Comment of the week

Yes, that is definitely the comment of the week and then some. I could not agree more.

Too depressing, and makes me glad I’m 49 and on the back end of things. Very glad I was born when I was, though a decade earlier would have been nice. Really, REALLY glad I wasn’t born a decade later.

The desire for “something for nothing” and no regard for the consequences is the food of the cockroaches.

When I first saw this comment I was contemplating a comment referring to it.
I have noted that the most outspoken critics of the way this debate has developed have lived under dictatorial regimes & they have highlighted the similarities between those regimes & the way green politics is headed in that direction
DaveE.

There is no place to escape this debate, no place the cockroaches will not infest and corrupt and therefore, we are ALL of us obligated to take up arms against those those who spit in the eye of truth and reason… Well said.
Thanks for posting this, Anthony.

Richard @11:04
Watts Up With That?
Commentary on puzzling things in life, nature, science, weather, climate change, technology and recent news by Anthony Watts.

I think the Surface Stations Website should be updated at least annually. Only a couple of days to go.
REPLY: Big update being planned just prior to the release of our paper. After having NCDC “borrow” our own work before it was even done, against my objections, I’m not going to give them anything to build on further until the paper is out. -A

Richard says:
July 15, 2010 at 11:04 am
His blog, his rules. Alexander lives in the Rockies, perhaps a Galt’s Gulch can be started there!

Jefferson said something to the extent that liberty demands eternal vigilance. He understood cockroaches too.

Thanks for elevating Alexander Feht’s powerful comment to a full post.
It’s all the more chilling when you realize that there is an entire generation of Americans for whom the Soviet Union is just a paragraph in their school history books.
And by the way, the cockroaches are not just on the coasts. There are plenty in Chicago, though some have joined their colleagues in Washington, DC.
/Mr Lynn

Alexander and Anthony:
Thank you, thank you for saying this in print. I’ve devoted my life and my (tiny) fortune to help give mankind the option of someday being able to leave this planet. If we can’t stop communism here, we may be able to start new frontiers.

I am completely embarrassed by all this attention.
My heartfelt thanks to Mr. Watts and all the commentators.
The only thing I would like to add:
I’ve noticed that many comments on WUWT (and in other places) are based on the unshaken assumption that the existing framework of democracy, including the established peer-review and other mechanisms in Academia, would somehow, even if only in a long run, fix our worst problems, and extricate the good name of science from the rotten mire it has found itself in today.
The question is obvious:
How the same framework and the same mechanisms that resulted in today’s lamentable situation, are going to have a healing effect?
In other words, are you sure that we have at hand something to populate the house with, after we would have “cleaned the house”? Where are Mozarts, Darwins, Teslas and Rembrandts in our cherished established institutions? And, most importantly, what fundamental (and, preferably, bloodless) changes in our society are necessary to bring Mozarts, Darwins, Teslas and Rembrandts up, and to bring Bushes, Obamas, Blairs and Prince-Charleses down into oblivion? That is the question.

Cockroaches… meet my shoe!!! SQUISH!

Alexander’s metaphor is brilliant. Perhaps you should start a new blog, Anthony, devoted to keeping the cockroaches at bay.
A small group of pioneers in the UK are making a start.
Here is the URL: http://www.bankofenglandact.co.uk/
The AGW scam pales into insignificance in comparison with the fractional banking scam, in its effect on the sheeple.
AGW is non-existent, but financial crises are very definitely man-made, and a remedy is at hand. It is not rocket science, just common sense.
Best regards, and keep up the good work!
PJM

So the system is getting infested with bugs. And not just any ordinary bugs. Cockroaches, oh my.
We will have to continue to validate them out.
“Is not end of world: End of World is big mushroom cloud”

Alexander,
I continue to work among the cockroaches. I am eagerly awaiting the day that I can escape to surf, sand, and sun. When I was a youngster, academia in the USA was not dominated by cockroaches. Professors took pride in being open-minded and critical. Also, they taught and fostered open-mindedness and a critical attitude in many ways. The beginning of the end was the institutionalization of radical feminism. When someone publishes her twentieth book in support of the thesis that there is in nature something called “maleness” and it is the root of all evil, you know that open-mindedness and a critical attitude are officially on the Dean’s ash pile. We see exactly the same thing in Climategate, a small group of so-called scientists who declare themselves the authority in all matters pertaining to their science and who impose that authority through the peer review process. That is total corruption or “merde,” as the Portuguese so poetically say. As for the IPCC, that is just the UN trying to get in on the action.

