Almost belated birthday wishes to Willis Eschenbach

Oh, man, now I’m all embarrassed … it’s true, I’m 65 today. I appreciate all of your kind words. It is my great privilege to be a guest poster here, and to be a part of the immense and surprising success story of WUWT.
WUWT is a curious creature, with lots of heads and lots of hands. It is a success in part because of the quality and strength of Anthony and the guest posters here, and partly because of the quality and strength of those who comment and lurk here.
As a result, it is far and away the best known of all the climate blogs, and is required reading for anyone with a serious interest in the subject. And despite that, it is a shoestring operation put together, authored, and moderated by volunteers like myself … an amazing David and Goliath story because we are up against people with serious bucks to throw at climate alarmism, and yet, WUWT is winning the battle for honest, transparent science .
It is my belief that we are winning because we DO allow and encourage scientific comments and questions, because we DO present and discuss a host of different scientific issues and viewpoints, because we DO provide data, citations, and code to back up our claims, and because we DO acknowledge our scientific errors and misunderstandings as they are pointed out to us.
Of course, in a way we have the easier task, because we are up against zealots. The thing about zealots is that they’re no fun, even when they’re right, and especially when they’re not right. Here at WUWT, we’re able to laugh, both at the follies of our scientific opponents, and at our own foolishness in turn. We put the fun back into functional.
So in short … my thanks to Anthony, to the guest posters, and to all of you contributors (particularly those I’ve disagreed with) for each of your contributions to WUWT, to the scientific discussion, and to my life. It’s been a great run to date, nothing left to do but laissez les bons temps roulez …
w.