This is a spoof article whereby I’ve used the BBC Libor rigging article from today and changed it to see what it would sound like when the same laws are applied to those rigging the global temperature rate as those rigging Libor.
The name is a fictitious one (I searched and nothing similar came up, but if by some chance there is someone with this name then apologies it was not intended to be you.)
Note: “scientist” is clearly a false term, especially applied to those rigging global temperature, but it is the one the media will use.
Climate scientist jailed for 14 years over global temperature rate-rigging
Former climate scientist Michael Deva-Jones has been found guilty at a London court of rigging global temperature rates.
He was sentenced to 14 years in prison for conspiracy to defraud.
The 35-year old is the first individual to face a jury trial for manipulating the rate, which was used to justify trillions of pounds of global warming spending and climate research.
Many of the world’s leading Climate institutes have already paid heavy financial penalties for tampering with the key benchmark.
The jury found Deva-Jones guilty on all eight charges of conspiracy to defraud.
From Anon, at Southwark Crown Court
Deva-Jones stood impassively as the foreman on the jury read out all eight guilty verdicts.
His wife noted down the verdicts as they were read out.
At one point, he shook his head and looked across at his wife, mother and stepfather in the public gallery.
Deva-Jones held his head in his hands while his lawyer read out a list of mitigating factors.
Deva-Jones was sentenced to 14 years, half to be spent in custody before any possibility of release on licence.
Justice Cooke said Deva-Jones was the “centre and hub” of the manipulation.
He said: “You succumbed to temptation because you could manipulate the global temperature and so gain status, seniority and remuneration,” adding that Deva-Jones’ actions were “dishonest and wrong”.
The case was brought by the Serious Fraud Office, which said Deva-Jones set up a network of data analysts spanning 10 climate institutions and cajoled or bribed them to help rig global temperature rates for profit.
During the trial, jurors were told that Hayes promised to reward one participant to keep the temperature rate “as high as possible”.
It took the jury one week to arrive at the verdicts.
Defence barrister Neil Hawes asked the judge to take into account the prevalence of Global temperature manipulation at the time, and also that Deva-Jones had been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a condition on the autism spectrum.
Mr Hawes also said that managers and senior managers at Deva-Jones’ Institution knew of, and in some cases condoned, Temperature manipulation.
Deva-Jones, a former star scientist, rigged the global temperature rates daily for nearly fourteen years while working at AvCrap, from 2001 until 2015.
AvCrap says it has no comment about the verdicts.
‘Mars bar’
Hayes’s trading activities were based around movements in the global temperature rate – the rate those involved said the world was warming.
Rigging even minor movements in the rate can result in bumper profits for a trader manipulating the rates, or the rate can be moved simply to make a bank look more creditworthy.
Rigging the rate hugely benefited those involved financially as well as the institutions they worked for in the form of government grants.
During the trial, the court heard that manipulating the temperature rate was so commonplace that an offer of a Mars bar could get it changed.
Deva-Jones told a fellow “scientist”: “Just give the data clerk a Mars bar and they’ll set the temperature wherever you want.”
Deva-Jones confessed, saying that he did not want to be extradited to the US.
He claimed that the manipulation was widespread.
Court case
Deva-Jones initially co-operated with investigators, confessing to the manipulation.
But four months after he was charged in 2013, he changed his legal team, and his plea.
He pleaded “not guilty” to the charges, resulting in the trial, which began on 26 May.
You’ve made a bit of a boo-boo here.
You see…even though this is just a spoof article. It, at least tries to create a mechanism.
It recognizes that there has to be a mechanism for the conspiracy to sound even a little bit credible.
….especially applied to those rigging global temperature…
Temperatures don’t rig themselves. Somebody has to rig them. It doesn’t happen by magic.
Only, you’ve have to have a way of doing that and not get caught out.
The trouble is, other people will see the numbers. We’re talking about global temperatures, remember? Not exactly small stuff.
He was sentenced to 14 years in prison for conspiracy to defraud
There’s that word: conspiracy. And fraud for that matter. That’s the kind of thing that is clearly identified in the spoof as being illegal. And quite right too.
Do you know what I would do if I though there was some sort of fraud or scam or conspiracy going on?
I’d tell people. Especially the police. That would settle things very quickly.
If the police wanted to know about the scam, I’d be very eager to tell them.
Job done.
Former climate scientist Michael Deva-Jones..