So sad and so true, cockroaches and rats can survive even under the worst of conditions. They will be in control when the humans have been overwhelmed and suffocated under a mountain of bull crap.
I hate to say it, but the real humans are doomed to be overtaken by the vermin decepticons. The end is not appealing in the least.

Well, if you say so, Alexander, but I personally think you have insulted cockroaches everywhere. I would not elevate the people you refer to up to the level of cockroaches.

This is important.
As Feht says, what built it maintains it.
It is now time to rediscover a morality of life- a morality that is consistent with human nature- and make it very explicit.
The renaissances always begin to fail when nobody can properly define ‘good’ in absolute terms.
That’s your real battleground. You win self ownership and dignity or get taken on that field.

@ Harold , John M and others.
Like i said its only my opinion. If yours differs so be it, don’t hate me for mine.
As Clint Eastwood once said “Opinions are like assholes; Everyone has got one.”
But like i said : I read some comments that made me do some online searches, read articles, think more and ask more about certain topics then this comment.
I’m sorry but i’m a big fan of theories with facts and data.
regards
Richard

Alexander Feht says: July 15, 2010 at 12:01 pm
…Where are Mozarts, Darwins, Teslas and Rembrandts in our cherished established institutions?
Oh, Alexander, there are Mozarts Darwins Teslas and Rembrandts around today, just not in the same niches as before, because genius – filled with spirit – bubbles out ever new, in new places that always need new discovery. I have a whole library full of them. Try Secrets of the Soil. Or the work of Emoto or Schauberger on water. Or The Field by Lynne Mc Taggart. To take the scientists first. What the Renaissance was then, the “New Age” is today, at its best. Much of the real genius is sidelined by the authorities as “pseudoscience” because it challenges current paradigms of “Reality” with phenomena that are right under our noses, easy to see, replicate, check. But with the Internet and modern facilities the work is totally available. Academia has always had a somewhat bunker mentality – and with the Internet, this will eventually tend to put Academia out of business. IMHO.

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Cal Barndorfer says:
July 15, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Reply to Cal
Cal I think the sentiment and concern strikes a chord with many, not because of any hatred of academia as such, but more with what we see as the agenda issues. The long standing UN bid for huge sums of money and power under different pretext and issues, the backers and players who stand to gain and cause others to sell their soul to an ideal.
Then there are the spinners and politicians that try to keep Mr and Mrs average citizen as dumb puppets to be manipulated, deals are done behind closed doors, laws are implemented by stealth and regulation, rather than open debate on the issues in a democratic and ethical way.
The longer you live, and just when you think you have found the perfect place, you find intrusions, people who demand a better than equal part of your little bit of paradise and then proceed to change your world to suit themselves and you can see before your eyes that paradise disintegrating and you feel powerless to do anything about it, you are told how you must think, and of course never question or speak up or risk being branded as some terrible bigot, racist, or worse.
Fortunately I have the wonderful thought, that humans have the ability to overcome anything when they are well informed.
In general, society goes through evolutionary stages as values change and children determine to provide better for their children. So you have commune children that were raised to share everything and own nothing, who become the go getter’s of the next generation. They want all the consumer trappings to provide their children with what they didn’t have as children, and they can, because they have the choice.
Scientists have the choice to make a difference and stand up and be counted and if some scientists have slipped on their ethics in this generation, I am sure that the next will demand different expectations and stricter standards, in that thought, yes I am optimistic.
I’m sure that as far as academia and science, I see signs of recognition that a few have let the side down, but annoyance that all are being tainted in the process. That will change as more in Science and Academia join Professor Judith Curry in engaging your perception of the enemy or opposition that have invaded/shaken your piece of reason and paradise, be optimistic please!!

