steve F, I hope you realize you’ve twice posted comments about the subject you claim “very unlikely anyone cares much about.”
You’ve now proven yourself hilariously wrong.
Askolnick (Comment #86536),
Actually I don’t give a hoot if you keep doing what you have been doing. I just think you would be better served to focus your obviously substantial energies on subjects of more import. I don’t personally believe most of the nonsense Mr. O’Sullivan spouts, and I suspect that most people who read and comment here don’t believe him either. What an investigative journalist chooses to report on does seem to depend on what that reporter thinks is important; no surprise there. I am saying that the importance you place on Mr. O’Sullivan is grossly exaggerated in the grand scheme of things.
SteveF–
I think that most people at this blog developed a certain opinion of him based on his compiling that gawd-awful Slayer book. I like ASkolnick’s term “are great examples of studied ambiguity. ” to characterize Sullivan’s self descriptions. I think this “studied ambiguity” is what makes many people expect that when ASkolnick wraps all this up things like “taught science” will translate into the lower end of the [“showed 6th graders film-strips about reproductive health” , “lectured graduate students”] range.
Unlike you, I am at least a little interested in reading about all this– when someone has figured it all out and put the story together. I think that’s a few months off. (I also note that some of the ‘accusations’ don’t bother me. It doesn’t bother me that Sullivan would like to figure out how to make a living while pursuing whatever it is about global warming he wants to pursue. That said: I don’t mind that Gavin Schmidt or Michael Mann have paying jobs either. )
What we learn about O’Sullivan isn’t going to change what’s true about Global Warming nor what is true about the scientists behavior in climategate etc. So, I can completely understand why many don’t care one way or another. Still, for now, those who want to chat on this thread are welcome to. Those who don’t can ignore it. Those who want to spend a lot of time on Sullivan can–most of us won’t.
The thread auto-closes when discussion dies down. It seems a few people are still chatting so it stays open!
Lucia,
“The thread auto-closes when discussion dies down.”
OK. Knowing that, I will comment no more.
We’ll miss you Steve.
“The thread auto-closes when discussion dies down.â€
Does anyone doubt that Askolenick and Pete will not game your system?
Bugs
“Yet MBH98 is still a popular topic in many places.”
yes, as long as it is cited by peer review literature there will be interest. Science is supposed to be self CORRECTING. That means you dont “move on” you retract, you stop citing it as an authority, etc.
O’sullivan should get his and get it good. I am glad Asholnick is on the case.
lucia
“studied ambiguity” is my term. Andrew kindly repeated my apt description.
Steven Mosher (Comment #86555)
December 1st, 2011 at 2:19 pm
Do we retract General Relativity? The process is correcting, people refer to it as they try to improve what that paper started.
http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&q=mann+bradley+hughes+Global-scale+temperature+patterns+and+climate+forcing+over+the+past+six+centuries&btnG=Search&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_ylo=2005&as_vis=0
Mosher–
I should have noticed you used the brilliant wording. 🙂
DougT–
What’s to game? The thread closes or it doesn’t. Not a biggie.
Re: bugs (Comment #86558) 
December 1st, 2011 at 3:01 pm
We retract General Relativity if the derivation shows mistakes and the theory is not robust (or at least correctable) in the face of new data. MBH is more about demonstrating a methodology for proxy temperature reconstruction than about a theory, so it isn’t really a good comparison.
UK’s right wing Independent Party deplores censorship — unless it’s to censor speech the fascerati don’t want others to hear.
I noticed that the Ukipscotland web site published an article claiming Sky Dragon Slayer leader John O’Sullivan was a victim of “censorship†because he was fired by Suite101.com. So I posted a comment pointing out that the humbug was fired shortly after I brought his bogus credentials to the attention of Suite101.com’s managing editor.
My comment was immediately deleted and replaced by a number of comments attacking me. I posted a brief comment protesting the hypocrisy:
“It appears UKIP’s editor is blind to the irony and hypocrisy of censoring my comments while deriding the “censorship†of global warming denier John O’Sullivan. I suspect he’ll censor this comment as well, but I’ll at least have a screen capture to show others how Ukipscotland is little more than a propaganda blog.â€
This too was immediately censored. As I warned, I have now published a capture of the web page showing how grossly hypocritical this right wing party is practicing censorship and condemning it in the same breath:
http://www.aaskolnick.com/global_deniers/ukip/ukipscotland_censorship.htm
Hi Folks, sorry that I have neglected you but I have been busy elsewhere challenging the CACC nonsense. I see that we have had another UN debacle, this one in Durban. They’ll keep trying to revive this dead horse – at our expense. Maybe we deserve all of the CACC that we get from our elected representatives because we don’t bother to get to know them.
Hi SteveF (Comment #86508) keep reading, because there is much more to come about the “Slayersâ€. You may not be interested but others are. As for your (Comment #86533), we all know that if you keep on inflating a balloon with hot air then it will eventually burst. As for your other comments, may I respectfully suggest that you spend a little more time listening to what others here are saying and a little less writing you own comments. Much of what Andrew says bears serious consideration and as Lucia says, there are those here who are interested in this attempt at profiling “Slayer†John.
This is an interesting but rather complex jigsaw puzzle, with many of the pieces still to be put into place, but I don’t think that it will take as long to complete as Lucia suggests in her Comment #86541.
Hi Steven Mosher (Comment #86527) a supply teacher with a BA (Hons), PGCE and who moves from school to school teaching sports could call himself an accredited academic, perhaps even this one (http://www.thefreelibrary.com/SIR+CLEARED+OF+SEX+TXTS.-a0113713467). It may turn out that Lucia was closer than she thought, after all there’s many a true word spoken in jest.
Hi lucia (Comment #86541), you say “ .. It doesn’t bother me that Sullivan would like to figure out how to make a living .. “ but Andrew has drawn attention to the reason why the career as a teacher of one John O’Sullivan came to an end in 2003 or thereabouts (http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/15/letter-to-the-dragon-slayers/#comment-148855). There are many John O’Sullivan’s around the globe so it remains for Andrew to provide substantiation of what he says on Professor Curry’s thread.
Hi Andrew (Comment #86627), I see that UKIPScotland have closed that thread for comments so I’ve sent a comment to the “UKIP Poll Surge .. †thread (http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/do-industrial-countries-absorb-co2/). Let’s see if that is censored too.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Pete, re UKIP Scotland’s policy of deleting and blocking speech those right-wingers don’t like: It’s not “censorship” when they do it.
UKIP published O’Sullivan’s rant claiming his termination from Suite101.com was an act of censorship. When I posted a comment pointing out that Suite101.com fired him shortly after I brought O’Sullivan’s fraudulent credentials to the managing editor’s attention, UKIP’s editor removed my comment, blocked me from posting, and then blocked further comments from anyone else. They simply will not tolerate dissension from the party line.
