From World Net Daily(not the tabloid site World News Daily), with h/t to Green Hell Blog, something that if proven is quite disturbing. Yet given the kind of treatment I’ve recently received at the hands of an eco-zealot who can’t tolerate my views on climate, I’m not surprised.
Some people have no scruples and no shame. – Anthony
Democrats attack Republican candidate’s children
By Art Robinson
In an effort to do my part in rescuing our country from the out-of-control Obama administration, last year I ran for Congress in Oregon’s 4th District against 12-term incumbent, far-left Democrat Peter DeFazio, co-founder of the House Progressive Caucus.
Although I won the nominations of the Republican, Independent and Constitution Parties and the endorsement of the Libertarian Party, a massive media smear campaign by DeFazio, paid for with money raised by MoveOn.org and from special interests favored by DeFazio in Washington, resulted in a 54.5 percent to 43.6 percent victory for DeFazio in a race that was expected to be much closer.
Although I had never run for public office before, I immediately announced my candidacy for Congress again in 2012.
However, when you take a stand for what’s right, sometimes there is retribution.On Nov. 4, 2010, as soon as the election results were in and they were sure their candidate had won, faculty administrators at Oregon State University gave new meaning to the term “political payback.”
They initiated an attack on my three children – Joshua, Bethany and Matthew – for the purpose of throwing them all out of the OSU graduate school, despite their outstanding academic and research accomplishments. OSU is a liberal socialist Democrat stronghold in Oregon that received a reported $27 million in earmark funding from my opponent, Peter DeFazio, and his Democrat colleagues during the last legislative session.
Read full story here: Democrats attack Republican candidate’s children
UPDATE: I decided to pull the direct link to the website that hurled unspeakable insults to me by an eco-zealot, they don’t deserve the traffic WUWT will generate for them. Such things are best handled by other means. So, I used WebCite to permanently log the website, and you can view it here, scroll all the way to the bottom and note “corrections”: http://www.webcitation.org/5x0pgZdgl
UPDATE2: OSU has posted a statement which you can read here
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Hobo,
It is difficult to find unbiased information on Dr. Robinson’s Institute. The site I provided, granted not totally unbiased, at least provides references to its claimed facts (the size and nature of Robinson’s Institute). I try to obtain information from as many sources as possible. I am fairly convinced that “the Institute” is a very small organization with perhaps a couple actual employees. A view of the Institute’s website confirms that two of the so-called “faculty” at the Institute are deceased (see http://www.oism.org/). Further, several of the other “Professors” are not located in Southern Oregon (an area I lived in for 15 years and regularly go back to visit). I have a concern when the organization states it has a faculty with Professors and appears to have no students. Nearly all that is stated in the link I provided can be corroborated by going to the website of the Institute itself. Does it not bother you that an Institute states it has a faculty with Professors (two deceased) and has no students? This is highly suspicious in my view. If the Institute is really a research organization (no students) then why use descriptive language such as “faculty” and “Professor of Chemistry”, etc. Minimally it appears to me to be trying to viewed as something it is not.
I am equally troubled by the lax protocols used to generate the “The Oregon Petition”. Independent investigators have found numerous problems with those listed on the petition. Some scientists are deceased. Some cannot be found. Some scientist said they would not sign the petition. A Scientific American (October 2001) study looking into the petition stated: “Scientific American took a random sample of 30 of the 1,400 signatories claiming to hold a PhD. in a climate-related science. Of the 26 we were able to identify in various databases, 11 said they still agreed with the petition —- one was an active climate researcher, two others had relevant expertise, and eight signed based on an informal evaluation. Six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember any such petition, one had died, and five did not answer repeated messages. Crudely extrapolating, the petition supporters include a core of about 200 climate researchers – a respectable number, though rather a small fraction of the climatological community.”
This is not to say there are not respected scientists who are skeptical of the global warming premise. However, based on the little I can find out abut Dr. Robinson, I would not trust that he (or the organization he is associated with) is an objective source of information, scientific or otherwise.
So Anthony’s “most eggregious lie” is that the hockey stick is broken?
C’mon, Anthony, I know you’re an honest guy, but surely you can do better than THAT! #B^1
From the website, “Sent his minions to photograph those US temperature stations which he claimed were too close to heat sinks, skewing temperature readings”. Too funny.
Proud to know I’m one of your “minions”, though the day I start fawning over you… 🙂
An instant hatefest, this thread. The truth will emerge much more slowly than all the hating, but we’re starting to see a little more to the story. Robinson admits he’s got no evidence, while his kids and Higgenbotham return calls.