The instructive thing is: The USSR is gone.
One man didn’t kill it, and it didn’t die quickly; but it died.
This is like serving in the Army. You give it your best for 3, or 4 years, and then turn the fight over to the next Good Guy. Don’t let it eat you alive. [snip] Time, and numbers, are on “our” side.

@ nofate July 15, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Offcourse i know what happened during WOII, my father survived a prisoncamp ( two actually ) But my point was why select a Godwinn as a quote of the week.
Like i said earlier take something that adds a novum to this forum, a new insight, some fuel for the fire. My point that there is nothing to debate about this post i allready lost by now but still my idea of a post that gives new information on current themes or a OT that brings new interesting arguments to light would had my preference. But like i said: I’m only one of the commentators. Or like Harold said : Just one voice in thousands.

Liars and Cockroaches do seem to be everywhere. Where do they come from? I think “they” are the root of The Problem. Where do they come from? Perhaps the Body Snatchers have invaded the world?

Alexander, apologies for exporting roaches your way, but here in California we’re already knee deep in ’em and running out of room (and money to throw away)…

Speaking of cockroaches, communism, roads to serfdom and so on…
Investors.com has been running a very interesting series, Perspectives Of A Russian Immigrant. The author lived in the Soviet Union until 1980.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/SpecialReport.aspx?id=512665

KenB writes:
“Scientists have the choice to make a difference and stand up and be counted and if some scientists have slipped on their ethics in this generation, I am sure that the next will demand different expectations and stricter standards, in that thought, yes I am optimistic.”
Do you really believe that someone will stand up to the feminist studies departments? If so, why haven’t they stood up. There is not one article out of a feminist studies department that has been published in a serious academic journal. All of their work is in newly created journals edited by radical feminists. Yet the president of Harvard is a radical feminist. Why did no one stand up? Who will stand up? Why has academia permitted the creation of universities within universities? Why are there rogue departments and institutes that answer to no one but themselves?
I take feminist studies department as my example because that case is so very clear. But much of the same goes on elsewhere. CRU/UEA is just one among many such “research units,” or whatever you want to call them, that answer to no one and spend their time in advocacy rather than science. And that is a good thing for them because their attempts at science are dreadful. Before discovering CRU/UEA, I would never have believed that a science professor would assert that model runs count as evidence or data in science. I believe that only a fool would make such an assertion. Yet Climategaters have just been given a thorough whitewash and continue to control the IPCC process. Aren’t you scared?

Alexander asks:
“How the same framework and the same mechanisms that resulted in today’s lamentable situation, are going to have a healing effect?”
In academia generally, remove all policies based on Affirmative Action and Diversity Initiatives. Fire all Diversity Deans. Permit academic departments to sink or swim on the basis of their graduates. If feminist studies departments were required to justify their existence by appeal to the number of their majors and graduates, they would vanish, except of course from the hard core enclaves of the coasts.
As regards science in academia, require that all applications for promotion, research grants, and all other items be accompanied with a description of the scientist’s research and a description of the particular theories that guide his research. Require that research and theories be submitted for review to other scientists who have been critical of the research or theories. Require that all reviews be managed by the Dean of Faculty rather than the reviewee’s department.
The thrust of these two proposals is to peal away the accretions from the radicalism of the Sixties and the Careerism of the Eighties. Once these accretions are stripped away, academic science and academia at large might return to first rate scholarship and research.
Contrary to Pennsylvania State University, grant funds brought to the university by the applicant are not to be considered in applications for promotion.
What matters is the integrity of the scholarship, not its popularity or appeal to funding agencies.

