Thursday, December 03, 2009

Not Very 'Liberal' Is It?


Sunnhy Hundal has shown his nasty side again. Take this from his latest rant on climate change.

Look at the people who push global warming denialism: Fox News (enough said), The Telegraph (enough said), The Spectator (recently promoting AIDS denialism), Melanie Phillips (enough said), Christopher Booker (has anyone read his Wikipedia entry recently?), James Delingpole (enough said).

These are the kind of fuckwits (Delingpole, Richard North) who think there’s a conspiracy when their article doesn’t appear on Google News or use Google search hits as example of how big the story is.

Calling them ‘denialists’ is being too kind: they should be abused at every instance for the stupidity they churn out. They should be ridiculed, parodied, cussed, and constantly called out for the idiots they are because they deserve it.

Let the scientists do the science. But outside that world is a media full of bullshit artists who have vested interests in promoting ’scepticism’. The Spectator magazine’s hosting of the AIDS denialism film is just one small example. If we retreat on this war between ideologies by trying to be nice, while all they do is throw vitriol and propaganda, then we’ve already lost... There is no reason to take these people seriously or even off them an ounce of respect. If that means the political debate is charged – so be it.


I used to like Sunny. I always regarded him as someone you could do business with. Not any longer. His site, and his Twitter feed have become full of the bile and sheer nastiness that he pretends to deprecate. I've given up looking at either. The use of the word 'liberal' in the title is so full of irony it's hard to know whether to laugh or cry.The only reason I read this article was because someone emailed me and asked if Sunny was feeling all right.

Why is the Left so afraid of a proper, calm debate on this subject? All they can do is shout "denier", hope that the mud sticks and that anyone who questions the consensus is viewed as a nutter. Job done, eh? Except that the last couple of weeks have rather punctured that particular tyre.

Hattip for graphic to Plato Says.

57 comments:

  1. Nothing Liberal about that site

    ReplyDelete
  2. I found a rather good graphic that sums up the AWG argument [well, shout down really]

    What climate greenies say about you

    ReplyDelete
  3. From what I can see its the left which has a problem with denial.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "Let the scientists do the science".

    Fully agree. If we were living in a world where any of them could be trusted.

    When I read that line what I actually saw was this:

    "Let the scientists rig the science".

    If Sunny is still in the Warmist/Coolist/Changist camp after the revelations most normal people have read, then he truly is a fool.

    His naivete is staggering.

    CR.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Denier, fascist, homophobe, racist, islamophobe, all just tools of the left, verbal sticks to beat us with to close down debate.
    Problem is it doesn't work anymore, people are starting to wake up and ask the questions they can't answer and they are no longer being fobbed off by insults.
    It's no wonder Sunny and his mob are getting ever more shrill and desperate as the truth unfolds.

    ReplyDelete
  6. For God's sake.

    Since UK Tories here seem to have gone off the waggon, see http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/12/how-science-is-supposed-to-work.html

    Plus see the state of the play at

    http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4338343.html?page=4

    No leftwing craziness, just an avoidance of conspiracy nuts.

    [What I really don't understand is why, so close to power, UK Tories seem, on the blogs, to have gone crazy. I wonder if they will defend bankers' bonuses also?]

    ReplyDelete
  7. "The use of the word 'liberal' in the title is so full of irony it's hard to know whether to laugh or cry."

    This kind of inversion of meaning is nothing new to the Left. It is meant to disarm and distract us.

    ReplyDelete
  8. "Why is the Left so afraid of a proper, calm debate on this subject?"

    I trust that is a rhetorical question.

    He makes no attempt to discuss facts merely to say that Melanie & co are not entitled to have opinions. This fascist liar says how they should support "direct action". Presumably Krystalnacht meets with his approval.

    However the antipathy to debate is not merely among such people. The BBC, having spent many thousands of hour broadcasting eco-fascist lies, totally refuses to broadcast a traditional public debate on the subject. Honest debate on any political issue must, in their opinion, be kept from us commoners at all times & on all subjects.

