Monday, March 30, 2009

Resume Stretching The Oregone Institute

Eli has been known to give awards for resume stretching. One of the anonymice has pointed out that the Cato Institute is joining in on its new petition to President Obama, awarding a dishonorary PhD. to our old friend Dipl. Phil. Richard Courtney, whose resume now stretches hither and yon

Magnus is one cold dude about this stuff



Any new bunny friends on the list? UPDATE: oooooowwww. Among the emerati, weatherfolks, fossil fuel folks and Randians* the Rabett found a live one:

James DeMeo, Ph.D, University Of Kansas (retired).
Well the Ph.D. is for real, and it is from the University of Kansas, where James got his Ph.D. in 1986, but other than that Cato is writing science fiction. DeMeo's CV says that while he was a graduate student at Kansas he was an instructor. Wanna bet he was a Teaching Assistant.

DeMeo is, well, unique. His day job is head of the Orgone Biophysical Research Lab. What is that you ask, something near Salem, OR. Close, but no, poor bunnies, a follower of William Reich, an around the bend psychiatrist from the last century. One of Freuds kookier successors. DeMeo himself could give Piers Corbyn a run for his money
DeMeo has been investigating the work of the late Dr. Wilhelm Reich since 1970, and founded OBRL in 1978. With cooperative assistance from a network of professionals and institutes supportive of Wilhelm Reich's original discoveries, OBRL has grown to become one of the world's primary centers for genuine and uncompromised research and educational programs focused upon Orgonomy, the science of orgone (life) energy functions in nature, as developed by Reich in the first half of the 20th Century.

Starting in 1977, as part of his graduate research at the University of Kansas, DeMeo undertook replication studies of Reich's biophysical research -- specifically, a systematic evaluation of the Reich cloudbuster which yielded positive results. The acceptance of DeMeo's work by the KU faculty constituted the first time any aspect of Reich's controversial biophysical research had been validated by peer-review within a mainstream academic institution. Through the organizational structure of OBRL, and with the cooperative assistance and support of many other individuals and groups dedicated to Reich's works, DeMeo has since directed field applications of the cloudbuster apparatus, successfully ending droughts across the USA and overseas as well, with applications towards reducing the energetic stagnation characteristic of wetter regions suffering from chronic air pollution and forest-death.
His list of publications reads like something from our favorite journals
Seed Sprouting Inside the Orgone Accumulator”, Journal of Orgonomy, 12:253-258, 1978.

“On the Question of a Dynamic Biological-Atmospheric-Cosmic Energy Continuum: Some Old and New Evidence”, Abstracts, 11th International Congress of Biometeorology, Purdue University, September, 1987.

“Regarding the Article: ‘A Close Look at Therapeutic Touch’ in Journal of the American Medical Association (April 1998, pp.1005-1010)”, Bridges, Magazine of the Int. Society for Study of Subtle Energy and Energy Medicine, 9(1):16, Spring 1998.
It goes on and on. Eli has suffered enough. Anybunny interested in following the paw prints might check out one Ismail Baht, Ph.D, University Of Kashmir who does not appear to be there

* One of those gems wrote this about his joyful college years:
Debated hordes of socialist students and outright minions of the Socialist Workers Party about the war in Vietnam. Use of the draft in an undeclared war is wrong. Socialism, whether fascist or communist, is the childish product of vile envy and the enemy of the rights of the individual.
Given that the issue stirring those hordes and minions at the time where this guy was, was the draft, and he himself was dodging at the same rate given this statement, comic dissonance has once again reared its amusing head.

Comments??

35 comments:

Unknown said...

Sure are a lot of "retired" or "emeritus" people on the list - reminiscent of Michael Tobis' latest thread...

Our friends G&T are both on the list - T is unaffiliated?!

Twice as many people from "James Cook University" as Nobel laureates, on this list.

Four people (including Courtney) list their affiliation only as "Reviewer, IPCC"?

Out of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, MIT, Caltech, Stanford we have only Will Happer of Princeton, Richard Lindzen of MIT, and one Howard Maccabee (Stanford Med. School)?

And where's Monckton? His viscountcy should be up there among all those letters, no? Surely he's not considered too wacky for Cato now, is he? Same deal with Motl?