First off Pete and Andrew, good work. But this little charade you have of showing up at places and putting things on the record in a fake conversation between yourselves is kinda childish.
Steven, quit being an idiot. It wasn’t more than a few months ago, Ridley and I were publicly at each others’ throats. That we can finally exchange comments without attacking each other is something to be commended, not moronically ridiculed. You ought to try it yourself. Stop making stupid comments about me and see how much more politely I’ll treat you.
Hi steven (mosher –Comment #87040), as I said on Professor Curry’s thread (http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/15/letter-to-the-dragon-slayers/#comment-149185) QUOTE: .. what is all of this nonsense about “ .. These fake conversations (he and pete do it on Lucia’s as well ) .. â€. Sorry but it is you who “ .. really has a thing or two to learn .. â€.
As for your “ .. I look forward to the full truth coming out about O’Sullivan. I don’t think it will change a single mind .. †– keep watching!
BTW, you may find my blog http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/ a bit different from Andrew’s .. UNQUOTE.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
“Askolnick (Comment #86536),
you clearly don’t want me to keep reporting on how this global warming denier…
Actually I don’t give a hoot if you keep doing what you have been doing. I just think you would be better served to focus your obviously substantial energies on subjects of more import. I don’t personally believe most of the nonsense Mr. O’Sullivan spouts, and I suspect that most people who read and comment here don’t believe him either. What an investigative journalist chooses to report on does seem to depend on what that reporter thinks is important; no surprise there. I am saying that the importance you place on Mr. O’Sullivan is grossly exaggerated in the grand scheme of things.”
I completely agree with the specifics of your comments here, SteveF, and what I interpret to be the general implications of them. These types of exchanges I personally find really boring as it is like shooting fish in barrel to show that we have less than reasonable responses in blogland to important issues such as AGW – and from all sides. Unfortunately these inane, and even lesser inane, but still personal, comments can attract a lot of attention on blogs – and more attention many times than the more reasoned, informed and informative ones receive.
“Askolnick (Comment #86536),
you clearly don’t want me to keep reporting on how this global warming denier…
Actually I don’t give a hoot if you keep doing what you have been doing. I just think you would be better served to focus your obviously substantial energies on subjects of more import. I don’t personally believe most of the nonsense Mr. O’Sullivan spouts, and I suspect that most people who read and comment here don’t believe him either. What an investigative journalist chooses to report on does seem to depend on what that reporter thinks is important; no surprise there. I am saying that the importance you place on Mr. O’Sullivan is grossly exaggerated in the grand scheme of things.”
I completely agree with the specifics of your comments here, SteveF, and what I interpret to be the general implications of them. These types of exchanges I personally find really boring as it is like shooting fish in barrel to show that we have less than reasonable responses in blogland to important issues such as AGW – and from all sides. Unfortunately these inane, and even lesser inane, but still personal, comments can attract a lot of attention on blogs – and more attention many times than the more reasoned, informed, informative and important ones receive.
It is almost like the comments about the need for the climate science consensus to be more believable appearing to the public without ever talking about what it is that needs to be made more believable – and, of course, whether it is believable. In other words, discussion of superficial crap that can be argued for ever without concluding anything at all about the basic subject at hand.
Asholnick.
you two need to get a better
act or find a room. your back and forth reads as if it was
staged whether you like it or not.
That is just a fact. deal with it.
I’m not particularly impressed by your feeble attempts at online rudeness.
In my Comment #87034 I referred to a comment by Andrew Skolnick on Professor Judith Curry’s thread (http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/15/letter-to-the-dragon-slayers/#comment-148855). My response to his comment was: .. are you able to provide convincing evidence that the John O’Sullivan involved in that paedophile case in Lowestoft is “Slayer†John O’Sullivan? . .UNQUOTE.
Well, we have just received an E-mail (12th Dec. at 15-03 UK time) circulated to all of the “Slayersâ€, Professor Curry, Professor Petty and others in which John admits that it was indeed he and he was the author of book “Vanilla Girl†which was based upon his experience resulting from his involvement with the young girl who his wife Barbara had fostered. John claims that QUOTE: .. The child .. became a nightmare. She was a sociopath who stole from us, smeared our names and made numerous accusations against us. .. As the child’s behavior degenerated one of her false allegations was that I made sexual advances to her and she reported it to the police whereupon my first wife, a local police officer still with antipathy towards me after our failed marriage, unduly influenced the investigations .. â€.
John goes on to explain how “ .. the whole thing was a pack of lies and was accepted as such in court .. I was acquitted on all six charges. Nonetheless, by then the matter had ruined my teaching/lecturing career .. â€.
Effectively John O’Sullivan has confirmed much of what you said in your comment here on 11th December at 12:18 am. and more that was presented to the “Slayers†in my E-mail that day. In this E-mail John also insists that he “ .. studied law at the university of Surrey from 1979-82 (as I have long stated on my online web pages). But when I realized how mundane and monotonous a legal career for me would be I opted to go no further and followed my heart, took on an arts degree and then drifted into teaching and lecturing .. â€.
He makes no mention of having graduated in Law in 2010 (Jan?) but you have claimed on several sites that it is QUOTE: .. a “law degree†from Hill University — that bogus, online diploma mill, where anyone can purchase his degree of choice, along with a package of impressive looking academic documents, with “delivery promised in 15 days! .. http://www.hilluniversity.com/Hill/online-degrees/accredited-degree.asp .. He should then explain why O’Sullivan would need to buy a “law degree†from the bogus diploma mill in the beginning of 2010 .. UNQUOTE (see http://co2insanity.com/2011/11/10/canada-bar-association-rules-%E2%80%98no-misconduct%E2%80%99-by-tim-ball%E2%80%99s-legal-team/ and elsewhere).
That particular “university†proudly states that “ .. The two major accreditations that have been granted to Hill are from the following recognized institutes:
• International Online Education Accrediting Board (IOEAB)
Awarded the status of accreditation
• Organization for Online Learning Accreditation (OKOLA)
Awarded the status of accreditation .. †(http://www.hilluniversity.com/Hill/online-degrees/accredited-degree.asp).
Here’s what The Consumers Guide to On-line Colleges has to say QUOTE: ..
Consumers Beware – NONE of these accrediting agencies are recognized as college accreditors in the U.S. by the Council on Higher Education Accreditation or the U.S. Department of Education. As such, colleges claiming “accreditation†by these agencies are not accepted as valid providers of online education or degrees and should be approached with great caution if online college credibility is important to you.
