Hard News: Friendly Fire?
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Nicky Hager was adamant that there was no stealing or hacking of e-mails. He said that important senior National Party people were supplying his information. Probably true. Truth usually comes out- eventually. Someone will speak up before the next election. Bet ya!
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Nicky Hager was adamant that there was no stealing or hacking of e-mails. He said that important senior National Party people were supplying his information. Probably true.
I think that's unlikely - the leaked e-mails arguably cost the National Party the election. I don't think there are any 'principled conservatives' in the National Party so unflinching in their convictions that they'd be willing to let Labour have another 3 years in power rather than see the sacred cause of conservatism tarnished.
I still hold to my original theory - that someone in the leaders office working in an administrative capacity (IT support, PA, receptionist) simply burned a bunch of .pst files onto DVD, or copied them onto a USB key.
I also note that Diane Foremans apartment was broken into the night before the election. If any political dynamite was discovered then it would have been absolutely useless to Brash's political enemies: the papers would have all run to press and by the time the country found out about it on the 6 PM news the election would have been over.
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I still hold to my original theory - that someone in the leaders office working in an administrative capacity (IT support, PA, receptionist) simply burned a bunch of .pst files onto DVD, or copied them onto a USB key.
I agree. Much more likely than any spooky hacker story.
I also note that Diane Foremans apartment was broken into the night before the election. If any political dynamite was discovered then it would have been absolutely useless to Brash's political enemies: the papers would have all run to press and by the time the country found out about it on the 6 PM news the election would have been over.
As Foreman indicated, it appears that the "political enemies" were "closer to home", so they may well not have had a problem with National winning the election anyway.
One theory would be that whoever organised it considered it potentially useful to have certain information regarding the next Prime Minister. It was a pretty weird time, wasn't it?
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I still think the whole climate change debate is far too loaded with 'us and them' terminology that makes it difficult for reasoned debate. Russell you sometimes perpetuate this as well. I object to language like 'climate change denial'. It runs seriously close to the 'holocaust denial' label and those that illogically follow that line. And then there are the 'conspiracy' theories and the mentioned whackos in Newsweek that fund rediculous campaigns. All this leads to frightening prospects for anyone who wants take a view that climate change may not be occuring as the mainstream thinking suggests.
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Nicky Hager was adamant that there was no stealing or hacking of e-mails.
Well, he would say that wouldn't he? I don't know about anyone else, but it sure took some of the gloss off the Watergate myth when 'Deep Throat' outed himself - and turned out to be Mark Felt, a rather squalid Hoover henchman who had a very particular grudge against Nixon, who passed him over as FBI Director following Hoover's death.
The point is that someone who clearly knows (or suspects) more than she's telling, is saying that whatever did happen was friendly fire.
Don't know if I'd read too much into that either. I suspect both Foreman and McMannus are smart enough to know that 'suspicions' are a pretty risky defence in defamation law. If a newspaper even implied that I was some kind of Kiwi G. Gordon Liddy, you bet your arse I'd be setting loose the dogs of law - and I'm pretty sure there are a few folks on both sides of the political fence who would do the same.
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I still think the whole climate change debate is far too loaded with 'us and them' terminology that makes it difficult for reasoned debate. Russell you sometimes perpetuate this as well. I object to language like 'climate change denial'. It runs seriously close to the 'holocaust denial' label and those that illogically follow that line.
But what's described in the Newsweek story <i>is</i> an organised campaign of denial. It's not about the balance of scientific opinion.
And then there are the 'conspiracy' theories and the mentioned whackos in Newsweek that fund rediculous campaigns. All this leads to frightening prospects for anyone who wants take a view that climate change may not be occuring as the mainstream thinking suggests.
As I said, the highest-rated posts in the Slashdot discussion provide a pretty good guide to the arguments. Meanwhile, we're seeing news stories with headlines like Analysts See ‘Simply Incredible’ Shrinking of Floating Ice in the Arctic.
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And just as an FYI, I don't really want to see stolen letters and trashing people's homes becoming part of the cut and thrust of politics in this country, full stop. On one level, I don't really care how 'close to home' it is - whether it's some horrible lefty plot or National infighting gone toxic - I want to see the people responsible exposed and punished to the full extend of the law.
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A good example of the changing nature of climate change debate is the news story today of NASA having to revise their data on US surface air temperatures. Apparently, a Canadian scientist by the name of Steve McIntyre found a 'bug' in NASA's computer software. NASA adjusted their data and now the averages have cooled somewhat. The hottest year is now 1934, not 1998. So it's still a very fluid scientific debate.
