NOAA Jumps The Climate Shark

Excellent, Willis. Though I would say that the term ‘exclusive’ is being used whenever a publication feels like it. I often see it on car websites as ‘Exclusive pictures of new Ford’…then see the same pictures on a rival website, at the same time. It joins ‘pause’ and ‘acidification’, as not necessarily what their dictionary definition is.

The Guardian’s censorship is arbitrary, capricious and sinister
Censorship definition: Suppression of speech or other communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the general body of people as determined by a GOVERNMENT, MEDIA OUTLET, or other CONTROLLING BODY.
Media censorship is the act of altering, adjusting, editing, or banning of any or all media resulting from the presumption that its content is perceived to be objectionable, incendiary, illegal, or immoral by the applicable legislative authority or Government. The ideology, methodology, and measures or determination regarding media subject to media censorship exists in conjunction to the vast expanse of the varieties of media in existence; this can include – but is not limited to books, publications, expressions, products, services, radio broadcasts, televised broadcast, Internet-based broadcasts, films, movies, pictures, images, videos, and speech.
“If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”– Noam Chomsky
“Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.”– Mark Twain
“Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.” – Potter Stewart, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
Despite what some might see as its good intentions, the Guardian’s version of censorship has proved to be the wrong way to fight hatred. I am an advocate of freedom of expression. The majority of censorship is unnecessary and counter-productive to society even though certain material within certain contexts is inappropriate and harmful, and that some level of censorship is justified.
Censorship in the name of political correctness is self-defeating. It drives away potential supporters, and substitutes linguistic change for social change. It replaces the desire to reform society with the desire to reform manners, and fails to understand that practiced hypocrites and seasoned manipulators can meet the demand to observe correct form with ease. Indeed, they will welcome political correctness because it gives them new opportunities to intimidate and control.
The Guardian is where Victorian prudery meets PC piety and they unite to make common cause against all who say what should not be said. Half a generation of leftists have wasted their lives and everyone else’s time in petty and priggish disputes about language. They do it because it is easy, and struggles for real change are hard. They do it because correct form identifies social class and confirms your membership of a privileged group, as surely for the middle-class left as the upper-class right. They do not understand that the only way to judge a language is by its use. They do it because tackling social problems is difficult, while playing language games is what middle-class intellectuals are trained to do.
The trouble is the Guardian is not a quality paper any more. I wonder if there are any quality papers left in Britain. The Financial Times, perhaps? The fanatical censors of the Guardian are busy deleting any comment that does not conform to their narrowing version of how things ought to be, whilst being prey to their delusions of political correctness gone mad. When it all goes predictably wrong, the Guardian walks away and wonders why conservatives are making such a fuss. Being of the Left has become a metaphor for “unthinking..glib…hostile…resentful…” – exactly the things they accuse others of being.
Whenever a public forum for dialogue is established, rules arise, and the Guardian is no exception. The Guardian website maintains a list of its standards. The Guardian has no obligation to publish anything it does not want to, and there is no guarantees that they will respect freedom of expression. As a non-governmental entity, the Guardian can permit or prohibit whatever content it likes, just as any club can set its own rules for speakers and every newspaper can decide which articles it sees fit to print. If the Guardian wanted to, they could silence everybody that disagreed with them – which is exactly the way they are going.
My experience of the Guardian’s regime has found their process to be neither rational nor transparent. The Guardian’s censors operate under a cloak of anonymity, with no accountability to its users. When the Supreme Court issues rulings, the justices present detailed, carefully reasoned (and often quite lengthy) written justifications for their decisions. So whether you agree or disagree with what the Court decides, you at least know the basis of their judgments. Not so with the Guardian. As powerful as the Supreme Court justices may be, they are no longer the most consequential arbiters of acceptable speech. While the justices’ decisions the whole country and establish legal precedents for decades to come, it is a rare individual who manages to publish something that rubs up against the diminished realities of the Guardian. Their judgments come swiftly—and, as far as anyone can tell, capriciously.
When I made a comment in the Guardian about Prince Charles, it was that he said he supported science while advocating homeopathy, and that he wants everybody else to use less energy while running numerous luxury estates and giant residences himself. The Guardian deleted the post. When I made a comment about feminists who are constantly objecting to the fictional depiction of violence against women while saying nothing about violence against men, the Guardian deleted the post. When I provided the correct definition of the Guardian’s oft-used word “mysogeny” and said that every time that word was misused it diminished its power, the Guardian deleted the post. When I pointed out to the so-called “feminists” some relevant facts and hard truths, the Guardian deleted my post. When I complained about the Guardian deleting my posts – guess what? they deleted that post too. Numerous other deletions followed whenever I took a different line to the Guardian’s rigid orthodoxy, and none of them remotely offensive.
No explanation accompanied the Guardian’s decision to delete my posts was ever forthcoming, other than their bland copy-and-paste statement which would appear (in place of my posts) that “This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn’t abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs.” The two pages in question: http://www.theguardian.com/community-standards and http://www.theguardian.com/community-faqs are nothing but the two tiny fig leaves they use to cover the censorship of all comments, information and ideas that do not conform to the Guardian’s intolerant agenda. There was nothing in my posts that could have been construed as not abiding by “our community standards…,” unless they are very peculiar standards indeed.
And who, in any case, are these “moderators” (a fancy word for censors) anyway? They are safely hidden behind their keyboards in blissful anonymity, the very epitome of the secretive State censors the Guardian spends so much time decrying. And who are they to decide what abides by “community standards…” and what does not? It is for the community itself to say what is acceptable and not some fascistic, anonymous, God-like entity sitting in arbitrary judgement with a Delete button.
In sum, as part of a public forum that embraces a sizable chunk of news and information available online, the Guardian owes its users genuine freedom and accountability.

Not enough gold stars! Thanks, W!

Lies, damn lies and the Guardian