Monday
Mar282011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Light blogging
Mar 28, 2011 Blogs I'm off on my travels from Monday morning. I should be back on Wednesday evening.
Mar 28, 2011 Blogs 
Buy
Books
Click images for more details
Currently discussing
-
Apr 24 - harryjkevin91
on
Seeking Help With Dissertation -
Apr 18 - chricton123
on
The Benefits of Using Tutorbin for Custom Writing Services
Links
A few sites I've stumbled across recently....
-
Science blogs
-
Political blogs
-
Other blogs
Subscribe
Copyright © 2006-2013, Bishop Hill All rights reserved.
Reader Comments (129)
geoff, I agree that your question is a good one, and had perceived the depth to it. If I'm asked about some new theory in a scientific topic outside my field of experience, I might have some instincts about whether it is right or not, I might be impressed by the credentials of those putting it forward, or by those of the people criticising it. Or I may not have a clue what the words used to describe it even mean. But I'm unlikely to scream that those pushing the theory must be fraudsters - or that those who resist are lower than pondscum.
So where's the difference? I think it boils down to three facts: (a) many people have an emotional predisposition to believe the consensus view; (b) the consensus view has a certain scientific plausibility to it (CO2 is a greenhouse gas, there's more of it, that heats things up, and so there's more water and that heats things up some more); and (c) the accidents of history combined with PR skills have been very good at propelling the consensus view to a position of scientific and political power. From then on, in my view, the mechanisms that cause Ian Hislop and Paul Nurse to be consensus-followers are not so different: they are both deferring to authority.
Several other people have pointed out that a good answer is to seek to deflate the argument from authority: lots of experts have been wrong about lots of things over the years.
Pete Ridley, having followed up the links you gave, I find you are just as obtuse on other sites as you are here, and this repeated patronising attitude will make you no friends on Bishop Hill.
"I leave it to you to guess where that first £350 came from" - why? Surely you're not ashamed to either admit it was, or wasn't you? Are you requiring anonymity here? Do I smell hypocrisy?
As for the Slayers, almost every regular here saw immediately that they are complete eejits, and this was obvious from the start. Did you really spend time discovering this?
BBD, you advised me yesterday to ignore him, and I have, although reading his posts there are signs I don't like. He talks of bullies in supervisor grades. They tend not to have supervisor grades in the engineering arm of companies, except for the technicians. Engineers in my profession worked for managers and or senior managers, or directors and VPs in the US companies, so it's a little strange the use of the word supervisor. Anyway he's very verbose and threatening and has form:
from Peter Ridley
to Jo Abbess
date Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 9:38 PM
Jo, please excuse me for contacting you by E-mail uininvited but I wanted to respond privately to one of the comments on your “The Messia: With us …” thread.
Ref. the comment bt “Stormboy” on October 18th at 03:13, the original comment was posted by the real Stormboy (AKA Phil – who runs the evangelical Bloodwoodtree blog at http://bloodwoodtree.org) on 14th February at 08:23:48AM following months of exchanges between us on Australian Senator Steve Fielding’s blog. Despite repeated requests Phil was unprepared to reveal any evidence of having demonstrated scientific expertise regarding global climate processes and drivers, e.g. through peer-reviewed papers. Phil had said that he used a false name because of previous threats against him and his family.
Towards the end of our public exchanges Phil persistently called me a con man, which I did not appreciate, coming as it did from someone who I considered was cowering behind a false name, so I decided to try to track him down. I was astounded that I was able to find out, in only four hours on the Internet using Google, who he was, where he worked, his E-Mil address and details of family and friends. This was from information that he had put into the public domain. One source of much of this information was Facebook, which brought home to me the importance of heeding repeated police warnings of the dangers of the Internet. I immediately warned members of my family about taking great care on Facebook. I also contacted Phil, through Facebook, by E-mail and on his own blog, about how easy it had been to track him down but in the process frightened his wife and of course gave Phil a scare too. He didn’t know what kind of a person I am and was understandably concerned. That was why he posted that comment on Steve Fielding’s blog.
