Verbal

From today's Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/22/syria-chemical-weapons Sending in the UN inspectors is urgent - but so is changing their terms of reference, which are limited in two ways as a consequence of gaining Russian acquiescence: 1. The inspectors at the moment cane only consider "historic" attacks, and have only this week been given permission to investigate a chemical attack that took place in MARCH; and 2. incredibly, they are not permitted to adjudicate on who is responsible. Even with that limited brief, the inspectors have still, as of today, not been allowed into the affected areas. And still the Red Crescent ambulances and medical supplies are held up... This is the sixth reported chemical attack in Syria - all in rebel-held areas - this year alone. After years of denial, the Syrian government finally admitted in had stocks of chemical weapons in July 2012.

This is what’s known as a teleological fallacy. You’re abstractly weighing up the “interests" of either antagonists and suggesting that, therefore, the one with the supposed interest in committing the atrocity is more likely to be guilty. Real events – especially those in war – don’t work like that. There's the small matter of historical contingency (ie things not fitting our neat little deductive, single-variable patterns). First of all, although the regime is rightly characterised as a dictatorship, it is a highly devolved one, where decisions by a central authority can be overturned by zealous local officials with impunity. It was not the decision by the interior ministry, for example, to murder children in Dera’a – the incident that sparked the revolt in Syria. Those who pulled the trigger were under local command, nonetheless “defending” the central regime. You’re also not factoring in the actual balance of forces around Damascus, which may determine how desperate the central regime becomes. The regime has no fear of the UN inspectors being a short drive away from the sites of the gas and missile attack so long as it denies them permission to visit and collect evidence in a timely way. The inspectors can go nowhere without the regime’s say-so. Also, no one knows the status of the chemical weapons held by the regime. DP’s claim that they’re all “under lock and key” suggests either that it MUST be the regime that committed the atrocity, or that the rebels are being supplied chemical weapons by outsiders, presumably the West. (I notice DP has now drastically modified his claim to there being “no evidence or allegations that PRIOR to the disintegration of Syria had ever used chemical weapons.” There is, I repeat, no way of knowing whether or not those weapons remain unused and “under lock and key”.) Whichever you think is more likely, a most urgent issue is that the UN inspectors be granted immediate access to the sites of the attack. Then the truth will have a chance of coming out amid the blizzards of misinformation perpetrated by Assad apologists, Russian propagandists, right-wing zealots and conspiracy-dimwits who've already declared the saintly Assad innocent. But an even bigger priority is surely to treat the badly injured survivors. The regime – of course – continues to prevent the Red Crescent to enter the neighbourhoods to do just this. This in itself is an outrage. Ultimately, to address Brett’s original question, I personally advocate the kind of intervention in Syria that would make the most difference – the demand for the unfettered movement of medics and medicines to the victims of war. The regime has throughout the revolt denied this to the extent of murdering medics whenever and wherever it can find them.

I think you need to be very circumspect with these sources. The first one is actually Russia Today (RT), a news organization funded by the Putin’s Russian foreign service. For such a direct claim – of “finding sarin gas in the homes of Syrian Islamists – it quotes no sources in Turkey whatsoever. The only direct quote comes – hardly surprisingly – from the Russian foreign ministry, who declare themselves “concerned” about media reports they themselves have paid for. They do quote the American Marxist historian Gerard Horne to support their case – although he, of course, has no more direct knowledge of what happened than you or I. This is the report that empty-headed conspiracy theorists will call “interesting”. Worse than those irrelevances, though, RT’s stuff is frequently picked up by the American far-right, who have long taken the position that the Assad regime should be preserved at all costs. These include the “anti-Zionist” Lyndon LaRouche – and just to get a measure of the man, he gave a speech last week in which claims that 9/11 was an “Anglo-Saudi” plot, and among the true authors of the attack was the Queen. So the RT report is hardly, by any definition, an “independent credible source”, and is all part of the “noise” from vested interests that invariably surround attacks like this. The other source for the attack being the responsibility of the rebels is obviously much more credible. Carla Del Ponte is a member of a UN commission of inquiry, and she has indeed stated that she has found “suspicions, but not incontrovertible proof” of a sarin attack by rebel (presumably AQ) forces. However, she remains in a minority, and was, in any case, referring to a much smaller gas attack in May. She has made no comment at all yet about the multiple-rocket attack into rebel-held areas on the outskirts of Damascus that occurred this week. Ultimately, you have to be very careful with all this. The alternative is to jump with both bozo feet and declare, as DP, does, that: “Now, accuse Bashar of many things, BUT his Chemical Weapons had stayed under lock and key.” He has no way of knowing that – nor do any of us. It’s a laughable claim. It may indeed turn out that the rebels, or some faction of them, were able to commandeer the rockets and the toxic gas canisters and then launch them at their own people in order to discredit the regime. But in the clamour to blame anyone but the Assad regime, don’t let it out of your sight that this regime has a long, long history of brutal massacres and bloody revenge. (I’m sorry to say I’ve inadvertently stood on top of one of the mass graves dug for his father’s victims in Hama in 1982). Provided the UN inspectors are allowed into the affected areas quickly to collect evidence, the truth will come out, just as it did at Halabja. If there is a delay of more than a few days, the toxins dissipate and evidence becomes harder to find. We’ll see…

