Free the mouth! Repeal the stamp tax! Free beer for all! 🙂
Hmmm, I’m showing 13:23. “. . .its worse than we thought” 😉
Time is 12:15 pm
21 December, 2009 (12:20) | Data Comparisons Written by: lucia
Fail.
Time party at the train station! Don’t accept time oppression! Get there early for the best seats.
Um, Chicago, Central Standard Time I presume. 2:53 PM EST.
DeWitt–
Yes. Someone asked me about time stamps on my blog. I wanted to confirm. 🙂
It’s time to stamp out this time stamp debate. The timestamp for 12.15 is clearly 12.20 so even Lucia must realise its worse than we thought. Stamp your feet if you like but its time to call time on this one
my time is 11:44, in athens greece
lets see what comes up now.
It’s 06:56 on the 22nd here on my oil rig in The South China Sea!
Hi Lucia, Usually your blog is over my head BUT I can state confidently that Texas time (USA CST) is 8:51, or 2051 hours.
There is an extremely ugly thread running at present over at WUWT about James Hansen. Anthony Watts posted a statement by Hansen which includes information about death threats he has received recently in Texas. Only one person in 80 condemned those threats. Many were gleeful. That one person was not Mr. Watts.
It is a sad day when a disagreement of an issue prompts one to ignore or justify threats on the life of your opponent.
Here is my response:
<<>>
“I am extremely disappointed that from Anthony Watts’ initial comment down – there was only one condemnation of the death threats against Dr. Hansen.
As a left critic of AGW – there is much that I find unappealing on this website, especially in the comments. But if you cannot find it in yourself to condemn terroristic threats – simply because the person threatened has views different than your own – then you don’t deserve the time of day.
You may or may not support abortion rights, but abortion remains a legal procedure in the United States. Last year, George Tiller, an abortion provider, was murdered in the aisles of his church. Is this what you want debate to devolve into?
The violence runs both ways. Last week someone attacked Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, breaking his nose. The attacker’s justification? – “that man is ruining Italy. I don’t agree with anything he saysâ€. Thirty years ago, Italian premier Also Moro was kidnapped and murdered.
Until and unless the proprietor of this website states unequivocally that the threats against Dr. Hansen are utterly unacceptable – states so first before any other discussion is begun – then it is a self-indictment.
PS – And I disagree with much of what Hansen has done. “
John Egan,
.
The twitter threat was a play on Hansen’s own words when he called for executives of coal/oil companies. Specifically Hansen said:
.
“CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.â€
.
Hansen has also directly compared coal trains to the death trains that carried the Holocaust victims to their deaths.
.
Also a distinction needs to be made between between calling for some to be tried with a crime that carries capital punishment as a sentence and an actual death threat. The former implies that a due process is required and it only slightly more offensive than Hansen’s own comments about ‘high crimes against humanity’.
.
I also suspect most of the readers have not bothered parse the distinction between ‘high crime’ and ‘high treason’ and see the threat as nothing but Hansen having his own words shoved into his face.
John–
Death threats definitely should not be tolerated. It’s a shame we don’t see a few more that specifically condemn that aspect.
That said, despite looking, I’m not seeing the “many” comments expressing glee about death threats. I am seeing lots of comments that don’t engage the death threat part at all, quite a few that express general disapproval of Hansen. Could you quote any that specifically express glee over the death threats?
I wonder, out of curiosity, where the initial death threats were posted? You know the ones that caused the Texas police to give Hansen an escort? If we knew where they were, we could point our disapproval at the specific source. We could also learn what, precisely, was posted.
Threats of violence are wrong, but at the same time you can’t keep poking the dog with a stick. The dog is going to react eventually.
I have a solution for Dr. Hansen, if he doesn’t like people reacting negatively to his highly visible stupidity:
Retire.
Andrew
Raven –
I am perfectly well aware of Hansen’s statements and actions. In fact, one of the reasons that I moved away from support of AGW was Hansen’s outrageous claims. Still, that does not justify threats against a person.
BTW – It’s way more than Twitter –
Limbaugh: Scientists involved in global warming “hoax” should be “named and fired, drawn and quartered, or whatever it is”
Not to mention all the e-mail threats.
