In 2008, Ha'aretz reported that "Co-founder of internet giant Google, Sergey Brin, will join Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and Yahoo president Susan Decker at a presidential panel on technology to be held at the Jerusalem International Convention Center May 13-15.
"The convention, which was formed at the initiative of President Shimon Peres, will also be attended by a number of Israeli political, religious and financial leaders, as well as academics and cultural figures.
"The panel will discuss issues facing technology in today's age and the future, in particular in regard to how it will affect Israel and the Jewish world.
"Former UK prime minister Tony Blair will also take part in the conference, as will French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former prime minister of the Czech Republic Vaclev Havel, Nobel Prize Laureate Eli Wiesel, and Georgia President Michael Saakashvili.(Facebook, Google founders to attend Jerusalem conference in May ...)
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, was accused of hacking the email accounts of rivals and journalists. (articles)
D-Will is taking this new TSA pat down very seriously and lending a helping hand to insure that Chris Douglas-Roberts will not be blowing up any planes on his long flight (caption via Basketbawful reader RRR)
AK47's hair takes the next step toward growing into its own entity and splitting off to form a new basketball player that looks like Captain Caveman
Ball.
Hey Dirk, Jordan could make this look cool. You can't. Just FYI.
Wow, that's a hard, um, foul?
All The Games: Celtics at Cavaliers, 7pm: Shaq ruminating on the early-season loss to the Cavaliers: "We took them a little bit too lightly." On the other hand, nobody can ever take Shaq lightly according to the laws of physics.
Pistons at Magic, 7pm: Detroit is not good at many things. Playing on the road. Playing against teams with winning records. Shooting. Rebounding. So, yeah, get ready for a night filled with Dwight Howard pulling down boards left and right.
Frail Blazers at 76ers, 7pm: Portland hasn't faced four straight losses in over two years, but considering their shooting right now, it's a possibility even if they are just playing against the Seventy Suxorz. With 39.9% shooting as a team over the past four games, Portland couldn't shoot their way out of a wet paper bag. Though I'm not really sure if you would shoot a basketball to get yourself freed from a wet paper bag. Wouldn't you just tear it? And where in the world would you find a paper bag big enough to trap the entire team?
Nyets at Knicks, 7:30pm: The Knicks are at .500 for the season (mostly thanks to beating up on losing teams during a recent favorable scheduling stretch), but only 2-5 at Madison Square Garden. Maybe the team should all hop on a bus and drive around aimlessly for a couple hours before gametime to trick the players into thinking it's a road game?
Lakers at Grizzlies, 8pm: Stat of the day: Derek Fisher is 3-for-21 from the field in his last three games.
Pacers at Kings, 10pm: The DeMarcus Cousins/Paul Westphal rift is just the latest example of the fact that the Purple Paupers are a barely watchable trainwreck. They're the basketball equivalent of Creepies
I wonder if the big spider can play power forward or center when DeMarcus Cousins gets benched?
Spurs at Warriors, 10:30pm: San Antonio has not lost on the road yet this season. Golden State is... Golden State. Guess who I am picking for this game?
Taken from CH Spurgeon's Morning and Evening, December 1, Morning
“Thou hast made summer and winter.” - Psalm 74:17
My soul begin this wintry month with thy God. The cold snows and the piercing winds all remind thee that he keeps his covenant with day and night, and tend to assure thee that he will also keep that glorious covenant which he has made with thee in the person of Christ Jesus. He who is true to his Word in the revolutions of the seasons of this poor sin-polluted world, will not prove unfaithful in his dealings with his own well-beloved Son. Winter in the soul is by no means a comfortable season, and if it be upon thee just now it will be very painful to thee: but there is this comfort, namely, that the Lord makes it. He sends the sharp blasts of adversity to nip the buds of expectation: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes over the once verdant meadows of our joy: he casteth forth his ice like morsels freezing the streams of our delight. He does it all, he is the great Winter King, and rules in the realms of frost, and therefore thou canst not murmur. Losses, crosses, heaviness, sickness, poverty, and a thousand other ills, are of the Lord’s sending, and come to us with wise design. Frosts kill noxious insects, and put a bound to raging diseases; they break up the clods, and sweeten the soul. O that such good results would always follow our winters of affliction!
