A CIA employee involved with Benghazi has been suspended for refusing to practice omerta:
The CIA reiterated its denial in a Tuesday call to a Free Beacon reporter, calling Wolf’s allegations “categorically false.”
Well, if the CIA says it, it must be true.
Joel Achenbach has an interesting article about the station.
Judith Curry reviews Donna Laframboise’s new book
The 2007 IPCC report mistakenly said that Himalayan glaciers were in danger of disappearing by 2035. When various parties tried to tell the IPCC this was ludicrous, Pachauri called those people names and disparaged their intelligence. He said they were practicing “voodoo science” and “schoolboy science.” Eventually, however, the IPCC admitted its glacier claim was wrong.
…Pachauri has publicly ‘joked’ that his critics (aka climate skeptics) should be given a one-way ticket to outer space. He has alleged that they are part of a “carefully orchestrated” campaign, and that they believe “asbestos is as good as talcum powder – and I hope they put it on their faces every day.” Are these remarks worthy of the leader of a prominent international body?
No. He’s a hack. And so is John Kerry for praising him.
I’ve switched themes in an attempt to solve my ongoing difficulties in logging in to the site. It’s TwentyTwelve, the same theme I use for SafeIsNotAnOption. If it fixes the technical issues, I’ll start to pretty it up.
You give them control over your life.
The Founders would be appalled at how much of our liberty we’ve willingly surrendered.
…exists primarily in mythology:
There is deeply ingrained in American culture — particularly nowadays on the Left — the stereotype of the scientist as pure in intent and action, caring only for the Truth, let the chips fall where they may. The scientist works readily with other scientists (except when s/he is working alone, late into the night, thinking deep thoughts), accepts — nay, encourages — challenges to her/his theories and findings, welcomes new information and hypotheses, and is always willing to change his/her mind based on better data, models, and/or reasoning.
It is, to quote the late Douglas Adams, a load of dingos’ kidneys. A very large, steaming, rotting load of dingos’ kidneys.
Particularly when it comes to a politicized field like climate “science.”
A brief, but amusing review from Instapundit:
Set in an America that has become a corrupt state, run by an inbred political class drawn from just a few select universities and overseeing a populace of “cogs” who have no real legal protection against the state, while the civil government is sharply divided from the military, these science fiction books provide an excellent source of escapism from the unpleasant realities of today.
We laugh, so we don’t cry.
I started drinking coffee regularly a few weeks ago (that is, pretty much every morning when I’m home, though I’ve never actually brought myself to purchase a cup when away from home), primarily for medicinal reasons. I still don’t like the stuff that much, and can take or leave it. But one side effect I discovered, as a result of my latest dental visit, is that my teeth are much cleaner. I noticed that my cleaning was much faster than usual, and my hygienist told me that there was less to clean. I attribute this to the fact that I am brushing twice as often as I used to, because I feel a need to do so after drinking the coffee in the morning (I generally skip breakfast otherwise), partly to get rid of the after taste, and partly to prevent teeth staining. I was particularly motivated about the latter after seeing how hard it is to clean coffee stains from our white porcelain cups.
It’s time to clean up the agency:
…it all boils down to trust. One reason for the resonance of not only the IRS scandals but also the NSA scandal, the Benghazi scandal, Fast and Furious, and so on is that fewer Americans than ever trust the federal government. It’s a mess that needs to be cleaned up, and denying that the mess exists only exacerbates the lack of trust.
But the denial is strong, even among some in this comments section. Of course, it’s partisan denial.
As you may have noticed, the site’s been down since yesterday. Apparently, mysql had crashed on the server. It should be fixed now, though I still have issues with logging in as administrator (one reason that posting has been sparse lately, in addition to the fact that I’ve been busy).