Yesterday’s post got me thinking about bunnies. So, I wandered over to Eli’s warren and discovered that our furry friend seemed hoppin’ mad that “The Lorax” had gone missing. He had made this important discovery reading “Jimmy’s” comment over at Tim’s blog where Jimmy posted this:
Re #41 and the related comments about the absence of the Lorax thread over on Climate Audit.
I was enjoying watching McIntyre’s responses to the awkward questions that were evolving there and, like others, thought it very strange that the entire thread was wiped. I wrote my first post on their site to ask where it had gone (no hint of my thoughts on the subject and I didn’t include the link to my Helium site where I’ve posted pro-AGW articles).
It seems that the mere mention of Lorax is enough to frighten them off. I tried to post on their new Unthreaded topic with a general clarification of ENSO and it appears I’m banned. Received this message:
http://www.ioerror.us/bb2-support-key?key=a461-f554-dfd9-b1ad
For McIntyre to whine about transparency and getting a fair go in the scientific community is hypocrisy of the highest order.
Hmm…. So, “The Lorax” thread was wiped. Equally ominously, Jimmy thinks he’s banned by Steve — possibly for mentioning this “The Lorax” person.
I’m totally confused on the whole “The Lorax” issue.
However, I think I can shed light on the accusation that Jimmy is banned for mentioning “The Lorax.”
If you click the link Jimmy provided, you’ll discover he triggered “Bad Behavior” a very popular spam filter for WordPress. The link sends the surfer to an informative warning page that provides tips on how to fix the problem. (I’ve been using Bad Behavior for ages. I also use Spam Karma.)
In other words, if Jimmy had two brain cells and read the information at the link, he’d discover his difficulty posting has nothing to do with “The Lorax”. What Jimmy has revealed to the world is … get this…. Climate Audit uses a spam filter.
Oh, the humanity!
Without going into the Lorax thing very much; He was given his own thread by CA. There was dialogue of a sort. Someone figured out who he was via rants which when searched produced other similar phrases in posts under a different name having enough internal information to place him somewhere in western Canada.
He then posted that he had gotten a very nasty, directly threatening email and was appalled and alarmed. He asked that the thread be removed and it was.
Lorax,
1. Comes on CA and accuses steveMC of having bad motives.
2. Gets his own thread to accuse and interogate steve
3. Claims to be a “truth seeker” with no axe to grind against steve.
4. Posts a list of a bunch of papers.
5. Moshpit asks Lorax to identify himself before proceeding.
6. Some clever bunny figures that the egotist has one of his own articles buried in the list.
6. Clever bunny posts one line ” lorax, soil moisture gave it away”
7. Lorax claims “he was threatened by email”
8. Lorax is asked to post the threatening mail with headers.
9. Lorax is scared and asks the thread to be shut down, thereby sealing his identity away… except to those who figured it out.
… suprise he works at the University of Arizona. It’s not Atmoz and I won’t say who it is on the odd chance that he actually did receive an email threat. As for faculty/staff from that university having axe’s to grind…why that’s speculating about motives. I don’t have tenure so I try not to engage in frivolous behavior.
So The Lorax asked that his thread be deep sixed? That seems like a good reason to quietly delete the thread. I’d delete it under those circumstances.
Perhaps it was all a set up to allow Eli and others to claim that CA censors opposing views…..
Raven,
Maybe– but I doubt it.
It seems much more likely that some clueless person thought they could be anonymous by merely using a pseudonym. Then, they realized people would reveal who he was and he wanted to take it all back.
It would be interesting to discover the contents of any angry email, what it said and who sent it though. In comments at “The Bunny”, the threat is described as a death threat. Other places just say “threat”, which could be nothing more than revealing his real name.
If it’s a death threat or a threat of physical harm, I hope “The Lorax” reported the email to the police so they could pursue it.
Funny, I just emailed Steve to ask what happened. It looks like I emailed the wrong Steve.
