David Legates Makes Sense to Me (climate ‘contrarian’ on the firing line)
By Robert Bradley Jr. — March 26, 2015
“U. of Delaware Refuses to Disclose Funding Sources of Its Climate Contrarian,” read the headline from Inside Climate News. “Citing academic freedom, the president and provost decline a congressional request for funding disclosures surrounding the work of Professor David Legates.”
That would seem to be good news … until the next paragraph ominously refers to Legates as “a known climate contrarian” (known, no less). The (hit) piece quotes Minner’s polite other continues:
Legates previously served as Delaware’s state climatologist, a role he said he was fired from in 2011 after refusing to resign. Three years earlier he was asked by then-Gov. Ruth Ann Minner to stop using his official title while espousing climate denial. “Your views on climate change, as I understand them, are not aligned with those of my administration,” Minner wrote to Legates at the time.
Politics … Governor Minner, a Democrat, was aligned with the ‘alarmist’ wing of the climate debate. But to the writer, Minner’s intervention was okay because … dissent from the political orthodoxy is not right.
In any case, the President of the University of Delaware, Patrick Harker, squashed the request thus:
Academic freedom is the freedom of the faculty to teach and speak out as the fruits of their research and scholarship dictate, even though their conclusions may be unpopular or contrary to public opinion.
More on this at Master Resource
Meanwhile:
Feisty Ala. climate change critic claims Washington is trying to intimidate him
An Alabama atmospheric scientist who has gained a global reputation as a repudiator of “mainstream climate science” strongly defended his research record at the University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH), where he is a distinguished professor and director of the university’s Earth System Science Center.
John Christy, who has been at UAH since 1987, said this week that all of his research funds are derived from state and federal agencies and that he has never accepted research money from business or industry groups that have challenged the scientific findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the National Research Council and other expert bodies.
Nor has he accepted research funding from groups actively engaged in lobbying against U.S. climate change policies, he said.
Moreover, Christy suggested a recently launched congressional investigation into sources of his and other climate scientists’ research funding is an attempt by Democrats in Washington to squelch dissenting opinions about the degree of climate warming and the role that human-generated greenhouse gas emissions have in a shifting climate.
“I’ve been involved in this issue for 25 years, and I’m past the point of being intimidated,” Christy said in an email responding to the inquiry led by House Natural Resources ranking member Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) exploring outside funding to climate researchers at seven U.S. universities.
“This is simply a way for the Administration to publicly draw attention to us as scientists not aligned with their views, implying there must be a scurrilous reason for daring to think the way we do,” he added.
More at http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060015776
As Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds says, the only true answer to bullies, who are cowards for the most part, is to punch back twice as hard.
“It’s back to the past rather than the future, and that past is 1950’s America in the witch-hunting grip of trial by media McCarthyism. It is after all still the land of the free and the home of the brave, except nowadays that means the brave refusing to wilt under the pressure of elected thugs making free with any rights they might have under the constitution to freedom of expression. Tell me, does that star-spangled banner yet wave?”
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2015/03/05/i-may-have-signed-my-actual-death-warrant/
Pointman
Don’t forget: the way the USA government distorts information or invents factoids (the 97% consensus is a good example). This isn’t the only area in which they do it. Both democrats and republicans lay out the bs in huge doses.
Indeed! The old joke doesn’t specify party (or country for that matter) “How do you know when a politician is lying? – His or her lips are moving.”
A saying by George Washington seems to be appropriate here. He said that government was like fire: a dangerous servant and a fearsome master.
John Abraham had an article in yesterday’s Guardian gloating over a paper that claims to show that the UAH satellite data set is giving a misleading, low, indication of lower trosphere temperature. I don’t have the skills to provide a link but this was the Headline:
‘One satellite data set is underestimating global warming. A new study suggests that the University of Alabama at Huntsville is lowballing the warming of the atmosphere’
At least one comment called for the prosecution of Christy and although there was some disagreement with this, the general tenor of the comments was that of a witch hunt. Quite appalling.
No doubt the UAH team will be commenting on this paper in due course.
That seems really odd. My memory is that RSS is running slightly cooler than UAH. I might be mis-remembering, so to go after UAH is likely a political witch hunt trying to pick off the big dog so the little dogs will scatter.