Ahah. So here we have a bad guy. This spoof article has named a name. Well done. Usually conspiracy theorists don’t really do this. They just “them” or “alarmists” or “evolutionists” or “big pharma” or “da gubbimnet”. The vaguer and bigger, the better.
However, in this case we have a principal actor….the Dr Evil.
Wonderful.
The 35-year old is the first individual to face a jury trial for manipulating the rate..
Ah, manipulation. Excellent word. Somebody actually doing something…as opposed to something bad happening in some really vague magical way all by itself.
Yep, if you want to claim that there as conspiracy/fraud/scam whatever, then having some idea as to who could be doing it is a very strong start.
Many of the world’s leading Climate institutes have…..
Here’s the part where it starts to unravel.
What do they mean by “many”? Take a look at all the scientific communities on the planet, throw in NASA too. Now look at their stance on climate change. There’s no daylight between them.
So either it’s all of them in on it or…none of them.
Let’s say Deva was working for scientific community “x”. He manipulates.
Ok, how?
He’s got to have help from his colleagues. He’s got to have help from management. There has to be a system that will aid and abet him.
If he just sneaks in late at night and changes the numbers….well, that’s not going to work out when someone re-checks the numbers the next morning. You have to change the numbers and make sure they stay unchanged.
So Deva needs help. Lots of help. Let’s say that he does it all with the blessing of his institute where he works. All good. That makes it easy.
Right up until the time when some other scientific community reads the published data.
Then it all falls apart.
But wait! There are other climate institutes that are helping out, right? Sure but that only makes things more complicated. How do they co-ordinate? How do they even set themselves up to get ready to co-ordinate? Who’s the Dr Evil?
Deva? Who’s Deva that he could whip something up as complicated and as vast as that?
What kind of pull does he have?
It’s not going to work. There’s no mechanism.
Deva-Jones set up a network of data analysts spanning 10 climate institutions and cajoled or bribed them to help rig global temperature….,
Gosh. A mechanism. A dastardly plan. No vague, iffy appeals to gullibility here.
Bravo.
Only….it wouldn’t work. The logistics are too difficult.
How do you “cajole” an entire climate institute? Or bribe one for that matter?
I can understand cajoling an individual scientist…or bribing one.
But you’d have to do that again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again etc. until you cover enough people in the institute to make the conspiracy viable.
Then you have to repeat that…….another….nine….times.
In different languages too.
How do you contact them in the first place?
Private meeting in a coffee shop? That’s a lot of coffee. And not everybody lives in Sydney.
A game of golf and a quiet cigar? Well, maybe the people you need to cajole don’t play golf. Or the Tokyo golf club is just a bit far away.
Hmm.
How about a big meeting? All together at the same time? In some Swiss castle somewhere? Only, of course, you can’t tell them the real reason why they have all come before you have had a chance to bribe them.
How about an email to each one?
Hmm.
Not really that easy to cajole people by email. Bribing people by email also seems just a bit naf.
Imagine if you send an email to someone that tries to bribe them to manipulate numbers….and they say…”No”.
Now what do you do, shoot them?
How do you get them to delete the incriminating email?
Besides, you couldn’t do it with just 10. That’s too few. You’d have to get all of them. Every single scientific community on the planet. At the same time.
It’s a problem of scale.
The logistics will crush you every time.
NASA (for example) is not manipulating anything.
There is no scam or fraud or hoax or criminal goings on.
A spoof is something that’s supposed to be funny. If you want to be taken seriously when you claim a scam or hoax or whatever…then you’re going to have to do better that a spoof.
You’re going to have to provide a viable mechanism.
Cedric
I like to try to keep things polite on these sorts of web-sites, not least because the potential anonymity of the internet allows people to say nasty and unpleasant things about others that they wouldn’t dream of saying face to face (I know this first hand having made the mistake of posting some mild questions on an alarmist web-site and almost drowning in abuse by way of response).
So, I’ll confine myself with saying that your comments would be taken a little more seriously if you weren’t quite so intense, strident and repetitive, and if you realised that the article was intended to be humorous.
And I repeat my comment on an earlier thread that although there may not be an active conspiracy to defraud – not least for the reasons you point out – it is a multi-trillion dollar industry and a lot of people have a vested interest in keeping the scare stories going.