How we prize the fire just now! how pleasant is its cheerful glow! Let us in the same manner prize our Lord, who is the constant source of warmth and comfort in every time of trouble. Let us draw nigh to him, and in him find joy and peace in believing. Let us wrap ourselves in the warm garments of his promises, and go forth to labours which befit the season, for it were ill to be as the sluggard who will not plough by reason of the cold; for he shall beg in summer and have nothing.
Taken from Charles H Spurgeon's Morning and Evening, December 1, Morning
On this site you can also find:Encouragements for Christian / Christian encouragements / Encouragements Quotes / Poem encouraging believers / Christian encouragement quotes / simple Christian sermons on encouragement / christian encouragements / biblical sermon on encouragement / Christian bookmark templates / 2010 Christian calendar template / Free printable Bible quotes / Free encouraging sermons / Biblical verse of encouragement for the believers and sermons / Free Christian encouraging images / Free christian encouraging pictures / Christian encouragements phrases
The Associated Press: The Heat snapped their three-game losing streak with a homecourt blowout of the Washington Wizards Generals...a team that entered the game 5-10 overall and 0-7 on the road. Impressive, right? Am I right?
Yeah.
Anyway, I love this opening to the AP recap: "LeBron James and Erik Spoelstra had a pregame meeting Monday afternoon to talk about Miami's offensive woes. Early returns suggest it was a productive chat."
What...because the Heat scored 105 points on 45 percent shooting? That's productive? For a team featuring LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh? Facing a depressing Generals squad that came in ranked 26th in Defensive Rating and was without John Wall (bruised right knee), Al Thornton (ankle) and Ji Jianlian (knee)?
I should also give a special shoutout to ESPN Stats and Information for the following: "The Heat stepped up their transition defense on Monday, in the process outscoring the Wizards 21-8 in transition." We are then treated to a table indicating that Washington scored only 8 points on 37.5 percent shooting and committed 3 turnovers in transition.
I'm sure the absence of Wall had nothing to do with that.
Anyway, it just feels like the media wants us to get all excited that the Heat finally won a game against a crappy team. Yes, yes, I get it. Blowing out bad teams matters. It's a good thing, too, because Miami's next two games are against the Pistons and Cavaliers. So I boldly predict a three-game winning streak and 17.4 tons worth of drool from the Associated Press and other media outlets...
...and plenty of vomit among NBA fans.
That said, there was at least one NBA fan who was feelin' the Heat last night. The Other Chris said: "I'd like to thank the NBA, ESPN and whoever else makes the national television schedule for fellating the Nazgul as the feature game. This means I get to watch New Orleans/Oklahoma City game on League Pass instead of it being blacked out, as it would be any in any sane universe, as it is the vastly superior basketball game. Thanks, LeDouche!"
Associated Press, unintentionally dirty quote machine: "Wade's personal spurt ended with 3:17 left in the period..."
Hilton Armstrong versus Joel Anthony and Juwan Howard: I know I should take something like this more seriously, but come on. It looks like something out of a Three Stooges short. And isn't it amazing how easily NBA players go down these days? They're like a bunch of Bop-a-Clowns.
Said Armstrong: "I wasn't really trying to hurt him or anything like that, I just didn't want him to have any easy dunk or an easy lay-up. You clearly saw he lost his balance when he was in the air. I didn't mean to hit him that hard, but he fell. I went to go try to help him out, but then Howard came and pushed me in the back."
Added Erik Spoelstra: "I think it's great."
I don't know about great, Erik. But bawful? Absolutely.
Dwyane Wade and the Miami broadcasting team: An anonymous reader said:
This actually just happened, no exaggeration.
After Dwyane Wade airballed a dunk attempt (hereafter known as "pulling a Joel Anthony"), the Miami announcers came back with this gem. "That hangnail is really bothering him".
I've been laughing for the past 2 minutes. Bawful in it's purest form right there.
It's true. According to one report: "Dwyane Wade briefly left Monday's win over Washington with what the Heat called a hang nail. He returned wearing tape on his left wrist and could not get into any kind of rhythm early on in the game."
For the record, WebMD defines a hangnail as "the strip of skin that separates from the side of the cuticle."
Simple home treatment can help prevent problems with hangnails:
Do not pull at or bite off a hangnail. This may cause the skin to rip.
Clip off the hangnail neatly with sharp, clean cuticle scissors.
Massage hand lotion or cream into your cuticles 2 to 3 times each day.
STOP BEING A DAMN VAGINA!!