Who are these "independent credible sources" exactly? And what is their evidence that the opposition have the necessary infrastructure and possession of sarin or other toxic gas capable of being delivered in such a way? Links please. If the Assad regime has nothing to hide, they will let the UN inspectors in immediately. It's only a 30-minute drive from their base in Damascus to the suburbs where the attacks took place. If the inspectors are obstructed, as they usually are, then it's reasonable to assume that the regime committed this appalling act. In any case, evidence is already being collected, so the truth will eventually come out.

Pop that into the past tense and you have a tombstone epigram for all Saints fans.

Sorry, you completely lost me at the comparison of OFAH with Outnumbered. One a reworking of the writer's tough (and for that reason comedic) working-class background in south London, the other a slightly amusing, comfy middle-class riff on the dubious wonders of children. Anyway, just to give you some real clue as to how hard it is, here is tonight's peak-time schedule on C4's comedy 'incubator', E4: 14:00 Scrubs 14:35 Scrubs 15:00 Charmed 16:00 Rules of Engagement 16:30 Rules of Engagement 17:00 How I Met Your Mother 17:35 How I Met Your Mother 18:00 Big Bang Theory 18:30 Big Bang Theory 19:00 Hollyoaks 19:30 How I Met Your Mother 20:00 How I Met Your Mother 20:30 Big Bang Theory 21:00 New Girl 21:30 The Mindy Project 22:00 Happy Endings 22:30 The Cleveland Show 23:00 8 Out of 10 Cats See much innovation there? Virtually everything has two things in common: it's American; and it's therefore been through the ruthlessly Darwinian commissioning pattern of Hollywood-produced sitcom. Believe it or not, this is not how those who set up E4 saw it going!

You're accidentally making my case for me. The BBC in the mainstream doesn't "incubate" comedy - it translates an already proven success from one platform to another, whether it's R4, BBC3 or bought in from a commercial rival. (There's plenty of stuff which doesn't get much past the starting blocks in its original version - and none of these will you see on BBC1.) The reason it does this is precisely that the result is more of a sure thing. (The MB, Thick Of It, etc., were all sure things before they reached the main channels) Sometimes it does this without realising (The history of The Office, and its rocky path to broadcast, would tell you this). Extras is a good example of what happens when you 'package" comedy (and I speak as someone who quite enjoyed the series). It's a sure thing because of Gervais. Similarly 'Derek' was in effect C4 poaching Gervais because he was a known quantity developing difficult material. (Even with Gervais's imprimatur, though, I doubt that Derek will ever see the light again. Why? Bad ratings.) Comedy commissioners are among the most vulnerable in television. They are hired and fired at an astonishingly fast rate these days. This is the reason they will grasp for the perceived certainty of Gervais, to take just one example. Even with a show like The Inbetweeners, the 'sure thing' was that the writers had made Peep Show and had themselves been comedy commissioners at C4. Even so, it would have been canned after the first series had it not performed in the ratings. And this is true of all successful shows you list: they had all built their audiences before the end of their first run. You could see this as the result of the changed landscape of television. There are simply more channels now, and it makes commercial sense to develop what might become sure things a little off the radar on smaller channels or radio. The result, though, is more caution, and, by definition, less risk-taking, even if the outcome of this can be brilliant shows. The role of the comedy commissioning editor these days is not the 'nurturing of talent' but, rather like a Hollywood agent, the packaging and re-packaging of pre-existing successes.