I quickly apologised to Phil for frightening his family and since then we have resolved any differences that we had (other than about the causes of global climate change) and have exchanged numerous friendly E-mails. Phil confirmed to me a few days ago, after that comment of his appeared recently on the Greenfudge blog, that he has only posted the comment once, on Senator Fielding’s blog in February.
That comment of Phil’s has been posted repeatedly by another person who hides behind numerous false names. These include Cooloola, Guess Who, Lord Monkton, Phoenix and JA. She has also pretended to be me and fellow sceptics PeggyB and Colin. Now she has started posing as Stormby himself. She is a thoroughly nasty, dishonest, cowardly, bullying Australian from Queensland who has been hurling vile abuse at any sceptic who upset her on Senator Fielding’s blog. Now that it has closed (he’s no longer a Senator) she is looking for anywhere else to spit her invective. I’ve tried very hard to track her down and expose her but could only get as close as the Maroochidor/Noosa/Cooloola area of Queensland.
If you are interested you can pick up those repeats by Googling “he spent four hours on the net hunting down my last name”. The ones on Steve Fieldings blog are cached versions.
Best regards, Pete
Jo Abbess' response:
"In a spirit of complete transparency, I share with you an e-mail from Peter Ridley CEng MIEE (see below), a moving, rambling feast of what some would call complete irrelevancies.
Pete, if you’ve got something to share that’s positive, productive and progressive, then please do so. However, this recent e-mail from you (see below) ticks none of those boxes and I shall not waste my time by replying to your e-mail or taking it seriously.
You have three more strikes and then you’re out, unless you stick to the subject of this web log in your communications to me."
Seems he gets a kick out of being frightening, over the internet of course.
He's best ignored.
Please keep on topic 'Light Blogging' not 'Heavy Blogging' ;)
Latimer Alder, forget it, the penny has just dropped. I’m a bit slow on the uptake these days, probably too many dead brain cells.
Geoffchambers, careful with that capital P in Prof. Phelan. Robert made the point that he is a small p-for-professor” with QUOTE: .. I will describe myself as a “professor of sociology” but when being formal will describe myself as “Adjunct Instructor of Sociology” .. UNQUOTE (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/12/a-detailed-rebuttal-to-abraham-from-monckton/).
BBD, it takes a courageous man to apologise when he is in the wrong. I in return apologise for if I upset you. As I said before, we all fall into the trap of being less than civil and I’ll try to avoid it. Please don’t distort what I say. I have never claimed to be “a paragon of courage and learning”.
I also apologise for my grammatical error in “Although it didn’t surprise me that none of those commenting here make no disclosure of their blogs”. As for why I wasn’t surprised, if you consider it important to have an answer then I leave that as a challenge for you to work out for yourself. I’d prefer it if you instead responded to the challenge that I have put to numerous “experts”, which is to explain why they use collision rather than kinetic diameter when investigating the migration of air molecules in firn as it approaches close-off (my comment of Mar 28th at 10:07 PM refers).
When did I try to shut you down?
Regarding “the Slayers” it appears to me that because you have taken umbrage you are now deliberately trying to paint a distorted picture. Please don’t do that.
steveta_uk (Mar 30th at 5:42 PM) I don’t know how much more explicit I can be than saying QUOTE: As for “the Slayers” and that £350 donation, no, it wasn’t from me UNQUOTE. As for your suggestion that “the Slayers .. are complete eejits, .. ”, it would be interesting to know how your qualifications stand alongside theirs. For example, are yours superior to those of
- Dr. Clifford S. Saunders, BSc Engineering, MSc Psychology, Ph.D Cybernetics?
- Dr. Oliver K. Manuel, Professor of Nuclear Chemistry, University of Missouri-R?
- Dr. Martin Hertzberg, Ph D in Physical Chemistry from Stanford?
- Dr. Claes Johnson, Professor of Applied Mathematics, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden?
If not then perhaps and apology is due to them for the insult about “complete eejits”.