It goes to the heart of who we are as a society. It doesn’t take long for a society to devolve into one of endless sectarian violence. From the Roman Republic to modern Lebanon, politics by assassination is something old and well-practiced. It requires constant vigilance on the part of those who wish to preserve a free and open society with civil discourse.
Not Franklin, not Voltaire, actually Evelyn Beatrice Hall said –
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Lucia –
Did I say “glee”?
Here’s what I said –
“As a left critic of AGW – there is much that I find unappealing on this website, especially in the comments.”
“Unappealing” is different then “glee”.
Reply — You specifically wrote:
Many were gleeful.
The fact that more than 100 people simply gloss over the fact the Dr. Hansen’s life has been threatened is rather sobering.
And I say that knowing full well Hansen’s outrageous statements about “death trains” and “corporate trials”. The challenge for for a liberal society – and I use “liberal” in its traditional meaning of plural and tolerant – is to defend public discourse DESPITE egregious actions by its participants.
Here’s one lovely comment –
“The price of infamy. My heart bleeds.”
And, more importantly, Anthony Watts has an obligation to make certain that such threats are unacceptable on his website – make certain in clear and unambiguous language – right off the top. He failed to do you. In contrast, that was the first think you stated.
One can disagree – disagree strongly – and still maintain civil discourse.
John Egan,
.
Limbaugh says what he says but was not mentioned in the post on WUWT. Why would you expect posters there to condemn it.
.
Even then, I am not sure how many people would realize that calling for someone to be “named and fired, drawn and quartered” is actually a death threat since drawing and quartering is a archaic term . Many would read/hear it as “named and fired and punished”.
.
Lastly, I have come to expect that any person in the public eye taking controversial positions will get anonymous death threats. That is the nature of our society and the internet. It is not good but I don’t hear many cases where controversial people actually getting attacked so I tend to assume such threats are not serious.
.
I suspect that is what is going through the head of the person who wrote: “The price of infamy. My heart bleeds”.
.
The bottom line is I agree in principle that threats of violance must be condemned but I think you are ignoring a lot of context when read the comments on WUWT.
Raven –
Hansen talked about his need for a police escort.
It was Watts mentioned the specific Twitter threat.
But the need for an escort comes from more than one Twitter.
Surely, given Rush Limbaugh’s prominence, his threatening statements are part of the mix. Making “humorous” death threats is absolutely unacceptable – regardless of the framing or target.
PS – And remember – I don’t particularly care for Dr. Hansen, either.
John Egan,
,
What Hansen said:
“The organizers there felt it necessary that I have a police escort between my hotel and the forum where I spoke.”
.
That could mean many things from anonymous death threats to a concern that there would be protesters and the police would help Hansen navigate his way through the crowd.
.
Note that Hansen does not say that he personally was afraid of violance – just that the organizers felt protection was necessary.
.
I also don’t really see what Limbaugh has to do with it. You had a specific complaint about WUWT and Limbaugh’s comments were not mentioned there. Bringing up Limbaugh confuses the issue even if you are correct about Limbaugh.
John Egan
Lucia –
Did I say “glee�
You did not use the noun and chose the adjective instead writing:
Many were gleeful.
(I’m going to go inline this one! Sheesh.)
So, I take it you can’t find any gleeful about the death threats specifically and can only find comments you find unappealing and which may not expressing any glee about Hansen receiving death threats?
If you are referring to the Breibert quote, it’s not clear there were any death threats. That may be why there is so little outrage expressed at death threats. Hansen translated that into a death threat. But, really…. no. There is no evidence anyone threatened to kill Hansen.
That said: I also don’t approve of these insinuations that political opponents should be tried for capital crimes. I disapproved when Hansen did it; I disapprove of Breibert did it. But neither case is precisely a death threat.
John Egan, I went back and reread the comments. While a certain amount of venting goes on against Dr. Hansen, I think you are overstating both the need for this group to condemn random unhinged commentators, as well as the tenor of comments in that thread and on Watts site in general.
That said, there’s a reason I don’t comment over there very often.