Who of these guys have actually published peer-reviewed work recently in climate science? Lindzen, Douglass, Spencer; oh yeah, G&T too - hmm, I wonder if all 5 are happy to be so connected? Anybody else?

Magnus said...

Reports from Sweden... The ice is not what it used to be!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix_11UeGwYY

CapitalClimate said...

The few meteorologists are a fringy bunch.

Anonymous said...

Edward F. Blick is a Young Earth Creationist (YEC)

http://www.valleyhighlands.com/Blogger/page/Bible-Frequently-Asked-Questions.aspx

CL

John Mashey said...

Arthur:
Maccabee was founding president of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness, now a consultant, according to Heartland experts' list. He says he's been on the clinical faculty at Stanford medical Center, (but no current trace there), and seems to be out in Walnut Creek these days.

DDP has given an award to Noah Robinson (of OISM fame). Your might peruse DDP's website to assess its nature.

Anonymous said...

What is wrong with James Cook University? Why do all the loons in Australia come from there? Makes me wonder what is in the water, or maybe the tropical sun boils their brains.

Nathan

Anonymous said...

"DeMeo has since directed field applications of the cloudbuster apparatus, successfully ending droughts across the USA and overseas"

I think that guy has a future on Wall Street and/or in politics.

Then again, he may be a little late (at least for wall Street)...

...or maybe not, if Treasury Secretary Geithner manages to resurrect the zombies for one final curtain call.

bi -- International Journal of Inactivism said...

Best muckraking ever by Eli. So can we now refer to the letter as the "Orgone Petition"?

-- bi

Anonymous said...

You learn something new from the Bunny every day.

I always thought orgonomy was the "art of Japanese paper folding".

Do they offer PhD's in that now?

Sign me up.

dhogaza said...

DDP promotes homeland defense and prudent preparedness for disasters of all kinds, including war or terrorism. Its annual meeting brings together America's foremost authorities on strategic and civil defense as well as prominent scientists speaking on real threats or manufactured scares. Recent topics: global warming, ozone "depletion," radiation hazards and radiation hormesis.
They have links to older articles with titles like "Environmentalists target third world poor", along with a petition to George W Bush to restore the use of DDT - so surely they've signed on to the claim that environmentalists banned DDT to intentionally kill poor black people in Africa, etc etc.

Oh .. nice ... one link is to an article entitled "Questions about AIDS". I don't need to read it to know what they'll say.

EliRabett said...

As if the average dumb bunny could not guess, ddp is all tied up with Eli's second favorite journal, JPANDS. Same cast of characters. The bench is really thin over at Denial Central

Unknown said...

Which reminds me, where are Soon and Baliunas on the Cato list? And no Pielke's (though Jr. is cited)? McKitrick is on but McIntyre bowed out?

To balance the James Cook University contingent, there are *3* on the list from University of Alaska! Most popular claimed affiliations:

IPCC reviewer: 4
U. of Alaska: 3
Meteorologist: 3 (plus several variants so maybe this should be on top of the list)
No affiliation: 3
James Cook University: 2
U. of Oklahoma: 2
U. of Ottawa: 2
U. of Rochester: 2
U. Stockholm: 2
AMS: 2
US Navy: 2
Author, The Resilient Earth: 2

There really do seem an overabundance of Alaskans, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, and northern Europeans on this list. Conspiracy?

I notice John Mashey's friend Larry Gould is featured, but they somehow missed Gerald Marsh.

And there's Gerhard Kramm, a G&T supporter from way back on Dot Earth.

Anonymous said...

Orgonomy?

JPANDS?

I'd say there is a connection.

bi -- International Journal of Inactivism said...

The Orgone Petition? The Orgone Petition.

heathershelb said...

Not to mention Charles R. Anderson, of Anderson Materials Evaluation - of which ExxonMobil Chemical is listed on the website as a customer.

Or Robert Ashworth, of Clearstack, part of the supposed "clean coal" industry.

EliRabett said...

Ashworth either went under or got bought out. The website has vanished.

QrazyQat said...

What is wrong with James Cook University?

You can't go halfway round the world without going round the bend!

CapitalClimate said...

Re Pielkes:
Sr. claims he wasn't invited but cheers from the sidelines.

bigcitylib said...

