By now, everyone knows that Michael Savage has been banned from Britain on the grounds articulated by disgraced former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith: “Considered to be engaging in unacceptable behavior by seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts and fostering hatred which might lead to inter-community violence.”

Attorney Summary–Savage Appeals U.K. Ban:

This week, we found out that the supposedly conservative government of David Cameron is upholding the ban.  Savage’s lawyers initiated a review of the ban by sending a letter to new Home Secretary Theresa May.  In it, they lay forth the full history of the case, a selective prosecution which is mind-blowing in its moral blindness and suicidal impulse to kowtow to radical Islam.

When Savage was originally banned, as the letter states, he was placed on a list alongside terrorists, racists, a child-murderer, and the alleged leader of a violent gang “that beat migrants and posted films of their attacks on the internet.”  Savage, by contrast, has said some inflammatory things on the radio.  And by inflammatory, I mean generally correct, even if the left hates his passion and willingness to articulate the zeitgeist. (more…)

The Washington Times reports the supposedly conservative U.K. government is going to continue Britain’s war on free speech (and Dr. Savage):

He’s still on Britain’s least-wanted list.

Talk radio host Michael Savage has waged a vigorous fight against the British government, hoping to have his name removed from a list of 16 “undesirables” banned from the country on May 5, 2009, by then British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

The list included Islamist terrorists, neo-Nazis and Russian gang members — and Mr. Savage says he’s still on the new version, despite his efforts to persuade British officials that his inclusion is unwarranted and unfair.

All governments are essentially amoral,” he told The Washington Times on Monday. “I had hopes but did not expect this ‘new’ UK government to restore sanity to Britain. They are still pandering to the Muslim masses. To continue to martyr me by including me on a list of known murderers and terrorists is bad enough but for the U.S. and Western media which considers itself ‘progressive’ to continue to ignore this outrage against freedom of speech is indicative that the media and governments are one and the same. This includes so-called conservatives. Has freedom of the press become greed-om of the press?” he concluded. (more…)

Oops!  The wheels may have just come off Al Gore’s Oscar-winning, eco-friendly tricycle/global-warming scam. From the U.K. Times on Line today (Sunday):

World may not be warming, say scientists

The United Nations climate panel faces a new challenge with scientists casting doubt on its claim that global temperatures are rising inexorably because of human pollution.

“The temperature records cannot be relied on as indicators of global change,” said John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, a former lead author on the IPCC.

The doubts of Christy and a number of other researchers focus on the thousands of weather stations around the world, which have been used to collect temperature data over the past 150 years.

These stations, they believe, have been seriously compromised by factors such as urbanisation, changes in land use and, in many cases, being moved from site to site. (more…)

A quote often attributed to Otto Von Bismarck in the 1930s — but really belonging to poet John Godfrey Saxe over 60 years earlier — tells us that “Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made.”

“Original Old Media reporting” belongs on Saxe’s list.

In all three cases, the temptation to look away is great. In all three, we must resist. All require strong surveillance to ensure a quality product.

For all of their considerable accomplishments, New Media watchdogs have not done a particularly good job of proactively monitoring wire service and other original-source stories as they move through the assembly line from breaking news to supposedly settled narrative. As a result, as often occurs when legislators and sausage plants aren’t closely watched, product quality is often pathetic, and is sometimes downright dangerous. (more…)

PART III – A global warming skeptic receives the leaked files from an anonymous “Deep-Climate” insider. Release of files exposes gatekeeping and leads to the maturing of a new science movement – that of peer-to-peer review.  Last in a series.  Please click for Part I and Part II.

Few outside the climate skeptic circle have ever heard of Steven Mosher. An open-source software developer, statistical data analyst, and thought of as the spokesperson of the lukewarmer set, Mosher hasn’t made any of the mainstream media outlets covering the story of Climategate. But make no mistake about it – when it comes to dissemination of the story, Steven Mosher is to Climategate what Woodward and Bernstein were to Watergate. He was just the right person, with just the right influence, and just the right expertise to be at the heart of the promulgation of the files.

One could even argue that Mosher is one of the few people with the right assortment of circumstances, and associates, to understand the significance of the Climategate files and the technical expertise to post them on various locations using open proxies, a method hackers use to hide their identities while online. Given that the Climategate files came from computers with IP addresses in Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, open proxies is most likely the technique used by the person who posted the files and links on ClimateAudit, RealClimate, and the Air Vent. (more…)