I tried to post and had some kind of server error. Tried again and it said duplicate comment.
Thanks for the explanation Steve, I was wondering what happened.
I didn’t believe the threatening e-mail story mostly because I doubt that a CA follower would think that way. Lorax said a couple of things that suggested arrested social development. I wish thread was still there so i could support this allegation.
It looks like I missed the final identification of this guy.
I wonder if “Jimmy” will try to repost after he cleans the malware off his computer. Or maybe he feels his point is made, no point in going following up. Seems like a cheap shot, though.
I didn’t follow the Lorax thread too closely, but I will say I’m constantly impressed on how civil Steve can be when he’s insulted. It does set him apart from RC.
Yea, someone kept dropping strange hints.
I think the same person had posted under the name Cumulus at RealClimate, referring to Lorax’s posts.
Does anyone have info on the nature of the threat?
There is a big difference between saying “I am going to hunt you down and kill you” and saying “I have collected all of your vitriolic posts and I will be sending to the Chancellor of your university”.
Raven–
I’m wondering the same thing.
But Steven Mosher’s post suggests that the nature of the threats was not specifically revealed. The threat my be nothing more than “I’ll reveal your actual name, IP address and links to specific posts all over the web placed during normal working hours!!!!” Or, it could be death threats. I have no idea.
Others who read the thread may be able to give more details on the threat.
I just can’t believe how low some people can go!
The Lorax thread is not deleted, it is still completely saved (with all the comments) behind CA admin password. Here’s the story in short:
“PS. Let me know what you want to do.”
“Mr. McIntyre, I’m pretty rattled. Yes, I guess no body wins in this situation. Please such down this thread in its entirety. Please also remove all questions that I asked of you and McKitrick. In fact, delete all my posts on this site (I honesty don’t care, they are not important now). Also, think that it would be best if you deleted all the posts made by AntonioSan on this thread. They found their information in his posts made here. Thank you for being professional about this.”
And now Steve is the bad boy for honoring the request!
Josh Halpern, you are a disgusting low life creature. I only wish you had enough of a spine even for this one time, and you would issue an apology. I won’t hold my breath.
JeanS–
Plus, obviously, SteveM had to yank the post quickly. Otherwise, anyone who wanted to save the information and who knew it was about to disappear would just visit google and copy the google cache.
Hey, I’d do that if I wanted to save the thread info! Who wouldn’t? So, the only thing for someone to do is unpublish without informing people. Then tell them later after google has cleared the cache.
Steven Mosher,
according to the e-mail address Lorax gave to CA, he/she does not work at the University of Arizona.
See the UPDATES You might even add it to the end of your quote here. Frankly, one way or another this is a cf.
Oh yeah, word of advice, if you post a link to USENET, use TINYURL to sanitize it. Works for some other things that have naughty parts.
Josh-the low life- instead everyone should check the comment #6 in your blog. Here’s a copy just for the case you start cutting:
I doubt McIntyre would remove the thread if the threat weren’t serious. Kudos to him for doing so.
I doubt the culprit was a CA reg. They are sometimes clueless and mean (see Jean S’s post above) but rarely homicidal.
Eli-
Why would I add the info in the updates to your posts? I read them. After I read them, I was still confused about “The Lorax” issue, which is what I said in the post. If you think anything in those updates will enlighten anyone about anything, feel free to post the information in comments, and maybe elaborate.
What I did know based on the content of your post is that this , “Jimmy” person isn’t able to process Bad Behavior’s very clear spam messages.
Since I was able to clarify that SteveM was not banning people for mentioning The Lorax, I posted to clear him from that aspersion. Your updates do not shed any light on Jimmy’s obvious mistaken criticism of SteveM.
Also, why in the heck are you giving advice on how to post links to usenet?
Boris–
Yes. There is a lot of clueless and mean at all blogs on the internet. Some clueless-ness originates in the people; some from the medium. Even people who have a clue sometimes do or say stupid things on the web.
