Shades of Galileo

Recently, a second round of emails taken from the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia were released online. This release -- dubbed "ClimateGate 2.0" -- is once again revealing that those scientists and politicians pushing an alarmist view of Earth's climate being in danger due to manmade carbon dioxide emissions have engaged in deception, distortion, intimidation and even criminal activities as pertains to Freedom of Information legislation.

As bad as the revelation has been, the response by those whose careers and financial interests are dependent upon such alarmist dogma has been draconian.

Donna Laframboise who hosts the excellent climate change skeptic blog No Frakking Consensus and is the author of The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken For The World's Top Climate Expert recently reported on how fellow blogger Roger Tattersall -- who runs Tallbloke's Talkshop -- was recently subjugated to officially sanctioned persecution.

Tallbloke just happened to be one of the first people to report and link to the latest batch of released emails. Because of it, last week the police came to his home and seized both his computers and router and even attempted to coerce access to his blog. You can read more about it via a National Post article authored by Ms. Laframboise: Climate Crackdown.

And Tallbloke was not the only person being targeted. As it turns out, the U.S. Justice Department had sent a formal request to blogging company WordPress to have all communications and records ("evidence" as they put it) for Tallbloke as well as Jeff ID at the Air Vent (http://NOconsensus.wordpress.com) as well as noted Canadian mathematician -- and co-destroyer of Michael Mann's hockey stick -- Steve McIntyre's Climate Audit blog.

This is more than a little disturbing. The original ClimateGate emails clearly revealed criminal breaches of Access to Information laws on both sides of the ocean. Did the U.S. Justice Department send the police out to seize the computers of those involved? No. Did they send any notice to the University of East Anglia or Penn State (Michael Mann's employer) to have their data files and emails frozen as "evidence" of a crime? No.

The only action taken in response to the original ClimateGate release were complete whitewashes (greenwashes as it were) by both UK officials who barely lifted a finger in their examinations and Penn State who didn't even depose key figures who would have revealed a great deal about what was really going on.

And yet average citizen bloggers who simply redirected readers to information from another source that was out on the internet are being treated as criminals. Why? Because they did the one thing that is not to be tolerated when dealing with climate change alarmism: they were skeptics.

It just goes to show, one cannot question the supposed science nor the stances of the religious leaders of the day without facing totalitarian authority.

Science is the child of skepticism.

When skeptics are treated as heretics, you are no longer dealing with science. You are dealing with the blind faith of a religion.

Of Witnesses and Weakness

One week ago, the trial of the suspected murderers of Jordan Manners -- a grade 9 student shot to death in the halls of C.W. Jeffery's Collegiate in Toronto -- concluded with a verdict of not-guilty. The trial really hung on the testimony of two witnesses, one of whom retracted testimony and another that changed their testimony significantly.

In this case, the witnesses were too scared to testify.

This week, the SIU concluded it's investigation into the beating of Dorian Barton, a protestor at last year's G20 summit. The SIU determined there was not enough evidence to lay charges against the police officer accused of the beating even though a photographer witnessed the beating, identified the officer and provided a photo of the officer.

The police no doubt knew which officers were assigned what areas. Process of elimination alone would have been enough to figure out this bully with a badge. Even with all of this, none of the officers in the vicinity of the beating would identify the accused. Not even the roommate of this officer during the summit.

In this case, the police are too scared to testify.

Two crimes. Same problem. Same results: justice denied.

How can we as a society expect citizen witnesses to face their fear, stand up and testify against criminals if the police themselves won't? How can the police expect cooperation in the prosecution of criminals if they themselves will not cooperate? Do they really expect that citizens will bend over backwards -- such as freely providing DNA samples -- when the police give them every reason not to be trusted?

This is a sad, sad week for Canadian justice. I am a big supporter of our police officers having a cousin who is a member of the Ontario Provincial Police. But I expect more of them than this, certainly more than citizens who live in an area with one of the highest crime rates in the entire country. It is a tragic statement on our society when even the police are actively involved in the denial of justice.

Cowards.