Remember — Most diploma mills and degree mills are accredited — but by fake or phony agencies that the degree mills themselves own and operate! . UNQUOTE (http://www.geteducated.com/diploma-mills-police/college-degree-mills/204-fake-agencies-for-college-accreditation) then goes on to list about 50, including the two mentioned by Hill “universityâ€.
I pointed this out to John, the “Slayers†et al. on 8th Dec. but John still refuses, despite repeated requests to do so, to provide a copy of his law degree showing from where and when he obtained it. It puzzles me why he doesn’t settle this once and for all by simply putting his degree into the public domain, just as he did with his letter from the New York County Lawyers Association (http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/home/9557-canada-bar-association-rules-no-misconduct-by-tim-balls-legal-team see the first link in the “editor’s noteâ€)
In that same E-mail I asked John QUOTE: .. At the same time perhaps you would also clear up the uncertainty about which of your “ .. work features in the ‘National Review,’ America’s most popular and influential magazine for Republican/conservative news. Among other internationally esteemed publications he has appeared in ‘China Daily,’ the Number One English portal in China, as well as ‘India Times,’ the prime source of business news in India .. â€. I recall asking some time ago about this but have had no direct response .. UNQUOTE.
Despite providing a long and detailed response about the hassle over his wife’s foster-child John stubbornly refuses to provide clarity over the issues covered in those last two paragraphs. These are arguably of more relevance regarding his leadership of the “Slayers†and PSI. In my opinion he owes it to the few remaining “Slayers†to remove any doubt about his claims otherwise suspicions will hang like a dark cloud over them all and over their dwindling association PSI.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Seriously? You’re talking about Sullivan’s relationship with his step (or foster) daughter now?
This is into some pretty personal details about somebody’s life. I find that very sick… on your part.
Pete Ridley, your comments above and the details included seem inappropriate and offensive on this nice family blog. There surely must be a more appropriate venue for your private dialog with Skolnick.
Carrick-
Ordinarily, I would agree with you that discussing a man’s relationship with his foster-daughter would be off limits. The difficulty here is that it at least appears John O’Sullivan wrote two items he calls “CUPBOARD 55” or “factual novels”. He describes these as:
This wording suggests to the public that these novels are, in some sense, based on facts of people’s lives– possibly those of the author. The blogs where these run include a photo of John O’Sullivan and run under his name. While most people would not recognize the characters people who know John or his foster daughter would have recognized them and would likely have suspected the events in the novels were claimed to have some connection to “facts”.
One of the ‘factual novels” O’Sullivan wrote is “Vanilla Girl” which is here. That long ‘factual novel’ appears to provide a thinly veiled discussion of O’Sullivan’s (“Leo’s) relationship with his foster daughter who appears to be “Rebecca van Hiller” in the novel.
I am reluctant to post more from the account. But if what Peter write is true, O’Sullivan has confirmed that Vanilla Girl was based on John’s version of the private details of his relationship with his foster daughter. Peter is not spilling anything that John didn’t plaster on the web.
Lucia, if you read what Pete wrote, I think you’ll find that Pete was going well beyond an academic discussion of the contents of the “cardboard novel”.
The (it appeared to me) staged conversation he and Askolnick were having here was already bad enough before he started slinging innuendo about other people having inappropriate sexual relations with children.
I’ve seen threads on this blog grind to a halt. Never saw one end up completely in the sewer like this.
Er make that “Cupbaord 55 novel”.
The fact it says it is a “novel” does imply it is not simply an autobiography, wouldn’t we agree?
Carrick–
I agree this one is sordid. But oddly enough, I don’t think Pete and Andrew are staging the conversation. I know Steve Mosher has suggested it, and I can see why someone would think it. But oddly, I think it’s not staged. Of course I could be wrong.
Of course, one annoying thing about this whole thing is that none of this has anything to do with any of the technical arguments that interest people here. In fact, given the general level of looniess in The Slayers book, the apparent dysfunction in O’Sullivan’s live doesn’t change anything at all.
But still, I prefer to permit the comments to stay open even though they are sordid. (At least they aren’t arguing about the true meaning of Lolita here like they are in comments at Judy’s!)
Rehearsed may be a better word that staged, though it’s a gray line between them here: As an example, I’m pretty sure the Ridley didn’t just create that last post out of thin air, with all of the urls he has in it.
I of course have no problems with them saying what they like (within legal limits) regardless of whether they mind other people arriving at negative conclusions about them.
Carrick–
Ordinarily. But they are described as “factual novels” and it’s up to the reader to try to figure out what distiguishes a “novel” from a “factual novel” from an “history or biography”.
I haven’t seen the email Pete says John sent him. But if what Pete relates is true then John has confirmed it’s (in Pete’s words):
“based upon his experience resulting from his involvement with the young girl who his wife Barbara had fostered.”
This would suggest this particular “factual novel” based on John O’Sullivan’s life. That would, presumably make “Leo” == “John” and “Rebecca” == “John’s foster daughter”.
I don’t think Ridley created a post out of think air. I think Ridley is digging and wants to communicate what he found in forums where he thinks it will be read. I think he is writing those in a text editor and re-reading a bit before posting.
I think Skolnick is also digging. I have reason to believe Skolnick is holding more stuff back and waiting to post something when he has a more coherent story. But when Ridley write something, Skolnick will add things at that point. So, it tends to look a bit like it was planned. But I don’t think it was.
(Of course I could be mistaken about then rehearsing stuff together. But it’s my sense they aren’t.)
This whole affair reminds me of a Nabokov novel.
Especially, O’sullivan. The back and forth between
Ridley and Assholick, has the appearence of a
staged conversation, although its impossible
to tell from the text itself.
Hm… When I see a movie that says “based on real events” I usually assume the “real events” involved people, and that’s where the similarity ends. But then I’m a real cynic.
Carrick–
Depends. Some movies with “real events” are closer to the truth; some further. All I’m saying is that for better or worse, O’Sullivan posted some sort of version and surrounded it with information that might suggest he is sharing private details of his relationship between him and his foster daughter (from his pov.) Are they true factual details? How close to true are they? We don’t know.
Carrick, you should read Pale fire. Its funny when I read about O Sullivan’s novels I thought about Nabokov straightaway. What Nabokov really makes fun of is the notion that one can read through the text to the author, something we call the auto biographical fallacy. So, for example, a freudian critic would read through the art to the psyche of the author, or a marxist would read through the text to the class history behind its production, or a biographical critic would read through the text to author’s life. Nabokov tries to short circuit these types of readings with a fun house of mirrors and patterns, unreliable narration.. Its art, pattern, separate from the man who created it. It’s basically how an unreliable narrator works. Once you get inside of Lolita and begin to understand the tapestry you see that it is pure artifice. So moral judgments you may have about the author or the characters are suspended. That’s the theory behind the art at least. Death of the author stuff, you can see faulkner starting down the road toward this with sound and the fury.
