The Angry Exile: It was bullshit? Really?

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Thursday 1 October 2009

It was bullshit? Really?

No need to go into details when it's been done so well elsewhere by Devils, bishops (and a snappy title the Bishop gives it there too), clowns among others (see also here and most especially here). All I'll add, and again I won't be the first, is that it's really no big surprise. There's at least as much incentive to twist, manipulate, spin, hide or just fucking lie about what's laughingly called 'the science' on the catastrophist pro manmade global warming theory side of things as there is for any scientist who really is paid by Shell or BP (hint - fewer than the number of sceptical scientists and nowhere near as fucking many as the greenie panic mongers would like to believe). About a week ago I left a comment over at Bishop Hill's on a somewhat related story, and I think it's worth repeating.

I can see the point of the greenies when they have doubts about findings from researchers and scientists on the payroll of Big Oil (or Big Coal or Big Whichever Demon They're Upset About At The Time) ... it's not unreasonable for them to point out that he who pays the piper often calls the tune. Equally, I don't think it's unreasonable for those of us on the sceptic side of things to point out the vested interests among AGW proponents. Companies who make wind turbines, solar arrays, tidal generators and nuclear power stations have a vested interest in pushing AGW since it damages their CO2 emitting competitors. The same applies to companies who supply in turn supply them, e.g. turbine components, uranium mining etc. Greenpeace, WWF and the rest gain from a lot of free publicity and extra donations that might well dry up if (when?) AGW is ever falsified beyond doubt. Then we've got the researchers and scientists who, even before they get on one of Greenpeace's ships, who have food to buy and bills to pay at the least and possibly nice comfy tenure of a professorship of chair that probably didn't exist fifteen years ago. Again, vested interests in keeping the AGW scare going - if they said it was all a load of balls the sources that fund many of those positions would have no reason to carry on and there'd be a lot of climate researchers on street corners with guitars and upside down hats. Then there are the governments who see AGW as an excuse to tax and regulate and control more. And the media who always love a good scare story to help sell papers and attract viewers - if it bleeds it leads, and oh my god our poor planet is bleeding. Collectively I think of them all as 'Big Eco'.

Ignoring the tenuously linked six degrees of separation crap, whatever that lot have to say about research funded by Big Oil/Coal/Carbon that doubts AGW applies just as much to research that they've funded or produced and which supports their agenda or vested interests. If we should not take the word of Big Oil then we shouldn't do so for Big Eco either.

I've only recently started thinking of those vested interests as 'Big Eco' but for several years I've felt that as long as the global warming hype was putting food on their tables and keeping roofs over their heads, not to mention providing some five star hotel hosted conferences to attend for some, there was as much reason to question their version of events as those of the allegedly oil funded sceptics. Doubly so when, as seems so often to be the case, they refuse to disclose data to anyone trying to check their work for errors. Somewhere on the web recently* I saw a nice little homily that sums it up rather well: if someone's trying to hide something then they've probably got something to hide. What appears to have been hidden is that some of the most important and supposedly settled science has foundations constructed of sand.

Could it be an accidental error? Could they seriously have not realised?

* UPDATE - It was Numberwatch.