Stolen Emails Fuel Conservative Conspiracy Theories Denying Climate Change

Conservative bloggers are going wild after hackers got into the email from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU). The global warming deniers and conspiracy theorists are distorting the emails which have been posted on line to fuel their fantasies that the scientific consensus on climate change is a hoax. While it would be great if it turned out that we do not have to worry about climate change, the emails do not support the conspiracy theories of the right wing. Real Climate and Grist have reviewed their claims.

We are seeing three common techniques used by the right wing to distort the facts:

1) Taking statements out of context

2) Ignoring alternate meanings of words (for example, when scientists use “trick” in informal communications they are  talking about finding a clever way to make things work, not trying to deceive people or distort data), and

3) Ignoring the science. There is a strong body of scientific evidence supporting climate change and this is the consensus view of scientists working in the field from different institutions from around the world. The science is not altered by anything in these emails.

Republicans Try To Explain Their Flip Flop As They Vote To Screw Doctors

The House passed this year’s annual fix to the flawed Medicare payment formula which would cut payment to physicians by 21 percent. The bill would also fix the formula so that we don’t have to keep going through this every year. The vote was primarily along party lines, with Republicans opposing the bill.

The Republicans probably do receive more votes from doctors than they deserve considering their poor track record on health care issues. This will hopefully serve as one more wake up call for my colleagues who still support the GOP. The Republicans did try unsuccessfully to explain their flip flop on this issue, as is explained by Suzy Khimm.

Technical Problems

We are having technical problems today. There is also the possibility that it might become necessary to move the blog if all the problems cannot be resolved.

I have set up another emergency site in case this blog is down:  http://liberalvalues.wordpress.com/

The emergency site will have recent posts and possibly new posts if this is down for a prolonged period.