That's only a subsidiary point. His main one, which seems incontrovertible, is that television comedy series have much less time to develop today than they did twenty or more years ago. Scripted TV is only part of this, but actually the main problem is with comedy executives needing instant rewards - not least because their jobs and reputations depend on their 'hit' rate. In this sense, British TV comedy has moved closer to the American network model of thrive or die. In practice, this has meant a reliance on established stars or writers, even on more 'adventurous' channels (as C4 once was). But there's no inevitability to this. The startling success of high-quality, original short drama series, both in the US and Europe, has shown that there are places on network television where experimentation and risk are rewarded. It's just that there is a dearth of really good comedy executives in Britain right now - not one of them on the big channels in the UK has the heft to set agendas, and they are all hoping for the next 'fix' of an instant-hit series without the courage to back something they know is good, even if it starts with less than impressive ratings.

Actually the problem might be the opposite. Prime real estate in London is now so expensive that even the best-paid prem players would get an inferiority complex. Even outside the strictly prime areas, it can be eye-popping. The largest and best terrace houses right by the Putney End at Craven Cottage would set him back around £4m. Nearer the Hurlingham Club, they rise to £6m. (Do top players live in terraced houses any more?) For that you could pick up a palace outside the not-quite best bits of London. Perhaps someone should send him a link to rightmove.

You'd think so, wouldn't you. But this stand is pretty exclusively for the prawn and sandwiches brigade at Fulham (ie bankers) so a view of the river is pretty vital, football being so declasse.

The Times, which is pretty cautious mostly, is reporting our and Norwich's interest in Bologna defender Frederik Sorensen. (No link - damned paywall.)

Easy question, complicated answer. But the essence of it is: Abandon the civil service structure, which is wildly inappropriate for a broadcaster and a hangover from the 1920s. Hive off all compliance to an expanded and more transparent BBC Trust. Adopt the commissioning/publisher model of C4, with BBC productions as a separate entity. And end the dominance of journalists in the management of the place. I can't think of a single DG, for example, who has not progressed from news & current affairs. But where else in the world are journalists considered to be uniquely brilliant captains of industry? (It was clear to me before Mark Thompson had even risen to be controller of BBC2 that he was trouble in the making. He appeared to me to be an obsequious flunky who, when gaining power of his own, would expect others to adopt his flunky-ness. A model BBC lifer.) These changes - and many others - will make it harder to treat the abuses of Saville as an "official secret". It would also help break down some of the deep-ingrained institutional problems, not least that it's predominantly a southern, white, Oxbridge, middle-class protectorate, in which lifers who would have no transferable skills to the outside world are self-rewarded as if they were financial whizz kids. Greg Dyke tells the story of when he started work at the BBC as DG and was told how "complicated" the place was. "No, it's not," he said. "It's easy - all we have to do is spend money. We don't have to earn a penny." It's in that cosy world that Saville - and others - thrived, and, worse than that, were able to translate their BBC-protected fame, and the peculiarities of the BBC star system, into a lifetime of horrific abuse. Remember, in the end, Saville was a flagship for an institution that argued that all its works were in the name of the public good. The flagrancy with which Saville ruined lives had the stamp of BBC endorsement, because he symbolised, more than any other "personality" of his time, the good that the BBC did.

Accidentally clicked on the first page of this thread and found this. Who says there are no ITKs on SWF... Amazing how commonly known his activities were - and how powerless people felt to do anything about it. Having done time inside the BBC, it's unfortunately very easy to see how that could have been allowed to happen. There has long been a culture there that has not only permitted grotesque behaviour from its "stars", but has actually threatened and intimidated staff (many on tenuous freelance contracts) who've raised issues about them. The culprits, aside from the offenders themselves, are the upper-management 'lifers', many of whom entered the BBC as production or news trainees 20 or 30 years ago, and who are now in the news for different reasons - for the vast amounts of licence-fee cash they've been in the habit of awarding each other. Nothing excuses Savile's - or others' - behaviour, but a deep institutional corruption goes a long way to explaining what made it possible. Unfortunately, no one is suggesting that the BBC itself needs to be substantially reformed - something that's always been incredibly difficult because of the perception of political interference.

A respectful proposal to CB, buctootim, socal, aintforever and others who've tried to contribute some sense to this thread: shall we all agree to stop posting here? I'm not sure what spectacle I'm witnessing with pap, but it's starting to make me, at least, very uneasy.