Lucia –
BTW – Thank you again for providing one of the few moderate forums for discussion of climate issues. It’s a rare breath of fresh air.
Wishing all a Happy Holiday Season.
WUWT comment by Willis Eschenbach, (00:57:36), who mentions that threats are vile, seems to have some validity.
Excerpt: … However, as someone who doubts the “consensus†view, I have endured this kind of abuse for years. People who didn’t sign on for Jim’s sleigh ride have lost their jobs and gotten a variety of threats and abuse … but Jim never said a single word about that. Not one.
Now that finally the shoe is on the other foot, he finds it wrong wrong wrong … but where was his oh-so-righteous indignation when the threats and name calling was all going the way he wanted? Where was his public call for calm when Tim Ball got death threats? …
Happy Holidays to you too, John!
Breitbart’s twitter is no more a death threat than Hansen’s call for executives to be charged with crimes against humanity. Or on a milder scale, Santer’s fantasies of violence in the CRU mails.
But then again, some fanatical types may interpret calls to action differently. We’ve had Hansen and Gore blocking and praising attempts to shut down large power generating facilities in the UK, and supporting direct action. We have a somewhat fragile power network in the UK, rising fuel poverty and at the moment some cold weather. So people will die. More people will die if energy costs keep increasing, and we’ve been told to expect a possible 60% increase over the next decade to pay for ‘clean’ energy. Energy companies will profit, people on the border line will be pushed into poverty and suffer. Hansen though has a new book out, so can look forward to advance and royalties, and perhaps spend some on expensive energy saving gizmos.
So I’m afraid I have little sympathy for Hansen while he’s getting richer pushing policies that will increase poverty and suffering.
Since it looks a little slow tonight, I thought I’d comment a little Christmas Cheer for us to read…
Second Lieutenant Dougan Chater, letter to his mother (25th December, 1914)
I think I have seen one of the most extraordinary sights today that anyone has ever seen. About 10 o’clock this morning I was peeping over the parapet when I saw a German, waving his arms, and presently two of them got out of their trenches and some came towards ours. We were just going to fire on them when we saw they had no rifles so one of our men went out to meet them and in about two minutes the ground between the two lines of trenches was swarming with men and officers of both sides, shaking hands and wishing each other a happy Christmas.
In the spirit of Andrew’s post;
.
Merry Christmas to all!
.
Eid Mubarak!
.
Happy Dvali!
.
Happy Chanuka!
.
Happy Festivus!
.
And a big thanks to Lucia, for running one of the sanest blogs in the Climate Debate.
Free the mouth! Repeal the stamp tax! Free beer for all! 🙂
Hmmm, I’m showing 13:23. “. . .its worse than we thought” 😉
Fail.
Time party at the train station! Don’t accept time oppression! Get there early for the best seats.
Um, Chicago, Central Standard Time I presume. 2:53 PM EST.
DeWitt–
Yes. Someone asked me about time stamps on my blog. I wanted to confirm. 🙂
It’s time to stamp out this time stamp debate. The timestamp for 12.15 is clearly 12.20 so even Lucia must realise its worse than we thought. Stamp your feet if you like but its time to call time on this one
my time is 11:44, in athens greece
lets see what comes up now.
It’s 06:56 on the 22nd here on my oil rig in The South China Sea!
Hi Lucia, Usually your blog is over my head BUT I can state confidently that Texas time (USA CST) is 8:51, or 2051 hours.
There is an extremely ugly thread running at present over at WUWT about James Hansen. Anthony Watts posted a statement by Hansen which includes information about death threats he has received recently in Texas. Only one person in 80 condemned those threats. Many were gleeful. That one person was not Mr. Watts.
It is a sad day when a disagreement of an issue prompts one to ignore or justify threats on the life of your opponent.
Here is my response:
<<>>
John Egan,
.
The twitter threat was a play on Hansen’s own words when he called for executives of coal/oil companies. Specifically Hansen said:
.
“CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.â€
.
Hansen has also directly compared coal trains to the death trains that carried the Holocaust victims to their deaths.
.