Here’s the link: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/mar/25/one-satellite-data-set-is-underestimating-global-warming
Looks like a desperate attempt to get rid of “The Pause”, just like the scurilous attempt to get rid of the MWP.
The Guardian newspaper is backing the wrong scientific theory. There is no CAGW. What is currently happening to the sun has happened before. The paleo climatic record provides a guide as to what will happen next to planetary temperature/climate.
Witch hunts, name calling, holding your breath, standing on your head, and so on will not change what is going to happen next. The planet has started to cool. The cooling will significantly increase. It is a fact that a significant solar change is underway.
Wind speed over the ocean is going to increase which increases evaporation which will cause cooling (there is a cyclic tenfold increase in deposited dust from China on the Greenland ice sheet when this particular solar change occurs, there is an interesting mechanism that causes/caused a temporary reduction in wind speed during the transition), there will be an increase in low level cloud cover which will cause cooling of high latitude regions (this change has started to occur which explains the highest Antarctic sea ice coverage in recorded history, all months of the year and record cold summer temperatures in the Arctic, and there will be a reduction in cirrus clouds (high latitude regions) which will cause cooling as the thin wispy high altitude cirrus clouds warm due to the greenhouse effect particularly at night and in the winter (this change will result in record cold winter temperatures), and there will be a reduction in El Niño events and an increase in La Niña events due to a change in cloud properties and lifetimes in the tropical region (this change has started).
Scientific problems are like puzzles. What happened in the past, happened for physical reasons. Solar cycle changes correlate with all of the past cyclic climate changes. There are at roughly 20 observations and analysis results (logical pillars that support one theory over another) that support the assertion that the majority of the warming (roughly 75%, could be more, we will find out) in the last 150 years was due to solar changes, rather than the increase in atmospheric CO2.
This is one of the twenty observations and analysis results (logical pillar).
342 times in the last 240,000 years the Antarctic peninsula warmed. The Antarctic peninsula extends out of the Antarctic polar vortex. Ice sheet cores taken from the Antarctic peninsula hence provide a record of the Southern sea temperature which determines Antarctic ocean ice extent. The periodicity of the 342 warming events is the same as the periodicity of the Greenland Ice Sheet cyclic warming. All of the 342 warming phases were immediately by cooling phases, some of them abrupt cooling phases. Due to higher snowfall rates the Greenland Ice sheet data provides a higher resolution record. The Greenland ice sheet data shows evidence of massive abrupt cyclic cooling.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png
It is trivially simple, using only existing data and rudimentary math, to prove that CO2 has no significant effect on climate.
See the proof and discover what actually does cause climate change (95% correlation since before 1900) at http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com
Requesting funding information is a bit different to writing to an employer and stating the an employee is committing libel! And all over a scientific disagreement:
http://frankackerman.com/tol-controversy/
You call this a witch hunt, Huh! – Now THIS is how to organise a witch-hunt:
15. The scope of this request is to reach any and all data, documents and things in your possession, including those stored or residing on any of the specified or referenced (see FN 1, supra) computers, hard drives, desktops, laptops, file servers, database servers, email servers or other systems where data was transmitted or stored on purpose or as a result of transient use of a system or application in the course of day to day research or product processing work that is owned or contracted for by you or any of your officers, managers, employees, agents, board members, academic departments, divisions, programs, IT department, contractors and other representatives.
2. As used herein, the words “record”, “records”, “document” or “documents” mean the original and any copies of any written, printed, typed, electronic, or graphic matter of any kind or nature, however produced or reproduced, any book, pamphlet, brochure, periodical, newspaper, letter, correspondence, memoranda, notice, facsimile, e-mail, manual, press release, telegram, report, study, handwritten note, working paper, chart, paper, graph, index, tape, data sheet, data processing card, or any other written, recorded, transcribed, punched, taped, filmed or graphic matter now in your possession, custody or control.
