Update: video link added below at 730PM PST (H/T to Joe S.)
From C-SPAN, Click for video player
When you watch this video it is clear Ms. Boxer does not have any interest in listening to what Dr. Spencer had to say, nor does she apparently care that she just insulted him on national television. Ms. Boxer, have you no shame?
From the Rush Limbaugh show, some sparks flew when Boxer beclowns herself at the end of Dr. Roy Spencer’s testimony. (Link to testimony here)
Excerpt-
Limbaugh transcript: I’m going to make Barbara Boxer the official clown of the Excellence in Broadcasting Network. Can you believe this? Folks, I can’t tell you how much I wish my mom and dad were alive to see all of this. To have a brilliant and independent scientist, a former NASA scientist, be insulted simply because he has an association, a tongue-in-cheek association. We don’t have an official climatologist here. I just know Dr. Spencer and I learn from him. He’s a scientist, a scientist that we all know and love and trust here. He’s written a great book about global warming, and these snide little Democrats, these little liberals just have to go, eh, eh, eh. Dr. Spencer is now going to be more famous than he ever thought he would be. (laughing) Can you believe this? “I just want everybody to make sure they know what’s really happening.” What’s really happening, Senator Boxer? What’s really happening? (laughing) “I just wanted to point that out for people to understand.” Yeah, like I wrote his testimony, I wrote his talking points, I even had a secret wireless communication in his ear. I was answering questions they were asking. (laughing) And Obama says there’s going to be unity.
Transcript follows:
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_072208/content/01125107.guest.html
At Hearing, Official EIB Clown Attacks Official EIB Climatologist
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The official climatologist of the EIB Network, Dr. Roy Spencer, a brilliant independent climatologist and scientist, former NASA, he’s now at University of Alabama at Huntsville, testified before Senator Boxer’s committee on climate change research, and they had the following exchange.
SPENCER: In conclusion, I am predicting today that the theory that mankind is mostly responsible for global warming will slowly fade away in the coming years, as will the warming itself, and I trust you would agree, Madam Chair, that such a result deserves to be greeted with relief. That concludes my testimony, and I’d be willing to answer any questions.
BOXER: Okay. I also want to point out on that on your own blog you said you never were told you couldn’t speak about your scientific views. And lastly, I guess is a certain congratulations, Rush Limbaugh referred to you as the official climatologist of the Rush Limbaugh Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
SPENCER: Yeah, that’s tongue-in-cheek reference.
BOXER: Right. But I just want to point that out for people to understand. I just want to make sure everybody knows what’s really happening.
RUSH: Oh, my, poor Dr. Spencer! Poor Dr. Spencer! Barbara Boxer attempts to disqualify his expertise by linking him to this program. Yes! (laughing) “I just want everybody to know what’s really happening.” What’s really happening is that, what, did I write his testimony? Did I write his opening remarks? What happened, Senator? I’m going to make Barbara Boxer the official clown of the Excellence in Broadcasting Network. Can you believe this? Folks, I can’t tell you how much I wish my mom and dad were alive to see all of this. To have a brilliant and independent scientist, a former NASA scientist, be insulted simply because he has an association, a tongue-in-cheek association. We don’t have an official climatologist here. I just know Dr. Spencer and I learn from him. He’s a scientist, a scientist that we all know and love and trust here. He’s written a great book about global warming, and these snide little Democrats, these little liberals just have to go, eh, eh, eh. Dr. Spencer is now going to be more famous than he ever thought he would be. (laughing) Can you believe this? “I just want everybody to make sure they know what’s really happening.” What’s really happening, Senator Boxer? What’s really happening? (laughing) “I just wanted to point that out for people to understand.” Yeah, like I wrote his testimony, I wrote his talking points, I even had a secret wireless communication in his ear. I was answering questions they were asking. (laughing) And Obama says there’s going to be unity.
END TRANSCRIPT
Is anyone on line noticing how Dr. Spencers testimony dovetails with Viscount Monckton’s paper? I don’t have the link but if you search for Dr. Spencer’s new paper “The holy grail of climate sensitivity” there are some graphs that show how changing variations in cloud cover naturally skew the estimates of sensitivity (higher) . When I looked at the graphs (very briefly) I thought (it seemed to me) that the variations may line up with the variations postulated to be caused (over the six year study period) by the changing level of cosmic radiation related to the solar cycle. On the other hand, perhaps I haven’t gotten enough sleep lately.
Perhaps the beginning of the end of the AGW movement is at hand.