Basically the stories become stories about art, about the process of reading and believing what you read. On one view of this one can never get out of the funhouse ( see John Barth) but the Nabokovian slant is much more liberating–its a beautiful thing in the end. Of course perverts read Lolita and think its a story about and old man and his step daughter. They are trapped in Nabokov’s joke.
“Steven, quit being an idiot. It wasn’t more than a few months ago, Ridley and I were publicly at each others’ throats. That we can finally exchange comments without attacking each other is something to be commended, not moronically ridiculed. You ought to try it yourself. Stop making stupid comments about me and see how much more politely I’ll treat you.”
This is an interesting lapse in logic. Reading the comments at Judith’s the back and forth between these two has all the appearance of a staged or rehearsed conversation. To counter this Andrew argues that months ago they were at each others throats, and now they are getting along nicely. can you say non sequitor? I knew you could. I see: having a “fight” and making up is logically inconsistent with having conversations that look to be staged.
err, how that is true is left to the student. It’s advanced modal logic.
Here are some hints for having a more natural sounding conversation. If one party asks a question sometimes the other party should say they dont know. One side should not do all the asking. Disagree or quibble on some minor points. Dont write full paragraphs at each other. Sometimes answer a long post with a short one. Wait a few days before posting replies. Sometimes have one person start the conversation and other time have another person start it. Make mistakes occasionally. There is an art to making the artificial look natural
‘As usual, I wish to observe that, as usual (and as usual several sensitive people I like will look huffy) the Viennese delegation has not been invited. If, however, a resolute Freudian manages to slip in, he or she should be warned that a number of cruel traps have been set here and there in the novel.’
VN about KQK, 1967.
==========
Mosher–
I will willing admit I never read Lolita.
steven mosher (Comment #87066),
I am not sure if I will ever be able to stop laughing at: “The back and forth between Ridley and Assholick, has the appearance….”.
Funny, very funny. Although yours is a somewhat different sense of humor from what I am used to.
Mosh, you’ve shattered my illusions, I always thought a Freudian slip was when you say one thing but mean your mother…
Good Lord, Gras, I had to slog through that tiresome stream of jackasses pontificating on things they know nothing (with the exception of Lucia’s) to get to your funny line. But it was worth it.
BTW, although I hate to bother the Steven twins with actual facts, I think Mr. O’Sullivan should be allowed to speak for himself about the factual basis of his pedophilia novel “Vanilla Girl”:
“There currently exist only two factual novels so far penned in the ‘Cupboard 55’ genre: ‘Vanilla Girl’ and ‘Summit Shock’ written by English author, John O’Sullivan.”
http://cupboard55summitshock.blogspot.com/2008_03_01_archive.html
I can understand why the Steven twins don’t want this global warming denier’s pedophilia publicly discussed — or the truth about his fraudulent professional credentials. I just hope they understand I don’t care what they want.
Andrew–
Please don’t call people jackasses. I guess I may have been neglecting tone. But please avoid that.
I think it’s worth pointing out that neither SteveF nor SteveMosher are supporters of O’Sullivan. I think SteveF just thinks the subject is boring. Mosher– I think he may enjoy it. In reality, the two aren’t very similar at all!
Mosher– Avoid “a**hole” even disguised a**hole.
All in all, I know the subject has gotten sordid, but I’d still rather people didn’t call each other names.
Lucia understandably said, “at least they aren’t arguing about the true meaning of Lolita here like they are in comments at Judy’s!”
So Steven Mosher launches here another of his pedantic lectures on the “true meaning” of Lolita.
Mosher, you need to get a clue.
Lucia, sorry to cross your line. I’ll refrain. Or at least seriously try.
Askolnick:
Moshet”??? Yet another person resorting to grade-school name-calling tactics?
(As if the anti-intellectualism isn’t tiring enough.)
Lucia:
And I think the whole topic is a bit … creepy, including all of the interest in O’Sullivan’s personal life. Oh well, whatever sells copy. Right?
Lucia said (and Mosher ignored):
“Of course, one annoying thing about this whole thing is that none of this has anything to do with any of the technical arguments that interest people here. In fact, given the general level of looniess in The Slayers book, the apparent dysfunction in O’Sullivan’s live doesn’t change anything at all.
But still, I prefer to permit the comments to stay open even though they are sordid. (At least they aren’t arguing about the true meaning of Lolita here like they are in comments at Judy’s!)”
Lucia, it’s clear we’re hearing howling protests from the Steven twins, Carrick, Fritsch, et al, NOT because they want to discuss “technical arguments.” If that’s what they wanted, they’d be posting “technical arguments.” The only thing they have to discuss is the true meaning of Nabokov”s Lolita — plus their half-wit allegations that Ridley and I are “conspiring” and “rehearsing” posts to offend their eyes.
What happened to this discussion a few weeks ago when I ran out of new information to report?
They had absolutely nothing to say. They posted nothing here so this discussion automatically locked up. Ridley had to ask you to open it again so he could post comments.
It’s not that what I’m reporting about John O’Sullivan and the Sky Dragon Slayers is interfering with their discussion — for they have absolutely nothing to say other than to discuss the true meaning of Lolita and their crackpot theory of how my sometime detractor Ridley and I are “conspiring” and “rehearsing” — which if it were true would have no relevance to the accuracy and truth of what either of us report.
What THEY clearly want is to interfere with what what I’m reporting. If they don’t want to read what I report, they have no problem: they can simply ignore my comments. But that’s not their agenda.
The want to stop me from being heard by others. That’s called censorship. It’s a tribute to you that you won’t cater to the wishes of these anti-democratic little souls.
Andrew
They are– but on other threads. Steve Mosher is discussing the paper he recently presented at AGU. SteveF and Carrick are both discussing that– but over there.
On this thread. Mostly, people try to stick to a particular topic on a particular comment thread. This thread isn’t about the temperature record, or computer models and so on. So, they posted those elsewhere. That’s the way blog comments work.
Yes. I reopened for Peter. I do that sometimes. (Carrick and SteveF are likely no cringing…..)
I think you are misinterpreting. They are seeing “lucia” in the “recent comment” areas of the sidebar. They are irrisistably attracted, and then they can’t help themselves.
SteveF, Mosher and Carrick absolutely know they can’t censor me!
Really, you are misinterpreting because you don’t know most of us well. SteveF, Carrick and Mosher are all regular commenters here. I can assure you they do not have anti-democratic souls.
Irresistible,
The bouquets and bud blossoms.
Flower patch monarch.