    ReplyDelete
  9. He seems to be playing up to a Loony Left stereotype. Liberal Conspiracy isn't even left-liberal, it's full of hardcore socialists.

    ReplyDelete
  10. The problem here is that the likes of you claim to want a debate but the debate is already settled and has been for some time.

    Your claim to want a debate is noting more than a device to construct a facade of open mindedness on the issue when it is clear that you are anything but. The correct term for a person who refuses to accept a position despite utterly overwhelming evidence to support it is indeed 'denier' or 'denialist'.

    It makes no difference that the term was first used in relation to the holocaust, that again was a case where certain individuals held an untenable position for their own purposes and in defiance of all the evidence.

    If people sometimes get very angry over this issue its because the stakes are very high and it's extremely tiring to hear another ignoramus bang on about how they 'prefer' flying or whinging that 'ecofascists are destroying civil liberties'. That's what society does, it restricts our liberties when there is a need to with laws, otherwise there would be anarchy.

    As for whether you've helped your case by responding to Sunny's alleged ad hominem attack with an ad hominem attack against him I'll leave that for others to judge. I can't imagine Sunny is losing much sleep over it, the phrase 'savaged by a dead sheep' springs to mind.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I've taken to calling them Climate Change Drones & Witch Doctors. It winds them up. But its only the same as the way they try to twist the sceptics side of the argument.

    ReplyDelete
  12. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=seven-answers-to-climate-contrarian-nonsense

    ReplyDelete
  13. Like I keep saying to you Iain, 'none of them are nice'.

    ReplyDelete
  14. The 'left' lost the argument once and for all in 1989. That's it. End of. They achieved power in the uK in 1997 by a combination of brilliant PR and well, lies. Now they've been found out again, and guess what? They're back to name calling and stupid ad hominem nastiness, because they have nothing else. No coherent argument. No coherent and workable philosophy. Nothing. De nada. Zilch.

    Expect more of the same.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Leftism is not a set of convictions, it is a collection of psychological symptoms; namely malignant narcissism.

    The "science" by which Leftists justify themselves is always a fairy tale. They have no interest in truth, quite the opposite; all they can bring to the table is their hatred.

    Insofar as climate science is Leftist it will be nonsense. Insofar as it is a science it will uncover truths that will be uncomfortable for Leftists.

    A free pursuit of truth is precisely what Leftism rejects. To think otherwise is to misunderstand the psychology of Leftists.

    ReplyDelete
  16. The left love the idea AGW. It provides them with a huge lever for things they want anyway. Wealth transfer from rich to poor countries (which, without population control, will impoverish the rich without enriching the poor) and, better yet, an excuse control in detail the behaviour of both individuals and nations, leading, eventually to supra-national government.

    Question it at your peril. It would probably be safer to question the Koran in a mosque.

    ReplyDelete
  17. My first and last visit to that fellow's site. Guardian Blogger of the Year 2006 - says it all really.

    His comments policy is laughable given the style of his own post, (which I have to say I couldn't suffer more than a paragraph of).

    •We have a tight comments policy aimed at fostering constructive debate.
    •We believe in free speech but not your right to abuse our space.

    'Our space' - another clown who thinks he owns the internet.

    The eco-taleban have just had one 'up em', and as Corporal Jones would say, they certainly don't like it up 'em.

    The unit at the centre of 'climategate' is an absolute disgrace and they should be disbanded.

    I'm afraid I haven't stopped laughing since the story broke.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Does he want debate and discussion or just an exchange of personal vituperation?

    Anyway, who actually cares?

    ReplyDelete
  19. Did no-one tell Sunny that ad hominem arguments are rarely dispositive in scientific disputes ?

    The idiot. :)

    (FWIW, I still think that AGW is more likely than not, though the whole 'climategate' debacle has significantly reduced my degree of certainty.)

    ReplyDelete
  20. Surely denier is to do with stockings?