Boris,
It is a little strange for you to call Jean S “clueless and mean”. Jean is a quite accomplished statistician, as seen by his complete demolition of Rahmstorf et al 2007. Your blog contributions are hardly in his league.
And Jean S was perfectly justified in calling the bad bunny a “low-life”. Eli’s mistake in accusing Steve M of censorship is sloppy but understandable. His refusal to acknowledge and apologize for the false accusation is pretty low.
brid,
I’m not sure, but I read Boris to suggest this person was “clueless & mean” :
In this day and age, where actual quotes and events are not as well reported as fabricated quotes and events, I think this will be an interesting event to witness as it slides off the tracks.
Lorax sounds a bit too wound up.
It appears that McIntyre and the folks at CA have tried to be accomodating and professional.
Lucia,
I see your point, but it still seems to me that Boris is referring to Jean S directly given the placement of the parenthesis and the context. Perhaps Boris can resolve this question. If he was not commenting on Jean S, then I apologize for taking the wrong inference from an ambiguously worded sentence.
I do not apologize for agreeing with Jean S that the horrible hare is horrendous.
The only detail Lorax gave about the email was something like ‘you better stop asking questions, you little ****”
Which was irritating, because my comments were along those lines so someone might have thought it was me.
brid–
I don’t actually know. But Boris is a frequent commenter, and I suspect he didn’t mean JeanS.
MikeN– It sounds like The Lorax realized that blogs aren’t for him. I doubt if anyone thinks it was you.
As many times as people at Climate Audit have accused or implied that scientists are frauds and idiots–and this includes all the major posters and Steve M himself–some people might argue (not me, I might hasten to add) that it’s the height of hypocrisy to complain about Eli’s post.
Just to clarify:
Yes, I meant Jean S. (though I was referring to the first Jean S post. Yes, it takes me more than three minutes to write a couple sentences.)
Borris,
I am disappointed to be proved correct. Lucia had far more faith in your courtesy than I did and I would have preferred she was correct. I even preemptively apologized.
So, it appears that you accept that Eli’s accusations were false but you believe that he is immune to criticism because of comments made on CA. Huh? Some people might argue (not me, I might hasten to add. Well, actually, yes me) that your arguments lack a certain logic.
Oh, and the lousy lapin is still loathsome.
Interesting, so the “threats” appeared to be merely exposure of one’s identity. This is hardly an major breach since it is unreasonable for anyone who posts on a public blog to expect anonymity. In fact, there are some who think it is unethical to publically attack someone else without identifying yourself.
I’m pissed off if someone said you had better stop asking questions. That is the opposite of CA and the blackboard, at least to my experience. People are always allowed to ask and speak reasoned thoughts. Someone needs to be put in their place.
Horrendous horrible hare, I like it. Sounds like one bunny which might need to be tested for energy content. hehehe- evil laugh.
To anyone who may be interested, I am the same poster who has gone under the name of rephelan… but the world is full of Phelans, including that poor fellow at Trinity who figured out something about bubbles but is getting hate mail directed at me. I live in Connecticut and am an adjunct instructor of Sociology at more than one institution of higher learning. I can be found.
There may be a few who need to hide behind an anonym to safely speak what they know is true…. The Lorax probably was not one such; rather a coward who… “A Snider squibbed in the jungle, somebody laughed and fled, And the men of the First Shikaris….”
I’m getting to the point where people like the Lorax should be snipped. If a blog-owner felt compelled to vouch for an anonymous contributor, we might accept that…. however… if the Lorax steps forward and gets an unlawful threat…. “You are asking quesions about things you have no need to know…” I’m on the Lorax side…. uuuhh…. does my little rant amount to free speech, “mais ouis!”
I wonder if a joke about Uncle Lorax in Nigeria with six million IPCC comments in a vault would get past the spam filters.
Boris:
You have strange notions of hypocrisy, and what people can or can’t complain about.
Raven (Comment#21608)
But you omitted the now customary qualifier
(not me, I hasten to add).