Hi David, well said on Mar 30th at 5:35 PM. Let’s stop the childishness as it isn’t fair on Andrew. After all, we are guests here.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Pete Ridley
You obviously have some issues man!
Shub, that’s an interesting blog of yours. One thread that caught my eye was your “HSBC speaks climate. We listen.” (http://nigguraths.wordpress.com/2011/01/14/hsbc-climate/#comments) because it relates to a comment tha tI have just posted to Joanna Nova’s “David Evans, Carbon Accounting Modeler, Says It’s a Scam” thread (http://joannenova.com.au/2011/03/david-evans-carbon-modeler-says-its-a-scam/comment-page-5/#comment-250956 on March 31st at 3:25 am).
Best regards, Pete Ridley
j at 5.39pm
I agree with your analysis, but your final point:
“the mechanisms that cause Ian Hislop and Paul Nurse to be consensus-followers are not so different: they are both deferring to authority” is hardly explanatory.
Not deferring to authority is the WHOLE POINT of both Private Eye and the Royal Society. It’s no coincidence that both institutions failed at the same time on the same subject, and that no rival institution has stepped in to correct them.
When both scientists and stand-up comedians obey the same reverential silence before the same ineffable truths, you know something’s going on which goes further than simple obtuseness. Other similar examples (Lysenko? eugenics?) happened in extreme circumstances which don’t currently exist (hence the silliness of the terms like “ecofascists”) Where are the social scientists who can explain this bizarre phenomenon?
Geronimo, ref. your comment of Mar 30th at 6:06 PM, I recently found that the “ .. person who hides behind numerous false names. These include Cooloola, Guess Who, Lord Monkton, Phoenix and JA. She has also pretended to be me and fellow sceptics PeggyB and Colin. .. ” is not a female after all. He is John Byatt, from Cooloola Cove, who must have wanted to boast about his achievements because he “outed” himself just before Xmas. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he turns up here with his invective.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
geoff, you are right that the political situation is very different from the one that led to lysenkoism. Though the small-p political pressure to conform that there has been on climate for the last 20 or so years is not negligible. Regarding eugenics, I don't know so much about that but I thought that it had been very popular in circles where politics or fascism were not an issue. E.g. eugenics was held to be linked to Progress in the 20s and 30s, and had widespread support in the US, including in government - leading to campaigns to sterilize people with low IQ that lasted for a long time. In the UK, I remember that George Bernard Shaw, among others, subscribed enthusiastically to it.
My experience as a science researcher is that some incorrect theories do get a very uncritical "ride" for extended periods of time, with seemingly much too intelligent people subscribing to them for a long time. Not anything like the same scale as climate change, but it does happen quite a lot. So you can learn from such episodes. Such theories seem to be favoured for several reasons: ones that spring to mind are (i) that an influential person backs them vigourously, or (ii) that they are fashionable hence seem to offer opportunities in terms of getting high-profile papers, or funding, or (iii) that they somehow fit in with peoples non-scientific world-view. To be fair, there is also (iv) that such theories do not interfere with other vigorous research programs - it is easier to have the luxury of an incorrect theory when it doesn't really matter. Of course, there are counter-examples to all of these.
So, why does Hislop not have any scepticism? Maybe some of the above - and also, it is really hard to be sceptical. You can't do it sensibly without investing quite a lot of effort. That means that even if you're dedicated to doubting, you can only doubt so many things at a time. Private Eye seems to only ever have a few campaigning ideas at a time (plus a few hand-me-down things it has been ranting about for some time). In recent years, I can think of MMR - where it has at least partially recanted - and Libya/Lockerbie - where the Eye's quite extreme views are not looking so clever for the moment (though I suspect that a toned-down version of their theory is probably correct). I doubt they have the energy to pursue other unorthodoxies. And Nurse? Well, he's just become the boss of the Royal Society, and from the program about Delingpole, he seems quite in awe of the place. He may have a Nobel prize, but he probably feels a little bit of an outsider there. I'd bet he still finds it hard to believe that all those eminent FRSs could possibly be wrong.