The Register-Guard reports this:
The three Robinson children haven’t said much — the most definitive statement came on Lars Larson’s talk radio show Tuesday, when Joshua Robinson said “I really don’t know” whether his father’s charges have merit.
And the University tells what it can:
The allegations of political influence and the personal attacks on faculty are baseless and false. Since Mr. Robinson began making these claims last fall, university leadership has had ample opportunity to look into them through the Office of the Provost, the Graduate School and the Office of the Dean of the College of Engineering, and can say, categorically, that the allegations and attacks are unfounded and without merit.
It is regrettable that Mr. Robinson continues to spread these false claims, causing concern where none is due. Despite the significant and ongoing attention that the university has given these matters, he has engaged in a pattern of inflammatory and reckless communication riddled with inaccuracies.
More from the Register-Guard story:
Robinson went public with his accusations only recently, but has been making complaints to OSU administrators since shortly after the election. It’s unusual for a parent to become so closely involved in academic matters involving graduate students in their 20s and 30s. Robinson demanded the right to choose which faculty members his children would work with, and threatened to activate his network of supporters if OSU did not comply. OSU quite rightly declined — indeed, it would be a scandal if OSU gave in to such demands.
While much of this matter is shielded from view by privacy rules, Robinson’s accusations are weighed down by their sheer implausibility. Neither DeFazio nor OSU have records that lend credibility to charges of vile and unprincipled conduct. Neither has an interest in acting in ways that would be damaging if they came to light. So far, Robinson’s suspicions say more about the accuser than the accused
And their treatment here says very much about WUWT.
Grumbling his personal bigotries as usual, at 4:21 PM and 4:34 PM (can’t he at least get his crap in one sack?) Gneiss finishes up with a maunder that
.
Yep. That Mr. Watts and his fellows dare to allow discussion of this subject in this venue says that the editorial policy of this Web site is not in accord with the bigotries and censoring suppressive practices of “Liberal” fascists.
Like Gneiss .
Jeez, too bad.
===
Tucci78 writes,
“Grumbling his personal bigotries as usual, at 4:21 PM and 4:34 PM (can’t he at least get his crap in one sack?)”
You’re easily rattled. Which of my personal bigotries upset you?
“And their treatment [i.e., Dr. Robinson’s conclusions about the adverse actions taken by the administration of OSU against three of his adult children conducting their doctoral education and research in that institution] here says very much about WUWT.”
You stuffed a lot of words in between “treatment” and “here.”
“Yep. That Mr. Watts and his fellows dare to allow discussion of this subject in this venue says that the editorial policy of this Web site is not in accord with the bigotries and censoring suppressive practices of “Liberal” fascists.”
Hard to know where to start with that one. I’m not a liberal, or a fascist, and I’ve never met anyone who was both. Mr. Watts did not “dare to allow discussion,” he trumpeted Robinson’s accusations under the headline of “climate uglisness.” Robinson’s attack said not a word about climate, but nevermind, the payoff is that he was attacking “Democrats.”
What I suggested is that Robinson’s attack might not be the whole truth. They are not, that is now coming out.
Gneiss says:
“I’m not a liberal, or a fascist, and I’ve never met anyone who was both.”
Do you live in your mom’s basement? Liberals [Progressives, whatever] are following in the totalitarian footsteps of Uncle Joe Stalin and this guy. Obama is their current leader, and he is both. Fascism is state control of business. Like Government Motors.
The common thread in all the “isms” is totalitarianism. In that regard there is no discernable difference between Stalin, Hitler, or the current crop of “Progressives,” who would like nothing better than progressing straight to a Leftist dictatorship, just like Ugo Chavez is doing right now in Venezuela.
At 6:47 PM on 9 March, Gneiss claims:
. Nah. The “Liberal” fascist is the predominant species of modern-day political collectivist, intent upon the violation of individual rights in pursuit of some kind of phantasmagorical putative “greater good.”
In the case of the AGW fraud, the ostensible pursuit of the “Liberal” fascist is to prevent the selfish individual from imposing a “carbon footprint” upon Mother Earth such that the global climate is disrupted. The actual purpose of the “Liberal” fascist is – of course – the same as it has always been: to command the individual, to deprive the individual of the liberty to think and speak and act, and to plunder the individual’s wealth (however pitiful) and other resources.
At best, the “Liberal” fascist expression is a tautology used for emphasis, to distinguish this modern collectivist thug from those who are genuinely liberal in their political sentiments and actions.
In the late 18th and early 19th Centuries, the term “liberal” was brought into usage to denote someone who defended the rights of the individual against the infringements of civil government. In popular democracies, the people taking control of government would do so in the name of the popular majority, and thus the genuine liberal was someone opposed to majoritarian trespass against the life, the liberty, and the property rights of the individual human being.