By the way (I may regret asking if it leads you to post another comment like the last one!), how do you explain the adjustments made to GISS and other data sets which have the effect of cooling temperatures in the past and warming more recent ones so as to exaggerate the scale of the warming? And why do climate alarmists always ignore or brand as “unreliable” the satellite data which show no discernible warming for the best part of 2 decades? If they are unreliable, why do we bother obtaining them at great expense? Conversely, if the expense of obtaining satellite data is justified, why do the authorities and the alarmists ignore the data?
The problem for those fixing Libor is that they just couldn’t believe anyone would ever prosecute. Their bosses turned a blind eye – and they thought that meant they were immune.
It was more in the way of a “thought experiment” – if the law is applied in the same way as it was applied to Libor to those adjusting global temperature data, does it sound credible.
And the answer seems to me having gone through that experiment that it is quite plausible that a prosecution could end in hefty prison sentences and therefore it is quite possible anyone caught changing global temperature data could be facing many years in prison.
if you weren’t quite so intense, strident and repetitive…
Did you ever wonder why I repeat myself?
Let me help you with that.
…And I repeat my comment on an earlier thread..
Bingo. You repeat. Forcing me to repeat in turn.
And then you have the gall to complain about it.
Shame on you.
I ask you “how”. That’s not being “strident”. That’s me being sensible. You don’t have an answer. Nobody ever does.
That’s a huge problem.
If you really want to convince people that there’s a scam going on, you have to have some kind of an idea as to how this supposed scam is going about it’s business doing the scamy thing.
Otherwise, you end up with just a Humpty-Dumptyism when you say the word “scam”.
….how do you explain the adjustments made to GISS….
I don’t. I make no claim. You have to ask yourself why you feel the need to do this.
I’m asking about the “how” part of this supposed scam…and you try and go off about something else.
“Oh well, um, you just explain to me something, something, blah, blah..”
No.
It won’t do.
I appreciate that you feel you have discovered something nefarious…or odd..or whatever.
And thats’ great. More power to you.
Only you are following a predictable pattern. A pattern that other conspiracy theorists do all the time.
The moon landing deniers do this. The 9/11 Troofers do this. The creationists do this.
They all find an anomaly. Or a series of seemingly inexplicable anomalies.
Could be a flag waving in a vacuum or steel beams not melting at a certain temperature or a flaggelum being really, super-duper complex. It’s all pretty much the same.
They are all anomalies.
Only, you can collect anomalies until the cows come home. They won’t ever reach critical mass and somehow transform overnight into a coherent mechanism.
There’s no scam. There’s no hoax. There’s no fraud. There’s no conspiracy.
Really.
NASA is not lying to you in some spooky-wooky way.
It doesn’t even work as a spoof.
If you want to believe the scamsters and line their pockets, then I’m quite happy for you to pay your own money to them, that’s your free choice.
But you have no right whatsoever to demand other people – particularly the poor and elderly who suffer most from rising fuel prices – to go along with your crazy ideas.
It was more in the way of a “thought experiment” –
That’s fine. I applaud your efforts.
Only if you try a though experiment on the basic mechanics of how any such (scam/conspiracy/hoax/fraud/criminal activity/naughtiness etc), you will find out in very short order that it can’t be done.
There’s no physical way to make it work.
I’m not being mean spirited about this.
I’m not trying to be unfair.
Try it for yourself. Sketch out the logistics of any shape or size operation you like on the back of a napkin.
Purely as a though experiment. Restricted only by your own imagination and what you personally deem to be within the bounds of reason.
Go for it.
It just won’t work.
Plimer and all the rest of them can’t make it work either.
If you want to believe the scamsters and line their pockets…
Imagine how much more impressive this would sound if you could at least have a stab at explaining what this scam actually is and how it’s supposed to work.
(shrug)
Oh dear, oh dear.
You haven’t answered any of the points I made, merely repeated (ad nauseam) your “it’s not a scam” point.
I suggest we call it a day. I’ll agree with you, Cedric (sorry Scottish Sceptic) that there is not a scam as defined by the OED. Unlike Scottish Sceptic, I never said there was a “scam” in this sense. You seem to have trouble distinguishing my comments from his posts. Neither I (nor, I think, Scottish Sceptic, mentioned NASA by the way – that seems to be your particular hang up)
It would be nice if you agreed with me regarding a few non-contentious facts, such as that there is an annual $1.5 trillion climate change industry; that a lot of people have a serious financial reason to keep that industry (NB I said “industry”, not “scam”) going; that GISS and other data sets are being manipulated (for whatever reason); that an “inconvenient” data set (reliable satellite data) is ignored; that a lot of money is diverted by this whole process from the poor to the rich.