Earlier in the month Barbara Boxer was very concerned about alleged White House interference with scientists.
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/247491
Interesting that only two weeks later she didn’t care, and apparently didn’t even bother to listen. She most likely sat there the entrie time waiting for the right moment to mumble her pr4epared question about Rush Limbaugh.
“Resistance is futile. Why do you resist us? We only want to raise the quality of life of all species.”
Locutus of Borg
For ideologues like Boxer their dogma trumps all facts. Those who disagree only do so from evil intent. Marx took a few facts, wrapped a dogma around it and created Marxism. It took a hundred plus years to beat that back. AGW is popular with this group because it supports their central belief that capitalism is in itself evil. If they had total control we would be in paradise. Of course she looks at Spencer with hate, he’s interfering with her cadre to gain more control.
Locri: “Do we have any verification on whether or not he was told that he couldn’t say certain things under testamony? I would enjoy pointing this out to several people I know, but I want to know it’s strong before doing so.”
That wasn’t my question, and I imagine it would be unlikely to find hard evidence in the form you want with “verification”, regarding any whistleblower’s testimony. I have no problem accepting this sort of thing happens all the time, and am not judging the right or wrong of it.
What I am getting at is whether Boxer lied. She claimed Spencer said one thing on a blog and another before the Senate. She should have the evidence, the blog. If it is not true, it should be pushed into the news. It was silly enough, and unethical in my opinion, for her to mention Limbaugh at all, but isn’t really libelous; the former claim may be.
It is really frustrating how this issue seems to be so politically polarized. It is as if a US Democrat is a “believer in” warming and a Republican isn’t supposed to be. It is very frustrating that a political party has hijacked a scientific hypothesis in order to further their overall agenda of expanded government regulation and control.
Regardless of one’s politics, we are either in a crisis caused by extremely rapid warming caused by human use of carbon fuel or we aren’t … period … regardless of politics. So far there is no evidence in the data that this is the case. There is SOME evidence of varying amounts of warming in certain “adjusted” data sets with the sets adjusted by the most adamant supporters of the hypothesis showing the greatest amount of warming. Unadjusted satellite data shows no such trend.
The only thing these people have left is the models. And so their current line is something along the lines of “these models show warming, until you develop a different model that gets as much support as these models, we stand by their predicitions the current physical reality notwithstanding”.
I am sure I could build a model of a massive invisible three-headed dinosaur that stomps on roads and show how that stomping will degrade our transportation infrastructure unless a lot of money is given to some friends of mine to “fight” three-headed dinosaurs. And I could show roadway degradation that is consistent with the projections I create (and I could adjust to raw data to make it an even better fit). And then I could challenge anyone to disprove my model. Just because you can’t find it doesn’t mean it isn’t there; it is, after all, invisible in my model.
Regardless of the model, the physical reality remains. We are simply not seeing the predicted warming. The model is plain flat wrong. I suspect that they will now attempt to claim the warming is there but invisible, hiding at the bottom of the deep blue sea or something where it can not be measured.
Think about that for a moment. Someone dreams up warming, produces models which predict warming when we are, coincidentally, in a period of natural cyclic warming, then the cycle ends before they have a chance to use it to get their programs in place. It is now panic time and so the only thing left is to make it invisible and get the correct group of people to go along with it. So my prediction is that they will very shortly come up with a hypothesis which can not be proved (nor proved wrong) that makes the warming invisible. Invisible yet somehow the greatest threat to all mankind.
What a load of hooey.
I believe we would be better served by having the Mafia in congress instead of the present occupants.
Definitely not. Pelosi is not an Official Clown of the Rush Limbaugh Show. With Pelosi we don’t know what is really happening.
Tom in Florida (17:02:35) wrote: “And we are going to pay Boxer the Clown a huge retirement from our own pockets!!!!!”
That goes for most others in the Congress (both Houses) also!
When you think that Bush could have killed this entire nitwittery instead of simply putting delaying actions in place, it almost make you puke. Bush could’ve asked Hastert to cut funding, call for hearings, or any number of other things to expose this sham for what it is. Instead, they allowed it to gather momentum and feed their ADM thank you package in the form of ethanol.
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
Yes we can’t use the official Excelence in Broadcasting Networks Climitologist.
We have the far better Official I Accepted the Free Legal Assistance before I Opted for the Escape Clause Climitologist of Boxer.
Spencer is so much more honest.
