Tuesday
Jul192011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Tinfoil hat time
Jul 19, 2011 Climate: CRU OK, this is slightly tinfoil hat-ish, but look at this video of Sir David King speaking just after Climategate.
At about seven minutes, he speaks of the hacking being incredibly sophisticated, and mentions not only disclosure of data but accessing of phone records.
Funny coincidence.
(H/T Tallbloke)
Reader Comments (26)
Excellent research. Yes he did mention phone calls. The plot could thicken.
Yes the comment about hacking being tremendously sophisticated and involving mobile phones is intriguing - probably the result of someone selling his grossly overpriced services in the aftermath of Climategate?
But the bit I also found intriguing was this:
08:57: "So the question is: how persuasive did you find it?"
[ cut ]
09:00 "Well, the scientists have gone home now ..."
Why did they feel the need to cut the video at that point?
Was there some unfortunate sceptical comment from a scientist?
Most excellent advice on tinfoil hats to be found here:
http://www.eclectech.co.uk/mindcontrol
As for the rest of it well I suppose the nice thing about being paranoid is when you find out they are all out to get you after all.
Kindest Regards
Look what I just found:
Poor climate scientists!
They get their emails stolen and phones hacked in addition to death threats and nasty emails that are already killing them.
How much more evidence could one need to demonstrate the fact that climate scientists are speaking the truth and the end of the world is...
(We apologise for the interruption. The News of the World employee hired to provide the the University of East Anglia with strategic advice on how to communicate with the public has just resigned)
Of course, I won't reveal my sources.
I have been busy and outside of the UK while all this has been going on so haven't been able to follow it closely. I think we need one of Your Grace's famous summaries. Maybe this affair could be the subject of your next book?
Nice to see this shameless bit of dishonest agitprop again. Memory had dulled quite how bad it was.
Anyone who describes himself as a "scientist" should have clearly stated some of the obvious deficiencies of the tendentious "experiment" that was performed. The fact that King just went along with it totalls destroys any credibility he ever had.
But, I've got to admit, Government "Scientific Advisors" (carefully selected for their activist views and their ability to make their mouths say absolutely anything) are one of my pet hates.
From @stevenayeeve on twitter just now: "@BruceHoult What gave him that idea, any evidence shown? BTW Neil Wallis of #notw was doing PR for UEA then;) tiny.cc/6esh0"
http://twitter.com/#!/stevenayeeve/status/93216638912053249
And the full link of http://t.co/G5YavQl is:
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/crime/ex_news_of_the_world_man_advised_uea_over_climategate_1_965732
Snake oil
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7HEOMMBglM
Nurse will be spotted by the keener-eyed.
:-/
I know this is basic chemistry, but I watched the charming little video and wanted to shout "That's an exothermic reaction so of course it gives off heat, you silly woman, and has nothing to do with greenhouse gasses!" Did I get that wrong?
And I was so charmed with the absolutely silly doomsaying by Sir David - his little lecture about melting ice causing rising sea levels looks quite ridiculous measured against the steadily increasing ice cover of the Antarctic.
I saw that at the time it was broadcast. Convinced me that King is happy to exaggerate and lie to strengthen his argument. And to think he was once a scientist.
F. Bloggsworth: I'm inclined to think that David King had been fed this line from those trying to spin Climategate (who we now know included Neil Wallis under the Outside Organisation label) and that he was gullible enough to believe it. This I accept says little for his intelligence or desire for the truth. It was a convenient lie, fed to him by people that he saw as 'very high level' - as Alan Edwards described those that called Outside Organisation in to help at UEA, an intriguing phrase that I don't believe has been fully explained. That to me explains the hushed, conspiratorial tone he adopts before his 'revelation'. Colour me very unimpressed.
Strange how the accusations of 'extraordinary sophistication' about hacking have died down.
Yes Sir David, it could have been billion dollar agencies that carried out the hack - much more likely - they were leaked.