I had thought that a possibility, Tim. Many of his posts are highly disordered when he tries to tie things together. Another possibility I'd wondered about was an excess of narcissism - he loves the attention, and lacks empathy, which enables him to brush aside how victims' families and others might feel about his labelling them evil collaborators with "the state". But I think it's best to proceed on the basis that he genuinely believes this stuff and shares his views (or rather simply echoes them) with others on the net - although if he posts the 'best' 10% of what he reads, god only knows what the other 90% is, and does to his mind. There is certainly a very basic difficulty in processing information - for example, seeing things in photos that are not there or imagining that they are when they're not. The photo, above, for example, is supposed (according to pap) to show a gun. It doesn't. There appears to be a blood-stained knife in view, but that's all. Pap also claims triumphantly that the cops haven't cuffed him, not noticing the pixellation on Adebowale's raised right hand, which conceals the well-reported fact that he's had his thumb blown off when he'd earlier fired the gun, presumably because the pin backfired. We also don't know at what point that photo was taken - had the police, for example just momentarily arrived? All of the more plausible, but dull, explanations are brushed aside in favour of the baroque "false flag". He's also creamed himself about the 'beheading' claim, which is an example of the same sort of thing. Everyone knows that eyewitness accounts are liable to be found to be a little off when all the evidence, forensics and other witness accounts are collated. However, the original tweet was hardly far off. In the autopsy, Lee Rigby could only be identified by his dental records, suggesting that his face and neck had taken the brunt of the "deep incised wounds" reported by the coroner, to such an extent that they had obliterated his facial features. They were clearly hacking at his head and face, and, given the history of Muslim-fanatic murders (including Daniel Pearl and many in Iraq), beheading, or the attempt to do so, is a favoured choice. He may not have ultimately been beheaded (it's actually quite hard to do, as anyone who's had the misfortune to witness the Pearl killing can testify). But it would not be at all surprising to discover that they were going for that. Of course, if Rigby had been murdered earlier - pap's absurd 'favoured' theory (!) - then the coroner is also in on the conspiracy. And the autopsy surgeons. Otherwise, they'd have reported either signs of decomposition or a failure to identify him at all. If he's still alive, then all the more so. But this is the pattern for conspiracy theorists. They deal with every problem they encounter by widening the conspiracy. The conspiracy has even widened to posters on this thread - because he can't compute dissension from his fantasies, and can only process by explaining that he's dealing with government-financed "shills" on Saintsweb (!!). It's why many 9/11 conspiracy theorists now accuse other 9/11 conspiracy theorists of being US government shills. The fact that his only supporter is an anti-Semitic buffoon also doesn't give pause for thought. Because, in the end, there is no thought, only the spectacle of an obsessive (who's admitted as much) constitutionally unable to let go. So ultimately, I don't know about pap's psychological state. But I've seen more than enough now that I'm bowing out - presumably with another round of his fatuous and paranoid 'shill' accusations!

QED. On the one hand, I didn't think anti-Semitic posts, as a form of racism, were tolerated on here. On the other, it just illustrates my point that Jew-hating is written into the DNA of modern conspiracy theories. If you want to consider the company you keep, here's new evidence and testimony that Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev enthusiastically endorsed not only 9/11 conspiracy theories, but also one of the great fabrications perpetrated by conspiracy theorists, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which, among other things, provided Hitler, in Mein Kampf, with the rants that led ultimately to the Final Solution. http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/08/07/unlikely-friendship/xQao9NHjkUvtvhTcK1uwCL/story.html