There doesn’t have to be an active fraudulent conspiracy in the sense that laws have been broken and prosecutions will follow. I don’t have to be a creationist (I’m not, and take offence at the suggestion that I might be) nor a conspiracy theorist, to recognise that a lot of people are making a lot of money by providing “services” that people don’t need, on the back of all this. You just need to live in the real world to recognise that. In the real world, people will always spot an opportunity to make money, sometimes illegally, sometimes legally but not usefully.
I invite you to agree with me on my chosen ground, as I have agreed with your on your deliberately limited chosen ground. I suspect you won’t…
I’ll agree with you, Cedric (sorry Scottish Sceptic) that there is not a scam as defined by the OED.
Really?
Look at how you frame things. You are trying to have a bob each way.
…such as that there is an annual $1.5 trillion climate change industry….
What are you trying to say here? The numbers don’t matter. Make it eleventy trillion gazillion dollars if you like.
So what?
Are you now going to cue some ominous background music?
Raise your eyebrow at me with a knowing look?
Say what you mean and mean what you say.
Spell it out.
In the real world, people will always spot an opportunity to make money, sometimes illegally,
What people? Name some names.
NASA? The Royal Society? Obama?
Scottish Skeptic has got Clinton+Obama. What have you got?
“sometimes illegally”? Either there is something illegal going on or there is not. Make up your own mind. You can’t have it both ways. Spit it out. Make it clear.
….sometimes legally but not usefully….
More ominous background music. It’s silly.
No. This won’t do. If you want to make a point about a big fat load of money and living in the real world, then make it.
Spell it out.
Either you are hinting/alluding/suggesting/pointing at/raising/conjecturing/suspecting/revealing/accusing etc. that somebody(?1?) is doing somehow something(?!?) or other, or ……….you are not.
Once you get to specifics, even in a hypothetical way, it all breaks down. It always does.
I don’t have to be a creationist (I’m not, and take offence at the suggestion that I might be) nor a conspiracy theorist…
I’m not saying that. Re-read what I wrote. There’s no need to create a strawman.
Creationists have a certain way of doing things.
It’s the same way that the Troofers do things.
And the anti-vaxxers.
They (and many others) use the same playbook.
You are not distinguishing yourself from them.
That doesn’t mean you are a creationist.
It means that you are following their methods.
“There doesn’t have to be an active evolutionist fraudulent conspiracy in the sense that laws have been broken and prosecutions will follow. I don’t have to be a Troofer (I’m not, and take offence at the suggestion that I might be) nor a conspiracy theorist, to recognise that a lot of biologists and people are making a lot of money by providing “services” that people don’t need, on the back of all this. You just need to live in the real world to recognise that. In the real world, people will always spot an opportunity to make money, sometimes illegally, sometimes legally but not usefully.”
Claim CA321.1:
Cedric, you really are hard work.
Every comment I make is seized upon you, spun out of context, and turned into I know not what. By the way, apart from your “it’s not a scam” mantra, I really have no idea what you’re on about. And it’s a bit rich for you of all people to say there’s no need to create a straw man. You appear to lack self-awareness and a sense of irony, as well as a sense of humour.
To try to answer your latest point, so far as I can understand it, I offer you this from Jo Nova’s website: “four billion dollars a day is spent on our quest to change the climate. That includes everything from carbon markets to carbon consulting, carbon sequestration, renewables, biofuels, green buildings and insipid cars.”
That’s it from me. I learned a long time ago not to waste time trying to argue with an obsessive who won’t see the point. I just wish I’d remembered that a little earlier.
I’m sorry Scottish Sceptic that Cedric seems to have discovered your website around the same time that I did, as you’re trying to generate a debate and make a few interesting observations to get people thinking, and Cedric seems to be determined to close that process down. I for one have better things to do than to waste my time arguing with him.
So, I’m off for now. I’ll look back in occasionally to see how you’re getting on, and I wish you the best of luck with him! If you get really lucky, he’ll bore himself as much as he’s bored the rest of us, and will go away.
By the way, apart from your “it’s not a scam” mantra, I really have no idea what you’re on about.
That’s pretty much it, really. Whenever somebody tries to tell you that “it’s a scam” or a reasonable facsimile thereof, they’re just trying to pick your pocket.