Sadly, I don't have video of Wade's blown dunk. I do have this tho':
And because Sorbo provided the link, here's one of the great airballed dunks in the history of Western Civilization:
The New Orleans Hornets: Make it four losses in their last five games. I won't say the ship be sinkin'...but it's definitely dropped temporary anchor in the Sea of Suck.
The Hornets actually played some pretty stiff defense -- holding the Thunder to 95 points on 37 percent shooting -- but they were pounded on the boards (56-36 and 16-5 on the offensive glass) and simply ran out of gas during the fourth quarter. Over those final 12 minutes, the Thunder used a 14-0 run to outscore New Orleans 27-19.
Said Hornets coach Monty Williams: "I thought we competed our tails off tonight on the road in a tough back-to-back. The ball didn't go down. It happens in this league."
You know what else happens in this league?
And man, how about that Russell Westbrook, huh? The line: 25 points, 11 assists, 5 steals. And he scored 12 of the points in OKC's 14-o fourth quarter run. That's right, it was Westbrook -- and not Kevin Durant -- who took over in clutch time for the Thunder. And as ESPN Stats and Information pointed out: "He is averaging almost 24 points a game, and along with LeBron James, is the only player in the NBA averaging 20 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists."
This truly is the Age of the Point Guard.
Monty Williams, quote machine: Regarding Westbrook's various miscues with the basketball: "He had eight turnovers, but I thought it worked in his favor."
Russell Westbrook, quote machine: "Whatever the game tells me to do, that's kind of what I do."
But...but what if the game tells you to kill mommy and daddy with lawn darts? I would suggest selective listening, Russell. Can a game that made Greg Ostertag a multi-millionaire be trusted? I say no.
The Houston Rockets: I know they were playing on the second night of back-to-backs after a gritty win over the Thunder. And I know the Mavericks were playing at home and, frankly, are one of the best teams in the league right now. And of course Aaron Brooks and Yao Ming are still out. But damn, this team is starting to depress me.
Dirk Nowitzki, unintentionally dirty quote machine: "When a guy is hot like that, you've got to milk it."
Rick Carlisle, coach of the year candidate: From the AP recap:
Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle wasn't calling plays during the third-quarter stretch. All of Butler's points came in what the Mavs call a "flow" offense.
"When a guy gets going, our guys do a good job of finding him," Carlisle said. "We aren't doing a lot of play-calling right now."
The Milwaukee Bucks: Ugh. The Deer were without Andy Bogut (sore back), Drew Gooden (foot), Corey Maggette (flu-like symptoms!) and Carlos Delfino (birthing a human-alien hybrid from his stomach). As a result, the biggest deficit the Jazz had to overcome in this one was two points. They did, however, build a 24 point lead before kicking back and cruising in for a 109-88 win.
Said Deron Williams: "Any time you play a team that's missing a lot of guys, it can be a dangerous game because youo expect to win, you know you should win. But at the same time it's the NBA and these are NBA players. They played hard. They were just a scrappy team tonight."
Yeah, well, Team Scrappy got outshot 55 percent to 34 percent, outrebounded 48-26 and outscored 54-18 in the paint. The Bucks should thank their stars and garters Utah committed 20 turnovers or they might have scrapped their way to a 40-point loss.
On the bright side, Chris Douglas-Roberts scored a season-high 19 points and Ersan Ilyasova added a season-high 18.
By the way, ya think the Jazz have adapted to Al Jefferson and vice versa? Last night, Big Al had 20 points on 11-for-14 shooting to go along with 11 rebounds and 4 blocked shots. Speaking of which...
Al Jefferson, quote machine: "When we want to, we can play defense."
Of course, that's always been the case with Jefferson. He's just never, you know, wanted to before. But now he knows Jerry Sloan will kick his ass if he doesn't D up. Makes a difference.
John Salmons, Worst Player of the Night: Remember how Salmons caught fire when he was traded to the Bucks right before the deadline? Yeah, well, the Bulls had the same experience the previous season. The Fish Man had been red hot when Chicago dealt for him the previous February and then started the season on ice. Well, he went 1-for-11 against the Jazz last night and 36 percent on the season.
Check out his splits from last season. He's pretty much on target for his early season production. Or lack thereof. And considering how key Salmons was to Milwaukee's late-season run last season, it's not hard to understand why they've been struggling to score points (30th in both PPG and Offensive Rating) and win games.