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Rest assured the NZ Police are hard at work ... with their road safety / speed enforcement duties. Yesterday, on a lazy 400km trip to Northland and back we saw at least 2 mobile speedcameras, and about 9 patrol cars on traffic duty (5 complete with flashing lights pulling some unfortunate bugger over). It was really quite remarkable, especially since the roads were so lightly trafficked.
The impression I formed was that the Police have "nothing better to do" on a sleepy winter Sunday.
This said, I did drive somewhat slower than I otherwise would have; panoptical state surveillance achieved its goal.
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But what's described in the Newsweek story <i>is</i> an organised campaign of denial
I read this link with interest. What is missing is the corresponding analysis of the global warmers funding and backers. Science in the States is not an altruistic operation. While many Universities have pure science as their aim, they do rely on sponsored funding and that always seems to have had political ramifications.
Simple example: to look at global warming seems to suggest one solution is to swap to biofuels so large corporations including the petroleum industry are funding research and buying up productive land for this rather inefficient use producing plants for fuel rather than plants for food.
I'm with Freeman Dyson on this - there is a need for "heretical" thought (& not supported by the antiglobal warmer lobby either). And having seen the NASA corrected data and graphed it - the "hockey stick" no longer looks curved - but that isn't stopping the ongoing use of the first pictures. It is not as inconsequential as you suggest. -
I think that's unlikely - the leaked e-mails arguably cost the National Party the election. I don't think there are any 'principled conservatives' in the National Party so unflinching in their convictions that they'd be willing to let Labour have another 3 years in power rather than see the sacred cause of conservatism tarnished.
You can argue for or against what Nicky Hager says in his books, but I'm not aware of any history of him saying "here's where my information came from" and that turning out to be untrue. And some of his books have used information with a lot more 'top secret' stamped on it, than emails between Don Brash and the Exclusive Brethren.
The real damage done by the leak was done after the election. If we presume that was the intention of the leaker, then either they thought national was going to lose, in which case, good time to change leader, or they hoped national was going to win, in which case, changing leader gives you almost three years to recover before the next election.
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Apparently, a Canadian scientist by the name of Steve McIntyre found a 'bug' in NASA's computer software. NASA adjusted their data and now the averages have cooled somewhat. The hottest year is now 1934, not 1998. So it's still a very fluid scientific debate.
That's so true. And if Russell wasn't in the pocket of the Global Warming Industry he'd have mentioned it, even linked to it.
Oh, wait...
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A good example of the changing nature of climate change debate is the news story today of NASA having to revise their data on US surface air temperatures. Apparently, a Canadian scientist by the name of Steve McIntyre found a 'bug' in NASA's computer software. NASA adjusted their data and now the averages have cooled somewhat. The hottest year is now 1934, not 1998. So it's still a very fluid scientific debate.
That's the story discussed in the first Slashdot thread and, as I said, dealt with quite usefully in the modded-up posts. This post, for example:
Look more closely at that (corrected) graph. In particularly, look at the year-on-year variability. The hot years in the 30's did indeed get very hot, but they were interspersed with cold years. No such thing happens in the late 90's and early 2000s - cold years in this latter period are all a lot warmer than almost any other cold years and in fact warmer than most years prior to 1930!
Which referred to this one that compiled the top five-year means from the corrected data:
1 2000 0.52 0.79
2 1999 0.93 0.69
3 2004 0.44 0.66
4 2001 0.76 0.65
5 1932 0.00 0.63
6 1933 0.68 0.61
7 2003 0.50 0.58
8 2002 0.53 0.55
9 1998 1.23 0.51
10 1988 0.32 0.51 -
Looks like we need a real statistician to front up here. I failed Statistics 101 in 1980...
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I read this link with interest. What is missing is the corresponding analysis of the global warmers funding and backers. Science in the States is not an altruistic operation. While many Universities have pure science as their aim, they do rely on sponsored funding and that always seems to have had political ramifications.
The problem there is that you're accusing literally thousands of scientists with relevant expertise -- the large majority of those with such expertise -- of corruption.
Links between vested interests and a number of climate change skeptics can be -- and have been -- demonstrated. If you're going to allege that most of the scientists in the field are lying, you need to offer some evidence.
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Just a point about the US temperature record adjustment, It was for the lower 48 US states only - not the planet (the lower 48 makes up about 2% of the planet's surface). I know many Americians think that world is the US but the global temeprature record is not affected by this adjustment.