=============
Skolnick:
Nope. You’re definitely not interpreting this correctly. In fact I wrote Lucia privately to make sure she knew I wasn’t trying to stiffle your comments with my own remarks. (Not that I would ever expect or want her to listen to me regarding censorship in any case. )
Throw us a bone here. What have you posted on this thread regarding whether “industrial countries absorb CO2” that invites a technical response?
You may have found Mosher’s and kim’s comments about Nabokov uninteresting, you have that right, but just because you do, don’t expect us to mimic you. The response I had was involved 10000% more neural impulses/sec over that, than over the mind-numbing question to me of whether O’Sullivan has a proper legal degree. If you want somebody to experience sensual pleasure on that one, post on Eli’s blog. Anything negative they can associated with “the enemy” is going to cause a visceral reaction over there.
Maybe you could edumacate us here…. why should it matter for people generally interested in technical issues, as to (hypothetically here only, I don’t have a pony in this race) whether or not yet another person has lied about his credentials?
Lucia said, “Really, you are misinterpreting because you don’t know most of us well. SteveF, Carrick and Mosher are all regular commenters here. I can assure you they do not have anti-democratic souls.”
Well, they could have fooled me.
Let’s stop to consider this question: How rational is it to keep arguing with people that what they’re saying is of no interest to anyone?
There is NOTHING being posted in this discussion other than information concerning the dishonesty of the Sky Dragon Slayer’s leader and his writings — except for all the protests by people who don’t want this information published here. If they’re TRULY not interested in this information, they would stop reading it.
But read it they do — while loudly objecting to being exposed to this information that they claim no one is interested in. The hollowness of their argument is simply breath-taking.
The fact that they keep objecting clearly shows a strong interest, unfortunately not one that’s very commendable. They’re interested in stopping it from being published here.
Had they anything constructive to post here, they would have done so when I was gone, and this discussion wouldn’t have automatically locked shut. But they’re NOT posting anything constructive related to the writings of the Sky Dragon Slayers.
The just keep repeating their mantra that NO ONE is interested in this discussion. Were that true, they wouldn’t need to keep chanting their mantra. The absence of anyone’s interest would take care of itself.
Please Carrick, try to follow the discussion a lot more carefully so that you don’t continue to misrepresent what I say.
I said, “If that’s what they [you and your fellow messenger-shooters] wanted, they’d be posting “technical arguments.â€
You reply, “Throw us a bone here. What have you posted on this thread regarding whether “industrial countries absorb CO2″ that invites a technical response?”
I didn’t say I was posting anything to satisfy your desire for technical arguments. I have no interest in what you prefer to read. I said that if you messenger-shooters were really interested in technical arguments you’d be posting them. But you’re not.
All you post are snipes at the messenger for posting information you don’t want to be published here.
Andrew–
I think we are going to have to disagree with what we think everyone’s motives are and what their level of interest is and how we can diagnose either. I often like meta arguments but I hereby I decree on this thread: no more arguing about motives underlying the positions taken by other people commenting on this thread.
Now: for some house keeping stuff:
To a large extent, I am keeping this thread open because O’Sullivan is involved in climate through publication of The Slayers, being involved in the Tim Ball case and authoring numerous articles and blog post but largely, you and Peter will not be permitted to freely post at forums controlled by O’Sullivan.
However, individuals like O’Sullivan, Mann, etc. are normally not a main topic on this blog. So, I’m trying to come to a balance between permitting the aspects of the discussion that are specifically germane to political or scientific arguments climate while minimizing the amount of discussion of the truly creepy stuff. ( I know that quite a bit of the creepy, stomach turning stuff out there has not appeared here, because Andrew and Peter have actually held back. I’d rather it stay that way so I ‘m not going to elaborate. )
What I want is this: Peter and Andrew (and for that matter anyone) can post new documents or information, related to:
1) Sullivan’s interaction the Tim Ball/ Mann case which does touch on the political aspects of the climate discussions. This includes discussions about Sullivan’s claims regarding qualifications to provide whatever sort of support he is providing in that case be it legal, PR or whatever. This means — boring or not– whether he claims legal degrees, has legal degrees etc may be discussed.
2) Discussions of Sullivan’s claims about AGW, greenhouse gas theory etc.
3) Discussions of issues surrounding publication of The Slayers book or promotion of any group that might be dubbed “The Slayers” book.
Now off the table:
Discussions of the creepy sex oriented stuff involving O’Sullivan, Bracci-O’Sullivan either of their children, foster children, or any relative whose involvement I may not yet have learned of! So: No court transcripts from sex cases or sex discrimination cases filed in NY or England or wherever. No links to or discussions of news paper articles, videos or anything else that discussses various sordid accusations that involve the topic of sex.
2) No calling anyone name. Not even clever names. Not even if you think I won’t notice (which I might not.)
3) On this thread: No more discussing Nabokov. I’ve never read anything by Nabokov and you are all making me feel like an ill-read Philistine.
If you want to discuss the rules, email me privately because I don’t want to have a discussion of the rules in blog comments either!
Lucia,
“Carrick and SteveF are likely no cringing…..”
I would not pretend to speak for Carrick, but I sure am cringing.
.
Since the re-opening I have been accused of a being opposed to democracy, wanting to muzzle people, and more… not any of which is close to correct. Mr Skolnick should learn to not throw about accusations/insults against people he does not know. My considered opinion is that Mr. Skolnik has been commenting in this thread in a remarkably arrogant and nonconstructive manner, but I see no evidence that matters to him. His is the tone of the political extremist…. constructive dialog seems neither wanted nor needed.
.
I do think the subjects of Mr. O’Sullivan’s novels, his morals, his education (or lack thereof), and most everything else related to him (including his nonsensical technical analysis) is unimportant, and simply a waste of peoples’ time. I have not had the need to think about Lolita since the 1970’s and have no interest in that subject either.
Lucia, you own this blog and you can do with it what you want. I personally have very selfish reasons for participating here and will do so at your pleasure and for my own reasons. I will also not hold back my opinions. This thread is utter unadulterated crap despite your rationalizations of your expectations for it.
I saw what I thought was a reference to this discussion being held at Judith Curry’s blog. I have not been there for a while but that would make this thread second hand crap.
Ken–
I think people visit blogs for their own reasons.
Mosher: No Nabokov, I’m serious. Andrew, no retorts.
Hi Kenneth Fritsch (Comments #87212 & #87045) and others with similar opinions. This thread started out with a reference to an article by John O’Sullivan, a self-aggrandising individual who in my opinion has simply tried to jump on the CACC bandwagon because he saw as an opportunity to acquire some money. My opinion is based upon having been rather closely involved with his “Slayers†since back in April 2010 around when he started out on this venture. That was shortly after it appears, from what Andrew Skolnick claims to have found, that he acquired a law degree from one of those bogus Internet Universities, Hill University (e.g. see my comment #87054).