On that subject, last night I was at the doctor's office and they had the Sports Illustrated NBA Preview issue in the waiting room. SI expected the Bucks to control the Central Division this season...even though Corey Maggette, Drew Gooden and John Salmons made up three-fifths of Milwaukee's projected starting lineup.
And all I could think was: "Has anyone at SI actually followed the these guys' careers?"
Look, I know the Bucks have had some injuries and illness or whatever. But they're 6-11 overall, 2-7 on the road, and currently scraping the bottom of their division. Scott Skiles can work minor miracles with crap rosters, and he'll probably scream this group of misfits back up to .500-ish at some point.
I'm just not Fearin' the Deer is all I'm saying.
Al Jefferson, quote machine: "They were short tonight, but that's a great team."
Andre Kirilenko, quote machine: "You've seen the Energizer Bunny. [Earl Watson and Ronnie Price] are our Energizer Bunnies. They come on the floor and give us a big spark on offense and defense. They are amazing."
Huh. I wonder if The Russian Rifle wants to use his once-a-year deal for an amazing night with Price and Watson.
Tracy McGrady, unintentionally dirty quote machine: Basketbawful reader Wade Wisdom e-mailed this instant classic Knee-Mac quote: "That guy might be getting off, but the other guy [isn't]." If you demand context, here it is.
Taken from CH Spurgeon's Morning and Evening, November 30, Evening
“Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels.” - Revelation 12:7
War always will rage between the two great sovereignties until one or other be crushed. Peace between good and evil is an impossibility; the very pretence of it would, in fact, be the triumph of the powers of darkness. Michael will always fight; his holy soul is vexed with sin, and will not endure it. Jesus will always be the dragon’s foe, and that not in a quiet sense, but actively, vigorously, with full determination to exterminate evil. All his servants, whether angels in heaven or messengers on earth, will and must fight; they are born to be warriors-at the cross they enter into covenant never to make truce with evil; they are a warlike company, firm in defence and fierce in attack. The duty of every soldier in the army of the Lord is daily, with all his heart, and soul, and strength, to fight against the dragon. The dragon and his angels will not decline the affray; they are incessant in their onslaughts, sparing no weapon, fair or foul. We are foolish to expect to serve God without opposition: the more zealous we are, the more sure are we to be assailed by the myrmidons of hell. The church may become slothful, but not so her great antagonist; his restless spirit never suffers the war to pause; he hates the woman’s seed, and would fain devour the church if he could. The servants of Satan partake much of the old dragon’s energy, and are usually an active race. War rages all around, and to dream of peace is dangerous and futile.
Glory be to God, we know the end of the war. The great dragon shall be cast out and for ever destroyed, while Jesus and they who are with him shall receive the crown. Let us sharpen our swords to-night, and pray the Holy Spirit to nerve our arms for the conflict. Never battle so important, never crown so glorious. Every man to his post, ye warriors of the cross, and may the Lord tread Satan under your feet shortly!
Taken from Charles H Spurgeon's Morning and Evening, November 30, Evening
On this site you can also find:Encouragements for Christian / Christian encouragements / Encouragements Quotes / Poem encouraging believers / Christian encouragement quotes / simple Christian sermons on encouragement / christian encouragements / biblical sermon on encouragement / Christian bookmark templates / 2010 Christian calendar template / Free printable Bible quotes / Free encouraging sermons / Biblical verse of encouragement for the believers and sermons / Free Christian encouraging images / Free christian encouraging pictures / Christian encouragements phrases
Leak: Iran offered Canada intelligence on Afghanistan
Cables Depict U.S. Haggling to Find Takers for Detainees
Reported security incidents
Baghdad: #1: On Tuesday morning, a bomb attached to a civilian car in the al-Qadisiya neighborhood of western Baghdad exploded and killed the driver, Baghdad police said.
#2: In a separate incident Tuesday morning, a bomb attached to a civilian car exploded in al-Liqa Square in western Baghdad and wounded three civilians, Baghdad police said.
Baquba: #1: And on Monday evening, four civilians were killed and 29 were wounded when a bomb in a parked car exploded Monday at an outdoor market in central Baquba, Iraq, about 35 miles (roughly 60 kilometers) north of Baghdad, police in Baquba said.
Samarra: #1: The corpses of a man and a woman have been discovered in Samarra city in Salah al-Din Province on Tuesday, according to a Salah al-Din police source.