Where's the police investigation at?
Oh, yeah. The mobile phones were hacked as well, says King. Just think what agency would be able to do that, he says. He's trying to make it appear a really sophisticated and sinister plot by big organizations or governments. But I note that Norfolk Police don't seem to be any nearer identifying what happened, never mind apprehending any malefactors.
It seems UEA and CRU are up to their necks and just digging a bigger hole for themselves. Everything Acton has done has made it all a lot worse for them. His specialism is Soviet history, and he may well think that the same tactics that worked for the Stalinists will work here. UEA have pumped huge amounts of money into biased reports and PR, and, as we now know, 'covert' activities and propaganda, to try to deflect criticism.
As for King, he long ago sold his sold to the devil. I've seen bits and pieces of his activities in 'Oxford Today' concerning his founding directorship of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, which is deeply into policy and governance, and bankrolled by Martin and Elise Smith. Martin Smith is another who, like Jeremy Grantham of the Grantham Institute, made his pile in fund management (Phoenix Securities, Phoenix Partnership, European investment banking, Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, Amerindo Internet Fund, New Star Asset Management etc) and want to have a name for themselves. As they themselves say, "global organisations such as the UN, the IPCC, [and] the European Union...are already benefiting from our advice". They have around 90 teaching staff and researchers on salaries of £100k - 250k p.a. (according to their own literature).
Who do they have as speakers under King's tenure? Charlatans such as Al Gore and Mohamed Nasheed. Here is King with his buddy at the Smith School:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ea/Gore09_010.jpg/220px-Gore09_010.jpg
Here's a better sized one of King and Gore:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gore09_010.jpg
The big question I have right now is how much of the current news content is being sourced from a "covert" PR exercise from the Outside Organisation, right now i have zero confidance that we are not just seeing a similar PR exercise similar to the aftermath of climategate. It seems that twitter and excellent blogging sites like this are doing a better job than the mainstream.
Here is what King told the newspapers:
"A very clever nerd can cause a great deal of disruption and obviously make intelligence services very nervous, but a sophisticated intelligence operation is capable of yielding the sort of results we've seen here...Quite simply, it's the sophistication of the operation. I know there's a possibility that they had a very good hacker working for these people, but it was an extraordinarily sophisticated operation. There are are several bodies of people who could do this sort of work. These are national intelligence agencies and it seems to me that it was the work of such a group of people...I don't think that it's a coincidence that the stealing of the emails from the individuals involved in East Anglia was put out for publication one month before Copenhagen. That wasn't a coincidence...The emails date back to 1996, so someone was collecting the data over many years. It looks like possibly the work of an intelligence service. What it was was a very well co-ordinated part of a campaign. It was a difficult piece of work to get that done...I've no inside knowledge except for the fact that I did work with our [intelligence] agencies, and the American agencies, that I have some experience...If it was a job done on behalf of a government, then I suppose there is the possibility that it could be the Russian intelligence agency...If it was a maverick group then I suppose it could be the Americans, but I am hazarding a guess as much as anyone else. The only thing is, I've worked within government and I've seen this in operation...It was a sophisticated and expensive operation. In terms of the expense, there is the American lobby system which is a very likely source of finance. Right now, the American lobbyists are a very likely source of finance for this, so the finger must point to them."
What an absolute load of rubbish, Sir David. Is that what a scientist is reduced to once you become Chief Scientific Adviser and take the Smith Family shilling? One would think that a person who had spent time within the science community would be able to do better than a load of half-baked innuendo. This all reads like a desperate smokescreen, thrashing around and hitting out at imaginary enemies to deflect from the truth.
At bottom, I think CRU, UEA, Sir David King, The Police and the UK government have a pretty good idea that this was an inside job. Hence, all quiet from the police, and a load of propaganda from King, Acton and the likes.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/climate-emails-hacked-by-spies-1885147.html
SfT:
Certainly Neil Wallis seems to have seen it that way, based on the Music Week report:
Tinfoil 'ats! Tinfoil 'ats! Gitcha Tinfoil at's 'ere!
