People send me stuff.
Yesterday Skeptical Science owner John Cook announced to the world that he thought Willis’s open letter to the new editor of Science was “creepy” and “sexist”.
As is typical with the Skeptical Science kidz, it’s just projection. How much? You have no idea. But it turns out that when you scratch the surface of the SkS Forum, where the principals and moderators talk amongst themselves (seemingly unaware of others watching) you discover what creepy really is. For a supposed site about “climate science” it sure does look a lot like “high school climate science”.
Get a load of the pictures from the SkS forum website sent to me today. A friend of WUWT writes:
(Note: I’m leaving the author of this email private, lest he become another Photoshop victim. Note that all the links are in the open, there’s no hack or mole action going on here. BTW, each word highlighted below is a separate link to an image. – Anthony)
I found something I thought you might be interested in while looking to see what is publicly viewable on the new SkS forum’s website (www.sksforum.org). Little is, but there happens to be a viewable images directory that has a subdirectory, [http://www.sksforum.org/images/user_uploaded]. This directory has some… interesting images.
One [http://www.sksforum.org/images/user_uploaded/WeAreSkeptics.jpg] has several the heads of several skeptics photoshopped onto people from a movie about the 300 Spartans (300, perhaps?). I assume it was an attempt at humorously painting skeptics as few in number and dogmatic.
But the most interesting ones defy explanation at the moment. There are a number of images where the head of Dana Nuccitelli or John Cook appear to have been photoshopped onto images of [http://www.sksforum.org/images/user_uploaded/herrscooterboy.jpg]
[http://www.sksforum.org/images/user_uploaded/herrtankboy2.jpg]
It’s possible these images were taken from somewhere else and uploaded, but that seems unlikely as a couple of them show signs of further photoshopping done to improve them. To see what I mean, compare this image to this one.
Combined with the fact there are a number of similarly photoshopped images done to flatter Nuccitelli, it seems almost certain SkS members have photoshopped images of SkS members as Nazi soldiers. I can’t think of a single sensible reason they would do that.
I don’t think they dream of being Nazis, and I can’t imagine it was particularly fun to make those images. It’s possible they made these with the idea of a false flag operation in mind, but that seems ridiculous. It’s not more absurd than Peter Gleick’s behavior was, but it’s hard to believe anyone would consider doing that (especially on a forum which has been exposed once before).
[NOTE: Brandon Shollenberger decided that he didn’t care that his name was attached to the above, hence this update. – Anthony]
You have to wonder what motivates them to take the time do things like this, especially when they claim that global warming is accelerating, and there is precious little time left before we all roast.
SkS Kidz will be kids I suppose.
I haven’t looked this good since high school:
L-R: Watts, Monckton, Delingpole.
=================================================================
UPDATE: 10:35 PDT About three hours later It seems that somebody at SkS has been embarrassed that they’ve been caught out, and they have comically simply moved the “user_uploaded” folder to one with a seemingly random (Ric Werme says: “Hey, a11g0n3 is leet-speak for allgone. Oh Lord, there be idiots over there.”) name: [http://www.sksforum.org//images/a11g0n3/]
Of course that breaks all the links in the story above.
Only problem is, it’s still open to the public there. All images are still visible: [http://www.sksforum.org//images/a11g0n3/]
Surely they know that the Internet has a permanent memory and all these images still exist elsewhere in folders that people have scraped from the original by now?
Amateur hour cover up tactics. – Anthony
UPDATE2: 11:07AM PDT It seems that they’ve taken down the “leet speak” folder as well, no matter, they still all exist in many places, and I’ll add a gallery shortly. -Anthony
UPDATE3: 11:19AM PDT here is a few of the images referenced above in the story and in comments. I also have a screen cap of the original folder listing at SkS which I’ll upload tonight when I get home.
UPDATE4: 5:31PM PDT, As promised earlier in UPDATE3 here is a PDF capture of the file listing from the original SkS forum snapped at 829AM PDT today.
Index of _images_user_uploaded (PDF)
=============================================================
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I was struck by skstroopers_marked.jpg; and by the amount of effort they put into comparing climate change to the attack on Hiroshima, 68 years ago today.
You guys are seriously buff and speaqrchuckers to boot! I’m in awe.
With regard to the Nazi images and “I can’t think of a single sensible reason they would do that.”
Being charitable it could be evidence of self-depricating humour over the abbreviation sometimes used for their site – SS.