1. All documents that constitute or are in any way related to correspondence, messages or e-mails sent by Dr. Michael Mann to, or received from, any of the following persons:
(a) Dr. Caspar Ammann,
(b) Dr. Raymond Bradley,
(c) Dr. Keith Briffa,
(d) Dr. John Christy,
(e) Dr. Edward Cook,
(f) Dr. Thomas Crowley,
(g) Dr. Roseanne D’ Arrigo,
(h) Dr. Valerie Masson-Delmotte,
(i) Dr. David Douglass,
(j) Dr. Jan Esper,
(k) Dr. Melissa Free,
(l) Dr. Chris de Freitas,
(m) Dr. Vincent Grey,
(n) Dr. James Hack,
(o) Dr. Malcolm Hughes,
(p) Dr. Eystein Jansen,
(q) Dr. Phil Jones,
(r) Dr. Thomas Karl,
(s) Dr. Otto Kinne,
(t) Dr. A. T.J. de Laat,
(u) Dr. Murari Lal,
(v) Dr. Stephen Mackwell,
(w) Dr. Glenn McGregor,
(x) Stephen McIntyre,
(y) Dr. Ross McKitrick,
(z) Dr. Patrick Michaels,
(aa) Dr. Jonathan Overpeck,
(bb) Dr. Tim Osborn,
(cc) Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr.,
(dd) Dr. Benjamin Santer,
(ee) Dr. Gavin A. Schmidt,
ff) Dr. Stephen Schneider,
(gg) Dr. Olga Solomina,
(hh) Dr. Susan Solomon,
(ii) Dr. Kevin Trenberth,
(jj) Dr. Eugene Wahl,
(kk) Dr. Edward Wegman,
(ll) Dr. Thomas Wigley,
(mm) Dr. Vincent Gray, and
(nn) All research assistants, secretaries or administrative staff with whom Dr. Mann worked while he was at the University of Virginia.
sergei,
In your example, there is only one witch and that witch is being investigated.
A witch hunt is different in that it’s a large scale manoeuvre to flush out witches that have not yet been identified.
I don’t suppose that you’re advocating a finding against Michael Mann without looking at possible evidence.
I think sergei meant this kind of witch hunt (are climate den*ers next on DOJ’s list):
“Federal regulations in the Land of the Free REQUIRE banks to file ‘suspicious activity reports’ or SARs on their customers. And it’s not optional. Banks have minimum quotas of SARs they need to fill out and submit to the federal government. If they don’t file enough SARs, they can be fined. They can lose their banking charter. And yes, bank executives and directors can even be imprisoned for noncompliance. And chances are, your banker has filled one out on you—they submitted 1.6 MILLION SARs in 2013 alone. But now the Justice Department is saying that SARs aren’t enough. Now, whenever banks suspect something ‘suspicious’ is going on, they want them to pick up the phone and call the cops:
“[W]e encourage those institutions to consider whether to take more action: specifically, to alert law enforcement authorities about the problem, who may be able to seize the funds, initiate an investigation, or take other proactive steps.”
So what exactly constitutes ‘suspicious activity’? Basically anything.
According to the handbook for the Federal Financial Institution Examination Council, banks are required to file a SAR with respect to:
“Transactions conducted or attempted by, at, or through the bank (or an affiliate) and aggregating $5,000 or more…”
It’s utterly obscene. According to the Justice Department, going to the bank and withdrawing $5,000 should potentially prompt a banker to rat you out to the police. This may be a very early form of capital controls….”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-20/justice-department-rolls-out-early-form-capital-controls-america
There was no witch hunt of Mann. All public servants seek to emulate Hillary, and turn over whatever they think is appropriate, even if it involves State secrets. Now if they ever actually go after Hillary like they went after Tallbloke; march in and size all computers servers records and files, then there may be a deserved element of hunting witchery, but that is different than a witch hunt.
I find this trait VERY annoying. I was actually in the intelligence community and we were way more forthcoming with answers to FOIA than these people seem to be. Literally if we could not name the intelligence source or method that would be compromised for each piece of information, it got released. We were very thorough in going through the records too. These politicians seem to think if it is politically embarrassing they can withhold the information and that is not what the law says at all. Unfortunately they all know they can spin their way out of it and do whatever the heck they want.
Global warming (climate change) is a political strategy. .
Political strategies exist to help groups obtain power and wealth.
The political strategy of the Left has always been to make Science hand maiden to politics.