@Pete Ridley
'It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he turns up here with his invective'
Thanks for the warning. I'll ignore him as we try to do with other timewasters and provocateurs.
Bye now,
Re Pete Ridley
I comment on other blogs using this ID as well, even for a short while at the Guardian's CIF. But ID's don't tend to last long there if you're a sceptic. What would you like to know about me though, and why would it make any difference about what I write?
Imagine an alternative Spectator debate. 3 speakers for the motion, 3 against. All have equivalent academic credentials but the speakers are anonymised. What difference would it make to the content of the debate, other than perhaps allowing scientists to speak more freely without fear of their careers being damaged by being lablelled as a sceptic.
Why assume that rather than providing any evidence to show it's true?
j at 8.50PM
Thanks for a very commonsense unpolemical view of what may go wrong in science, from an insider’s point of view - a sociological analysis, in short. Now, why is it practically impossible for an outsider (a science correspondent in a serious newspaper, say) to make the same point, at least with respect to climate science?
Journalists are supposed to spend their lives looking for the unorthodox point of view, the lone heretic who stands against the establishment. Eugenics was undoubtedly a politicised issue, which means, in the normal world, a hotly argued topic. If you discount the blogs, CAGW is a non-existent subject, as untouchable as 9/11 “truthism” or the Lockerbie conspiracy theories you mention. Booker is practically alone - an untouchable - whereas, in a normal world, rival joirnalists would be vying with each other to provide the key piece of the puzzle in the ultimate “man bites dog” scoop.
You say it’s hard to be sceptical. I find it the easiest thing in the world. But I’m neither a journalist, scientist, or comedian. Something’s gone wrong with the world, quite recently, and I don’t think it’s me.
BBD:
I'm a bit late to the party but want to comment on your figures for power required for an all-electric domestic vehicle fleet.
The Nissan Leaf achieves 240Wh/mile which I assume is fairly typical. You seem, therefore, to be assuming the average daily mileage in 30 million cars will be 8-12 miles (assuming no charging losses). This is ~4000 miles per year.
I think you could safely double your estimated figures for the amount of power required to support these vehicles to a peak of ~120GW and something like ~80GW of night time demand (ie ~twice our current national generating capacity).
This really is energy fantasy land and makes one realise that petrol and diesel are wonderful compact and powerful sources of energy.
Pete Ridley - "If you are interested you can pick up those repeats by Googling “he spent four hours on the net hunting down my last name”.
I have. The sixth entry is about L Ron Hubbard and represents a good proxy for your contribution.
BTW, there is no place in Queensland called Maroochidor. And Steve Fielding is still a Senator until 30 June 2011.
Geoff, its easy being sceptical about some things, I agree. But once everyone starts believing something, coming up with reasoned scepticism is hard. E.g. about the worth of tulips in 18th century Holland - or house prices here in 2006 (would you have able to talk a first-time buyer out of doing so at the time?).
j at 7.30AM
I think our difference of opinion over the difficulty or otherwise of scepticism is more important than it seems. The scepticism expressed here and on a hundred blogs is justified, well argued, and convincing to any informed observer. Yet it makes no headway in the media or in the circles where it matters. Stringer, Lawson, Booker, remain utterly isolated in their respective fields. This defies all the normal logic of political and social action, where opposition and challenge is the norm.
In the General Election, Labour lost a seat to a daft Green, and another (one of their safest) because of the scandalous delocalisation of a steel mill to India in a blatant carbon scam. Labour should be screaming with anger at the “greenest government ever”, instead of which, they elected Ed Miliband leader. Hardly a single comedian or journalist has criticised his absurd green activism.
Call it a religion, Lysenkoism, a corporate scam, a Marxist plot, what you like. None of these tentative comparisons begins to explain the inability of climate scepticism to make headway. The CAGW is something quite unique, and requires a unique explanation from historians and social scientists.