    Myself, I'm a 15 denier wearer, except in really cold weather when I go for 40 denier with fur-trimmed ankle boots.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Oh dear me?

    When the leftists set the rules of play they have a habit of stacking the deck in their favour dont they?

    The fact that the entire history of the AGW alarmist cultists has been littered with fading 'celebs' sticking their ignorant tuppence worth in, desperate politicians who would mistake the Milankovich cycle for a German dishhwasher, rich dummies like Al Gore and Bono telling us the world will end in flames'N'floods unless we destroy our entire industrial civilisation and hand them loads of £ seems to escape the leftist chattering classes?

    It does show perfectly that the leftists tend to have more than their fair share of swivel eyed loons and foam flecked Mr angry eyes. Its amusing to see the change from the self styled enlightened budha to raging crank as they lose the argument.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I used to respect Iain Dale as a commentator, but recently his seemingly proactive misinterpretation of the UEA emails has seen him drop drastically in my opinion.

    Anyone is welcome to have their own opinion but if it is based so much in falsehoods, they should only expect ridicule.

    As to the suggestion that no scientists can be trusted, I'm not sure its even worth replying to, so laughable a suggestion it is.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Salmondnet said...
    'The left love the idea AGW.'

    I might be showing my age here, but wasn't anthropogenic climate change first flagged as a political issue by that well known leftie chemist - Margaret Thatcher?

    ReplyDelete
  24. I'm guessing your objection here is the use of the word 'fuckwit?' Nothing else seems any more offensive than most of what is written in blogs. Mr Dale, you often denigrate individuals who comment on your blog, for example, 'Thick or what. Qz.' from you yesterday.

    Equally, the bile that emanates from Guido is something to behold.

    I guess you're comfortable dishing it out, but don't like getting it back.

    ReplyDelete
  25. cjjones, pray tell me where and how I have misinterpreted anything. If I have then many others, including manyu scientists, have too.

    Please also point to where I have said that no scientist can be trusted. You can't because I have never said such a ridiculous thing.

    ReplyDelete
  26. •We have a tight comments policy aimed at fostering constructive debate.
    **************************************

    And I'm heartily pleased to say that my mildly sarcastic comments on sunny's unsunny site were duly deleted.

    What next from our liberals?

    Book burning?

    ReplyDelete
  27. On Thursday US Climate Change hypocrite Al Gore will address David Cameron's Shadow Cabinet. He will no doubt be instructing them all on the art of preaching climate change religion bollocks while at the same time creating a carbon footprint the size of a mammoth's. I wonder how many of them will find they have a subsequent engagement...

    Recognise this Dale?
    http://www.bobpiper.co.uk/2009/12/climate_change_hypocrite.php

    Please don't play the "I used to like Sunny" card - you've been playing good cop/bad cop with me for ages. Being nice to my face while cussing me on blogs.

    I don't really care for your global warming denialism - that's predictable from you Tories now. What amuses me more is this pretence from you that somehow you're a model of nice behaviour.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Paul Halsall said...
    For God's sake.
    Plus see the state of the play at
    http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4338343.html?page=4
    ************************************

    Yes, but the thread's about lying scientists. Might not that one be 'bought and paid for' as well.

    I'm just trying to help you understand.

    Thank me later.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Sunny, He's not a model of non- partisan behaviour but I think Iain's blog is a kind of rational center to the Tory blogosphere. Iain is more keyed into moderate Daily Maily voices (and his presence moderates them.

    As a declared Tory agent, I don't see it as fair to criticise him for that.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Gore cancels on Copenhagen lecture – leaves ticketholders in a lurch

    See...
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/

    ReplyDelete
  31. Iain,

    Sorry if I didn't make it clear about 'no scientist can be trusted', I was responding to a comment rather than directly to anything you yourself have written.

    The misinterpretation is relating to your response to the UEA emails, taking emails out of context and then using them as evidence to justify arguments against climate change.