Balad: #1: An Iraqi peasant has been killed and two others injured in an explosive charge blast west of Balad town in Salah al-Din Province on Tuesday, according to a security source. “An explosive charge blew up in Alb-Rindis area, 2 km to the west of Balad town in Salah al-Din Province, on Tuesday, killing a peasant and wounding two others,” the Salah al-Din’s security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
Baiji: #1: Police forces found on Monday two bodies of a civilian and a Sahwa fighter in west of Beiji, according to a security source. “The two men had been kidnapped yesterday in al-Sukariya village, west of Beiji,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. “The bodies were found on Beiji-al-Sieniya road, west of Beiji,” he added, noting that the corpses bore signs of gunshot wounds to the head and chest.
Mosul: #1: A bullet-riddled female body was found on Monday in eastern Mosul, according to a security source. “Policemen found on Monday (Nov. 29) a female body in al-Tahrir neighborhood, eastern Mosul,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. “The body show signs of gunshot wounds to the neck and stomach,” he added, pointing out that the corpse belongs to a 40-year-old woman.
Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War" #1: Afghan gunmen attacked a construction company in Kabul province, wounding one security guard and kidnapping nine others, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday. Gunmen opened fire on 18 Afghan guards in the mountainous Sarobi district, about 27 miles (45 kilometers) east of the capital, Kabul on Monday. Nine guards were kidnapped and nine escaped, said Zemeri Bashary, a spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry. The gunmen also seized several rifles.
#2: Two children were killed and one was injured when a bomb went off in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province on Tuesday.
#3: A suicide bomber blew himself up near a police station in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday, killing at least six people, according to news reports.
#4: A French Air Force planes F3 Rafale fighter crashed today off Pakistan in the Arabian Sea but the pilot made a successful bail-out and was immediately rescued by the French helicopters. French Defense Ministry was quoted as saying on Sunday (November 28), that “in the beginning of an air support mission in Afghanistan, a Rafale pilot who operated from the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, had to eject from his plane in the Sea, off Pakistan.” Sources say that the pilot was immediately picked up by a helicopter deputed for emergency of air operations. The pilot was safe but injured and was receiving medical treatment.
#5: Four militants were killed in exchange of fire with security forces in Puran tehsil of Shangla district on Monday, officials said. They said that all the four persons were wanted in various cases of militancy. They said that security forces were patrolling Alooch area when they saw the militants. “Soldiers asked them to surrender, but they (militants) refused and opened fire on the patrolling party,” an official said. Security forces killed them in exchange of fire, he added. The killed militants were identified as Sher Rehman, Saeedullah and Iqbal, all residents of Shangla, and Rahimullah, who belonged to Battagram district.Militants burnt three trucks carrying goods from Afghanistan to tribal areas and kidnapped the drivers in Baizai tehsil of Mohmand Agency on Monday. The driver and helper of a truck were feared killed when they resisted torching of trucks, a tribesman and official sources said.
A pivotal 2006 congressional report that raised questions about the validity of global warming research was partly based on material copied from textbooks, Wikipedia and the writings of one of the scientists criticized in the report, plagiarism experts say.
A report by George Mason University statistician Edward Wegman (right)criticized earlier research led by scientist Michael Mann that said global temperatures were highest in the last century than the previous 1,000 years.
But according to plagiarism experts, 'significant' sections of the 91-page report were lifted from 'textbooks, Wikipedia and the writings of one of the scientists criticized in the report'.
The Wegman report called into question Michael Mann's so-called 'hockey stick' graph which suggested a rapid rise in recent global temperatures.
The study was lauded as 'independent, impartial, expert' work and helped shape the US's policy on climate change but its credibility has now been called into question. The allegations come as some in Congress call for more investigations of climate scientists like the one that produced the Wegman report. "It kind of undermines the credibility of your work criticizing others' integrity when you don't conform to the basic rules of scholarship," Virginia Tech plagiarism expert Skip Garner said.
"The report was integral to congressional hearings about climate scientists," says Aaron Huertas of the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C. "And it preceded a lot of conspiratorial thinking polluting the public debate today about climate scientists."
But in March, climate scientist Raymond Bradley (right) of the University of Massachusetts asked GMU, based in Fairfax, Va., to investigate "clear plagiarism" of one of his textbooks.