Geoff, I'm certainly with you that it is puzzling. And very annoying. I guess there is a difference of opinion, though. My feeling is that momentary (on the timescale of decades) suspensions of critical faculties do occur, and that they are due to forms of groupthink. In my view, this is one of them, and I don't think it needs a special sociological or psychological explanation. In my view also, the AGW theory's grip on the psyche of large bits of the public will shrink or disappear in due course - though it may take a bit of a long time. I wish it wouldn't take so long - but I think it will.
About scepticism: I agree that there is a lot of it around. I don't agree that most of it is "justified, well argued, and convincing to any informed observer". Quite a lot of it is shrill and poorly argued - many people on sceptical blogs refuse to believe that there was any warming in the 20th century, that that was ALL due to urban heat islands. Well, that might be true, and I'm sure UHI is more important than Phil Jones has convinced himself it is, but it doesn't seem likely to me that there was no warming. Many people on sceptical blogs claim that human activities are not responsible for increased CO2 levels. Again, I won't say I'm 100% sure that that is wrong - but I'm pretty sure. And also, many people claim that the scientific theory of AGW must be fraud. I'm with you that Tata's steel mill move to India is a scam, and that carbon trading is scam-ridden, but I think it is likely that fraud, i.e. outright deliberate deception, has been quite rare among scientists. Even the amazing things that Steve McIntyre has been showing recently don't look like deliberate fraud to me - rather, they look to me like cases of very sloppy science indeed, that were allowed to persist due to groupthink and confirmation bias. And then you also get people like Delingpole and Monkton. If you come at them from a sceptical mindset, you can see that they make many good points - but I suspect that to many people who know little about the problem, they actually serve to reinforce the consensus viewpoint. There are blogs nowadays on all sorts of topics, and to a not-so-informed observer, many of them do look like the refuge of the tinfoil-hatted.
So I think that reasoned scepticism is thin on the ground. Steve McIntyre's blog is hard-going for most people. WUWT is entertaining and full of good stuff - but also rather red-meat-y to my taste. I like this blog - not too technical, clearly written, and usually sane in its scepticism above and below the line. But how many people read it?
Billy Liar
Agreed. However, I try to be very generous and forgiving with my back-of-envelope guesstimates of renewables performance and projected demand.
Probably as a result of long, profitless debate with a multitude of energy fantasists over the years.
I automatically try to avoid providing the fairy dust brigade opportunities to derail the argument by whining that the numbers are 'unrealistic' or 'too high' etc.
But even with baby-soft estimates, it clearly isn't going to work, is it?
Hi GrantB, ref. your comment on Mar 31st at 4:22 AM, I did the same Google but the 6th linked to Murielle Ungricht’s Greenfudge thread “US vs. China and low expectations characterize climate talks” (http://www.greenfudge.org/2010/10/06/us-vs-china-and-low-expectations-characterize-climate-talks/). I could find no mention of any Hubbard. Can you provide a link to the one you were talking about? Regarding Maroochidor, I Googled that too and guess what I found “Nambour is located in the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia, near Woombye and Maroochidor” (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Where_is_nambour#ixzz1IAXhao35).
Thanks for clarifying Steve Fielding’s status for me. Did you watch the TV panel discussion that he participated in last year?
BTW, the motives of the sponsors of the Greenfudge sites, like many others relating to CACC, may not be as it seems at a first glance. Do a little ferreting and you might see what I mean.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
j
Lucid as ever, and to my mind, absolutely correct.
Aynsley Kellow details the 'noble cause corruption' of environmental science very persuasively in his book Science and Public Policy (link below).
His thesis is that 'values' from environmentalism have displaced proper scientific objectivity in many fields of environmental science. The increasing reliance on models of one sort and another has provided the ideal habitat for this to proliferate. Outright malpractice is, as you say, relatively rare.
Sloppiness, confirmation bias and a grating moral certitude entirely at odds with proper objectivity are common.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Science-Public-Policy-Corruption-Environmental/dp/1847204708
Pete Ridley
1). You ask:
@ Mar 30, 2011 at 7:47 PM
That was here, as I made perfectly clear at the time:
@ Mar 30, 2011 at 4:28 PM
Disingenuous – as usual.