The Left believes that doing Science should be a political act.
Science must conform to the current political strategy.
Mao said — “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
Of course, these people are going to attack scientists who dispute their political strategy.
Eugene WR Gallun
.
The problem is that the Alinsky tactic may be working. Dr Pielke Jr (UC) said in effect that it was too much of a hassle to publish in “climate” field and he had already switched his area of research! (And his decision apparently precedes the latest witch hunt.) If an eminent scientist like Roger Pielke can be dissuaded from publishing contrary information, what is the message to aspiring PhDs?
Uh, Pielke Jr. is more of a policy guy than scientist guy. While I respect his opinions and value his work, I wouldn’t say he is eminent, either. His father, Pielke Jr., is the scientist and may be referred to as eminent.
Mark
I am not on the side of the CAGW crowd, and I don’t support their tactics generally.
However, I don’t quite see the problem for asking a scientist at a public university to reveal funding information.
Science includes a set of processes, but is built on a set of values. One value is openness: we need to have the complete story in order to digest data presented to us.
Researcher physicians are supposed to tell us whether Big Pharma us funding their “thought-leader” speechifying, or their pharmaceutical drug outcomes studies. Studies have been done showing that the effect size of a tested drug varies as a function of whether the study had Big Pharma funding or not. So, while the evaluation of bias, as a scientific principle, makes sense logically, there is empirical evidence that this is wise.
The data ought to be shared if requested- just as some of Mann’s data ought to be shared.
Maybe “with whom” can have some limits. Maybe “how quickly” can have some limits.
An intelligent person should be able to separate ad hominem attack from the data of the attacked.
Technically this particular bit of harassment is not coming from the president, but from a congressman.
Secondly, if funding necessarily carries with it bias, the mainstream climate scientists are the ones who would be the most compromised, since by far their major source of funding is the government, which clearly has its own view in the warming debate, and which has more money than any corporation. But since Christy has obviously not been bought by the government, maybe it is time to drop this particular form of ad hominem.
Is it possible that this recent attack against AGW skeptical scientists is merely a tactic to prevent future demands for funding sources from AGW alarmist research? Once we have finished howling over the “witch hunt”, would it not be more difficult to demand data and funding disclosures from alarmist researchers. Is this merely another attempt to get AGW skeptics to shoot themselves in the foot and fall into a trap? We seem to be playing a game (with propaganda experts) that we are ill equipped to play.
Very disturbing. GK
I’d be more impressed with this defense of ‘academic freedom’ if you’d applied the same logic to the ‘witch hunt’ against Mann. It’s easy to defend the rights of someone you agree with, the real test is to apply the same rules to someone you disagree with.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/20/cuccinelli-tells-court-former-u-va-professors-academic-freedom-not-threatened/
“…I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.” Voltaire
possibly the origin of:
“”I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”
I find the investigations of Mann, Christy et al. equally reprehensible
With Mann it was never about his sources of funding but his refusal to provide his data and methods so his work could be replicated. That strikes at the very heart of the scientific method. Perhaps the first is grievous but the later is soul destroying.
Eugene WR Gallun
So, in other words, we need to accuse these scientists of withholding data and methods and then we can go on a witch hunt to our heart’s content?
By the way, I challenge you to find where Roy Spencer and John Christy have publicly released in terms of their code anything close to the amount of code that Mann has released!
The claims of refusal to provide data and methods were a red herring.
Could you specify which data Mann has not released? Note that was not Cuccinelli was asking for. In contrast Ross McKitrick refuses to release his data, citing canadian privacy laws in justification.
The Climategate emails revealed exchanges between Phil Jones and others, including Michael Mann, encouraging them to delete emails related to topics related to FOI requests. Mann’s own emails in this series indicated his willingness to prevent papers from being published, and intent to punish a journal editor who had published a paper harmful to “the cause.” The request by the Virginia AG was meant to see if there was evidence that Mann had complied in responding to Jones’ request.
Christy’s case is completely different and was nothing more than a fishing expedition trying to see if they could find something damaging. Two completely different issues.
Phil., the ‘witch hunt’ is not against Mann. Rather, Mann is the instigator of serial witch hunts.