Alexander Feht with his familiarity with cockroaches see them more clearly than most in North America.
The sound of the cockroaches:
“A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States.” – written by Obama’s Science Adviser, Holden with Paul Ehrlich (1973)
“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing – are not sustainable.” – Maurice Strong, Rio Earth Summit
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” Maurice Strong
Make no mistake the economic collapse we are now seeing was planned years ago.
You Americans are so gullible! We don’t have to invade you! We will destroy you from within without firing a shot! We will bury you by the billions! We spoon feed you socialism until your Communists and don’t even know it! We assist your elected leaders in giving you small doses of Socialism until you suddenly awake to find you have Communism. the day will come when your grandchildren will live under communism! Nikita Khrushchev

Ric Werme says:
July 15, 2010 at 6:14 pm
==================
Are you complaining?
Without your hit it would be one less.

just a suggestion:
please remove Darwin from the list and replace it with a name much kinder toward humanity, say, Einstein.

Charmed you found a Russian to identify an “example of a typical reprehensible representative of modern Academia.” and ask “Where are Mozarts, Darwins, Teslas and Rembrandts in our cherished established institutions?” and wonder “How the same framework and the same mechanisms that resulted in today’s lamentable situation, are going to have a healing effect?”
Newtons, Darwins, and Einsteins seem to come along every couple hundred years or so. Mozarts, perhaps, every 500 years or so. Teslas every 50 years or so. Rembrandts whenever a productive artist is identified and promoted through a market. Are we overdue?
What is today’s lamentable situation? What needs to be healed? Science is still discovering new relationships in the world. As Newton, Darwin, and Einstein all noticed, not all were happy at the time they presented their views. Such is life.
Reprehensible academia? LOL. Nice try.
The “mechanism” is the scientific method. If you have another method in mind, please identify it. I sympathize if the scientific method does not produce what you wanted or expected. I have been in that situation, myself.

I have sympathy for Mr Feht’s view. In the UK the cockroaches now infest every corner of life, intervening in peoples’ lives to save them from themselves, because the state knows best.
We even have our own royal one in the heir to the throne. In a speech to hundreds of business leaders in London on Thursday he accused climate change sceptics of using “pseudo science” and “intimidation” to stop the world from addressing catastrophic global warming (from the front page of Friday’s Daily Telegraph – I couldn’t find a reference link on-line).
He continued “It has been profoundly depressing to witness the way the so-called climate sceptics are apparently able to intimidate all sorts of people from adopting the precautionary measures necessary to avert environmental collapse”.
It is good to know we sceptics are so powerful.

HotRod,
I never had much time for Lord Monkton, anyway, but people here do not seem to realise what they are supporting.
Abraham called him out on certain points. The correct response was for Lord Monckton to approach each citation of Abraham and check that his reading of their work was the correct. Instead of that, he posted over 400 questions, most of them “when did you stop beating you wife” variety, plus some personal abuse (“overcooked prawn”). Monckton has been quoted as calling U. St. Thomas a “Bible College” (what’s wrong with a Bible College?), calling its director “creepy”, and suggesting that the Bishop of the diocese was too busy with pedophilia allegations to address his correspondence.
These may go down well in the UK, or with a certain type of American anti-Catholic, but I think American Catholics will not be pleased, especially the Board and funders of the University of St. Thomas. Now, if Lord Monckton wants to sue, he has loaded his case with such personal invective that he is wide open to a counter suit.
A lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client – Lord Monckton seems to have decided to be his own legal adviser and has a fool for a lawyer. He is not worthy, in my opinion, of the support he is receiving here. He has no case to go to court. But that is for everyone to decide.

Reading ALL of the posts above show Alexander Feht’s comment strikes a sensitive nerve.
We appear to be very aware of a problem in society. Alluding to cockroaches may not
have helped but it does not diminish the problem.

