Bishop Hill Can one trust the Guardian?
Sep 10, 2010 Climate: HSI Media A couple of readers have noticed the extraordinary speed with which Bob Ward managed to respond to my article.
This is odd enough, but when I tell you that at approximately 5pm, James Randerson sent me an email to say that he had posted my article up, it looks...well... not quite right.
But then if I tell add in this comment from reader, Jono...
The other strange feaure about Bob's reply is [that it is] completely missing the link back to Andrew's rebuttal. It's almost as if he only saw a text version when preparing his reply.
...it all looks...very odd.
Especially if I tell you that the drafts that passed between me and the Guardian had no links in them.
Ho hum.
Bishop Hill
Hold on, that last bit can't be quite right. Where would the links have gone in Bob's piece? I think maybe I have misunderstood Jono's point. He is saying that BW hasn't mentioned my rebuttal. Still leaves us with the timing issue though.
Reader Comments (47)
"Ho hum."
Yup, something "hums" to high heaven.
Will people never learn?
The only innocent explanation I can think of is that some computers are set to GMT and others to BST. However, the same computer is not usually set to both!
Can one trust the Guardian? Only when it's printed in Manchester.
Call in Pachauri's favorite UK law firm.
Firsdt person on there as well , amazing almost has if someone had given him the heads up on your artcile , actual it is not amazign I should image they where queing up to tell Bob all about it and that before yours was evne posted Bob and his reply all ready .
So Bob gets to post 2 MINUTES after, the article appears...
And Andrew Montford, (the article's author) gets lost in pre-moderation...
Additionally:
I see Jo Abbess (Campaign Against Climate Change - activist) has made an early appearance at the Guardian. I have just made a post at the Guardian, I wonder how long it will take to appear.
Jo must have had a heads up... ie her activists group has a daily email sceptics alert.
But this times as it is the GUARDIAN, I doubt if they had to wait for the article to appear.
George Monbiot (Guardian) is honourary president of this group.
Also includes Caroline Lucas - first UK Green MP, other MP's and 2 MEP's..
They also target newspaper article comments sections for CAGW activists to do there work.
A particular favourite, is the Telegraph, Christopher Booker articles, and the Daily Mail, if anything sceptical appears.
See Here
Sceptic Alerts:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/4/19/skeptic-alerts.html
I wonder if Randerson and the Guardian team are really pleased that Bob made it so pathetically obvious. 2 mins....
The key things to note about this are these :
1 - Mr Ward gets in first - not common on the environment section of the Guardian ? It is watched by so many people.
2 - I'm a pretty good typist (coder for 20 years) but even I can't do that long an article, word perfect and considered in 4 minutes.
The good thing about it is that the response is so poor. I suspect in reality that actually Mr Ward was alerted later than we think - probably with less than an hour to go, but with enough time to tap a few paras.
Either way he saw your response before the world did.
I asked in another thread, but did you see his article before it went online ?
[BH adds: No]
2 Minutes - I meant 2 minutes, but my point stands I think :)
As for Jo Abess she has pointed people to her site.
My how I laughed...
Just attempted to put this on the Guardian article:
----------------------------
So Bob Ward gets to post 2 MINUTES after, the article appears...
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/9/10/can-one-trust-the-guardian.html
And Andrew Montford, (the article's author) gets lost in pre-moderation...
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/9/10/moderation-in-all-things.html
Additionally:
I see Jo Abbess (Campaign Against Climate Change - activist) has made an early appearance at the Guardian. I have just made a post at the Guardian, I wonder how long it will take to appear.
Jo must have had a heads up... ie her activists group has a daily email sceptics alert. But this times as it is the GUARDIAN, I doubt if they had to wait for the article to appear.
Or, as she is party to Bob Ward's private email correspondence, anyway, as she puts on her blog.. Where she prints a not to be copied, press complaint to the press complaints - regarding the Daily Express.
http://www.joabbess.com/2010/09/05/daily-express-complain-to-the-pcc/
James Pavitt:
"They have asked my not to forward their communications with me to others."
Yet, Bob Ward, Jo Abbess George Marshall, John Nissen, and now anybody with an internet connection (ie see jo's blog)
George Monbiot (Guardian) is honourary president of this group.
Also includes Caroline Lucas - first UK Green MP, other MP's and 2 MEP's..
They also target newspaper article comments sections for CAGW activists to do there work.
A particular favourite, is the Telegraph, Christopher Booker articles, and the Daily Mail, if anything sceptical appears.
See Here
Sceptic Alerts:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/4/19/skeptic-alerts.html
One approach would be to press this question harder maybe in later posts. If the Guardian worry about their reputation then they may wish to challenge the impression here. In which case you have the evidence you have in exchanges with the editor and the world can see the timings from the website you have posted already.
Is Mr Ward really in PR ? Doesn't seem all that good at it.