It doesn’t work.
NASA really and for truly is not scamming you.
And it’s a bit rich for you of all people to say there’s no need to create a straw man.
Not really. Let’s go through it again slowly:
I don’t have to be a creationist (I’m not, and take offence at the suggestion that I might be)…
Nobody was offending you. I didn’t say it. You are creating a strawman here.
To try to answer your latest point, so far as I can understand it, I offer you this from Jo Nova’s website: “four billion dollars….
Four billion dollars.
So what?
Where are you going with this? Think about it.
…such as that there is an annual $1.5 trillion climate change industry….
What are you trying to say here? The numbers don’t matter. Make it eleventy trillion gazillion dollars if you like.
So what?
Are you now going to cue some ominous background music?
Raise your eyebrow at me with a knowing look?
Say what you mean and mean what you say.
Spell it out.
and Cedric seems to be determined to close that process down.
Odd way of ‘closing that process down’. I’m asking you to spell things out.
A peek behind the curtain.
A viable mechanism sketched out on the back of napkin.
You and others evade.
The creationists do the same thing. The anti-vaxxers do the same thing. The moon landing deniers do the same thing.
There’s no viable mechanism.
“The creationists do the same thing. The anti-vaxxers do the same thing. The moon landing deniers do the same thing.
There’s no viable mechanism.”
All these rely on the same basic mechanism which is people ignoring the evidence (like 18 years without warming) and picking up irrelevant and often false annecdotes (like polar bear numbers or sea ice) and the putting them together as some “conspiracy” (like BIG oil funded sceptics).
And you sound just like them Cedric.
Tell me, do we insist companies and government departments get audited because we believe in some global conspiracy to defraud the government and the whole of big business?
Or do we audit accounts because that is good practice?
Because you don’t seem to understand much – I will tell you the answer it is because it is good practice.
So why don’t we as is normal practice investigate and assess the global temperature record?
The simple answer is that as has been proven time and time again, is because it will not stand up to such scrutiny.
And would you trust a government that refused to allow the books to be audited?
(From the rest of your responses – I am half expecting a “of course you would”)
All these rely on the same basic mechanism which is people ignoring the evidence….
That’s not a mechanism. That’s just you being silly and handwaving again.
Tell me, do we insist companies and government departments get audited….
We do.
People run scams. People defraud. People engage in conspiracies. It really does happen.
Only every single scam, fraud, hoax or conspiracy…doesn’t just magically happen. There’s a mechanism.
Always.
Somebody is talking to someone else and organizing something to illegally get money from someone else.
It doesn’t just……(awkward silence)….. happen.
There has to be the basic nuts and bolts of the operation.
A conspiracy has to have a viable mechanism. Otherwise, there’s no conspiracy. Nobody would be able to do stuff.
In the movies, you always get a Dr Evil.
You know why? He’s the one giving the orders. He’s the one signing the checks.
Mechanism, yeah? It helps to have someone doing that.
Really useful.
And when he writes those checks…they don’t just sit on his desk.
Magic does not somehow take care of it.
Some flunky picks them up and delivers them. He’s got to read the address and deliver them to the right person.
Mechanism, yeah?
And that check has to be cashed by…somebody who then goes off and does…something.
And it’s all got to make a rough kind of sense. Sure, it’s just a movie but the script writer and the director will at least try to put some bare bones on it to make it credible to the audience.
You don’t seem to be able to do that.
Nobody else either.
It’s a basic structural weakness. I’ve seen it time and again.
In all the years you’ve been going on about ‘the scam”, have you ever meet someone that cobbled together a viable mechanism?
Ever?
“Only every single scam, fraud, hoax or conspiracy…doesn’t just magically happen.”
Have you ever worked in a real company or business in your entire life or are you some wet-behind the ears student who’s not seen beyond the classroom?
In real life, people are constantly under pressure to cut corners, to find an easier way to make money or to “prove” they are worth more than they are.
And in the real world, if people are allowed to cut corners, they will.
IS THAT A CONSPIRACY – IS THAT YOUR GLOBAL “DARK FORCES”.
No, it’s just people behaving normally. Individually it doesn’t matter, but when there’s no checks and balancing or worse, when they get incentivised to cut corners or push the boundaries like PPI selling … it gradually descends into more and more dishonesty until eventually any reasonable person would accept that the whole system is behaving in a criminal way.