The Guardian interviewed Michael Mann, and as usual, Mann comes across as a crank:
“I think, frankly, the Republican party is going to have to make a decision,” Michael Mann, director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center, who contributed to a Nobel Prize-winning landmark report on global warming, told the Guardian. “Are they going to move in the direction of logic and rationality, or are they going to continue to pursue this anti-scientific fringe movement within their party that is personified by people liked Ted Cruz? “As long as the Koch brothers are…&blah, blah, etc. [source]
They even tried to make it appear that Mann won the Nobel Prize again. Mann should be happy, he’s pretty much on top of the world with his adoring lemmings who are always carrying his water for him. But no. In every tweet, and in every interview, Mann spews bile. He is a hater, certainly not a professional scientist. I think it’s because he knows damn well he is a complete fraud, and he responds appropriately for someone with his lack of character.
Cuccinelli’s probe of Mann was certainly a ‘witch hunt’ in the context of this thread.
Cuccinelli was attempting to get access to information that LEGALLY BELONGED TO THE STATE OF VIRGINIA. I know the contract I signed gives very broad rights to my research to the state of Georgia. I am sure UVA has a similar contract.
Owen: I don’t think the Virginia Supreme Court agreed with you. ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/va-supreme-court-rejects-cuccinellis-bid-for-u-va-documents/2012/03/02/gIQAmo8inR_story.html ) And, before Cuccinelli’s witch hunt of Mann, there was Congressman Joe Barton’s witch hunt of Mann et al.
You guys are really good at defending witch hunts when they are witch hunts of people who you don’t like.
joelshore says:
You guys are really good at defending witch hunts when they are witch hunts of people who you don’t like.
Projection, as usual.
The true ‘witch hunt’ has been conducted by Michael Mann from the get-go, as anyone knows who has read the Climategate email dump, and Mann’s incessant, vile and juvenile tweets, and who has read Mann’s constant editorial attacks on anyone who simply has a different scientific opinion than he does. Anyone who believes there was an iota of honest investigation of Mann is either completely unaware of the Potemkin Village background, or is a blind partisan.
Man is always on the attack. He sits in his ivory tower, poisoning the well by showering all scientific skeptics with his venomous slings and arrows. He lies about his make-believe awards and accomplishments. He does not have the cojones to debate, but rather, he encourages his army of lemmings do his dirty work.
Michael Mann is the ultimate witch hunter. No rational person could have any doubt about that nasty, partisan, and dishonest pseudo-scientist. If he could, he would march every scientific skeptic into the Siberian gulag. Is there any doubt about that? At all? Mann is filled with hatred for anyone who questions him, because Mann is simply a hater.
As Owen points out, Cucinelli was doing his legally constituted job. Michael Mann is not in the state penitentiary because the Democrat party moved heaven and earth to defeat Cuccinelli — and Mann is damned lucky the election isn’t being held today.
In any event, justice has only been delayed, IMHO. The Mann drama has a long way to go before the final curtain drops.
A shorter summary of what dbstealey says is that because he and his fellow right-wing ideologues don’t like Mann and think he is a bad man, the witch hunt is justified.
Well, guess what: Many people on the Left might think it is justified for similar reasons to conduct witch hunts of the scientists that Congressman Grijalva wrote the letters to (although, because some of us are capable of getting outside of our ideological boundaries to see broader issues more objectively, I for one don’t). And, in fact, any non-ideological sources like the scientific societies (some of which have given Mann real awards) are at least closer to agreeing with those on the Left than those on the Right. Also, objectively, Grijalva’s request was much more narrowly tailored than the broad and invasive requests of Cuccinelli and Barton.
What you don’t seem to understand is that you have to come up with objective standards…and not just standards that you and your fellow ideologues can apply to maintain your hypocrisy.
Owen in GA March 27, 2015 at 2:28 pm
Cuccinelli was attempting to get access to information that LEGALLY BELONGED TO THE STATE OF VIRGINIA.
As ruled by the Va Supreme Court that is not true. Most of the grants that Cuccinelli was trying to get information about were from federal agencies not from, Va, also he asked for Mann’s correspondence with about 40 named scientists.