I've dealt with this many times before, but I'll try and say it in words even you might understand. It is not my OPINION that you share the views of Jew-haters, terrorists and extreme right-wingers. It is a simple FACT. Since you are so keen to identify yourself with the supposed heroism of "questioners of atrocities", let's take Holocaust denial. The Neo-Nazi and Hitler apologist David Irving is a Holocaust denier. By your argument - that "questioners of atrocities" should be lauded - you should praise Irving to the skies for arguing that the gas chambers at Auschwitz were "a hoax". This is EXACTLY the form of argument you so admire. Mainstream media be damned! Irving's got a point! Right? **** those filthy Jews for pretending they were incinerated! Too uncomfortably non-PC for you? Try this. As a 9/11 denier, you will no doubt have read (if you do read) the work of David Ray Griffin, the theology professor who has written a dozen books on the 9/11 "hoax". Griffin is by far the most celebrated of all 9/11 deniers. Clearly someone you should admire. However, Griffin is a disciple and close friend of Holocaust denier Richard Falk. In fact, Falk wrote the foreword to Griffin's book, "The New Pearl Harbour", praising the author's "courage" and "fortitude". Griffin, by turn, credits Falk for getting the book published. Falk is regular contributor to TruthJihad.com, where he fulminates against the "ethnic Jews" who control the "mainstream media". Again, this is something you should welcome, given your stance on the "mainstream media". Here is someone deeply sceptical of the "mainstream media" - and who is not afraid to make explicit that the mainstream media is a Jewish conspiracy. A round of applause, don't you think? Incidentally, in claiming that 9/11 was committed by "established (meaning Jewish) elites of the American governmental structure", Falk praises that other great questioner of atrocities (the Holocaust), anti-Semite and 9/11 denier, the Iranian tyrant (retired), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Finally - and to bring this back to the topic - The Tsarnaev brothers were/are celebrated 9/11 deniers. I say celebrated - but that's only because people like you have made them so, with your implications that Boston was another inside job, a hoax, a false flag, etc., and that the Tsarnaevs are innocent "patsies". There's even evidence now that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was radicalised not just by Jihadism in Dagestan and his Chechnyan homeland (where the object of hatred is not America but Russia), but by the fantasies of conspiracy theorists as well. Now, to be clear, I am not accusing YOU of being a neo-Nazi, a Jew-hater, a terrorist, or a right-wing extremist. However, I AM accusing you of sharing the same ideas and ideals as these scumbags. And again, as I say, it is not so much an accusation as a simple statement of fact. Rather pathetically, in your case, you're none of these cartoon monsters; just someone who's accidentally fallen in line with them because you're evidently too stupid to REALLY question the world around you. You have convinced yourself that by regurgitating the crap you glean from your computer screen you are some sort of swordsman of truth. To me, at least (I can't speak for others), your cognitively dysfunctional ramblings are just a bit sad. Do you understand now? Or is this something you will never quite grasp? I'll let you - as is your undeniable impulse - have the last word.

In the words of Richard Dawkins:

I've hesitated to say this, because I haven't been quite able to convince myself that anyone could argue a line that is simply so stupid. But it seems, incredibly, you are completely unable to distinguish between conspiracies and conspiracy theories. You evidently live in a world where they meld together in some unholy, brain-scrambling mess (hence, I suppose, the cognitive disorgnaisation of your mostly unreadable and unintelligible posts). So to help you out: There are real conspiracies, with things like evidence, criminal prosecutions, witnesses, real victims, clear motives - and exposure by credible, well-evidenced, first-hand researched journalists and investigators. These conspiracies include Watergate (several conspiracies all wrapped in one, uncovered by the diligent footwork of reporters mostly from the NY Times and the Washington Post), Iran-Contra (actually revealed first of all by a Lebanese news magazine but later picked up by American journalists and investigators, resulting in several prosecutions and a close-run thing from Reagan), Prism (exposed by a brave whistleblower and reported by Guardian journalists), etc, etc. And of course 9/11 was a conspiracy, carried out by Al Qeada under the command of OBL, Khaled Sheikh Mohammad and Aiman Zawahiri, and led my Mohammad Attar. There are conspiracies that go unreported, or are reported on too late. These include WMD - although there are some exceptions even with this, such as Andrew Gilligan's "sexed up" claims which got him fired from the BBC. And then there are conspiracy theories. These today are all generated by obsessive internet "theorists" who misuse the term "theory" (when they mean wild fantasy), and who don't bother with anything else than the "evidence" presented to them second-hand by Google. The idea of actually going out there into the real world and testing thir ideas against it is completely alien. Ask yourself honestly: have you ever gone beyond your grubby little keyboard to actually acquire first-hand evidence? Actually, when conspiracy theorists ARE confronted with the real world, things suddenly change. The BBC made a documentary not so long ago called 9/11 Conspracy Road Trip, in which the fimmakers took a group of internet conspiracy theorists to meet real witnesses, family victims, etc., of 9/11. Guess what? When they were exposed to the event by doing real research as opposed to mindless googling, they changed their views. One of those theorists was Charlie Veitch. As reported by Slate.com, this is what happened: When Veitch went public with his change of mind, other conspiracy theorists abused and threatened him with a terrible death, even hacking into his site to make claims that he was a child abuser. He was also accused of being a deep-cover intelligence agent. Such is the pleasing nature of conspiracy "theory". The other example is Dylan Avery, the director of the most famous conspiracy theory documentary of all, Loose Change. Avery has backed away from the entire 9/11 truther movement after himself encountering real people and evidence associated with 9/11. The blood-curdling threats aimed at Veitch were something of a last straw: So much for the swords of your "truthers". You single out Saville as the one great triumph for conspiracy theorists, citing Icke as your shining knight. But Icke knew about Saville only because he worked at the BBC, like everyone else who'd heard the stories doing the rounds in the corridors at TVC. Well before Icke, Johnny Lydon was making public and highly explicit claims about Saville. ITV's exposure was the first time (aside from the aborted Newsnight report) someone had gone out and investigated the claims, interviewed numerous victims at length and spoken to law police and lawyers and broadcast employees. Only then did the thing really blow open. Icke's regurgitated gossip had no effect whatsoever, and he was just one of dozens of people who'd gossiped about Saville without the moral courage to actually do something tangible and useful about it. So some simple, helpful advice: if you are really THAT interested in the stuff you post about, go out and meet with people, talk to real human beings, learn how to evaluate various forms of original evidence. It will be frightening, the real world - because it won't conform to your tired paranoid ideas (or rather others' tired ideas which you simply reproduce unquestioningly). But you may actually learn something and do some much needed maturing.