2). I asked you:
@ Mar 30, 2011 at 7:47 PM
There’s yards more, but that did it for me. I’ve had enough of your nonsense.
And by the looks of things, so has everyone else here.
Byee.
Hi BBD, at times I do find it hard to understand your line of reasoning. What is it about “ .. anyone who is scared of being exposed can always avoid seeking the limelight. .. ” that tells you that I am trying to shut down you personally. It was intended as being a simple statement of fact directed not at you in particular but at anyone who fears exposure, for whatever reason.
I was just as surprised at your reaction to my “ .. I also get irritated by the cowardice of those who hurl insults (often very nasty ones) from behind false names or pretend to be another individual. I have found it surprisingly easy to track down such individuals and can give you numerous examples if you are interested. .. ”. As I said before, that was not intended as a threat to you or any other individual, simply a statement of fact, so please stop taking what I say so personally just because you feel that you to fall into a category to which I am referring.
In his comment of Mar 30th at 6:06 PM geronimo highlighted a prime example of somene who wished to remain anonymous exposing himself - Stormboy AKA Phil. Despite he and his family having been threatened (as I recall because of his religious beliefs) Phil posted all sorts of details about himself on the Internet which left him open to action by anyone who had a grudge against him. I warned him straight away on his own blog about his carelessness and also warned my own family to take more care when posting information about themselves. The police keep repeating the same advice but it seems that most people take no notice whatsoever.
BTW, geronomi, with regard to my E-mail to Jo Abbess which you quoted from, why didn’t you provide a link (http://www.joabbess.com/2010/10/18/pete-ridley-three-strikes/) so that readers who chose could readily get the full picture? Didn’t you think it worth quoting my response to Jo Abbess on October 20th at 19:29 “BTW Jo, you forgot to mention the subject of that E-mail of mine that you posted here. It was “Private & Confidential”.
Some might wrongly accuse you of being disingenuous.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Pete..
I'm a big fan of JO, she doesn't censor her blog..
Just because you send her an email maarked 'private and confidential' why the hell should she listen to it.. If some cyber stalker/bully or just anonymous stranger did that to me ' as you said 'uninivited' I would feel under no obligation to do so..
Please NOTE, Jo printed his comments, where he criticised her about the 'privately' bit.
I will keep saying this till again and again:If they are so sure [of the science of AGW], why don't they let on??
What and why is the big secret, kept secret?
So many scientists, all tell us this and that..... and the Antarctic is greening and the western peninsula is melting and the Arctic sea ice is disappearing, Himalayas receding......all proves AGW - NO IT DOESN'T!
We can argue the science of the AGW conjecture till the cows come home and still not agree because we are unable to ascertain what really happens in a chaotic system.
What is the bane and source of most of my frustration, is in the stupidity which surrounds the whole idea of amelioration of said postulated Armageddon. Most of it is the stuff of wild fantasy and total nonsense but.................in the end....... who is going to literally, figuratively pay for it?
The politicians propose these bonkers schemes, believe the bonkers science because they're told to and in the end settle for a quiet time on the speakers circuit - with not a care in the world. Meanwhile the poor bloody taxpayer is left with, a once beautiful landscape plastered in useless follies and an enormous tax bill/energy bills and rolling blackouts.
There will be major trouble on the streets if these things come to pass and by the looks and the way the EU diktats demand, it will come to be.
Does anyone wish to live in a country which cannot maintain its basic energy supply - water to homes and businesses needs reliable power - the house of cards - or the thin veneer of civilisation, will come tumbling down so quickly.
That's why I become annoyed - it is all unnecessary panic over a non event, yes the world has warmed and a damn good job too, soon the world [even now it is growing cooler] will return to the ice and frost - whither then for the warmists?