Robert E. Phelan–
I don’t really mind people using pseudonyms. But, people do need to be aware that if their pseudonym attracts attention, someone on the web will try to figure out who they are. Many times, someone can figure out who you are. So, the Lorax was a big clueless when he thought he might be able to remain anonymous for long.
That said: There is an imbalance when a pseudonym makes personal attacks. (That’s part of the reason why pseudonym’s fear having their real identities exposed. They have often acted in ways they would be embarrassed to act if people knew who they were.)
The downside of using your name, as I did, is that you are constrained from relating seemingly analogous experience from your distant past in the science industry which might be (thought) slanderous and might have interpretations other than yours.
“your arguments lack a certain logic.”
Perhaps you are unacquainted with logic? For someone to come on here and complain about Eli’s post whilst ignoring the maligning posts that McSteve has made over the years is fairly hypocritical.
And it’s not like McSteve hasn’t thrown entire threads down the memory hole in the past. “vicious, little men”comes to mind.
Boris–
Eli’s post is clueless.
It is true that The Lorax thread was deleted. This fact was discussed widely in comments over at CA. Had Eli even tried he could have found something out. (He could have asked again at CA. He could have asked Steve.
Instead he writes a blog post in which he decrees that he has Eli has sent Ethon over to demand all the raw data, the code and a complete map of the Climate Audit memory hole.
Yeah…. right…. Well, Ethon must be a flightless water fowl because he didn’t seem to make it over to Climate Audit to ask for any information at all.
Then, The Lorax himself turns up, pretty much confirming the story one could read at CA: SteveM deleted as a favor to The Lorax who was concerned about threats to his anonymity.
But what is even more idiotic about the post is that the bulk of the post was the utterly moronic quote by a clueless individual which Eli picked out of comments from Lambert. That quote suggested — based in less than flimsy evidence– that mere mentioning of “The Lorax” was enough to get people banned from CA.
This utterly idle speculation was totally untrue. Jimmy– who must be fairly dim– clearly did not understand the very clear warming that told him he had triggered a spam filter. Eli either didn’t check Jimmy’s “evidence” or doesn’t understand the very clear message from BadBehavior– the spam filter!
If Eli wants to fish up comments by morons posting at Tim Lambert’s blogs and turn them into conspiracy theories, I guess he will. (He does, after all, seem to see conspiracies all around.) But this is idiotic behavior and it will be commented on.
Boris,
This is getting quite foolish. You say because I have not criticized certain Steve M posts (how would you know?), it is hypocritical for me to take issue with the fact that the wretched wabbit made a clearly false allegation and refuses to acknowledge it.
There is so much wrong with your logic, but why don’t you point me to any documented examples of:
– Steve making a clearly false accusation which he failed to withdraw
– Steve throwing an “entire thread down the memory hole”
Some people (yes, me!) might argue that you should be careful before making serious allegations without evidence. You seem to be of a like mind with the contemptible cottontail.
brid,
First, I was talking about Jean S, not you. Jean S should know some things that go on at Climate Audit, as she (he?) is a contributor.
Second, have you never read Climate Audit? Implications and accusations of fraud and incompetence abound.
Third, How am I supposed to point to a thread that McIntyre has deleted?
And FFS please copy and paste you last sentence to Climate Audit. Thanks.
Boris
Do you really want him to cut and past this?
🙂
Lucia
I have read and contribute at CA for several years and have ALWAYS found SteveM to honest but direct. Boris has also been allowed to contribute at CA and RC unlike me who cannot post at RC.
I read virtually all of lanrinx’s comments and found none of them informative, useful or polite.