"There really do seem an overabundance of Alaskans, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, and northern Europeans on this list. Conspiracy?"

A possible explanation: this "petition" started with P Michaels at CATO and went to Tom Harris, a Canadian, originally with NRSP, who recently (April 2008)got a gig with the ICSC, which is mostly Australian but "international" as well.

Maybe we're are looking at a result of the vagaries of his contact list.

Good post, by the way, Eli.

John Mashey said...

I'm doing a big spreadsheet that cross-references (organizations & petitions) versus people, and accumulates data on them.

The orgone guy is interesting,but so is another one:

Joel Kaufman appears to be an emeritus organic chemistry professor from University of The Sciences in Philadelphia, which is best-known for for pharmacy. Search his website for "exploration":

He appears to have been an occasional contributor to one of the Rabett's favored publications, Journal of Scientific Exploration, whose website is here, which bunnies may peruse, if they have not already familiar with this.

bigcitylib said...

John, you might check out this fellows lists as well:

http://www.eecg.utoronto.ca/~prall/climate/

Anonymous said...

Do emeritus professors drink something that no one else does?

"Perriermeritus" with a twist of lame?

EliRabett said...

Eli and Joel have a long relationship and you've also met the dear boy John.

"Joel Kauffman you ask, not the Joel Kauffman, emeriti from Philadelphia, who recently published on climate change in the Journal of Scientific Exploration? What is he selling and what is that you ask? Why it is a mighty curious little entity published by an extremely curious other little entity, the Society for Scientific Exploration. And what science do they explore ask the little bunnies? Well you can get a taste from the focus of their national conference 'Emerging Paradigms at the Frontiers of Consciousness & UFO Research" but they have their doubts about HIV causing AIDs, plate tectonics and anything else you can rent-a-nut for.

The flavor and value of Kauffman's essay is easy to extract

Either Warmers or Skeptics may accept that primordial ionizing radiation from within warms the Earth.

which Eli will match with the discovery of how microwaves from satellites are what is really warming the earth (ear tip to John Mashey), but Kauffman is not one to think that his opinion is popular"

Marion Delgado said...

At UAF (The University of Alaska main branch in Fairbanks), you know that moron and Akasofu sycophant Kramm would help push it. I actually studied at the West Ridge (the up-the-hill-from-the-main-campus science complex) at UAF. It's not a particularly bad school on any science, but it does have its enclave of right-wing cranks.

Marion Delgado said...

Four people (including Courtney) list their affiliation only as "Reviewer, IPCC"?

Ah but there you go!

We know and can document what they mean by IPCC REVIEWER don't we? People who were part of a crank spam campaign on behalf of intelligent clouding.

If someone lists something as their Occupation, it usually means, something they're paid to do. It's their Employment. Their job.

Sounds like an open invitation to dig up whether that's the case, to me.

John Mashey said...

Marion:
Do you have any insights as to opinions of other people at the university on Akakasofu & Kramm?

John Mashey said...

bigcitylib: yes, I know Prall's good list. My list is of "the other side"

Amusingly, in addition to the "inflation" effect, there is the other direction as well.

For example, James F. Lea, PhD is listed with no affiliation or position.

Turns out he was (is?) a Professor in the Petroleum Engineering Department of Texas Tech,in Lubbock, TX, and does courses for the petroleum industry.

Ever been to Lubbock? There's oil around there. People may have heard of West Texas Intermediate?

Here's one bio, and another.

NOTE: personally, I think it is a *good* thing to find and extract gas/oil with minimum waste of energy, i.e., highest EROEI we can get, given that it's likely we'll use all we can get sooner or later, and it's better than using coal. Hence, it would be perfectly plausible to put "petroleum industry" on that petition, but it seems to have been omitted. :-)

John Mashey said...

More on Joel Kauffman.

I had occasion to peruse one of his (many) Amazon reviews, this one on "Coal: A Human History".

I found the following quote:

"As the talented physicist Viscount Christopher Monckton has said and written: "Have the courage to do nothing." Meaning that no economy-crushing action need be taken to limit CO2 because it will accomplish nothing."

What more need be said?

John Mashey said...

