Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Tim Ballyhoo

I was browsing through Bourque, the online news aggregate where you can pay a great deal of money to embed your own link headline, when I came across this one : Global Warming Not Caused By Humans?

Clicking through I came to Global Warming : The Cold, Hard Facts?, wherein Dr.Tim Ball of Friends of Science makes a spirited defense of his own credentials, his theory of global warming - it isn't, and the search for truth :

Dr. Ball begins :
"What would happen if tomorrow we were told that, after all, the Earth is flat?"

And just as I'm thinking that a reference to Flat Earthers is probably not the most fortuitous analogy a global warming denialist could open with, I get distracted by the ads on the sidebar.

There's a photoshopped picture of Stephane Dion in a funny french beret labelled "Liberal leader, French citizen", another of Nancy Pelosi in a helmet "United Nations Trooper", and an ad for "a leading anti-terrorist web site, that offers practical reference information, vital links, and other valuable information from an investigative perspective in today's troubled times."

Where the fuck am I? Oh right - Canada Free Press.
Persevering past the ads for masters degrees from online universities, I refocus my attention on Dr Ball's essay :

"Why does no one acknowledge that the Emperor has no clothes on?"

Again, Dr. Ball, not the most fortuitous of analogies...

But the absolutely most distracting thing is that throughout the article the word "lawyer", which occurs more often than one would expect in a piece about science, is highlighted. And as you move your cursor over it, an ad for a different law firm pops up every time. Yeah, embedded right there in Dr. Ball's article.

Note to Dr. Ball : Most of us out here are in no position to judge the veracity of global warming science. We rely on peer-reviewed scientists to do that work and then convince us of their claims.
And I'm guessing that ground-breaking peer-reviewed scientific theories are not introduced to the world on the right wing nutjob freeper press.

Related post : They call it science. We call it bullshit.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Killer. Really killer.

Anonymous said...

Alison, you missed the best part.
When you move your cursor over the highlighted words "greenhouse gas", you get an ad for some gadget for a car!

Anonymous said...

Whether online or bricks and mortar, you just know there's got to be a way to 'monetize' global warming.

Hey, it can be a win-win, right?

Anonymous said...

and dr. ball doesn't know the earth is flat....where has he been? nice outlook on the retched site!!!

hey, aloha, big kid!!! i need a vacation from my vacation...the sovereignty work seems endless ...but it's all good and i'm learning lots.

keep that flat island righteous, ok?

Anonymous said...

CFP is the latest favourite blog Conservatives are hyping to get the denial message out, as if it's some kind of authority on science, and good sense.

Anonymous said...

Notice who is NOT in the list of the leaders in Canadian Climate science.

http://conservationcouncil.ca/climate/files/ClimateScienceLettertoPM_CanadianClimateScienceLeaders.pdf

Alison said...

Aloha, little kid.
What's this nonsense I hear about you shooting varmints? Don't make me come over there...
xxx

Dave said...

Damn, and all this time I thought CFP was a "spoof" site. In fact, I thought Rick Mercer was the producer!

I mean, it's SO off-the-wall that it can't possibly be serious.

I do like the ad suggesting that you can lay on the couch and get fit though.

RossK said...

Serious and/or Spoof or not, it's the first crank in the Whirlitzer which is why it is dangerous and must be, as Alison has done so handily here, discredited at every turn.

.

Alison said...

Mark : See, I knew you guys don't click the links...that's the same one that's already embedded in the post ;-)


Dave, Ross :
Sadly, CFP is not a spoof site, despite being written like one. Or maybe it is but the writers don't know it.

The best CFP story I know is from a couple of years back. One of their writers plagiarized a story from the Onion - without realizing that the Onion is satire - and ran it as a straight news item in CFP.

Another time they wanted Michael Moore to be charged for interfering in the Canadian elections. Huge fans of any global warming denier too.
It's funny really - they have no problem thinking the Jooos run everything, but great difficulty appreciating that the weather might.

Anonymous said...

Well I'm just happy to see Tim Ball finally being published in a suitable venue.

Anonymous said...

The CFP crazies claim the mafia was behind 9/11...

http://web.archive.org/web/20050714011831/http://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/cover071105.htm

Anonymous said...

http://www.canadafreepress.com/letters/2007/04/25/ban-all-the-greenhouses/

Heh, heh, heh... count on the wacky right to always find the true essence of all that ails us...

"Ban all the greenhouses
Dear Editor,

I’ve been following the pros and cons of the greenhouse-global-warming debates, and I don’t understand what all the fuss is about. The solution to the problem is simple: Put a total ban on greenhouses.

William Bedford"

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