Loudmouth,

"I am honestly trying to tease out issues and possible defects in the arguments of people like Hansen."

Yes, I'm well aware that you like to hold yourself up as some sort of noble ad hominem-free zone - even as you go merrily along constructing your tinder-dry straw men, as in:

"Another method of avoiding the consensus of evidence is through the use of logical fallacies....by focusing on their weaker arguments while ignoring their stronger points."

Good job on that particular tactic in your last post - any comments on the rest of Hansen's paper?

Oh and I suppose this is you "not" employing ad hominem?

"As Poirot put it so characteristically, and with all the sophistication and depth of the current student left..."

Added to the fact that most of your posts virtually drip with sarcastic and patronising contempt for your opponent. But you don't do that, do you Joe? Only you opponents resort to ad hominem....yeah, sure!

As I mentioned in relation to the petition signed by 31,000 scientists on the lack of scientific basis for AGW, one of the signatories is a leading world scientist, Dyson Freeman.

The warmist scientific editor of The Independent engaged in an email exchange in an effort to have Dyson deviate from his stance. Dyson said:

“Among my friends, I do not find much of a consensus. Most of us are sceptical and do not pretend to be experts. My impression is that the experts are deluded because they have been studying the details of climate models for 30 years and they come to believe the models are real. After 30 years they lose the ability to think outside the models. And it is normal for experts in a narrow area to think alike and develop a settled dogma…..To say that the dogmas are wrong has become politically incorrect. As a result, the media generally exaggerate the degree of consensus and also exaggerate the importance of the questions………..Unfortunately the global warming hysteria, as I see it, is driven by politics more than by science. If it happens that I am wrong and the climate experts are right, it is still true that the remedies are far worse than the disease that they claim to cure ……………………………..I blame The Independent for seriously misleading your readers. You give them the party line and discourage them from disagreeing.”

Read it all at:

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/letters-to-a-heretic-an-email-conversation-with-climate-change-sceptic-professor-freeman-dyson-2224912.html

On the question of dishonesty or ignorance, Agronomist has aligned himself with the likes of bonmot, Poirot, Kenny as dishonest.

Geoff of Perth, Robert le Page, James O’Neill might still have the benefit of being designated ignorant

Loudmouth, I wasn't offering you any advice. However, if you wish to look like the village idiot, be my guest. It is not my fault you are unable to read a simple graph. But that does not concern me, because others will look at the graph and see how wrong your statement was. That is all I need to achieve. Job is done, I think.

Leo says: “On the question of dishonesty or ignorance … yada yada yada

Leo may as well lump the New Zealand High Court as dishonest and/or ignorant with the rest of us too:

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8529498

Ok, Freeman Dyson is 90, but he is right in one respect - global warming hysteria is driven by politics more than science.

That is why you get the likes of Leo's Lavoisier Group, cohenite's Climate Sceptics Party, and Gina Rinehart/Andrew Bolt's game plan (for example) pushing the 'business as usual' barrel.

Leo Lane, I suspect you mean Freeman Dyson? Now tell me, what is his expertise in climate science? Is it greater or lesser than the 7 astronauts you referred to earlier as experts?

So long as you continue to fall into the argument from authority fallacy, I will continue to point out the failure of your position

>>I wonder if anything like extreme events ever happened in Australia before the 1990s, or were ever recorded in Aboriginal folklore or early settler literature, like Banjo Paterson's or Henry Lawson's stories.<<

Said Hanrahan

(apologies to John O'Brien)

"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
In accents most forlorn,
Outside the church, ere Mass began,
One frosty Sunday morn.

The congregation stood about,
Coat-collars to the ears,
And talked of stock, and crops, and drought,
As it had done for years.

"It's looking crook," said Daniel Croke;
"Bedad, it's cruke, me lad,
For never since the banks went broke
Has seasons been so bad."

"It's dry, all right," said young O'Neil,
With which astute remark
He squatted down upon his heel
And chewed a piece of bark.

And so around the chorus ran
"It's keepin' dry, no doubt."
"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"Before the year is out."

"The crops are done; ye'll have your work
To save one bag of grain;
From here way out to Back-o'-Bourke
They're singin' out for rain.

"They're singin' out for rain," he said,
"And all the tanks are dry."
The congregation scratched its head,
And gazed around the sky.

"There won't be grass, in any case,
Enough to feed an ass;
There's not a blade on Casey's place
As I came down to Mass."

"If emissions don’t drop this month," said Dan,
And cleared his throat to speak -
"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"If emissions don’t drop this week."

A heavy silence seemed to steal
On all at this remark;
And each man squatted on his heel,
And chewed a piece of bark.

"We want an ETS, we do,"
O'Neil observed at last;
But Croke "maintained" we wanted two
To put the danger past.

"If we don't get a wind farm, man,
Or solar to break this drought,
We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"Before the year is out."

TBC