Your excuse doesn’t hold, mhaze.

//If you’d left that last snark out of your comments, I’d have set you straight and then dropped it. But snark requires a smack-down.//

If that’s really how you felt, then correcting me at the time would’ve been the honest and natural response. But you didn’t - not because you were exercising restraint, and not because I deserved a “smack-down.” You didn’t say anything because you hadn’t read that part of the paper.

And now, days later, you’re retrofitting your silence with a self-serving story: that you were merely biding your time, holding back a correction out of wounded dignity, only to come roaring back after looking it up. It’s not believable - especially coming from someone whose daily tone makes my one-line of “snark” look like a love letter.

As for your latest accusation:

//The devastating error was that you knew so little about these facts that you thought (1) I was wrong and (2) it showed I hadn't read the paper.//

Let’s break that down.

(1) I never said your figure was wrong. I quoted the median (120 years) and should’ve made that clearer - which I later did.

(2) I said your mistake suggested you hadn’t read the paper - because, until then, you’d been paraphrasing a debunking blog and showed no sign of having read Marcott directly. That impression wasn’t pulled from thin air. It was based on your misrepresentation of the paper’s claims, your refusal to engage with its actual argument, and your initial silence on the resolution nuance you’re now fixated on.

So no, the “devastating error” wasn’t ignorance on my part. It was your stubborn attempt to blow a single statistic into a scandal to avoid acknowledging that you misrepresented Marcott’s findings and ignored Neukom’s entirely until cornered.

And we’re still waiting for you to walk that back.

"because, until then, you’d been paraphrasing a debunking blog and showed no sign of having read Marcott directly. That impression wasn’t pulled from thin air. It was based on your misrepresentation of the paper’s claims, your refusal to engage with its actual argument, and your initial silence on the resolution nuance you’re now fixated on."

You fabricate more often than I breathe.

If you say so, mhaze.

//You fabricate more often than I breathe.//

You’re certainly quick to accuse, but never quite as quick to explain - rules for thee, but not for me.

I’ve supported my position with citations, direct quotes, and a clear account of how your claim evolved and unraveled. You, on the other hand, have responded with:

- A vague accusation (see above)
- No examples
- No rebuttal of the points I raised
- And still no engagement with the actual claim you made - that modern warming rates show "no evidence" of being unusual.

If you genuinely think I’ve fabricated something, say what it is. Quote me. Show your work. Because if all you’ve got left is dismissive bluster, then I’m happy to let the audience judge which of us has done the heavy lifting here - and which of us just hopes no one notices the retreat behind smoke.