It happens time and time and time again. From children’s organs, to police corruption to football hooligans. Individuals just go along with the rest, standards fall and eventually the public has to take action because of the massive damage being done by the group.
Almost never does anyone “conspire” to create these corruptions, instead it is just a general failing of standards which build up because people LIKE YOU turn a blind eye to known issues and then they just escalate.
In real life, people are constantly under pressure to cut corners, to find an easier way to make money or to “prove” they are worth more than they are.
Yes but they have to actually have a way to cut the corners.
Cutting corners does not happen all by itself.
There are the corners.
The corners must be cut for some reason.
Someone (or lots of someones) must cut those corners.
Ok.
So how?
reasonable person would accept that the whole system is behaving in a criminal way.
Good.
We”re making progress.
Criminal way. Some sort of criminal activity is happening. Fine. Now we have something to work with.
So…how?
Is NASA part of this as yet undefined criminal activity?
The Royal Society?
Given that criminal activity is…criminal, does this crime have a name?
And if it has a name….then it has a mechanism, right?
Or maybe, when you say “criminal activity” you don’t really mean “criminal activity”. It’s just you doing a Humpty Dumptyism, perhaps?
By way of contrast, can you come up with any scientific communities on the planet that have not succumbed to this criminal activity that is oddly short on details?
The CSIRO?
NOAA perhaps?
The NAS?
The American Physical Society?
Any of them?
Or is it…..absolutely all of them?
Cedric the definition of fraud is quite clear. If you are dishonest for gain – and that includes advancement in your job or career not just financial gain, then it is fraud.
It is beyond doubt that the temperature record has been changed, that people have dishonestly stopped papers sceptical of the scam, that e.g. they have “used Mike’s nature trick”, knowingly failed to correct the hockeystick, broke FOI law, deleted emails, lied about the impact of wind on humans and birds, impersonated people, committed libel, dishonestly claimed they could predict the climate (when they knew they could not) etc. etc. etc.
These are all dishonest, and those making money from being dishonest commit fraud.
If I did it, it would be a lie and it is not criminal. But if someone lies and they gain from that lie, then it is fraud and is a crime.
But more than likely, because I’ve yet to find one person pushing this scam who does not personally have their snout in the trough of public money, you to are making money from this scam.
So when the prosecutions start, and you or someone you know is caught up in it, please do not say “well no one told me it was illegal”.
Cedric the definition of fraud is quite clear. If you are dishonest for gain – and that includes advancement in your job or career not just financial gain, then it is fraud.
We agree them.
Only if you want to be dishonest….you have to actually do something.
The dishonesty doesn’t happen all by itself.
In any case of fraud, there’s always a mechanism. Really.
It is beyond doubt that the temperature record has been changed….
Great. How? By whom? When?
…that people have dishonestly stopped papers sceptical of the scam.
Ok. How? How many papers? When?
….deleted emails….
You see? Now we are getting somewhere. Actual things happening. Very good.
….broke FOI law…
Ok. And what happened?
… impersonated people, committed libel, dishonestly claimed….
Wonderful. Impersonations, libel, dishonest claims.
etc. etc. etc.
Um, this is where you are losing steam. You make it sound like you really can’t think of anything more tangible or shocking.
So when the prosecutions start….
For what? Against whom? Don’t stop now. This is so much better than you trying to explain CO2 or going off about gullibility or whatever.
How does NASA fit into this?
Can you come up with any scientific communities on the planet that have not succumbed to this criminal activity that is oddly short on details?
The CSIRO?
NOAA perhaps?
The NAS?
The American Physical Society?
Any of them?
Or is it…..absolutely all of them?
Cedric, please could you supply me your bank account details, your date of birth and full name because I know a Nigerian who wants to put a substantial amount of money into your bank account.
Cedric, please could you supply me your bank account details….
That’s a mechanism.
In order for the Nigerian Prince scam to work, you have to communicate with the mark and get them to start parting with their money. Starts with small amounts and then gets progressively larger and larger.
It doesn’t just happen by magic.
You can uses a carny scam at a sideshow.
Or pyramid scheme.
Or a fraudster in a trading company building a network of conspirators to manipulate the market.
Or an internet phishing scam.
None of these scams work just because of “gullibility” or “wishful thinking” or whatever.
They all have a mechanism.
Somebody has to do something to get someone else to part with their money.