Also a distinction needs to be made between between calling for some to be tried with a crime that carries capital punishment as a sentence and an actual death threat. The former implies that a due process is required and it only slightly more offensive than Hansen’s own comments about ‘high crimes against humanity’.
.
I also suspect most of the readers have not bothered parse the distinction between ‘high crime’ and ‘high treason’ and see the threat as nothing but Hansen having his own words shoved into his face.
John–
Death threats definitely should not be tolerated. It’s a shame we don’t see a few more that specifically condemn that aspect.
That said, despite looking, I’m not seeing the “many” comments expressing glee about death threats. I am seeing lots of comments that don’t engage the death threat part at all, quite a few that express general disapproval of Hansen. Could you quote any that specifically express glee over the death threats?
I wonder, out of curiosity, where the initial death threats were posted? You know the ones that caused the Texas police to give Hansen an escort? If we knew where they were, we could point our disapproval at the specific source. We could also learn what, precisely, was posted.
Lucia,
Here is the threat in question:
http://twittorati.com/andrewbreitbart/statuses/6173170765
I agree with Raven.
Threats of violence are wrong, but at the same time you can’t keep poking the dog with a stick. The dog is going to react eventually.
I have a solution for Dr. Hansen, if he doesn’t like people reacting negatively to his highly visible stupidity:
Retire.
Andrew
Raven –
I am perfectly well aware of Hansen’s statements and actions. In fact, one of the reasons that I moved away from support of AGW was Hansen’s outrageous claims. Still, that does not justify threats against a person.
BTW – It’s way more than Twitter –
Limbaugh: Scientists involved in global warming “hoax” should be “named and fired, drawn and quartered, or whatever it is”
Not to mention all the e-mail threats.
It goes to the heart of who we are as a society. It doesn’t take long for a society to devolve into one of endless sectarian violence. From the Roman Republic to modern Lebanon, politics by assassination is something old and well-practiced. It requires constant vigilance on the part of those who wish to preserve a free and open society with civil discourse.
Not Franklin, not Voltaire, actually Evelyn Beatrice Hall said –
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Lucia –
Did I say “glee”?
Here’s what I said –
“As a left critic of AGW – there is much that I find unappealing on this website, especially in the comments.”
“Unappealing” is different then “glee”.
Reply — You specifically wrote:
The fact that more than 100 people simply gloss over the fact the Dr. Hansen’s life has been threatened is rather sobering.
And I say that knowing full well Hansen’s outrageous statements about “death trains” and “corporate trials”. The challenge for for a liberal society – and I use “liberal” in its traditional meaning of plural and tolerant – is to defend public discourse DESPITE egregious actions by its participants.
Here’s one lovely comment –
“The price of infamy. My heart bleeds.”
And, more importantly, Anthony Watts has an obligation to make certain that such threats are unacceptable on his website – make certain in clear and unambiguous language – right off the top. He failed to do you. In contrast, that was the first think you stated.
One can disagree – disagree strongly – and still maintain civil discourse.
John Egan,
.
Limbaugh says what he says but was not mentioned in the post on WUWT. Why would you expect posters there to condemn it.
.
Even then, I am not sure how many people would realize that calling for someone to be “named and fired, drawn and quartered” is actually a death threat since drawing and quartering is a archaic term . Many would read/hear it as “named and fired and punished”.
.
Lastly, I have come to expect that any person in the public eye taking controversial positions will get anonymous death threats. That is the nature of our society and the internet. It is not good but I don’t hear many cases where controversial people actually getting attacked so I tend to assume such threats are not serious.
.
I suspect that is what is going through the head of the person who wrote: “The price of infamy. My heart bleeds”.
.
The bottom line is I agree in principle that threats of violance must be condemned but I think you are ignoring a lot of context when read the comments on WUWT.
Raven –
Hansen talked about his need for a police escort.
It was Watts mentioned the specific Twitter threat.
But the need for an escort comes from more than one Twitter.
Surely, given Rush Limbaugh’s prominence, his threatening statements are part of the mix. Making “humorous” death threats is absolutely unacceptable – regardless of the framing or target.
PS – And remember – I don’t particularly care for Dr. Hansen, either.