Wards off all increasing back-radiations from any airborne source!
Wrap it round yer mobile phone for extra data security!
A little bird told me Naomi Campbell wears one in bed.
Only a fiver, or I can make 'em for yer on a two day a month basis for only 24 grand a year.
Lumme! Grab the 'ats and run Phil, the proppa rozzers are comin!
"hacking being incredibly sophisticated"
So sophisticated that tabloid journalists could do it at will...
Strange how those in charge at the U.E.A. know how to foil F.O.I. requests but cannot stop the theft of information! Insider job...end of!
Richard Drake "Certainly Neil Wallis seems to have seen it that way [i.e. a leak, not a hack], based on the Music Week report: 'The university’s Climatic Research Unit wanted Outside to fire back some shots on the scientists’ behalf after leaked emails from the unit gave climate change skeptics ammunition and led to an avalanche of negative press about whether global warming was a real possibility.' "
Dead right. In order for Neil Wallis to do a 'covert' PR job to deflect criticism you can be sure that he was briefed on what really happened so that he could find the best disinformation to counter it (just as Sir David King was doing). Doubtless Acton told him it was a leak, and contracted him to make sure that it was presented and 'spun' as anything but a leak.
I expect that Norfolk Police, with a bit of consultancy, quickly established that it was an inside job and have told Acton as much and asked him whether he wants to press charges. Of course, Acton won't want to press charges on an insider as that would blow his cover and propaganda, so you can be sure it will all be kicked into the long grass in the hope that the only 'evidence' that will remain in the public domain will be the ridiculous ravings of Sir David King to the press, and the disinformation that Neil Wallis and Outside Organisation were contracted by UEA to spread.
Wallis is there in the kitchen since the program was made on his direct orders to the BBC.
Watch Davis' eyes and you can figure out where he stands behind the camera.
Track down some of the members of the Top Gear audience that were there, and ask them if he was there.
Was it really a "lone wolf leaker" thing, in which case they must know who it was.
or, was the PR firm brought in to handle the FOIA release in the first place?
/tinfoil
In other developments on the OO-Wallis-CRU front ... an enquiry I had re-posted via a comment 07/15/2011 10:54 AM PDT (because my first attempt had disappeared after several hours in moderation) is still in moderation as of 07/19/2011 09:50 AM PDT.
Oh, yes ... and Wallis appears to have been digitally purged from the OO management team's stellar stable!
The curious case of the missing “Outside Organizer”: prince of spinners, Neil Wallis
[donning widely stretched tin-foil hat]
As I was watching that video, it struck me that some of the "guests" seemed kinda, well, "scripted" ... particularly the blonde sitting (quite conspicuously) at the front-right. And as I was watching/listening, I was reminded of the narrative someone had posted here of the July 14/2010 Monbiot-chaired "debate". That commenter had noted (IIRC) that during the audience questions, Monbiot had seemed quite partial to one (or more) "blonde(s)".
Question to those who attended the Monbiot debate: does the above-mentioned blonde in the video look at all familiar?!
/tin-foil hat off
In Oz, in the State of Victoria where I reside, Victora Police Chief Commissioner Simon Overland suddenly tendered his resignation with effect from July 1, 2011. This was about a month ago. Not long before that, Deputy Sir Ken Jones, ex Great Britain, and apparent heir-in-waiting, had tendered his resignation and gone back to the old country.
Initially Jones resigned May 2, 2011, effective August 5, but a few days into May, Overland told him to go at short notice.
No conspiracy theory here, nothing to do with Murdoch being Australian, but a plausible question of whether insider breaking news in the UK about April led to vacation of positions in Oz so that incumbents having left office were more free to refuse questioning. Just a thought, no evidence, no bad implications attributed to anyone, just a note about movements and dates.