Bish,
Let's assume that the Guardian posted your response at precisely 4pm. Let's additionally assume that Bob Ward was immediately aware of your response and was able to get to it in "no time flat".
Let's, further, assume that Bob is a fast reader and took precisely two minutes to consume and digest your response. (802 standardised words, with full comprehension requiring a rate of 400 words per minute)
Let's assume that Bob's comment on your response was posted at the outside of 4:02pm - i.e. 16:02:59. This then means that, allowing for reading and digesting, Bob's comment was typed in no more than 1 minute.
There are 280 words in Bob's comment. That's 1,408 characters, plus 297 spaces, totalling 1,687 keystrokes.
The industry standard for a "word" is 4 characters plus one space (5 keystrokes), and this is basis of the standard definition of Words Per Minute (WPM). A professional typist averages between 50 and 70 WPM. (I'm proud to average at 54 WPM, myself)
Bob Ward has the ability to type at 338 WPM.
Bob's typing blows away the previous recorded fastest typing speed ever, 216 words per minute, achieved by Stella Pajunas-Garnand from Chicago in 1946. (Wiki)
Gentlemen, raise your hats to Bob "Lightning-Fingers" Ward! THE fastest typist EVER!
[BH adds: No]
Says everything we need to know really.
Sorry.. remember.. show your workings.. 1,687 characters and spaces / 5 keystrokes (1 word) / 1 minute = 337.4 Words Per Minute.
Andrew:
It is like playing football against Italians. Did you think your shirt was not going to be pulled, foot stomped on, and shins kicked? The Guardian cheated.
Poor old Graun ..cant even do a stitch up properly : ) pathetic really ....
"Can one trust the Guardian?"
No, Mr Montford, it's absolutely clear that you cannot.
On the bright side, at least you have convincing documentary evidence in support of a complaint to the PCC. This is quite clearly an engineered situation specifically for the purpose of enforcing a very specific bias through purposeful suppressing of a conflicting viewpoint.
Simon do you mean 28 keys/ second..........sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet
As an addition to the second post. It is quite easy for the time to be off. If the article is posted as BST and is fixed in the time stamp of the report, it is not impossible for the comments of that report to be listed on a different time.
Often if you set up an account to comment, there is a place for you to choose your time zone (I don't comment at the Guardian so I don't know for sure about them, however I do manage several blogs and forums). If the default of the Guardian's comment system is set for all new users to use GMT (as well as those not logged in), then you are looking at the time stamp of the article in BST (stated as BST so their is no confusiont about that) and the comments on GMT.
The result being that BW did not comment until a little over an hour after the article was posted.
If I was Bob I would have the piece all done ready to go.
In fact it looks like a 'standard' hit piece. He mentions a mistake, nothing to do with anything really, then says you made ad hom attacks ( I couldn't see these but maybe he is more sensitive than me).
So as soon as your piece appears he can cut and paste. He might even have a mini library of snippets he can put together at a moments notice. Hey maybe even an App that does it for him
iSpin
"iSpin" app, magic as usual Josh!
Bob you are not, are you?
What's the slogan?
"There's an app for that"
Or in this case "There's an app for t--ts"
Sorry Bish, cull if OTT, just couldn't resist
Stilgar. "Lightening fingers" replied on this site at 4:26pm. Would that be GMT or BST. Or perhaps he replied here first.
Sep 10, 2010 at 4:26 PM | Bob Ward
Barry Woods notes above that the JoAbbess / Monbiot Campaign against Climate Change has a system of alerting activists to selected blogs, encouraging them to troll all over them. Their site also has a news section. Instead of picking out selected items, it simply copies the contents of the Guardian Climate Change pages, complete with comments. So you can read the opinions of Barry, Atomic HairDryer etc for free on Monbiot’s pet activist web page. (Wonder how long that will carry on, now that I’ve pointed it out?)
Chris @ Sep 10, 2010 at 9:42 PM |
After this latest "monkey doodoo", I do not think that Guardian will worry about their reputation.
Logic says that you cannot worry about something you do not have.
Something interesting about the “recommends” on CiF comments. As usual, sceptics are getting over twice as many “recommends” as warmists, despite the known efforts of warmist sites to encourage trollish intervention.
But the highest number of recommends at the tail end of the thread is for an extremely sober, neutral statement from a nonregular (StatsMan 10 September 2010 8:58PM) who totally ignores the slapstick and warmist-baiting we all so enjoy, and says simply that Montford is right. This suggests to me the presence of many serious lurkers who are not interested in our jolly hockeysticks japes, and who possibly outnumber us. Good for them, I say. (unless it’s mac fiddling the books again)
Re stilgar
The latest comment on the article is timestamped at 11 September 2010 12:02AM which means that comment timestamps are in BST (it is currently 23:35 GMT). Therefore BW posted his comment 2 minutes after the article appeared.
I think Josh has it right, "reward" knew the time or the day of publication and had a freshly made pudding ready and could scrape of stuff after glossing the reply.
