Thursday, September 15, 2011

Yes, We Have Some Dead Polar Bear Pictures


Or at least the Alaska Dispatch does, discovered by PEER after looking through the computer files returned by Inspector Clouseau May to Charles M and featured in this splendid bit of repartee from the first interview
ERIC MAY: And just how did you know they were dead?
CHARLES MONNETT: Oh, it was really obvious. . .
It goes downhill from there
ERIC MAY: Okay. Any photos taken of it?
CHARLES MONNETT: Well, you‟ve seen the photos. Uh, Jeff, um, when he first was learning how to use the camera, he snapped several, um, very disappointing. We call them the “Pillsbury Doughbear photographs,” because you can see a shape that's consistent, you know, what looks like something you‟d cut out of a Christmas cookie or something.
ERIC MAY: Okay.
CHARLES MONNETT: Very rounded, um, and that‟s all we have.
ERIC MAY: Did you take a – attempt to make – take photos of each individual –
CHARLES MONNETT: No.
ERIC MAY: – on each observation?
CHARLES MONNETT: No, I, I – again, it‟s – we‟re, we‟re flying at a long distance from our base. We‟re trying to complete a different mission and, um, our protocol is not to break unless there‟s a, a very important reason. And I, I think we probably circled on the one that we photographed. That‟s pretty clear. But I know some of them, we didn‟t circle on. We just kept going. We, we identified them, um, you know, flying by. The water would be calm, and you‟d be able to see them for a way. And, and they were pretty obvious. You could see their heads and legs and – even at 1,500 feet.

16 comments:

  1. So important, because floating, decomposing polar bears tell us so much about who phoned whom, when. If you look really closely, you can see a telephone log still clutched in the bear's right front paw.

    Obviously the investigators are very disappointed that no information can be gleaned from this documentation due to the poor quality of the photograph. No wonder Eric May seems so obsessed about something that at first glance appears materially irrelevant to what he claims to be investigating.

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  2. ""They are still sort of pawing through things," Ruch said, noting that he's heard the investigators are now looking at a bird study Monnett was involved in." -- Alaska Dispatch

    "A cage went in search of a bird." -- Kafka, Aphorisms (1918)

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  3. It was just sleeping

    May sort of reminds me of the pet shop owner in the Monty Python skit.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj8RIEQH7zA

    Little Mouse

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  4. ...investigators are now looking at a bird study Monnett was involved in."

    Off in the weeds, looking for something, anything usable to cast doubt on Monnett's competence. This has not turned out to be the expected turkey shoot; messy, embarrassing blowback is looming. Tsk, tsk.

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  5. Did the bird study have anything to do with dead parrots?

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  6. "It is obvious from the photographic evidence that the female polar bear, named Wilma DeBear, age 8, weight 700 pounds, died from blunt force trauma to the right temple. Based on a digitally enhanced image, the murder weapon appears to have been a hockey stick." CSI Aleutians spokesman, Thor Hiney, announced today.

    I thought you would be doing an in-depth Climate Reality Project post.

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  7. Bird study being investigated? Or dead, flying polar bears:

    "We, we identified them, um, you know, flying by. ... And, and they were pretty obvious. You could see their heads and legs and – even at 1,500 feet."

    It's easy to see people'd be easily confused.

    Cymraeg llygoden

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  8. That's nae true polar bear:

    Tis the White Nessie of the Maelstrom, fleeing its sushi-crazed pursuers form the David Suzuki foundation.

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  9. And here's an amusing youtube video clip that truly captures the spirit of the Monnett "investigation": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQAMvmi1Zwk

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  10. Yes!

    Flying zombie polar bears!

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  11. chasing pirates with hockey sticks !

    Bratisla

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  12. Oh well. At least this project has settled one issue. The next inservice training day for investigators.

    Introduction & housekeeping.
    40 minutes each topic.
    1. What is the abstract of a scientific paper. Who writes it and who decides which content goes into a journal.
    2. Peer review. Is there any difference between 'peer review' in a formal scientific journal and review by peers before submission for publication. Free discussion. Pens and butcher's paper available for each group.
    Morning tea.
    3. Addition, subtraction.
    4. Ratio. percentage.
    Lunch.
    5. Percentage exercises. Please use the copies of interview transcript in your folders for individual work - 10 mins. Groups then discuss results.
    6. All groups present results of percentage and other arithmetic calculations from worksheets.
    Afternoon tea
    7. Any further questions on how (not to) do additions, ratios, percentages.
    Close.

    Please clear rubbish from tables. Any unused stationery should be placed on the table beside the door.

    MinniesMum

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  13. Thanks Eli,

    One of the more distasteful parts of my life has been to secure as evidence the corpses of animals killed by the turbines of hydroelectric dams in Maine, primarily female American eels, which are in the range of 4 feet long and up to 50 years old. My friend, Nate Gray, a fisheries biologist with the Maine Dept. of Marine Resources, came a couple emails of being 'thrown under the bus' by his boss for helping me grab a few hundred dead and chopped up eels from below a hydro dam in Maine in 2004. Nate made the mistake of finding something he was not supposed to find, or at least not talk about in public. This is all par for the course. This dead polar bear photograph is profoundly ugly.

    Doug Watts.

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  14. "Polar-bear feedback"
    -- by Horatio Algeranon


    Polar-bear albedo, nearly 1,
    Helps reflect the arctic sun
    Keeps the warming there in check
    Even when the ice is gone

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  15. Horatio would note that bloated polar bears doing the "side-stroke" (ie, dead ones) maximize the above (negative) feedback because they lead to greater "polar bear cover" of what would otherwise be open (dark, sun absorbing) water.

    So, as arctic sea ice cover decreases, (dead) polar bear cover increases and the two tend to cancel out with regard to changes in absorbed sunlight.

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  16. Here's something interesting; did I miss it in earlier discussions?

    “These clumsy attempts by IG agents to criminalize the scientific peer review process are simultaneously childish and chilling,” said Ruch, noting that the IG handling of this case is itself under investigation following a PEER complaint that the IG is violating new Interior Department scientific integrity rules. “The Secretary of Interior declares that he wants to promote scientific scholarship but this case shows precisely why scientists need to be protected from backlash after their articles are published.”

    Investigation of arctic scientist going nowhere

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