I think this only goes to prove that “climate change” (or whatever the current buzz-word for weather related hysteria is) is so incredibly sensationalized, politicized, and polarized, that we as a society are unable to discuss it in a logical and rational manner.
I believe it also goes to show that very little, if anything, of a scientific nature should be handled by governments of any type. Government is an excellent means of coming up with a poorly implemented, over budget solution that is nearly equally disagreeable to everyone. 🙂
Glenn:
True, I suppose that happens. I was basically aiming for the same thing you describe, but my wording might have been off. I believe Spencer, but if he did say what Boxer claims on his blog, it’s sadly not a very good ground to point out to the AGW proponents as they’ll just point to the blog and say it’s his word against his word.
Steven Hill (18:16:47) wrote: ” The Democrat party people that are in the press the most, why do they seem to be so out of touch with the real world? Why do women seem to make more stupid comments vs. men in the same positons?”
Steve, I’ve noticed the exact same thing… especially in the case of newly minted PhD’s. My theory is so many skirted (no pun intended) the rigorous requirements placed on their male counterparts due to their gender, they’re not suited for real world realities and feel the necessity to publish ANYTHING just to keep the cash cow going.
I might also add that 97% of those unsubscribing from the Mysterious Climate Project are women (there are now 117,000+ subscribers since it debuted in May of ’07).
Just a theory!
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
Guys, these sexist exclamations are really stupid. Not spoken as a moderator, but as simple poster.
Really really stupid. It brings down the quality of the site.
REPLY: I agree, stop it or I’ll begin the wholesale deletion of comments and put some commenters on a time out. -Anthony
There is at YouTube what seems to be Spencer’s entire spoken testimony
REPLY: Thanks Joe, I’ll make use of this one too, Anthony
Hmmm. I checked the CNN site. Nothing.
If this were a “heroic” and censored leftist-funded climatologist abusing his position as a US government employee testifying before a congressional committee and the ranking republican chairman had done *anything* other than appear to be grateful to be in the same room, much less spewed vitriolic nonsense one fifth as potent, it would be front page news. Guaranteed.
For the dozen or less of you left in the country who haven’t figured any of this out, why, perhaps it’s time to consider that maybe the democrats have staked *everything* on the global warming issue.
Someone mentioned George Soros in connection with ‘Carbon Trading’. Is this the George Soros who made megabucks on currency speculation on ‘Black Wednesday’ in Europe back in the 1990’s? If so, does anyone know the extent of Mr Soro’s involvement in ‘Carbon Trading’ and how much would such a person lose if the much hyped AGW was proven to be, at least mainly, to put it mildly, untruthful?
No wonder so much resource is being thrown at even the mildest criticism of received dogma. Does one detect the faintest reek of vested interest in the air?
For deletion
Please shoot me an email–I don’t remember intending to be offensive.
I will confess to getting seriously annoyed about some of this.
Sorry I made you yank my chain.
Its not her fault, global warming made her do it.
This shows the entire meeting. After regaining my composure, I decided to share this one observation, testimony of Dr. Kevin E Trenberth (a lead IPCC author): “Many skeptics are involved in the IPCC process.” Yet a few momemts later said “There are a few people who dissent from that [IPCC consensus] view”.
I suppose that means most skeptics (many-few) do not dissent from the consensus view of the IPCC. Which makes one wonder what they are skeptical of.
Incidentally, Trenberth identified Spencer as being among those who dissent from the consensus view.
An ad hominem attack (a la Boxer) is the last retort of the clueless.
Boxer is resorting to Ad Hominem to try and make her point. Her debating skills don’t leave her any other options. This is desperation. If you have to belittle your opponent to try and prop up a disintegrating conclusion, it won’t be long before truth comes knocking.
Boxer’s statement was a disgrace and tells more about Boxer than Spencer. I doubt wether she has listened, let alone understood a single word of Spencer’s speech. It again proves politicians do have a brain of an amoebe.
BTW I saw Boxer was the CHAIRMAN of the hearing? I mean what qualifications do you need to become a chairman of a Senate Hearing?? Apparently not very much…
I’ve debated global warming with a lot of people, and sooner or later the warmists typically give up on debating the merits and switch to ad hominem attacks and arguments from authority.
When you think about it, what other choice to they have? When you scrutinize the actual merits, the case for CAGW turns out to be surprisingly flimsy.
By the way, in my experience, women are just as good at men at mindless dogmatism. That said, I sometimes wonder how many male environmentalists are in it to get laid. Certainly the movement has a lot of attractive, gullible women who don’t object to pre-marital sex.