It’s elementary stuff.
You can’t come up with a viable mechanism.
How many years have you been at this game? How many internet conversations have you had with other true believers that share your views about the scam/hoax/conspiracy thingy?
Yet the actual nuts and bolts of the operation are completely beyond you. You don’t have a clue and neither does anyone you’ve ever conversed with or read about.
Your own imagination fails you completely.
Same diff with the creationists and the anti-vaxxers and the Troofers and all the rest of ’em.
Cedric, if you think about it, it’s really quite simple: the secret world government that only sceptics know about is pushing Agenda 21 to reduce the Earth’s population and install the Pope as head of a worldwide leftist cult, bent on defeating capitalism and driving everyone to poverty. This is done by said secret global government paying off 97% of the world’s climate scientists to falsify their data, make wild ‘scientific’ claims, and brainwash gullible politicians and public (but no the right wing ones, or engineers – they’re immune) into thinking that the we are warming the Earth so rapidly that civilisation will collapse if we don’t do something about it. So, you see, we’re all (right wingers and engineers exempt) gullible pawns being controlled through hundreds-of-thousands of corrupt scientists around the world to denounce capitalism, strengthening the global government’s grip on this planet, until the time is right for the Pope to rule supreme over Earth!
Got that? 😉
Got that? 😉
Agenda 21 is a nice touch.
Cedric, it is quite clear from your responses that you have a very limited knowledge of the real world outside whatever public-funded greenspin organisation you work for and/or you are intentionally not understanding very simple facts.
This is quite a common trait of climate extremists who always demand “some mechanism” whether its behind the scam or that “caused the warming”.
This is a belief system which you hold. It is a false belief system in the sense that your belief is causing you to misunderstand both climate variation and other people in society.
Unfortunately, you just do not have the qualifications and experience to understand what nonsense you are writing and unless I were to give you personal tuition for which I would expect to be well paid (given your clear hostility to me), there is not a hope in hell of you ever understanding.
So, unless you show even a glimmer of understanding there really is nothing on which I can build and it is pointless carrying on this conversation.
Cedric, it is quite clear from your responses that you have a very limited knowledge of the real world outside whatever public-funded greenspin organisation you work for….
Shill Gambit. Shame on you.
This is quite a common trait of climate extremists who always demand “some mechanism” whether its behind the scam or that “caused the warming”.
All scams have mechanisms in the real world. Every one that you have introduced into the conversation by way of analogy has a mechanism.
Corners do not magically cut themselves or whatever.
Unfortunately, you just do not have the qualifications and experience….
Courtiers Reply. Shame on you.
Anybody can understand a scam.
No ivory tower qualifications necessary. Scams abound. I can explain the basic mechanics of pretty much any scam you like. Anybody could. Not really that hard. The bar is set very, very, very low.
Only you cannot explain….the scam that you yourself believe in…to your own satisfaction.
Awkward.
… (given your clear hostility to me)…
Hostile? You must be talking about someone else. I have been extremely patient with you. Nary a bad word about you from me.
I even helped you.
You remember the Plimer/volcano thingy that slipped past your skepticism filter a few posts of yours back?
Yep, that was me. I was right.
Nobody else alerted you. They just gave you warm feelies and let you carry on being gulled.
(..Classic echo chamber syndrome…)
I set you straight and explained the whole fact checking thing.
Gave you a practical and skeptical methodology on how to do it too.
You’re welcome.
I have invited you to explain yourself with this silly scam claim of yours. Haven’t censored you in any way. I have pleaded with you to spell it out for me. I have asked you to think about anybody else trying to come up with a mechanism…..and you can’t.
All the bluster in the world cannot change that.
You are no skeptic. You refuse to test your own conclusions. You have descended into conspiracy theory and insulated your conclusions from healthy criticism by keeping it deliberately vague on details.
That’s not me being mean. That’s an honest appraisal. At any time, you could have tried to genuinely engage and you doggedly refused to do so by playing HumptyDumptyism word games.
There’s nothing sneaky or unfair about asking something as simple as “How”.
That’s about as straightforward and as practical as it gets.
You can’t do it.
Nobody else in your echo chamber can do it either.
It’s just as I predicted.
And I’ll tell you something else for nothing…..it’s not going to change.
Tomorrow, six months from now, six or sixty years from now.
It’s going to be the same ol, same ol’.
Nobody is going to be able to jot down on the back of a napkin anything viable.