Even just looking at the US alone the adjustment results in the order changing from 1st 1998 and 2nd 1934 to 1st 1934 2nd 1998, but in both cases the difference is statistically insignificant. It is within the margin of error of the temperature measurement. More importantly the US temperature trend remains unaltered with warming in the US over the last 30 years still present
For more information I recommend
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/08/1934-and-all-that
or for a more statisical analysis
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/08/12/before-and-after/
Cheers Doug
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Russell
Great balance. The forgotten art of journalism so rarely these days do we get to presented two differing views for debate. The Newsweek article shows how difficult it is to remove bias on the reporting of events.I must confess that I found the Freeman Dyson essay an intelligent and interesting read. The ideas it contains will start some interesting discussions at my morning coffee.
One of my companions is an eminent NZ scientist who has longed complained of the lack of good science in the climate change debate. He, like Freeman Dyson, is in the latter half of his life.
I hope that it is not just old man’s pessimism but also a smidgin of wisdom and experience that colours their judgement!!
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Looks like we need a real statistician to front up here. I failed Statistics 101 in 1980...
Not really, this is a minor correction in the US surface temperature dataset which has made two years that were basically tied for warmest year on record stay basically tied for warmest year on record in the US.
The last time this happened was apparently this year, when NASA changed from thinking 1934 was the warmest US surface temperature year on record to thinking 1998 was.
Graphs pre and post correction are at Deltoid - Global warming totally disproved again.
Another fairly interesting post there includes:
Because the 1998 and 1934 numbers were so close, minor adjustments could easily change their ordering. This is what happened with the GISS numbers released [earlier] this year. In that data set, 1998 was a tiny amount warmer than 1934. This change was not much ballyhooed. Nor was it a little ballyhooed. In fact, it wasn't mentioned by anyone at all. Because it didn't matter. When the data correction made 1998 and 1934 flip back, this [current] change was much-ballyhooed by Steve McIntyre, even though he knew that it didn't matter.
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The impression I formed was that the Police have "nothing better to do" on a sleepy winter Sunday.
Nothing better to do than, you know, try to reduce the likelihood some moron will kill a bunch of people. I heartily approve.
This said, I did drive somewhat slower than I otherwise would have; panoptical state surveillance achieved its goal.
Oh how dreadful. You poor, poor, opressed person, you. Imagine having to pay some vague attention to driving legally! Truely, we live under a regime of the most vile sort!
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And Danyl wrote:
I also note that Diane Foremans apartment was broken into the night before the election. If any political dynamite was discovered then it would have been absolutely useless to Brash's political enemies...
OK,it just hit me how absurd that statement is. You've got some hair wedged so far up your arse about Don Brash you (supposedly) tossed his alleged mistresses' apartment once, maybe even leaked his mail to Nicky fricking Hagar and God only knows what else... and the minor technicality of a general election gets in your way? Come on, Danyl, you're just not getting into the spirit of things. :)
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As Foreman indicated, it appears that the "political enemies" were "closer to home", so they may well not have had a problem with National winning the election anyway.
One theory would be that whoever organised it considered it potentially useful to have certain information regarding the next Prime Minister. It was a pretty weird time, wasn't it?
Its also worth considering that the break-ins at Foreman's apartment might have had nothing to do with politics. She does co-own a multi-million dollar company with her husband, and was widely considered to be conducting an affair. That combination could make for a hell of a divorce case, and a much more plausible basis for private detectives to be sneaking around her house than some plot hatched between John Key and Heather Simpson.
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i think i find it hard to believe that craig finds it hard to believe that someone senior in the nats might have leaked a bunch of information about brash.
"party" seems to be a misnomer.
"protracted knife-fight" seems more appropriate to most parliamentary "parties".
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Its also worth considering that the break-ins at Foreman's apartment might have had nothing to do with politics. She does co-own a multi-million dollar company with her husband, and was widely considered to be conducting an affair. That combination could make for a hell of a divorce case, and a much more plausible basis for private detectives to be sneaking around her house than some plot hatched between John Key and Heather Simpson.
Well, except that she's come out and said she believes it was Dr Brash's political enemies from "close to home". And she says her housesitter identified one intruder as a private investigator.
I think she's wealthy and successful enough to be able to find out a bit more once she had the PI's name - if only what kind of cases he usually took on. She's too smart to be saying these things lightly to a hard-nosed journalist.
If you absolutely forced me to speculate wildly, I'd say that the break-ins were malign, but probably separate from the stuff with the emails. I agree with Danyl and DPF that in the latter case you're probably talking about an individual with a USB drive.
But, like I said, it was a weird episode, teeming with strange actors. We know that some of them did hire PIs for very unseemly purposes.
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Say, can I get something clarified - the housesitter was there when the place was burgled?
I'm having difficulty understanding when it was the PI was seen & recognised.
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