On 20th January, after undertaking a PSI & Due Diligence†exercise, I dissociated myself from the “Slayers†and PSI because I was concerned about what John was proposing to do. Since then there have been at least three highly qualified individuals have done the same, one mathematician, Professor Claes Johnson, and two scientists. I cannot disclose who they are because of confidentiality. Perhaps you and those of similar ilk should spend some time looking into why these defections have taken place rather than criticising those who are spending time investigating what motivates the “Slayers†and what the real purpose is of their association PSI.
My investigation has been done completely openly since I started it in Dec. 2010. I have kept the “Slayers†and others involved about what I have been doing and given them all the opportunity to respond to my comments. It astounds me how little people like Hans Schreuder (PSI CFO) and Rev. Philip Foster (PSI Compliance Officer) have had to say during these long E-mail exchanges. It is quite possible that they too have dissociated themselves. After all, Hans did say on 6th Jan. (& 9:26 AM NOT TO BE SENT) “ .. J&J You are digging a trap into which we will all fall if you guys insist in keeping this pest in the fold.
He is, IMHO, a spy who has so far very successfully infiltrated the hub of our undertakings.
His constant questioning, bordering on demanding to know, of what we are all doing is self-evident yet again below. Look at the mailing list he is brazenly using to demand to know what our “other pressing business” is – what the fuck has that got to do with him?! He has nothing to offer that we do not already possess.
If you insist on keeping this clown in the loop, than I am out of it, simple as that.
My sixth sense has yet to be proven wrong and I do not like this pest one bit.
Cheers,
Hans .. â€.
The J&J are John O’Sullivan and Joe Olson. It is clear from that comment that Hans was not too keen on having someone investigate more closely and I wonder what he didn’t wish to have disclosed. Are we not “judged by the company we keep�
Since that time John has been appealing for charitable donations to his association Principia Scientific International. I decided very early on that I would not be contributing any of my hard-earned funds to that organisation.
Must dash as she who must be obeyed is calling, but I will return (Lucia willing)
Best regards, Pete Ridley
I hadn’t paid any attention to this thread for a few weeks. I just went back to Dec. 12 and scanned (in the “rapid, cursory read” meaning of the word) to the present.
Yikes.
Askolnick (Comment #87145) December 14th, 2011 at 12:55 am
?
Askolnick (Comment #87156) December 14th, 2011 at 8:39 am
??
Yikes.
Askolnick, Pete Ridley, and John Sullivan: My familiarity with SteveF, Steven Mosher, Carrick, and Kenneth Fritsch comes only from their remarks on climate blogs. Because the quality of their technical commentary is typically excellent, I often read them attentively. Whether it’s good or ill news (I’m not clear on who is on what side of which issue), I can confirm that none of these parties have given any credence to the “Dragon Slayer” thesis. (Judith Curry allowed its authors to defend their stance on her blog; it was such obviously aphysical nonsense that I closed that tab on my browser, never to return.)
One of the listed commenters sometimes indulges himself with silly, even raunchy non-sequitors; a second has been known to engage in heated exchanges.
Some of you might be confused by this window dressing, and misinterpreting positions on technical matters. Or on democracy (?) or censorship (?).
My two cents.
Con Edison in NYC used to use the slogan, “Dig we must for a growing NY” to explain the inconvenience to so many drivers in the city. I won’t bother to explain the “inconvenience” I cause the grumblers here by my “digging” except to say this:
Joseph Pulitzer helped to found the journalism school where I trained, for his stated purpose, “That the people shall know.”
Look what I just dug up a few minutes ago on the Helium.com web site. It’s one of the earliest bios of Slayer John I’ve found and it is certainly his most honest:
“J Daley O’Neal is 46 years old and for most of the year resides at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England. He is a graduate of the West Surrey College of Art & Design where he obtained a First Degree in Fine Art in 1983 and then subsequently completed his post-graduate studies qualifying as a high school teacher in 1985. He most notably won the WSCAD Creative Writing Award for Excellence for his Bachelor’s dissertation on James Joyce’s Ulysses.’
For twenty years the author has taught in public schools and colleges throughout England. Since 1998 J Daley O’Neal has been married to a New Yorker, a legal advocate and the couple live between homes in New York and England. In 2004 Daley O’Neal successfully defended himself in a well-publicised criminal case. Since then he has assisted wife in her legal advocacy work in the American civil courts while pursuing his creative writing interests.
O’Neal enjoys writing about unrequited love, the criminal justice system and dares to apply his literary talents to contentious hot topics such unlawful police practices, sexual harassment and paedophilia.”
http://www.helium.com/users/208604
Glaringly absent from his bio is any claim of a law degree or practice of law. Note especially his admission of earning “a First Degree in Fine Art” from the West Surrey College of Art & Design in 1983 — which is the time he now claims he earned a law degree from the University of Surrey.
All of this is exactly what I have been reporting. I am grateful that Mr. O’Sullivan agrees — back in June 2007.
Just so you know.
Pete Ridely and Askolnick:
I have no qualms with your investigation of O’Sullivan. He was an unknown to me before this thread and remains so after. You all seem overly gossipy about his past, but I suspect he might be a schemer as you imply. Here is my problem. I do not know what it is that in the bigger picture of AGW that your investigations are supposed to inform the readers of this blog or the public in general. If either of you can please connect your expose’ of O’Sullivan with something we should know about AGW or the non technically oriented third parties who report on AGW like, I think, O’Sullivan does. It appears to this poster that you have an insider battle going on and of which the gory details would be of little interest to those on the outside.
Rush Limbaugh is third party non technically oriented media type who refers to AGW as a fraud. This is a silly and unproductive claim that never addresses the details of the issues of concern to the informed skeptic, but only rather pushes a partisan theme as he is wont to do. Limbaugh also acquired prescription drugs illegally. Knowing all that informs me very little about AGW other than that Limbaugh is a politically partisan participant in the AGW debates of which their many on all sides of the issue – but I knew that already.
I think a blog dedicated to O sullivan would be the best thing for andrew to do.
I wonder why he doesnt do that?
Askolnick:
Actually you don’t have even the remotest clue. One thing to fit into that twisted brain of yours is there may be people floating around who are victims themselves, and there may be emotional energy associated with that, for them, that has nothing to do with the AGW controversy.
steven mosher (Comment #87066) December 12th, 2011 at 9:33 pm
“This whole affair reminds me of a Nabokov novel. Especially, O’sullivan.”
I thought Umberto Eco rather than Nabokov (see comment Nov 21) but Nabokov works also.
this is “Son of Pale Fire”…
Kenneth Fritsch:
Agreed. I don’t see any relevance to this sordid garbage to a thoroughly-debunked-on-its-merits book O’Sullivan co-authored, nor to any relevance to the question of AGW, nor any relevance were anybody to dredge up skeletons in Askolnick’s closet and post them here. (I’m sure in the latter case, the usual suspects would be out there howling in anger at the injustice of such an exposé.)