Anthony, you sidestepped Fred Windsor’s point. He didn’t ask why you don’t worry about every comment, he asked why you chose *this* one to be promoted to the front page. I *think* you’re saying you promoted it because it’s popular elsewhere on the web. OK then. But it would be good to know your view: do you think it’s OK, or constructive, to compare people you don’t agree with to cockroaches?
The vast majority of commenters here have no problem with this: I counted just over 20 happily echoing the idea of, presumably, people like me as a cockroach infestation. Two people pointed out that it’s, at the very least, insulting to those of us who don’t agree with you.
If you think it’s OK to consider people who don’t agree with you as cockroaches, I think that kind of ends our chances for civil discussion here, doesn’t it?
So would you mind telling us: do you think it’s OK to compare people you don’t agree with to cockroaches? An answer involving either the word “yes” or “no” would be great.
REPLY: Ask him. It is an apt metaphor, one that caught attention of a lot of people prior to it being elevated, and you are reading way too much into it. He sees the USSR politics and Socialism as that. Do I think cockroaches accurately describes people I and many other here disagree with, no. Is it a metaphor for the instruments and actions that oppose freedom, tolerance, and open discourse, yes. Of course it doesn’t matter what I answer, some people will happily run off and distort it. In fact they already are. So this will be my last word on it.
I suspect your only interest here is so that you can go blog about it on your blog, citing the usual fake outrages, while ignoring the fact that I (and many others who dare speak out on the climate issue) am metaphorically compared with or outright labeled far worse every day, all over the blogosphere. For example, one commenter (taunter Ben) compared me directly to a “rat” yesterday on another blog. No metaphors there, just simple hate.
But nobody tries to pin them down. Carry on.
– Anthony

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Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
July 15, 2010 at 9:59 pm
just a suggestion:
please remove Darwin from the list and replace it with a name much kinder toward humanity, say, Einstein.
__________________________________________
Darwin should stand because of the blatant fudging of the Darwin temp data, but do add Einstein in front of him. ( I like the double zing of using Darwin)
The Smoking Gun At Darwin Zero: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/the-smoking-gun-at-darwin-zero/
Would You Like Your Temperature Data Homogenized, or Pasteurized?: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/11/would-you-like-your-temperature-data-homogenized-or-pasteurized/
Darwin Zero Before and After: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/20/darwin-zero-before-and-after/

I have frequented this blog on-and-off for the best part of a year now and have often been given cause to question my strongly held beliefs that AGW is genuine. For that I am grateful.
The site and some of its regular contributors and commentors have, in short, helped me to educate myself beyond a level I would have reached without them. For that too I am grateful.
The result, however (after weighing up the evidence from this site, the ‘hard’ science and other blogs), has strengthened my convictions that AGW is real and worthy of our great concern. For this also, I am grateful.
Unfortunately, the last few weeks have become intolerable.
That Anthony (and his supporters) cannot see beyond the foolish posturings of Lord Monckton and has actively supported his spiteful call-to-arms in an attempt to stifle academic debate goes beyond the pale. This has all fallen into a potentially litigious and fund-wasting charade of “he said it first” and a Peewee Hermanesque “I know you are, but what am I”.
What do you all think it will achieve?
Will it change nature?
Will it change the ‘fact’ or the ‘non-fact’ of AGW?
Will it advance your cause or enhance the science?
Will it convince even one person (like me) who has listened hard to your arguments to see the value in them?
Or, alternatively, will it alienate people (like me) and even some more firmly on ‘your side’, who will recognize this for what it is – an attempt at censorship, at stifling the debate and silencing alternative ideas and views?
This latest tirade, where commentors are gleefully comparing the alternative ‘team’ to cockroaches, and wishing, even demanding, that they be crushed is, frankly, disgusting.
Did Professor Abraham ‘start it’?
Maybe Lord Monckton ‘started it’?
Personally, I don’t care. This does not advance the argument one iota and contributes nothing to the science or the discussion. It is a display in intolerance, tribalism, or barbarism, and I think Anthony and many of his commentors should be ashamed.
I, for one, will not be returning to this site. You have lost at least one ‘visitor’ and I strongly suspect I won’t be the last.
Maybe you will all chirp “Good riddance”, but seriously, you could have convinced me if you weren’t so gleefully spiteful. Even Lord Monckton could have convinced me if he had provided direct answers to some of Professor Abraham’s criticisms, rather than answering not with a question, but with hundreds of questions and demands for what amounts to punitive damages (how much did Professor Abraham deserve for the “overcooked prawn” remark? How much does Father Dease deserve for being called a “creep of a President”).
This type of mob mentality and controversy may improve Anthony’s ‘hits’, but it will not sway the opposition. In fact, it will lose you the argument more swiftly than otherwise.