Examine this and then tell me that anyone cannot figure out where schemes to burn food, and transport woodchip pellets around the planet are hatched.
On the whole, that’s better than Willis’ letter. It’s funny.
Abs Fab Anthony
Comedy gold Anthony!
(BTW you owe me a new keyboard)
I think they do you a favour here Anthony. Print it out. Show it to your wife and say that this is your new body. Then make sure to put the light out before you crawl into bed. 😉
Aw, c’mon Anthony, can’t we have some more interesting science articles. The fact that the SkS crowd are basically a bunch of pre-pubescent boys playing around with their computers is nothing new, and, frankly, it’s really boring.
Regarding Willis’ letter, it was a tad lengthy. Also, he probably should not have made any comments, including the flattering ones, about her gender. Unfortunately, we live in an era where gentility has been reframed into sexism by the PC masses. And there is no point in us getting into that argument, which only distracts from the one we really want to engage in.
BTW, I love you guys. I think you’re great.
Not to be picky, but “Nazi soldiers” is not correct, since the German soldiers depicted are not apparently members of the Waffen SS, to judge from their insignia. The Nazi Party was pretty exclusive, actually. These guys should be identified as either German soldier of WWII, members of the Heer (Army) or Wehrmacht (armed forces). I once heard that master plagiarist and idiot
Stephen Ambrose refer to the German Army as “the Nazi Army.” Generally the ordinary German soldiers despised the Waffen SS soldiers, and that included non-Waffen German generals.
I think that the modified NAZI images were done to portray themselves as bad dudes that don’t take any guff from their enemies (so-called “deniers” ironically). They imagine themselves destroying their enemies in a war of annihilation with little or no mercy shown. Impotent lefties have many violent fantasies of redemptive violence.
SKS Thinking Explained == McNutt a woman, skeptics have no valid basis for complaint, so the stated complaints must be just a facade for underlying _____.*
What else could it be.
* In this case, “Sexism.” Just identify the target of the criticism using various descriptive attributes that identify race, gender, religion, ethnic background, social background, etc.**
** If the target is a white male of European ancestry (see Mann, Michael), go to Plan B — Claim defamation of character or threat of bodily harm instead.
***
I don’t think they dream of being Nazis, and I can’t imagine it was particularly fun to make those images. It’s possible they made these with the idea of a false flag operation in mind, but that seems ridiculous.
***
Seems the only reasonable explanation. Plant the pics somewhere & accuse skeptics of it. Certainly in their realm of Glick-style operations.
It is definitely a creepy week when I’m in agreement with both Mosher and Cook. Probably climate change is making me angry. /snark
http://www.sksforum.org/images/user_uploaded/herrcook.jpg
They see themselves under attack.
[http://www.sksforum.org/images/user_uploaded/sks_attacks.jpg]
[http://www.sksforum.org/images/user_uploaded/sks_attacks_impact.gif]
Just like Nazi Germany.
They want to save the world.
Just like Nazi Germany.
Nazi Germany wanted to save the world from the jews.
SkS wants to save the world from climate deniers.
That would be my explanation for the weird and very bad Nazi photoshops.
Maybe a warmist troll could confirm or deny this explanation?
[snip – over the top – Anthony]
Global warming is still happening when you tilt the instrumental record a bit to the left.
[http://www.sksforum.org/images/user_uploaded/graphcomaprison.jpg]
WHY do they do this???? They don’t seem to believe it themselves.
Ironically, the “sexist” part was actually referring to the possibility of men around her not giving her the whole truth. I thought it was unnecessary, but certainly not sexist.
“A bit far from reality…”
Okay! Okay! So maybe it is really far from reality.
Bizarre.
Had to be a false flag idea.
Even if they were that sick, they’d not be public about it….would they?
Anthony I think you should have a caption contest 🙂
“Alarmists don’t like it stuck up em” Bubble out of James Delingpole’s mouth (Apologies to Dad’s Army)
Who cares about SS really? A climate page with a picture on the front page of a few penguins checking out a plant growing out of ice is a clear indication of the fantasy world they live in.
Caleb says:
August 6, 2013 at 9:43 am
“Bizarre.
Had to be a false flag idea.
Even if they were that sick, they’d not be public about it….would they?”
Cook is such a bad webmaster that he forgot to protect that folder.
I think Kenji should complain to SkS that they didn’t Photoshop him into it too. They’re already barking mad. They’ll understand him.