If you want to contrast and comparison of this wretchedness Askolnick is engaged in with what true investigative journalists do, read the story of Oleksander Vlaschenko, an investigative journalist in the southern Ukraine who was likely the victim of a murder attempt for his series of negative investigative reports on local corruption.
Hi Carrick (Comment #87062 and Lucia’s response Comment #87063) I very seldom compose one of my comments in a blog’s comment box. I mostly prepare them in Word, read and reread to make sure that I have not misrepresented the facts or been unfair to anyone or have formed an incorrect opinion. If anything gets through that is subsequently shown to be a misrepresentation or to be false than it has been done in error, not deliberately and I do my best to correct and apologise.
As for staged exchanges between Andrew Skolnick and me, appearances can be deceptive. Andrew and I have a common interest in getting to the facts about the “Slayers†and providing the transparency that the “slayers†themselves appear reluctant to do on their PSI web-site.
I think that we should all leave it up to the blog owner to decide what should and should not be posted on her blog. If Lucia says to me “Stop posting here about John O’Sullivan and the rest of his Slayers†then I’ll stop – but not until.
I can’t speak for Andrew Skolnick but for me this discussion is about what motivated the “Slayers†to cobble together their hodge-podge collection of articles and publish it as a major scientific work, when it is nothing of the sort. Also, why have two of the founding members of their pseudo-scientific organisation Principia Scientific International now dissociated themselves from the “Slayers†and PSI.
This whole politically driven Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change (CACC) issue raises a seriu question of integrity, not only of the poiticians and their organisations (UN, UNEP, WMO, IPCC) but also of the scientists involved and the scientific organisations around the world which offer their support to the CACC hypothesis. The “Slayers†and PSI are minuscule players in that arena but I see them as a very useful case-study into what is wrong with both sides of this issue.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
John O’Sullivan was lying through his teeth when he published an article on Nov. 10 claiming, “The Law Society of British Columbia (LSBC) has now ruled that green activist Andrew Skolnick’s official complaint concerning Dr. Tim Ball’s libel attorney, Michael Scherr and science writer, John O’Sullivan, was baseless.”
I finally received a written statement from the Law Society of British Columbia’s Staff Counsel for Unauthorized Practice clearly stating that John O’Sullivan was not cleared of unlawful conduct — as the humbug claims in the article. Here is the letter:
http://www.aaskolnick.com/global_deniers/LSBC_2011-12-13-letter-Skolnick.pdf
When I’m informed of the results of the investigation, I will report it here.
Pete, I accept you at your word at this point that there wasn’t anything staged about yours and Andrew’s comment. It just seemed a bit .. stilted at the time.
I’m not sure how that work could have been viewed by anybody as a major scientific work, regardless of claims. It certainly had one of the worst receptions of any similar work in recent memory on both sides of the aisle. There’s a story there too.
Still, it isn’t the first (nor probably the last) time that people have done something like this. I’m thinking of this particularly embarrassing bit of nonsense.
The story of how that document was created, and the motives and animus behind this hastily assembled document, is substantially more interesting to me than anything Tim Ball or John O’Sullivan could put together, regardless of what type of character O’Sullivan is. If he’s an axe murderer, it’s an interesting story because he’s an axe murderer, the fact he was a coauthor of STSD isn’t even an interesting footnote in that case.
If you have any doubt that people took this book very seriously I suggest reading through the WUWT comments on it.
On 30th November Steven Mosher (Comment #86526) suggested that I pop over to Deep Climate so I did and managed to post several comments on the “Open Thread 11†(http://deepclimate.org/2011/11/11/open-thread-11/#comment-10449). Too many of the contributors there appear not to have the courage of their CACC-supporting convictions, Ian Forrester being an exception and he and I have exchanged opinions before. He offers even more invective than does Andrew Skolnick but Andrew does back his up with evidence. Ian doesn’t have any to back up what he says.
Try as I might today, the following comment was rejected. Although I have already said a bit on this thread about the same issue, some of it is new and should be of interest because it follows on from previous discussions about John O’Sullivan and his dwindling band of “Slayers†so I hope that Lucia is happy to post it.
,
There was an interesting comment by old adversary Snapple (a middle-aged Washington DC school-teacher, something that gives me great concern, just as does Jo Abbess, who teaches here in London). On 17th November Snapple said – “That lunatic John O’Sullivan is “linking†Mann with the accused child-molester Sandusky. It is pretty disgusting. Some time ago on Professor Curry’s “Slaying a Greenhouse Dragon†thread (http://judithcurry.com/2011/01/31/slaying-a-greenhouse-dragon/) Andrew Skolnick and I were engaged in interesting exchanges which included accusations of the pan/pot “ .. calling the kettle black .. â€.
At that time Andrew and I were still short of a lot of information about John O’Sullivan and his team of “Slayers†but the situation has changes significantly since then.
I was involved in the periphery at the time that John started his project to recruit sceptical scientists and others into his team of “Slayers†(about April 2010). John gradually added names to the list of recipients and eventually invited these “friends†to join him in a book project. I was involved in serious discussions about this and his plans to form his company PSI from Dec. Only days later the talk turned to donations of money from those involved, which is what prompted me to start my PSI & Due Diligence exercise. (There are some who might call my Internet search into the background of each of the “Slayers†as being “stalking†but in my opinion stalking implies evil intent towards the stalked, which is never my motive when doing such searches.)
My conclusion was that I did not wish to be associated with the “Slayers†or their PSI. John’s 26th December call for money from within to initiate a legal challenge against NOAA “ .. A typical mandamus petition will ordinarily cost a client $3,000. If we can raise $3,000 I can set the legal wheels in motion. The legal skills and resources are at the ready so now the ball is in our court and that of our supporters to raise the $3,000 .. †(“ .. the only game in town .. â€) failed miserably. John then made that ludicrous appeal in Jan. for $15,000 charitable donations through gofundme (see link above) another failure followed by his April appeal for charitable donations to pay for Tim Ball’s defence against Michael Mann’s libel claim (see wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/08/ “help-asked-for-dr-tim-ball-in-legal-battle-with-dr-mannâ€). It looks as though that too has failed miserably because John has now announced “ .. Official: I Just Bet My House on the Outcome of Science Trial of the Century Wednesday, December 7th 2011, 4:58 PM EST Co2sceptic (Site Admin) No truer headline will you read. Yesterday this author literally wagered his home .. †(see climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8796).