The language police are out in force, wringing their hands. Oh, the travesty.
On the upside, despite their primitive origins, cockroaches are highly adaptable, and survive high radiation levels.

Adrian, Smokey:
It’s difficult for me also to come back from seeing Watts promote both Monckton and this commenter to a prominent position: one demanding a presentation be taken down, the other declaring his enemies ‘parasites’ (I’m resisting the urge to confirm Godwin’s Law at this point!)
I suspect Adrian, like me, reads RC and other blogs and, perhaps, like me, tries to keep a toe in blogs like WUWT. Some place for civil discussion with people of differing views would be good, but – short an explanation from Watts on his choice of recent postings – I can see why Adrian feels he won’t be returning.
There are other ‘skeptical’ blogs that place a premium on civility and reasoned argument, I see. E.g. http://scienceofdoom.com/about/ Any other suggestions?

I’m so thrilled that someone responded to my comment before I pack up for the weekend, sign off from WUWT permanently, and head for home (yes, OMG, I am doing this from work).
Smokey above…the sound of someone utterly missing the point; but thanks for reinforcing it anyway.

Dan Olner says:
July 16, 2010 at 8:48 am
(I’m resisting the urge to confirm Godwin’s Law at this point!)
___________________________________________
Good thing you’ve resisted, Dan, for incontinence in this case would be laughable.
For real intolerance and insults, please, see pro-AGW/pro-ACC sites.

Alexander: “For real intolerance and insults, please, see pro-AGW/pro-ACC sites.”
I’m sure they happen on all sites, but I don’t tolerate insults wherever they are. Out of interest, do you agree with Monckton that Abraham’s responses were an “unprovoked personal attack?” I’ve looked through them, all I can see are responses to points of fact. Am I missing something?
I’m just wondering if you think Abraham was in some way intolerant towards Monckton, in the way you’re suggesting ‘pro-AGW’ sites are to skeptics?

Atlas Shrugged anyone? Another soul from the USSR that can see what’s coming.
I would love to move to Colorado but will probably stay here in Virginia, trying to swat cockroaches.

Alexander Feht has seen up close where the political agenda behind CAGW leads. He as the rest of us can see the “science is not settled” there is not a “consensus” and the media is censored propaganda.
With luck the worst case scenarios will not happen.
1. A totalitarian “global governance” implementing Agenda 21
Here is the link to the full text of it: http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/res_agenda21_00.shtml
AGENDA 21 FOR DUMMIES

NWO / CLUB OF ROME DEPOPULATION & AGENDA 21

2. a descent into a full blown Ice age.
Solar energy reached a summer maximum (9% higher than at present) ca 11 ka ago and has been decreasing since then, primarily in response to the precession of the equinoxes
“….Because the intensities of the 397 ka BP and present insolation minima are very similar, we conclude that under natural boundary conditions the present insolation minimum holds the potential to terminate the Holocene interglacial.” Lesson from the past: present insolation minimum holds potential for glacial inception
The difference between peak warmth and deepest cold was around 55Wm-2;
The current value, being only 13Wm-2 above the value at the depth of the ice age, is almost all the way back to ‘cold conditions’; it may be that only stored ocean heat is keeping us out of an ice age (for now).
The bought and paid for media has ignored both of these. Worse the international grain traders have talked the politicians into abolishing grain reserves and the enviro types have kept nuclear power technology from progressing. If both of these worst case scenarios happen we are looking at only a small percentage of the world’s population surviving and that is only if an all out nuclear war is not touched off over the scramble for resources.
Perhaps that is why the people of western civilization are being tricked by A massive campaign… launched … to de-develop the United States

I wonder how long it it will take Dan Olner to figure it out?

nad: “I wonder how long it it will take Dan Olner to figure it out?”
Enlighten me.