Bradley says he learned of the copying on the Deep Climate website and through a year-long analysis of the Wegman report made by retired computer scientist John Mashey of Portola Valley, Calif. Mashey's analysis concludes that 35 of the report's 91 pages "are mostly plagiarized text, but often injected with errors, bias and changes of meaning." Copying others' text or ideas without crediting them violates universities' standards, according to Liz Wager of the London-based Committee on Publication Ethics.
Allegations under review
"The matter is under investigation," says GMU spokesman Dan Walsch by e-mail. In a phone interview, Wegman said he could not comment at the university's request. In an earlier e-mail Wegman sent to Joseph Kunc of the University of Southern California, however, he called the plagiarism charges "wild conclusions that have nothing to do with reality."
The plagiarism experts queried by USA TODAY disagree after viewing the Wegman report:
"Actually fairly shocking," says Cornell physicist Paul Ginsparg by e-mail. "My own preliminary appraisal would be 'guilty as charged.'
"If I was a peer reviewer of this report and I was to observe the paragraphs they have taken, then I would be obligated to report them," says Garner of Virginia Tech, who heads a copying detection effort. "There are a lot of things in the report that rise to the level of inappropriate."
"The plagiarism is fairly obvious when you compare things side-by-side," says Ohio State's Robert Coleman, who chairs OSU's misconduct committee.
As an example, one section of the Wegman report reads: 'The average width of a tree ring is a function of many variables including the tree species, tree age, stored carbohydrates in the tree, nutrients in the soil, and climatic factors.'
A book by Prof Bradley, meanwhile, states: 'The mean width of a ring in any one tree is a function of many variables, including the tree species, tree age, availability of stored food within the tree and of important nutrients in the soil, and a whole complex of climatic factors.'
The report was requested in 2005 by Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas (left), then the head of the House energy committee. Barton cited the report in an October letter to The Washington Post when he wrote that Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann's work was "rooted in fundamental errors of methodology that had been cemented in place as 'consensus' by a closed network of friends."
The Wegman report criticized 1998 and 1999 reports led by Michael Mann (Bradley was a co-author) that calculated global temperatures over the last millennium. It also contained an analysis of Mann's co-authors that appears partly cribbed from Wikipedia, Garner says.
Lisa Miller, a spokeswoman for Barton, reiterated the congressman's support of the Wegman report on Monday, saying it "found significant statistical issues" with climate studies.
A 2006 report by the National Research Council (NRC), which examines scientific disputes under a congressional charter, largely validated Mann, Bradley and the other climate scientists, according to Texas A&M's Gerald North, the panel's head. The NRC report found that Wegman report-style criticisms of the type of statistics used in 1998 and 1999 papers were reasonable but beside the point, as many subsequent studies had reproduced their finding that the 20th century was likely the warmest one in centuries.
In a 2007 presentation at the university, report co-author Yasmin Said of GMU said that a Barton committee staffer, Peter Spencer, provided the background material for the report. "Although Dr. Said's presentation seemed to imply that we were being coached by the Republicans by being given only their selected materials to look at, this was not true," Wegman said in response to a USA TODAY freedom-of-information act request.
In an updated response that he authorized on Monday, Wegman said, "In fact, when we had our initial interview with Peter Spencer, he made it very clear that the Committee wanted our opinion as statisticians as to the correctness of the mathematics used to develop the Hockey Stick (the 1999 and 1998 papers), and he explicitly told us that they wanted the truth as we saw it."
Wegman added, "I will say that there is a lot of speculation and conspiracy theory in John Mashey's analysis which is simply not true... These attacks are unprecendented in my 42 years as an academic and scholar. We are not the bad guys and we have never intended that our Congressional testimony was intended to take intellectual credit for any aspect of paleoclimate reconstruction science or for any original research aspect of social network analysis."
Information not forthcoming
The Wegman report called for improved "sharing of research materials, data and results" from scientists. But in response to a request for materials related to the report, GMU said it "does not have access to the information." Separately in that response, Wegman said his "email was downloaded to my notebook computer and was erased from the GMU mail server," and he would not disclose any report communications or materials because the "work was done off-site," aside from one meeting with Spencer.
"It's nothing personal. I don't want these guys fired or anything," Bradley says. "They should just retract or withdraw the report as you would any scientific publication that has these sort of problems."
"Mark Zuckerberg hacked into the email accounts of two ... reporters using data obtained from TheFacebook.com's logs." (How Mark Zuckerberg Hacked The Harvard Crimson) (Website for this image)
Thiel
