Gee Graham, your post is directly underneath mine where I wrote that you said "that I was like a Nazi". And you respond by saying that "I didn't call you a Nazi". Well, duh, I never said that you did. See those words "like a" in my post? Consequently your whole rant about how I don't know what a metaphor is, is more than a little wide of the mark.

Brownshirts were Nazi thugs. Calling some a brownshirt is abusive. And yes, it's a metaphor, but that doesn't make it less offensive. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_Law

And I'm fascinated by your claim that the hockey stick is a "hoax". How come the climate scientists don't seem to share your opinion on this? Is it your thesis that they are all involved in giant conspiracy or what?

Dear Pynchme,

So the the only example you gave was from Windschuttle own web site "and surely you know that". Well, yes, that's why I pointed it out to you. Now I notice you don't give another example; and I notice to don't reply to my asking whether you checked out that lone example carefully as Mr Windschuttle says we should.

So you refer us now to Prof. Blainey, John Howard's favourite historian and inventor, as I understand it, of the phrase, the 'Black armband view of history', a phrase much admired by Howard to justify his failure to act on reconciliation.

As one who proposes that we should not let passion prevail over all else, perhaps you could point to the evidence to justify your allegation that those who rebut Mr Windschuttle
are engaged in what you call a "stupid campaign to vilify and silence a detractor"?

Otherwise, we might, as you so nicely put it, "suppose that lies will suffice instead of scholarship and integrity, and I just can't accept that".

Interesting that Quiggin says this at his blog about KeithW:
<i># jquiggin Says:
January 19th, 2009 at 2:25 pm

“That is outside the scope of the controversy between Windschuttle and the historians he discountenances.”

Except as regards the new vaporware Volume 2 mentioned in the post, which is supposed to be about the Stolen Generations.

Perhaps Windschuttle could make an annual announcement of a virtual Volume 2, alerting the right to historical evidence they should disregard, but without the necessity of actually writing anything.</i>

Quiggin wrote a book published in 1994 carefully explaining that the fight against sky high unemployment over the past 15 years was lost and so we should expect that nothing could be done by the private market and that only massive doses of recurrent government spending in the people services would alter that “fact”. The fight against unemployment was coming from an economist no less.

He’s smearing keithW now for not writing a second volume he supposedly promised obviously suggesting that W was lying about the second volume.

Here's a thought while we’re waiting for W to write publish, perhaps Quiggin could publish a book to explain what happened to the view that we were destined to remain with high unemployment, why he was wrong and why Howard succeeded when 13 years of labor rule failed. Now that would be interesting.

Of course that’s intermission while waiting for Keith’s book.

He’s always good with the old smear, the old Quiggler. Pity he’s always threatening to sue people when he gets the same back.

“Quick, give me the phone, I calling my lawyer on speedial” LOL.

These two clowns -Quiggin and Faulty-Lambert- are the biggest cry-baby bullies on the web bar no one. No wonder they collaborate on smearing tactics.

Just look at how these two complete clowns are part of the bigger effort by lefties to swarm W at the first sign of trouble.

It’s sick stuff.

Hi Spikey,

There are loads of examples; some contained in those links. It's rather silly to expect me to copy and paste each of them when you can read them just as well from those links or from other sources.

It seems to me that you believe that contemporary political allegiances justify dishonesty. Just FYI in the past I have stood for one reason or another with each of our major parties but for several years have had no political allegiances - both our major parties repell me.

I do have convictions though about honesty and integrity in scholarship. Therefore the carry on about whether one is right or left and blah blah based on whether one supports Windschuttle or not is neither here nor there. It's a red herring at best. In I think the first link I provided he explained how he became intrigued with the subject under discussion.

Now Blainey (yes of course I am familiar with the black armband school of thinking); is an historian who is, I think, pretty much above reproach as far as honesty goes. That doesn't mean that I agree with many of his overall theses, interpretations or conclusions... and that's ok. I can disagree with an historian and still respect their work.

I can't respect people who do dishonest scholarship and then compound that by trying to bully, belittle and diminish their critic; especially without addressing the core issue of honesty in scholarship.

Tim, when you come across someone who defends the Hockey Stick Graph you know you've moved out of the realm of science and into that of irrational belief. Fits with your literacy problems. I see from your post that you still don't understand figures of speech. I didn't call you a Nazi of any sort, or even say you were "like" a Nazi.

I've just realised how much you share in common with the fundamentalist Christians of the Deep South. You have your sacred texts - IPCC,and a smattering of peer-reviewed papers etc. Your beliefs depend on excluding a large number of other texts and a selective reading of those which you privilege, ignoring context and nuance. And instead of reviewing and changing your beliefs when reality doesn't turn-out to match them, you actually become even more fervent a believer.

What is so hard about accepting that it is not unusually warm at the moment, even on the standards of the last 1000 years? All the physical evidence points to that being the case. But that gets in the way of your Apocaplyptic world view I suppose.

Dear Spikey“
""You have your view I have mine; both of these views are valid and neither of us will convince the other." A curious post-modernist view: we disagree totally but both are views are valid? If we disagree we can't, logically, both be right. Logically (my italics and bold) either one of us is wrong, or both of us are wrong.””
Cripes Spikey I was giving you the benefit of the doubt re your intelligence. Why can’t we both be right? We are talking about VALUES/BELIEFS. We are not talking about statements that are capable of being proven wrong eg “If you were a serious scholar, you wouldn't need me to point you towards the roll call of eminent historians (repeat historians) who assess Windschuttle's work as partial in both senses - i.e. one-sided and incomplete.” Just show me the results of the study; who was surveyed, the question(s) asked etc. Then we can argue about facts not values.
“You yourself use the term 'eminent historian' to describe Windschuttle. The man couldn't even complete his PHD.”
Well dear Dr(Ph D)Spikey he has had a few books out there for people to read, and numerous journal articles etc published so he can be criticized/evaluated/ praised/damned.
I look forward to reading your contributions out there in the wider non-blog world or will they be written under a nom de plume?
Regards
Blai