    The idea that there is some massive conspiracy involving hundreds, if not thousands of scientists world wide, is quite an astounding proposition, given the number of people who would have to be complicit.

    The emails were written for private viewing only, with no consideration for how they might be read as a stranger with no expertise in the field. Therefore using them as evidence for anything, without extensive context from the authors, is worthless speculation.

    ReplyDelete
  32. There some interesting (and rational) discussion of the data 'massaging' here
    http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/12/its-the-computer-code-silly-ctd.html#more

    Having spent an hour or so wading through this -
    http://www.di2.nu/foia/HARRY_READ_ME.txt
    - I'm inclined to agree with this conclusion:
    "Scanning it, my initial impression is that this person was approaching the problem with a great deal of integrity."

    I don't see any evidence at all that data was being invented to fit the global warming conclusion.

    ReplyDelete
  33. well the pro climate changers are panicking. the pro climate brigade have had things virtually all their own way for the last couple of years. when they say the science is settled what they mean is they felt confident they had shut down the debate. now the debate has sprung to life again. similar comments from Ed Milliband and Hilary Benn are more examples of this panic. you always know when someone is scared their point of view is going to be trashed. they resort to insults. something the pro-climate change lot have been doing a lot in the last few weeks.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Nigel ... you read the 'Harry' file and came to the conclusion that here was nothing wrong with what he produced????

    You have to be kidding, right?

    Even Harry didn't reach that conclusion!

    ReplyDelete
  35. Sunny (seriously now, what kind of first name is that?) Hundal is a Grade A, export quality tosser. I don't think anyone can deny that. His degree of tosserism has rapidly risen in the last few months, though. I think the idea of the next Tory government is getting to him. He should put himself on some pills.

    ReplyDelete
  36. No, Spartan.

    I said that there was no evidence at all that he had faked or massaged data to fit a predetermined conclusion.

    What I read is someone struggling with a poorly formatted and poorly documented set of data, and being pretty rigorous in checking whether his efforts to format it were producing valid results (often not).

    ReplyDelete
  37. Climate Science exists

    Climate Politics and taxation no longer does

    Billions will be lifted out of poverty in India and China and allowed to live by their own efforts. No Western politician can now demand they stop producing cheap goods because "they are warming the planet". They aren't.

    Billions of our fellow human beings have just been given a chance at life. Something we should all rejoice at.

    ReplyDelete
  38. "Calling them ‘denialists’ is being too kind: they should be abused at every instance for the stupidity they churn out. They should be ridiculed, parodied, cussed, and constantly called out for the idiots they are because they deserve it"

    Try substituting the word "Jew" or "Nigger" or "Gippo" or "queer" for "denialist" and what do you have?

    It's 1930s Germany and the Hitler Youth and Goebbels propaganda

    ReplyDelete
  39. Iain

    I'm not left wing but I don't want to run away from our responsibilities to future generations.

    I can't believe the views expressed here are from actual conservatives. In my experience real conservatives can see perfectly well what's happening before our eyes.

    If we pretend that only left wingers are concerned about the planet we are isolating ourselves from the mainstream electorate. There's a reason Camerons gone blue green, it's what the people need and want.

    There may be a majority against climate change being real here but that's not somehow profoundly telling, that's just making this place look like a joke and a magnet for absurdity.

    Your contributors are unfortunately even more abusive than this Sunny blogger anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Climate Change deniers? Hang the lot of them. And although I jest, if climate change turns out to be real...really hang them....

    I'm a liberal except when it comes to people who want to risk my life and the lives of my family because they don't want their view spoiled by a windmill....

    ReplyDelete
  41. Sunnhy is now censoring coments, presumably to stop it being entirely obvious his claims are not only indefensible rubbish but also generally discredited.

    'Nuff said.

    ReplyDelete
  42. It's hard not to appreciate the irony of a right-wing blogger publishing that cartoon at the head of the story to castigate the left.

    Take a look in the mirror!