In this sense, I’m certainly a liberal. And Gneiss certainly is not.
Since the early decades of the 20th Century, the word “Liberal” has been employed as a deception behind which the government-über-alles collectivists disguise their malicious objectives.
Given the comments of Gneiss on this Web site, there’s simply no way to characterize this individual as a defender of individual human rights, and much to demonstrate that he is, indeed, a “Liberal” fascist.
It should be noted that the term “Democrats” is no longer appropriate for describing the Blue Faction of America’s great permanently incumbent Boot-On-Your-Neck Party, particularly since the 111th Congress, dominated by this cabal, enacted Obamacare despite the enraged and vociferous protestations of their own most loyal voters.
Henceforth, it is most appropriate to call them the National Socialist Democrat American Party (NSDAP), or simply the “National Socialists.”
If there were honest readers out there who believed that WUWT was about science rather than politics, or its readership consisted of skeptics, this thread would be an eye-opener.
Gneiss,
WUWT is the internet’s “Best Science” site. Apologists for totalitarians like you don’t fit the definition of being science oriented. You are simply a craven sycophant typical of fellow travelers who have sold their souls to charlatans like Michael Mann.
The day you publicly demand that Mann must stand and answer Attorney General Cucinnelli’s questions is the day I will begin to have any respect for you.
Gneiss, I agree with you. Comment threads like this one are definitely eye-openers with respect to the readership/commenters on this site and an instructive lesson in “confirmation bias”. It reflects rather poorly on the site in general, imo.
W. Falicoff says:
March 9, 2011 at 12:44 pm
Hobo,
…
I am equally troubled by the lax protocols used to generate the “The Oregon Petition”. Independent investigators have found numerous problems with those listed on the petition. Some scientists are deceased. Some cannot be found. Some scientist said they would not sign the petition. A Scientific American (October 2001) study looking into the petition stated: “Scientific American took a random sample of 30 of the 1,400 signatories claiming to hold a PhD. in a climate-related science. Of the 26 we were able to identify in various databases, 11 said they still agreed with the petition —- one was an active climate researcher, two others had relevant expertise, and eight signed based on an informal evaluation. Six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember any such petition, one had died, and five did not answer repeated messages. Crudely extrapolating, the petition supporters include a core of about 200 climate researchers – a respectable number, though rather a small fraction of the climatological community.”
This is not to say there are not respected scientists who are skeptical of the global warming premise. However, based on the little I can find out abut Dr. Robinson, I would not trust that he (or the organization he is associated with) is an objective source of information, scientific or otherwise.
Another fact about the Oregon Petition that you didn’t include is the way it contained an article that discredited the idea of AGW, which was designed to give the impression, that it was a peer reviewed article, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, citing a fake issue and page number. It was not a peer reviewed article at all.
You are correct. If Robinson is the only source, what he says should have no credibility whatever.
Kristoffer Haldrup,
That is a wrong conclusion, and I’ll explain why.
WUWT allows and encourages all points of view. The fact that the generally well educated people who comment here tend overwhelmingly to reject the catastrophic AGW conjecture is not confirmation bias, it is simply the reasoning and conclusions of most readers of the internet’s “Best Science” site.
Your comment is mere projection. Blogs like realclimate and climate progress are true echo chambers that censor all contrary points of view. The mutual head-nodders who inhabit those blogs are guilty of confirmation bias, not the readers here. You just don’t like the fact that informed readers don’t buy into the CAGW nonsense.
The politicization of the CAGW conjecture was instigated by the alarmist crowd when they saw their scientific arguments failing. If you look at the archives from three years ago you will not find any political threads.
CAGW is scientifically indefensible, so the alarmist crowd turns to politics to save them. As the last election shows, they failed there, too.
Smokey, claiming that this site is the internets Best Science Site is a little like saying that Barack Obama is the best president, a statement with which I think you will disagree;) Just because a popular vote claims something is not the same thing as it being true…just as AGW is not true just because the Consensus Says So. Anyway, my remarks regarding confirmation bias was mainly related to this thread, where a lot of commenters appear surprisingly willing to conclude foul play on very little evidence indeed. A tendency also prevalent in many other threads here and, yes, on several other climate-related blogs such as RC.
With respect to your last comments, I am heartened by the fact that Science is not Politics — lathough the funding may be, to some extent. So no matter what the results of the recent election in the US, the current drive to better understand our climate and the influence we have on it will continue. It is my hope, that the current understanding will be proven plain wrong, as it seems to point towards some pretty nasty consequences for a lot of people in the less-developed parts of the world. But I fear that the current understanding is pretty much correct, if not in all details.