Neil says:
July 16, 2010 at 11:22 am
“What is right, and what is wrong? Morality – what is it? What is freedom? What is justice? What is government for? What is honesty? What is equality? What is science?”
________________________________________________
Difficult questions, all. Yes, we must find answers to these questions, and re-arrange our society according to our new, painfully acquired and informed understanding (some of us could even humbly propose some solutions, though I am sure they wouldn’t be easy to understand and implement).
However, the burning problem is that, while we are mulling over these undoubtedly important philosophical questions, fraudsters and thieves are having their heyday.
How you imagine this process, practically?
Suppose I will go to Mr. Putin and tell him: “People are different, Vlad! The same laws and requirements are inapplicable to all individual people and minority groups. They should have a possibility to opt out from any programs and functions they don’t want to participate in, and they should not be required to pay for such programs and functions. Really free society should be a society without mandatory taxation, without coercion, working on the basis of voluntary donations for specific causes, with opt-out opportunities for all…”
Putin:
– Huh? Hey, who let this nutcase in here? Deal with him, now!
[snip]

In a reply to Dan Olner, Anthony writes:
“Do I think cockroaches accurately describes people I and many other here disagree with, no. Is it a metaphor for the instruments and actions that oppose freedom, tolerance, and open discourse, yes.”
Right on the money, Anthony. As for myself, I am not in disagreement with the Al Gores and the Michael Manns of the world; rather, I am in fear that my life will be taken from me by them. Now, does that adequately explain the use of “cockroach?”

From the comments here there are several people who feel that the world should be a shiny happy place where we all “just get along”. Unfortunately the world, and by extension people, do not work that way.
IMHO The term cockroach in this context does not refer so much to any individual but rather to a group of people and a group think that is becoming less and less merely annoying and more and more oppressive. It is an excellent metaphor to describe their behavior. To ignore this elephant in the room, simply because the elephant was referred to as a cockroach, is to do so at your peril.
To paraphrase Shakespeare, a rose by any other name would still stink out loud.

Excellent comment.
As someone said earlier, this site pulls in many hits and this comment is worthy of attention. If we can get this message into the newspapers and onto the radio we might be onto something. Squish ’em!

The western world has for some time been practicing a morality of death.
You have sacrificed profit to subsidy, justice to equality, principle to legal writ, authority replaced merit and ultimately PC – reason was sacrificed to sentiment.
The consequences were part of the bargain. The free lunch was you.

“Alexander Feht says:
July 16, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Frequently encountered sentiment among the young and not so young:
“If you think the government is wrong, then get yourself or someone else elected to change it. That is the democratic way…”
Aha. If only pigs would fly.”
Well, Alexander, if you cannot carry a democratic election, then your fulminations about “real violence”, “ROBBERY” and “cockroaches” are just empty bluster to egg on a minority. If you reject democratic elections, perhaps you should spell out just exactly what your political agenda is?

Anthony says: “Do I think cockroaches accurately describes people I and many other here disagree with, no. Is it a metaphor for the instruments and actions that oppose freedom, tolerance, and open discourse, yes. ”
Fair enough. That being so, would you agree that Monckton asking for Abraham’s presentation being taken down is (how do I use the metaphor here?) ‘cockroaches’? Or is there some reason why that demand still comes under the heading of “freedom, tolerance and open discourse?”
REPLY: If you’ll read my initial introduction on Monckton, you’ll see I prefaced it with “I don’t have a dog in this fight”. I stand by that. I’m giving the man a forum, since Abraham has had quite a large forum on other websites. Note I’ve not said anything about his presentation either. And when are you going try to pin down some of those other people I alluded to in my first response, or have you not found it in entirety yet? -Anthony