It’s fair to say that SteveM chooses his words very, very carefuly and much more carefully than the vast majority of people read them. I too had that problem all my working life. We are fundamentally, all of us, lazy readers. You could argue that it is Steve’s fault that people misread him but I don’t. I believe we all have a responsibility not to add our own problems to somebody elses words. Yes there were several contributors at CA who accused Briffa of cherry picking and to be quite honest, the data tended to indicate that but Briffa has at no time in the last 9 years or so taken the opportunity to show his methods and data. In many ways, the reluctance is indicative of someone with something to hide and in France, the Gendarm would certainly drag you along to the brigade and demand an explanation. The whole sorry situation has been fueled by the ambiance created by sites such as RC whose vitriol and censorship is well known.
I’m with you and Steve. Cut the crap and get back to the science. That’s what will bring an end to this farce.
“Do you really want him to cut and past this?”
lol. Why not? It still kind of works, but is far more cryptic.
IMO Lorax was a bit different. In one situation he asked something to the effect of why it would not be good practice to reject proxies which did not correlate with the insturmental record. Hu M. responded saying (paraphrasing from memory) that “the method you advocate on the surface seems attractive” but that it would amount to cherry picking and would bias the analysis. Lorax took great offense and went off on Hu in a couple of follow up comments saying that Hu had stated that he (Lorax) advocated cherry picking. I don’t think anyone with any common sense would have interpreted Hu’s response to Lorax’s question that way.
Jeff, people were upset with Lorax’s asking questions because he had his own thread, and all he posted were interrogatories of Steve and Ross, and insisting they answer his questions. No statements about what he disagreed with.
Lucia,
I don’t know why you’re ripping Eli for this, it seems to me that he is the victim in this whole affair. After all he thought he had some great ammunition to use against CA, went to the trouble of finding a illustration for the post, track down a half dozen links, deputize Ethon, then it turns out all to be much ado about nothing. Even worse it makes Steve look gracious and accommodating, and then to add insult to injury Lorax posts over at Rabbet Run saying that there were no death threats, or any other threats of personal injury, and even worse “Eli, there are no points to be scored on the Lorax issue, there is no conspiracy, no cover up.”
So I think it’s pretty clear that Eli was the victim in all this and that Steve owes Eli an apology for not acting badly and making Eli look foolish.
Kazinski-
You’re right. It’s not poor Eli’s fault he looks foolish. He was forced into looking foolish by following “Jimmy’s” carrot shreds to discover a non-story which Eli did not investigate fully. Then, horror or horrors, it turns out that SteveM acted graciously to protect the reputation of “The Lorax”, who is begging Eli to shut up already! Poor Eli!
None of this would have happened if the dendroclimatology/tree-ring studies field stayed within the proper spectrum of scientific robustness they were originally intended for (good C14 dating sources, some indication of local climate/growing conditions/drought especially, treeline definition in the paleoclimate).
Until a certain publication elevated them to hockey stardom that is. Why the pro-AGW people hold onto them so vigorously is not really explainable scientifically.
Tree-rings have become a significant symbol or an anchor in a point-of-view and that is why there is so much emotion involved in what should just be a factual discussion.
I might also note that Steve, despite the claim that “Steve McIntyre…. is clear cutting his blog”, hasn’t made a single comment, nor allowed any as for as I can tell, about the whole Lorax matter as the Lorax requested. He must have skin thicker than Greybill’s stripbark.
Cut Eli a break. He doesn’t read the comments on his site. I posted something from Steve, and he only saw it when someone else quoted it at another site, at which point it was highlighted with an UPDATE.
Wow!
It is interesting that someone should feel it necessary to enter (as) a “ringer” into the contest. Why?
I expect that a lesson will be learned and that it will discourage others, or simply make them a lot more careful. That said it does strike me as having being rather naive even without hindsight.
I hope this person is not in the “predicting the future” game, if so he might be better redeployed in the “mitigating the consequences” field.
It does strike me as a very dumb, (not at all net savvy) thing to have done. And yet again why? It seems if you choose to adopt anonymous “poison pen” tactics, one might expect “hate mail” if discovered, at best. Probably, very lucky not to have been simply outed.