That raises another of those many questions about John – does he own a house? It seems from the information available from the NYCLA site that he has recently returned to Delhi, New York, where he used to live with his second wife Barbara. As he is reported to have said after his 2004 court case (see the links below) ” .. I have been without pay for a year, living on the charity of my family. It has been financially and emotionally devastating and I think it is fair that someone should compensate me ..” (IMORTANT see Note 1). If he has no house of his own then he hasn’t much to loose, other than more credibility, but again, I could be totally wrong here, in which case I’ll apologise to John if he provides appropriate evidence. Only John knows the answers to all of the puzzling aspects of his various claims and he keeps his cards close to his chest about most things until pushed.
During recent exchanges with the “Slayers†and others (including ex-CIA agent Kent Clizbe, Professor Curry, Professor Grant Petty, Dr. Joel Shore, weather forecaster Piers Corbyn, etc. etc. etc. – 27 altogether) I added Andrew to the circulation because I considered that he had a useful contribution to make. Here is some food for thought, selected from my John O’Sullivan “Claims to Fame†folder. Andrew Skolnick drawn attention to some of the following links and I to others (NB: add http: and //www. to all of the links)
February 2004 http://www.thefreelibrary.com/ (IMPORTANT see Note)
March 2007 http://www.myspace.com/jdaleyoneal#!/jdaleyoneal/blog
May 2007 http://www.myspace.com/mrdarrk/blog/ (Chapter 1-7) and http://www.myspace.com/mrdarrk/blog/252441917#!/mrdarrk (Chapters 8-61)
March 2008 http://www.myspace.com/mrdarrk/blog the “new improved†versionâ€!
Further background information available from myspace.com/mrdarrk and writers.net/writers/54740
(NOTE you have to add this extension /SIR+CLEARED+OF+SandEandX+TXTS.-a0113713467 to the link, but remove “and†from between SandEandX – that word may have caused the Deep Climate “spam†box to divert this comment)
On 8th Dec. I asked John to comment, because it could have been someone using John’s details without his permission details or some other of the many John O’Sullivan’s around the globe. “Slayer†Joe Olson immediately came to John’s defence then John’s response 2 hours later was to try to shift the discussion over to Andrew’s misdemeanours while an associate editor at JAMA. John concluded with “ .. As to your rambling list of regurgitated slurs below, I won’tbe dignifying them with a response. You’ve given it your best shot so now gocrawl back under your stone .. â€.
After Andrew pitched in with relevant comments I again encouraged John on 11th to comment about the issues in those links, ending with “ ,, John, I think that it would be in the best interests of the “Slayers†and PSI if you could squash that one quickly .. â€. On 12th John didn’t squash it, instead confirming that he was the John O’Sullivan who had been charged in 2004. Let’s be fair to John and not overlook the fact that QUOTE: .. Magistrate Gerry Sutton in Lowestoft, Suffolk, told him: “Because of the variance in the evidence we are unable to be … absolutely sure that you were responsible.” .. UNQUOTE.
So far only three “Slayers†have shown support for John regarding his 2003 court case, that’s Joe Olson, Joe Postma and Alan Siddons. PSI’s executives Tim Ball (Chairman), Hans Schreuder (CFO) and Rev. Philip Foster (http://principia-scientific.org/about-us/why-psi-is-a-private-assoc) have remained silent on the issue (but that was not unusual for those three during the PSI & Due Diligence exchanges either).
While trying to be fair to John let’s not overlook the fact that in a criminal case the prosecution has to prove their case “beyond reasonable doubtâ€, whereas in a civil case it is “on the balance of probabilitiesâ€. It would be interesting to know what the magistrate’s judgement would have been if John’s Genre55 “faction†story “Vanilla Girl†had been available in 2003/4. It’s also interesting that in 2005 the UK removed the 800-year-old “double jeopardy†protection/escape-hole and it is retrospective (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4406129.stm). That article says QUOTE: .. The change will apply retrospectively, so someone could face a second trial if evidence such as DNA material, new witnesses or a confession came to light. A Home Office spokesman said: “It is important the public should have full confidence in the ability of the criminal justice system to deliver justice. “This can be undermined if it is not possible to convict offenders for very serious crimes where there is strong and viable evidence of their guilt.” .. UNQUOTE. (There is at the moment a murder retrial from 1993 – http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/dec/15/stephen-lawrence-murder-trial-david-norris?newsfeed=true).
I dissociated myself from the “Slayers†on 20th January after numerous “PSI & Due Diligence†exchanges with them. During those exchanges there was no input from the Rev. Philip Foster, which was surprising for someone who was supposed to be responsible for compliance. and not an awful lot from Tim Ball or Hans Schreuder. In the recent exchanges since Sept. again their silence has been noticeable. I have been accused by John of lying when I said that “Slayer†numbers appeared to me to be dwindling. I can say for certain that three former “Slayers†(all being high profile individuals listed as “Founding Members and stakeholders†– http://principia-scientific.org/about-us/why-psi-is-a-private-assoc) have told me that they have dissociated themselves from the “Slayers†and PSI. Kent Clizbe, who was a prominent figure during the PSI & Due Diligence exchanges in Dec./Jan. and has been included in the exchanges since September has just asked me to stop including him in the E-mails, so I speculate that he too (and many others) no longer wish to be associated with them.
Of course I could be mistaken about that so if I hear from any of them confirming that they are still “Slayers then I’ll let you know and I’ll apologise to them if necessary. Talking of apologies, in those recent E-mails witjh the “Slayers†et al. Andrew was challenged by Professor Nasif Nahle claiming that Andrew had insulted him on Professor Curry’’ thread. After a few strongly worded exchanges Nasif realised that he had erred and immediately apologised to Andrew. He did the right thing and is to be respected for it. I recall that it was Professor Nahle, asking in October to be removed from the E-mail circulation list, who prompted me to ask John again about those dwindling “Slayer†numbers. I have asked John for an apology for is accusation that I lied about the “dwindling†but am not holding my breath.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
If anyone thinks the Sky Dragon Slayer’s “company” Principia Scientific International is anything more than a facade should look at its “Upcoming Events” page:
Annual PSI Conference scheduled for London, England
First Annual PSI Conference set to take place in London, England, October 2011. Delegates from 12 countries expected to attend three-day event. Further details to be posted.
http://principia-scientific.org/component/content/article/48-upcoming-events/101-second-annual-psi-conference-set-to-take-place-in-boston-mass
It’s a shame how everybody missed it.
Also notice that the “company” doesn’t list any physical address.
While the above is humorous, if you want a real good laugh, this should satisfy you: The Leader of the Sky Dragon Slayers has entered himself in “The O’Sullivan Hall of Fame.†Be careful you don’t wet yourself laughing: http://www.osullivanclan.com/halloffamegalleryiv.html