My advise is to rise above it. The Guardian, formally staunchly pro-AGW, have shown some surprising self-questioning. It is fairly significant. They are effectively arm-in-arm with the BBC. The Bishop has been given his first forum there. Be patient and let events take their course.
Is the Graundian trustworthy?
Yes!
Is the Graundian worthy of our trust?
In this respect No, but once the sour cream has been skimmed off, I'd love to answer a resounding Yes!
I live in hope.
As they say, timing is everything and I think I might just be getting there:-)
GMT = Guardian Media Time
BWT = Bob Ward Time = GMT minus 2 hours (sorry) plus 2 minutes
BST = Bishop Standard Time = GMT plus 24 hours (plus or minus BWT + or - whatever GMT think is needed)
Today has shown me in NO uncertain terms where REAL time is. If this is what the UK's so called MSM has stooped to then it is going to be a long, long haul. However it will be done, now is not the time to give an inch.
The Guardians slip has been showing for awhile, it is now obvious that it is not just the Emperor that has no clothes
Allowing for screen refreshes, page loads, and the lugubrious posting mechanism chez-Guardian, I think that we can deduce that Bob Ward's typing is audible only to dogs. (One wonders how the poor frayed neurons can possibly keep up.)
...or we have another example of CAGW collusion for the cause.
Enough ZT, your last comment has resulted in serious spillage, tomorrow is my first non early Sat am for yonks and supplies are limited!
Come on people lets stop pulling punches. Bob was slipped an advanced copy of the Guard-dog article and the best he could come up, after perusing, digesting, careful reflection, judgement and typing at 28 keys/sec is.......... his own P45.
Job well done yer Grace. My fridge is empty good night.
Geoff
The "recommend" stats are still favoring the pro-Montford commentators at 125 posted comments.
Stop this folks!
Ok, denialist mathematics of 28 chars/sec can be robustly demolished, by dead, pure logic.
No one, in their right minds, other than the seriously deranged would claim that Beatifical Bobbie, the Blessed, could generate such speed of fingering. With the heavenly host of 2478.67 (sic) archangels singing his praises and mucking into the prestidigitational partnership we are confronted with simple calculations. 28/2478.67 multiplied by the Mann factor, which when modified by the Trenberth function, dependent as it clearly is by the opening chords of "me and mr jones" proves that "quick on the trigger" bob, should still be in the Groan-dian moderation queue!
Lest it disappear from the Guardian thread, let the record show that poster SamzH, on 10 September 2010 10:07PM, wrote:
I quite enjoyed the above response, and thought it worth sharing (and saving for cyber-posterity)
I hope you guys are collecting screenshots and saving comments.
There should be a central climate comment screenshot repository. People should dump their Guardian, Realclimate, ClimateProgress and the other deleter blogs comments, in there.
Seriously. :)
You want speed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlnIiM4Wbi0
I believe that there may be a bet amid the governing classes in Britain - along the lines of Pygmalion - to determine the most absurd contradiction in CAGW theory which can be foist on the CAGW believing classes.
This can be the only logical explanation for:
Provision of column inches for perspective, while colluding in attacking perspective.
Science Inquiries which do not inquire into science.
Redefinition of the word trick, to avoid the ugly fact
Pachauri's novel
(etc.)
So far, I think that Pachauri is winning but Oxburgh and the Guardian are in contention.
Bish, I would trust my ex-wife before any one in the Guardian Green Gang!
One thing this whole debacle shows for sure is if it were a golf game between you and Ward, you would be par and he would play off at least a 25!
I hear Bob Ward will be in the audience at the last Night of the Proms tonight. He will be the only one still clapping in time when that ever accelerating Hornpipe finishes.
Depressingly, I made a typo.. and a numeric one at that. The 1,687 keystroke count is correct, but the "297" spaces should be "279" :( The Lightning-Finger result is the same, though, at 337.4 WPM.
We'll see if any of the finger puppets read this post at BH and post pseudo-victoriously over at the Gruan. If they do, it'll be yet another act of brutal desperation to claw back something.. anything.. for their lost cause.
Oh, my ... that'll teach me! I failed to do any due diligence of my own before endorsing. Hey, with sloppiness like this, I'm well on my way to becoming a "climate scientist", don't you think?!
hehe!! It seems to be my lot in life to always hit post before a thorough re-read. No matter how times I burn myself, I keep burning myself! Gah! :o)
None of the warmists have even noticed, though :o)
Andrew
My apologies for a very unclear post - trying to do too many things at the same time.
My point was just that it was very strange for Bob Ward to claim that you wouldn't or couldn't rebut his claims when clearly you had linked to a detailed rebuttal. Either his chutzpah knows no bounds or he was commenting on some form of your article that didn't include the actual links. Which could only have been something other than the final CiF article.
Jono
Grauniad comments now closed. Shame.