Watergate doesn't count. Pap says so. He put up a "top 50" list of conspiracy theories the other week and Watergate wasn't even on it. Pap is also so right about "official" version, you know. When 9/11 went down, all reporters in the mainstream media were handed press releases by Donald Rumsfeld, and these were faithfully reproduced to fool everyone into thinking that the US government didn't needlessly, pointlessly, murder thousands of its own citizens. The commonest ruse by conspiracy theorists is to claim that anyone who disagrees with them are sheeple who believe in some mythical "official" version. The nuance of reporters (too numerous to mention) going out and investigating stories for themselves is completely lost on them. The nuance of exposing government malfeasance also passes them by completely. But then who needs reporters when conspiracy theorists are so good at what they do?! It was them, after all, who exposed the MPs' expenses scandal, the hacking scandal, Watergate, Prism, the Abu Ghraib photos, British army war crimes in Iraq, etc, etc. So we should thank pap for all his investigative zeal. He's really made a difference by producing not a single original idea - even a whacked out conspiracy idea - of his own, and instead taking the worthy course of unquestioningly regurgitating the utter crap he feverishly googles online.

Of course he doesn't make a lot of sense - that's his point!! How could that possibly have escaped your attention? To ottery, I had no idea you were going to have the courage to put up your list of criminal conspiracists among Catholics and others. Well done you. Post the names on here - unless of course you're a tiny bit nervous of looking even more foolish. Or of libelling people.

You can hardly claim to be surprised at this. The Boston bombing was carried out by two conspiracy theorists - both of them were 9/11 deniers. The 9/11 "truthers" are now in a sorry state. What started with Paul Thompson's authoritative "Terror Timeline" has degenerated into an ever more extreme clique of right-wingers and Jew-haters. Hence the quite sharp decline in public support for the "truther" movement - everywhere except in countries like Pakistan where anti-Semitism has a ferocious hold. So bad is the state of things among our paranoid friends that even earlier conspiracy theories about 9/11 are being characterised as part of the "false flag" operations by the US government. Truther claims that the Pentagon was hit by a missile and not an American Airlines aircraft are now condemned by other the conspiracy theorists as a conspiracy! The truther movement has now eaten itself. View this ridiculousness here: http://911research.com/essays/pentagon/video.html So this news about the brothers is completely to be expected.

Can you tell me in which refereed scientific journals this debate is happening? I have a university library log in so can go and fetch the abstracts. Just trying to help along some sensible discussion, rather than the disreputable guff pedalled by dubiously financed "sceptics".

Can you please list any papers published in refereed scientific journals which argue that these "other factors" are more significant as causes of the rise in global mean temperatures? It's easy enough to find individual scientists who've made such claims, but they always seem to be what one might only politely call "dodgy". Professor Murry Salby, or example - often trotted out by deniers, but also sacked from his post at McQuarrie and banned from accessing National Science Foundation funds in the US for various dubious activities. The list of Salby-alikes among the scientific deniers is endless... So one refereed article - that would be nice.