And some on Edward Blick, PhD, retired professor at U of Oklahoma (aerospace, mechanical, nuclear) who also has published books including:

Scientific Analysis of Genesis (1991), and Correlation of the Bible and Science (1976) and Special Creation Vs. Evolution (1981).

Dr Dave said...

Dr. Mohammad Ismail Bhat is the Head of the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Kashmir in Srinigar, India.

His field is Himalayan tectonics. He is actually a pretty credible scientist - >20 publications in ISI journals, and he has published with some decent people (e.g. Roger Bilham). His publication list on climate science is rather less obvious.

Jim Prall said...

I've tagged all 115 signers of the Cato ad in my dreaded list of climate scientists (and pretenders). I have collected publication stats on over 90 of them so far. I'm aiming to update my perl script that formats the tables into html to make it build a separate table for this list of Catonians (if only that meant catatonia...)
Sound bite version: number of signers of 93 checked so far who have zero Google Scholar hits on "climate +author:their-name": 26
Number with 1 hit: 8
with 2 hits: 5
with 3-5 hits: 10
with 6-9 hits: 7
total under 10 hits: 56
The remaining 20-ish names include several I'd never heard of before, so I expect a few more zeros and single digits; this over half the list should be single digit publishers on climate.
These stats include some papers in E&E, since GS indexes that august publication (indeed any month it is emitted).

Jim Prall said...

Finished! This page lists all 115 signers of the Cato "All Due Respect" ad, sorted by number of Google Scholar matches on "climate" and their name as author. A full 44 of the 115 signers make it into double digits there (the median for all names in my larger list is 53 hits for "climate"; the median for the Cato crowd is 5.) These counts include published replies, editorials, pieces in E&E, engineering journals, and the like.
There are 14 Cato signers above the median count of 53.

Many in the first half of the list are repeat signers, with Michaels, Roy Spencer, and George Taylor having signed six skeptics' statements going back to the 1995 Leipzig Declaration. So has Howard C. Hayden, ex of Univ. of Connecticut physics; otherwise, most of the 33 signers with ZERO hits on 'climate' are new to this business, not appearing on any of the previous missives that I've tabulated, or just one (the 2008 Manhattan Declaration)
Beside each person's name, I show their rank on the same scale in the overall list of climate commenters and climate scientists. Here we see that just three break into the top 500 overall: Sherwood Idso (259), Pat Michaels (319), and Dick Lindzen (354). In all, 14 skeptics make the top 1000 ranked by number of articles mentioning "climate"

The Catonians certainly get points for having reached around the world to find people with zero papers on 'climate' for this climate ad. They embrace anti-experts from Norway (Giaever), Italy (Cresenti), Paraguay (Glatzle), Germany (Huettner), South Africa (Kemm), Spain (Uriarte), Argentina (Ferreyra), and Hungary (Zagoni), in addition to the usual suspects of the US, UK, Canada and Australia -- all adding the weight of their zero published works on 'climate'. I guess there is some calculus involved if the number multiplied by zero begins to approach infinity...

The petroleum industry is also well represented, with five climate "experts" contributing, but they trail the coal experts who contributed six names. I don't think the IPCC can even match those numbers...

- Jim
bird brain bunny

bluegrue said...

I have a new nominee: Tom Tripp, IPCC lead author.

Supporting material:
source
WUWT mashup
background

Jim Prall said...

Another thing I noticed while compiling the list of signers from the Cato climate letter: sloppy editing. They had at least four surnames misspelled:
Ismail Bhat they printed as "Baht";
Douglas Leahey came out as "Leahy";
Alfred Pekarek got spelt "Peckarek";
Thomas Sheahen was rendered "Sheahan"

These took me a bit longer to sort out, since the incorrect spellings generally led nowhere on Google Scholar - but for this crowd, that was not so probative: recall that 33 signers had zero papers mentioning "climate" even when spelled properly.

On correction, these names do turn up some hits on "climate" in GS - 3, 2, 1 and 7 respectively.

I think the most telling is Douglas M Leahey, climatologist to the tar sands. There is of course his pivotal work,
Influences of terrain on plume level winds in the Athabasca oil sands area

Clearly a senior climate expert - verrry senior.

- Jim

Unknown said...

I'm sure you can find a lot of these names in LinkedIn. I just hope they've updated their student resume to masteral/doctorate curriculum vitae.