I share these fears with my colleagues in the climate-related departments of my university. They have absolutely no desire to see their predictions for the climate come true, as this will lead to a lot of human misery. And they need not resort to any politicization of the climate-realted issues, as every sane politician can clearly see the need for better understanding of the climate system, our influences on it and, especially, its influence on us as human beings.
Kristoffer Haldrup,
Thanks for your response. If your colleagues have no desire to see human misery, they should be proactive in protesting the demonization of “carbon.” Cheap energy is the best possible way out of human misery for the billion+ people who subsist on less than $1 a day. Artificially raising the cost of energy also raises the cost of food. Current policies are certainly resulting in mass starvation.
Yes indeed, one of the challenges of any climate protocol will be to ensure that the developing world has access to cheap energy. One possible way to go about this would be to lessen the demand for oil/gas in the developed world or, my personal favourite, develop cheap&robust ways of harvesting solar energy directly. Much effort in terms of R&D is directed towards this goal, fortunately. Simply taxing the hell out of CO2 is not likely to help people in rural Africa one bit.
It’s funny how when you read something the second time, you often notice something you missed.
The irony doesn’t even require comment.
Let’s try and get a little perspective here. The stories cited by KVAL and the Register-Guard cited by Mike and Gneiss look a lot like hit-and-spin pieces and are hardly evidence. W. Falicoff’s analysis of Dr. Robinson’s institute and the Oregon Petition Project is likewise highly subjective. Many commentors here have cited their own anecdotal experience with “similar” instances. Many of us have no difficulty attributing the possibility of such dastardly doings to our brothers-in-Christ on the CAGW/Progresive side. I think Anthony was right in alerting his readers to Dr. Robinson’s allegations.
HOWEVER:
Dr. Robinson’s WND article and his website are long on adjectives and still quite a bit short on specifics. He has recently posted an “update” on his site http://www.oregonstateoutrage.com/
that includes a communication exchange between the head of the department, Dr. Higley, and his son Joshua. Dr. Higley’s communication makes no mention of termination of Joshua’s participation but does seem to be demanding changes in his committee and direction of study which Joshua is resisting. This could be a gambit to derail Joshua’s study, as Dr. Robinson alleges, or not. I, for one, have simply no experience at this level. Perhaps some of our academics who do supervise graduate students ( I believe our commenter vigilantfish, for example, has such experience) could comment on that. Dr. Robinson has not provided any of the details needed to judge the validity of his story, e.g. statements by the department suggesting the Robinson children would be dismissed, the grounds for such dismissal, the response or counter arguments, Dr. Robinson’s grounds for believing there is a politically motivated conspiracy directed against his children. He cites a warning from Dr. Higginbotham, but provides no specifics of that warning, and Dr. Higginbotham is apparently saying nothing. He alleges that Dr. Higginbotham is being subjected to political assault as well, but offers no details of that.
I have no trouble imagining the sort of dirty politics Dr. Robinson alleges, but frankly I need more than a call to arms to actually take action and Dr. Robinson hasn’t supplied what I need.
harry writes,
“It seems implausible that 3 students from the same family with very good grades would be expelled from university without some level of conspiracy. So either the 3 students are acting in concert and in a gross breach of academic standards, or their department is.”
Unthinkable here it seems, but there’s a non-conspiracy option too … maybe it was never true three students are getting expelled? Maybe not even one of them?
Joshua Robinson, whose story is the centerpiece of his dad’s accusations, in his own words mentions nothing about getting expelled. Instead he tells what sounds like still a very partial, but more complicated story. From an interview reported in the Corvallis Gazzette Times today:
Tuesday afternoon, Joshua Robinson talked about the situation in an interview with the Albany Democrat-Herald in the small rented house in Corvallis where he lives with his wife, Fama, and their three sons, 5, 4 and 3.
He had taken a written qualifying exam for his doctoral program on Nov. 4, 2010. He wasn’t told the score but was told he had “conditionally passed,” meaning he would have to take an oral exam as well.
Last month he took the oral before a faculty committee and passed, according to a Feb. 16 letter from Kathryn A. Higley, head of the nuclear engineering program. (The letter was released by Art Robinson.)
The Feb. 16 letter told him he must now constitute his graduate committee and file a new program of study by the end of winter quarter, March 18, “in order to progress in the program.”
The letter also informed him he must “determine an area of scientific investigation commensurate with the experience and interests of your new adviser and committee.”
Joshua said his faculty adviser, Steven Reese, who is married to Higley, had withdrawn without finding him a new one, which he believes academic rules require, and no one else was willing to be on his committee.