Cuccinelli later submitted a more specific demand for one grant awarded by UVa, the fact that the PI on that grant was not Mann indicates that it was a real witch hunt.
Resolving the Scale-wise Sensitivities in the Dynamical Coupling Between Climate and the Biosphere, University of Virginia-Fund for Excellence in Science and Technology (FEST) [Principal Investigator: J.D. Albertson; Co-Investigators: H. Epstein, M.E. Mann] U.Va internal award: $214,700
I don’t necessarily agree with McCarthy’s tactics, but were there communists holding high level positions within our government, and did these people have this nation’s best interests at heart?
Yes. You have one now called Obambam. And no, he does not have your sorry country interests at heart.
A very interesting article The Weekly Standard, published today.
Title: The Campus Left Begins to Implode.
http://m.weeklystandard.com/blogs/campus-left-begins-implode_899318.html?page=1
Here’a part of it which is an excerpt of an anonymous essay by a university professor:
The article also quotes a rather lengthy essay by a student at McGill Univ., in Montreal that is rather amusing, and shows how whacky things have gotten at many universities.
Highly worth the read.
From the Urban Dictionary – Triggering
“A topic, phrase or word that emotionally sets someone off. Could refer to anger, or reliving a traumatic experience.”
I was unaware of the context in which that word was used so I had to look it up.
I didn’t realize that ‘triggering is approaching the level of a capital offense at universities. I suppose that today’s students must be protected at all costs from all harm, especially getting their ‘widdle feewings’ hurt.
Not only are we raising idiots, but wimps. Ugh!
It really is pathetically ironic, isn’t it? I went to college in the late 60s and early 70s, and back then the leftist students were burning down buildings on campus to protest for academic freedom. Now, their progeny is set off by “triggers” meant to foster academic freedom of thought and they are protesting against it. We really need a scorecard and secret decoder ring to keep up with the parlance of their current thinking. Who knows what next week or year will bring. Many universities now have remote sections of campus cordoned off and designated as “free speech zones” assuring that no one’s triggers will be set off by accident. Yikes!
Ah, what remarkable disingenuity coming from the Klimate Klan, pretending that there is anywhere close to a level playing field between the big Climate Goliath and the skeptic/climate realist David side.
Kerry Emanuel, regarding John Christy’s belief that there isn’t cause for drastic action:
“It’s kind of like telling a little girl who’s trying to run across a busy street to catch a school bus to go for it, knowing there’s a substantial chance that she’ll be killed, She might make it. But it’s a big gamble to take.”
Actually, Dr. Emanuel, that’s not a good analogy. It’s really more like saying “Don’t put your life savings and then some into the construction of a nuclear bomb shelter in your backyard.”
Wasn’t it Kerry Emanuel of warned us of the upcoming increase in intense hurricanes back in 2004 or 2005? And since then, we have had no Cat 3 landfalls on the US mainland. He obviously is very prescient and someone whose forecasts are to be taken seriously:)
Pushing back against the intimidation tactics of media, gov’t and special interest groups can gain momentum very quickly in the broader climate science community.
John
You need to put the Kool aid down and step back.
This was put in the wrong context
Better late than never @ur momisugly Chip J, 8.37pm,
I strongly disagree with Obama’s policies and methods, but I feel strongly this is the wrong forum to vent & argue those feelings. CAGW will eventually be proven wrong by real actual data; in the mean time, politicians will probably have done significant and irreversible damage to our economic and governance system.
Thanks , over the past 4-5 weeks I am getting the same feelings and I have to add that it may be a indication at how correct the science presented on this site has undermined the warmists. The attacks have become vile.
I fail to see how wanting to know the source of funding interferes with academic freedom . . . He who pays the piper may not always call the tune, but more often than not he does . . Concealing the source of funding will more often than not influence our response to the science, and not without good reason . . Why should there be one standard for publicly funded science and another one for privately funded . . . and if it’s not privately funded then why are the attack dogs on this site not straining at the leash . . ?? Too much politics (of the one kind mainly) and not enough scepticism on here is how it seems to me these days . .Pity, because there are some truly brilliant contributors here who do the sceptical cause great credit . . But to find them you have frequently to plough through massive wads of right wing drivel/paranoia . .