Anthony,
Prominently featuring a comment as headpost is of course seen as some kind of endorsement on your part. This commenter compares those he disagrees with with cockroaches, a term with a history connected to attempted ethnic cleansing in Africa. Is it wrong to call somebody a denier and ok to call someone a cockroach? The defense that no connection with ethnic cleansing was meant is identical to the defense that no connection with the holocaust was meant. Why is it ok in once case and not the other?
Prominently featuring Monkton’s letter on your high traffic blog, in which he asks support for his intimidation tactics is of course seen as some kind of endorsement of Monckton’s efforts.
His calls amount to censorship of opposing viewpoints, something which you clearly dislike. Is it suddenly ok when it goes into the other direction?
REPLY: Asked and answered above. Also have a look at Abraham’s written response letter, should Monckton be denied the same right to rebuttal? Abraham’s point of view got thousands of views at many websites prior to Monckton’s rebuttal. For the record I disagree with both men on several points. But providing a forum is my choice. Sorry if you don’t like it. Note that for fairness, I also provided link to Abraham’s rebuttal. – Anthony

Greetings from former Eastern block to Mr Feht.
The fight for freedom is never over, but it is worth fighting.

Fried just seconds, and with mango sauce. Peanut oil.
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Theo Goodwin says:
July 15, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Alexander,
I continue to work among the cockroaches. I am eagerly awaiting the day that I can escape to surf, sand, and sun. When I was a youngster, academia in the USA was not dominated by cockroaches. Professors took pride in being open-minded and critical. Also, they taught and fostered open-mindedness and a critical attitude in many ways. The beginning of the end was the institutionalization of radical feminism. When someone publishes her twentieth book in support of the thesis that there is in nature something called “maleness” and it is the root of all evil, you know that open-mindedness and a critical attitude are officially on the Dean’s ash pile. We see exactly the same thing in Climategate, a small group of so-called scientists who declare themselves the authority in all matters pertaining to their science and who impose that authority through the peer review process. That is total corruption or “merde,” as the Portuguese so poetically say. As for the IPCC, that is just the UN trying to get in on the action.

I think you are making the usual mistake : correlation is not causation. That the feminist movement became strong during the time where the academe became completely dependent into centralized government funding decisions is a good correlation.
The causation goes the other way.
I have posted about this before here. I started my academic career back in 1962 as a graduate student in Greece and watched the deterioration of funding decisions through the years.
Of course government funded the academic institutions. But the funding was given directly to the institutions. They requested every year a budget, and usually most of it was approved, and the judges were elected representatives sitting on committees, not peers or other scientists. Then the institutions had internal reviews of research necessities and distributed the funds within.
Second step came when funds became available from the “development budget”. There, if one had the right political connections and push/respect one could get a lot of money for a project to kick start an activity outside the institutional budgeting. It happened in my field in 1966 when prof Ypsilantis, one of those involved in the discovery of the antiproton , wanted to work in Greece and he was given enough of a budget to set up a high energy group in Greece working with CERN. It was pure political influence, no peer review or bureaucrats, I think even the queen at the time was involved. Note here that the power distribution was haphazard, no centralized bureaucrats deciding on projects.
Then came the EU and the format of centralized bureaucracy. It completely took away the power of decisions on research from the institutes and turned it into a power structure in the ministry with committees etc funding individuals and projects . The bureaucrats controlling the flow of decisions and committees were usually not so successful PhD holders in various disciplines who got a job in the administration.
This had three effects.
a) Hierarchy within the academe was destroyed, because young brash researchers/professors could get a lot more funding than the ones with high academic standing.
b) The institutes were taking cuts and became hooked to the extra money ( Mann et al) these young brash academics brought.
c) the most important, research could be centrally controlled and guided, as we see that it happened with the AGW wagon of fools.
When research decisions were being taken independently by different institutions in the country, the randomization of the process assured good academic competition.
It is not an efficient way to use the money for a business, but in research where serendipity plays a huge role the variety of decision processes is very important.
This was lost more and more during the years , when EU funding became dominant and the whole of Europe is being orchestrated from a central menagerie of decision takers on what research is funded.
I believe the situation in the US is similar.
The feminist movement support is just an example of the centralized decision making dominance , because of the money , which of course is the root of all evil 🙂 .
Also the power. The more centralized are decisions, the more the power, and that attracts not the best of researchers to the centralized decision making process, because researchers search for truth, not power.
I think a first step out of this one way street is to start funding institutions and let them decide how and what research to support. It will break the chorus.