He said he had written Higley asking for a new adviser but so far without result. The student handbook of the nuclear engineering department notes that students are ultimately responsible for meeting their graduation requirements.
Note the November 4 date, which is when dad said the persecution began. In Joshua’s account, that’s just the day he did poorly on an exam. Joshua’s statements that a former advisor is required to find him a new one, but that no one else was willing to serve, should be other hmm points in this story.
Gneiss says:
March 10, 2011 at 5:52 pm
Note the November 4 date, which is when dad said the persecution began. In Joshua’s account, that’s just the day he did poorly on an exam.
Gneiss, I read the article twice, but my reading comprehension skills are such that I’d be grateful if you could point out the section that states that Joshua did poorly on an exam. The oral exam was not a “second chance” thing, or prompted by a poor written performance; most doctoral programs require students to go through both written and oral exams. But I suspect you know that.
Gneiss, it is precisely because people like you can’t resist adding “spin” calculated to discredit others who disagree with them that makes people like me find scenarios like the one Dr. Robinson is suggesting all-too-plausible. What you wrote was sly and dishonest. Thank you for trying to poison the well.
Robert E. Phelan writes,
“Gneiss, I read the article twice, but my reading comprehension skills are such that I’d be grateful if you could point out the section that states that Joshua did poorly on an exam.”
Happy to help out, Robert. “Conditional pass” is a grade in between pass and fail. It means the student is required to take a second exam, oral in this case, before a final decision is reached.
“What you wrote was sly and dishonest.”
Not at all.
Gneiss:
Gneiss, you are even more dishonest than I thought. Doctoral candidates pass two exams… the written and the oral. A “conditional pass” is not somewhere between a pass and a fail where the student is required to take a second exam he otherwise would not have had to take, it means that the student has passed one of the two required exams. Now, go slink back under your bridge.
Robert E. Phelan writes.
“Gneiss, you are even more dishonest than I thought. Doctoral candidates pass two exams… the written and the oral. A “conditional pass” is not somewhere between a pass and a fail where the student is required to take a second exam he otherwise would not have had to take, it means that the student has passed one of the two required exams.”
Robert, I’m not dishonest at all, and I don’t assume you are either, but I seem to have a truer sense of reality. Here’s how the 2009-2010 Graduate Student Handbook of Oregon State University’s Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Health Physics describes a conditional pass:
The student passes the qualifying exam with a total score of at least 80% and partial scores (in each of the three subject areas described in No. 5 above) of at least 70%. A student earning a total score between 70% and 80% or any partial score between 60% and 70%, shall stand for an oral examination by a committee of three faculty, appointed by the Chair of the examination committee. This oral examination shall take place within two weeks following student notification of any deficiency. Following this oral examination, the three member committee will report the results to the examination committee where a decision will be made as to whether or not the student has passed the qualifier.
Slowing it down:
– You pass if your total score is above 80 and your partial scores are at least 70.
– You fail if your total score is below 70, or any partial score is below 60.
– If your total score is between 70 and 80, or any partial score between 60 and 70, then you have to stand for an oral exam.
– A conditional pass is a result between passing and failing, exactly as I said.
“Now, go slink back under your bridge.”
Twice now you’ve called me a liar when I was telling the truth, which was out there all along in black and white. Man up or spin harder?
Gneiss:
I do owe you a partial apology: the oral exam Joshua took apparently was mandated for a deficiency in the qualifying exam. I do need to point out, however, that the term “conditional pass” appears nowhere in handbook, and the handbook specifies, as you correctly noted, “A student earning a total score between 70% and 80% or any partial score between 60% and 70%, shall stand for an oral examination by a committee of three faculty…” meaning that Joshua could have scored as high as an 89 on the total score and still been required to take an oral exam. I would not consider that score to be “doing poorly”, a term which would impugn the man’s scholarship. In point of fact, you have no evidence that he “did poorly” any more than I would have to claim that he did well. Neither do we have any evidence to suggest that taking the oral followup to the qualifying exam is common or rare among OSU students. Your comment, lacking additional context, is not honest.
By the same token, the Robinsons have not been, ahhh, entirely forthcoming either and I see no reason to rush to their defense and beseige OSU simply on their say-so. The way I’d been reading the story so far was that Joshua was well past his qualifying exams and that the oral exam in question was the preliminary exam described on page 52 of the handbook (which is available here: http://ne.oregonstate.edu/current/PDFs/GradHandbook2009_2010.pdf
if anyone is of a mind to look for it), so Gneiss was correct about the place of the oral exam in the scheme of things. He doesn’t have to slink back to his bridge yet.