    ReplyDelete
  43. @ Hatfield Girl

    Oooh, I do like the sound of that....

    ReplyDelete
  44. Sunny said...
    On Thursday US Climate Change hypocrite Al Gore will address David Cameron's Shadow etc etc zzzzzzzzz
    *************************************

    Nice cut and paste from Braindead Bob Piper's ubercrappy blog.

    The ecotaleban response to UEA's scientists being rumbled is not for one nanosecond to think, 'maybe, we're wrong, maybe we should have a good think about this.'

    No,it's to shout louder, screech shriller, and marshall the troops with Field-Marshall Sunny in the van.

    Pathetic doesn't begin to describe it.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Melanie Phillips is a nutter though...

    Gotta give him that.

    ReplyDelete
  46. Danny Finkelstein and Margaret Thatcher believe in climate change. Proof of the left wing conspiracy

    ReplyDelete
  47. Icowboy @ 9.21: You may well be right about Margeret Thatcher. The fact remains that while the right would be delighted if AGW were proved not to be a threat, the left would be devastated. It is a once in a millenia opportunity for bossiness.

    ReplyDelete
  48. Some less intemperate - and better informed - discussion of the 'scandal' here:

    http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-vine/another-round-the-cru-e-mails

    http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/quote_mining_code.php

    http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/2009/12/gerald_north_interview.html

    http://mediamatters.org/research/200912010002

    ReplyDelete
  49. Duncan how do you feel about hanging people who pretend to be liberals because it makes it easier for them to support fascism if they change the labels?

    ReplyDelete
  50. "The phrase 'savaged by a dead sheep' springs to mind."
    What a very odd mind yours must be.

    ReplyDelete
  51. Perhaps it's the old tactic of get the awkward bit out of the way in the name. No-one would pay him the slightest bit of attention if he called his site Trotskyite Conspiracy.

    ReplyDelete
  52. Neil, to equate windmills and energy saving lightbulbs to fascism is kind of obscene, although perfectly in line with the kind of mood Dale and others are trying to create...

    To illustrate the point, we could have a calm debate about whether eugenics would improve the species if we wanted, but I'm sure you wouldn't want to because I assume you reject eugenics on moral grounds. Climate change is backed by a fair bit of science as well as having a hefty moral dimension, not as obvious as eugenics but it's there nonetheless. Why would I or anyone else have to be sympathetic to the opinions of pro-polluters? Why would I have to be sympathetic to racists or commies? The fate of the world and the lives of hundreds of thousands of people are probably in the balance here. That's all whatever-his-name-is is saying. This blog post is essentially a wind-up.

    As for the hanging, it's interesting that the same people who resist doing anything about potentially apocalyptic climate change are somewhat related to the kind of people who like the death penalty and other reactionary ideas. It's possible that if climate change comes to pass, with food shortages, riots and general chaos, and it becomes obvious we could/should have prevented it, the hanging corpses of climate change deniers may well decorate the lampposts of the world...that's all I'm saying... :)

    ReplyDelete
  53. the temperature of the planet is rising noticeably in the long-term, and has been for a fair while now (despite short-term variation) and the thermometers don't lie, even if the odd scientist does.

    ReplyDelete
  54. They don't want a debate because Lefties are always looking for the next 'cause' to fight. Trying to get them to calm down and actually look at the science they claim is gospel is impossible because of their hyperactive 'activism'. Why think when we can act?

    Not that there's anything wrong with wanting to be a 'do-gooder'. Each to his own and all that.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Sunny, Dave Hill and the rest of the Pickled Politics "liberal intelligencia" are all a bunch of self-appointed gurus looking for the next cushty Guardian gig; they don't need the likes of us questioning their know-nothing hegemony.

    I'm glad you see this little emperor has no clothes.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Ridiculee parody, cussing and calling out are not censorship. Refusing to be nice is not illiberal. Insisting that someone is impossible to take seriously is not repressive. I really don't see what your point is.

    ReplyDelete