BTW, unless things have changed in the last couple of years, relying on one instance of Google updating its cache, may not be sound. We do/did not all access the same Google server and the content of the different servers simply differs. This gives/gave rise to the mysterious behaviour whereby Google could suddenly give a very different set of search results due to a different server coming into play. On a slow day, I tried to track down as many substantively different servers I could find, and to the best of my recall it was one to two dozen.
Alex
Did Steven McIntyre in the end answer any of Lorax’s allegations? For instance, the one asking why McIntyre wouldn’t correct any of the spinned news articles after his pieces on Yamal. Or why he wouldn’t audit research from the skeptic side of the AGW debate (such as Svensmark or Pielke). I thought those were good questions. McIntyre might have answered them, but it’s not always easy to wade through all the comments made by the army that shields him.
Neven–
Not only do I not know whether SteveM responded to those allegations,I don’t even know whether The Lorax alleged them.
Assuming someone did ask that: I don’t think anyone is required to visit every site posting spinned news articles on the web and correct them. I don’t really think anyone believes people are required to do it: The climate activist bloggers don’t spend time correcting similar over-spinned articles. Then what happens is that stone-cold coolers criticize climate-activists who don’t spend 24/7 for months on end correcting overspin and climate activists criticize non-activists who don’t spend 24/7 correcting. All critics think they are being sincere, but they really only care about the overspin if they think it’s in the direction they don’t like and if they would prefer a particular person waste their time “correcting” rather than focusing on more fruitful investigations to advance science.
The fact is, it’s not even possible to correct mis-interpretations or distortions of one’s own material on the web. The best one can do is a) post what you believe is correct, and b) answer questions on your own turf.
mosh, was it “luminous beauty” that threatened Lorax?
bender, according to Lorax, nobody threatened him:
Reading this soap my first impression is:
Lorax: Keyboard warrior
Rabett : Manipulator non plus ultra
I already mentioned in the CA “Lorax” thread that it was too much honor for a Trolax. This was snipped by McSteve, unfortunately, being in the blogosphere long enough I knew that these intarnet blog fights can get out of hand quickly and viciously, especially when rabid rodents are involved.
Let’s be sure, Lorax was very clear with his attacks on Steve M’s personal integrity.
Wait a minute. All I have to do is badmouth McIntyre and I get my own Climate Audit thread to play with?
James,
it went on and on and on. He was disrupting every single thread, he would not stay on topic. Something had to be done to compartmentalize his contributions. And he didn’t exactly “badmouth McIntyre”. He repeatedly questioned McIntyre’s motive. He repeatedly asked him to distance himself from the McKitrick news article. And he repeatedly asked McKitrick to recant the article title. I doubt you would have the energy to go on and on the way Lorax did. Imagine Nathan, but out of control on every thread.
In fact I believe I even replied to “Jimmy”. I advised him to drop it out of respect for Lorax’s wishes. Jimmy wasn’t “snipped”. He was zambonied along with everyone else. Whoever scared poor Lorax should be made to account for his deplorable actions.
Neven distorts what Lorax was doing. I know. I was there. Lorax got responses from both McIntyre and McKitrick. McIntyre told him that what other blogs did with his statements was not his problem; go complain at the source of the problem. McKitrick told him that the editors pick the newspaper article titles, not him. Lorax basically wanted McIntyre to recant his statement about CRU Yamal vs Schweingruber Yamal being one of the most disturbing images ever presented at CA. But of course Lorax couldn’t make a solid case as to why the image was not disturbing. So, yes, he got responses and they were fair even though he didn’t like them.
Carrick says:
“according to Lorax, nobody threatened him”
.
Oh, that is one I did not see. That kinda changes things. For McIntyre to have removed a whole thread to protect someone who felt threatened on very little grounds. That is awfully generous, I would say. I had assumed by the way he was talking that there was a tangible threat.
Being sent an anonymous email out of the blue stating “you better stop asking questions, you little …” – I would understand someone feeling threatened. Shame on Rabett for getting everything wrong.