John Egan,
,
What Hansen said:
“The organizers there felt it necessary that I have a police escort between my hotel and the forum where I spoke.”
.
That could mean many things from anonymous death threats to a concern that there would be protesters and the police would help Hansen navigate his way through the crowd.
.
Note that Hansen does not say that he personally was afraid of violance – just that the organizers felt protection was necessary.
.
I also don’t really see what Limbaugh has to do with it. You had a specific complaint about WUWT and Limbaugh’s comments were not mentioned there. Bringing up Limbaugh confuses the issue even if you are correct about Limbaugh.
John Egan
You did not use the noun and chose the adjective instead writing:
(I’m going to go inline this one! Sheesh.)
So, I take it you can’t find any gleeful about the death threats specifically and can only find comments you find unappealing and which may not expressing any glee about Hansen receiving death threats?
If you are referring to the Breibert quote, it’s not clear there were any death threats. That may be why there is so little outrage expressed at death threats. Hansen translated that into a death threat. But, really…. no. There is no evidence anyone threatened to kill Hansen.
That said: I also don’t approve of these insinuations that political opponents should be tried for capital crimes. I disapproved when Hansen did it; I disapprove of Breibert did it. But neither case is precisely a death threat.
John Egan, I went back and reread the comments. While a certain amount of venting goes on against Dr. Hansen, I think you are overstating both the need for this group to condemn random unhinged commentators, as well as the tenor of comments in that thread and on Watts site in general.
That said, there’s a reason I don’t comment over there very often.
Lucia –
BTW – Thank you again for providing one of the few moderate forums for discussion of climate issues. It’s a rare breath of fresh air.
Wishing all a Happy Holiday Season.
WUWT comment by Willis Eschenbach, (00:57:36), who mentions that threats are vile, seems to have some validity.
Excerpt: … However, as someone who doubts the “consensus†view, I have endured this kind of abuse for years. People who didn’t sign on for Jim’s sleigh ride have lost their jobs and gotten a variety of threats and abuse … but Jim never said a single word about that. Not one.
Now that finally the shoe is on the other foot, he finds it wrong wrong wrong … but where was his oh-so-righteous indignation when the threats and name calling was all going the way he wanted? Where was his public call for calm when Tim Ball got death threats? …
Happy Holidays to you too, John!
Breitbart’s twitter is no more a death threat than Hansen’s call for executives to be charged with crimes against humanity. Or on a milder scale, Santer’s fantasies of violence in the CRU mails.
But then again, some fanatical types may interpret calls to action differently. We’ve had Hansen and Gore blocking and praising attempts to shut down large power generating facilities in the UK, and supporting direct action. We have a somewhat fragile power network in the UK, rising fuel poverty and at the moment some cold weather. So people will die. More people will die if energy costs keep increasing, and we’ve been told to expect a possible 60% increase over the next decade to pay for ‘clean’ energy. Energy companies will profit, people on the border line will be pushed into poverty and suffer. Hansen though has a new book out, so can look forward to advance and royalties, and perhaps spend some on expensive energy saving gizmos.
So I’m afraid I have little sympathy for Hansen while he’s getting richer pushing policies that will increase poverty and suffering.
Since it looks a little slow tonight, I thought I’d comment a little Christmas Cheer for us to read…
Second Lieutenant Dougan Chater, letter to his mother (25th December, 1914)
I think I have seen one of the most extraordinary sights today that anyone has ever seen. About 10 o’clock this morning I was peeping over the parapet when I saw a German, waving his arms, and presently two of them got out of their trenches and some came towards ours. We were just going to fire on them when we saw they had no rifles so one of our men went out to meet them and in about two minutes the ground between the two lines of trenches was swarming with men and officers of both sides, shaking hands and wishing each other a happy Christmas.
http://www.bandofbrothers.com/interests/WWI/christmastruce.htm
Andrew
In the spirit of Andrew’s post;
.
Merry Christmas to all!
.
Eid Mubarak!
.
Happy Dvali!
.
Happy Chanuka!
.
Happy Festivus!
.
And a big thanks to Lucia, for running one of the sanest blogs in the Climate Debate.