The elections are going to come and go. And the Republicans will continue to bewilderingly disappoint you about their mysterious reluctance to successfully prosecute this vast scam of yours.
It’s silly.
Oops. Sorry. Typo error. That should, of course, be titled as “Cedric Katesby”.
I said I’d drop by from time to time to see how you were getting on. I briefly thought your comment on the Nigerian fraud scam had seen him off, since Cedric clearly doesn’t “do” humour, but now unfortunately I see that he just won’t go away.
Having done a little homework, I have no intention of trying to engage Cedric in a discussion again, as it’s a waste of my time and isn’t good for my blood pressure. I wouldn’t ban him, though, for two reasons – first, he’s a great advert for the sceptic cause, given the rubbish he writes. Secondly, unlike a lot of the ecofascists, I believe in freedom of speech, and while I think Cedric writes a load of tosh (at great and irritating and repetitive length) I defend his right to say it. It’s the intolerance of the ecofascists, who don’t think any views but theirs should be given air time that frightens me, and we if on our side behave like the Guardian online in deleting comments we don’t like, then we’re no better than them. So, Cedric, rant away, comment is free, we just don’t have to pay you any attention.
By the way, if you google Cedric Katesby, you’ll soon find that he’s been all over sceptical sites like this one like a rash for the best part of a decade, and driving people mad wherever he goes. Many people have tried to engage with him over the years; many have made the same rational points you and I have presented to him. It’s all to no avail. He just copies and pastes his standard diatribe everywhere he goes.
It’s strange. Cedric seems to be an atheist. I have no problem with that, as an atheist myself. But for all his denials, climate change is definitely the religion that fills the space in his life left by his rejection of conventional religions. NASA seem to be his god, and “peer-reviewed science” represent the prophet or the apostles (take your pick) revealing the light. Nothing else sways him. Climategate? Nah, who pays any attention to emails? They’re not peer reviewed science. Even though they cast doubt on the way peer-reviewed science is conducted these days, that doesn’t matter. Only peer-reviewed science counts. $1.5 trillion annual climate change industry? So what? That’s got nothing to do with peer-reviewed science, so it’s irrelevant to anything, apparently.
Anyway, having watched Cedric in action on many web-sites, I decided to return. Why should he be allowed to ruin a laudable website and drive me away from it? So, I’m back. I’m just not going to answer Cedric any more, and will only read comments from others.
But for all his denials, climate change is definitely the religion….
If you don’t want to be compared to all the other science deniers out there, then you really should stop imitating their soundbytes.
Climategate? Nah, who pays any attention to emails?
If you think that you can cobble together a viable mechanism for this scam thingy and you want to use anything you think you’ve found in whatever email….then go for it. Nobody’s stopping you.
Heck, create your own email.
Seriously. Write down the most damning email you can possibly think of from the most important possible “Dr Evil” you like. Delve into whatever details you want unfettered by reality.
Come up with a whole mess of correspondence.
Won’t work though.
There still won’t be a mechanism.
You can puff and posture all you like. No viable mechanism is going to ever appear.
Not from you.
Not from Scottish Sceptic.
Not from anyone.
……………………….
On a side note, my most recent comment seems to be still held up in moderation.
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
6th August 2015 at 9:23 am
We have a similar animal in the back garden called a “fox”. It it weren’t for the fact it had brutally murdered and probably eaten alive two lots of chickens I might quite welcome it.
We have a similar animal in the back garden called a “fox”.
I never called you a fox.
… (given your clear hostility to me)…
Nope.
Didn’t happen. I’ve cheerfully ripped apart your claims but…as a sceptic, you should already know that anybody’s claims are always fair game.
The more brutal the criticism; the better.
It’s nothing personal at all.
Certainly no hostility.
You , on the other hand, seem to feel the need to make personal comments against me with you variations of ad hominem.
Hypocrisy much?
If anybody is at fault for being ‘hostile’, it’s you.
Seriously, quote the bits where I was somehow ‘hostile’ to you.
Let’s all review them and see how truly awful they are.
(Or maybe this is more Humpty Dumptyism on your part.)
I’m not the one refusing to discuss claims. I leave that to others.
Ah, so you’re a sockpuppet – that explains a lot.
” I’ve cheerfully ripped apart your claims”
I’ll say one thing for Cedric, you’ve got a very vivid imagination, you little kidder you!
Huh?