Hi Barry (Mar 31st at 9:25 PM), nice to chat with you again. You may recall our brief exchanges on the BBC blog and Mailonline a year ago and on Jo’s blog in October.
I’m a bit surprised at your interpretation of my “Private & Confidential” E-mail to Jo as being from “ .. some cyber stalker/bully or just anonymous stranger .. ”. I had been posting opinions on her blog from about June (more than 30 altogether) under my real name and she responded to several of those so I was hardly an “anonymous stranger”. Also, I don’t recall Jo ever suggesting that I was bullying or stalking her.
Jo had clearly invited all visitors to her blog to contact her either by ‘phone or E-mail. On her “about” page she says “Contact Options: If you are in the United Kingdom you can call me very cheaply on :-
0845 45 98 46 0 I can be contacted via e-mail :- jo underscore abbess at hot mail dot com (http://www.joabbess.com/about/).
Take your time over deciding whether or not you owe me an apology.
My “Private & Confidential” E-mail to that address that she had willingly made available to all blog visitors was in response to a comment (“Stormboy: October 18th, 2010 at 03:13 IMPORTANT WARNING REGARDING PETE RIDLEY .. ” http://www.joabbess.com/2010/10/13/the-messiah-with-us/) posted by someone pretending to be “Stormboy” and quoting from a comment that Phil (AKA Stormboy) had posted several months previously. Phil (who is a devout Christian, like Jo) and I frequently exchange friendly E-mails and he assured me immediately that he had not posted that comment, hence my P&C E-mail to Jo.
I always try to treat anything that has been sent to me alone as for my eyes only unless they have given prior permission for me to put it into the public domain. I certainly wouldn’t consider doing so with something marked P&C. Obviously Jo, you and I have different understandings of what Private & Confidential means.
As for your being “ .. a big fan of JO, she doesn't censor her blog”, I also respected her for that until she started censoring “Pete Ridley Your comment is awaiting moderation” – on October 21st, 2010 at 15:18 and at 22:56”. They are still awaiting moderation five months later.
But there’s a much more interesting thread of hers where my “ .. comment is awaiting moderation. October 21st, 2010 at 18:11” (http://www.joabbess.com/2010/10/18/pete-ridley-three-strikes/comment-page-1/#comment-12777). Look who’s just recently turned up there, the imposter himsself, now using his real name and one of those that he used on Senator Fieding’s blog “ .. john byatt February 28th, 2011 at 18:45 John Byatt {Cooloola} .. ”.
Barry and geronimo, I have to thank you both for making reference to Jo’s blog here because if you hadn’t I would not have gone back there and become aware that John Byatt had returned to the “scene of his crime”.
BTW Barry, are you really such a “ .. big fan of JO .. ”. You said of her on “October 14th, 2010 at 13:00: 2 religions! CAGW and christianity. I do wish JO peace of mind, that is a lot to cope with” (http://www.joabbess.com/2010/10/13/the-messiah-with-us/). I wouldn’t expect a “ .. big fan .. ” to make a sarcastic comment like that about her.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Mar 31, 2011 at 11:03 AM | Pete Ridley - I could find no mention of any Hubbard
Perhaps Google Oz is different, but as far as Hubbard goes I still get L. Ron. Look him up. But then again, I could be mistaken. Maybe it was Mother.
And again, there is no place in Queensland called "Maroochidor". I live there. Don't put too much money on Wiki-anything for correct answers.
Hi GrantB, sorry if this upsets you but I’m afraid you’ll never make it as a comedian, however, your comment does provide some insight to your inclinations. You appear to be inclined towards religions like “Dianetics and Scientology” (http://www.scientology.org/l-ron-hubbard.html?source=gaw&gclid=CNf_88OE-6cCFcod4QodPjPhrg), Roman Catholicism (http://www.rhymes.org.uk/old_mother_hubbard.htm) and CACC. rather than science, despite your slightly “techie” training. I’ll take a closer look at those comments of yours (http://m.forums.theregister.co.uk/user/31833/) and get back.
Best regards, Pete Ridley