I understand what they meant to write; however, what they wrote is perhaps backwards or is my American understanding of 'English' different from your British understanding of 'English' or their Canadian understanding of 'English'

For perhaps the first time in the history of mass media, the gatekeepers broke a major scandal to an audience fully 10 days ahead of them.

I read this and mentally rewrite it as:

For perhaps the first time in the history of mass media, the gatekeepers broke a major scandal to an audience fully 10 days AFTER of them.

Apologies over a minor quibble.

The whole "You bloggers might be able to do commentary but you need *professional journalists* to do the actual report" line is looking more amusing by the moment, isn't it?

Frisker: "ahead" refers to the audience, not the "gatekeepers" in the sense they knew 10 days before (a similar sentence may have said "5 miles ahead of them"). It's not common use, but it makes sense.

RM3 Frisker FTN , what Kathy is saying is that the audience was aware of the "breaking" news well in advance of the MSM breaking it. Maybe a judiciously placed comma would have solved the problem for you.

RM3,

It is as M4-10 says. 'them' refers to the gatekeepers not the audience. The audience were 10 days ahead of 'them'.

This is a very interesting story. As it evolves we can see which parts of the media approach it with open minds or closed minds. There are many strands worth investigating.

There are basic issues with the way the 'science' has been conducted that some of the media choose to ignore, majoring on whether the emails were stolen or not or that comments have been taken so far out of context as to be almost meaningless.

There are also serious questions worth asking over the corrupting influence of politicians and their access to taxpayer money. Scientists have allowed themselves to be painted into a corner where 'could', 'might' and 'may' became 'will'. They have also sought to hinder attempts at replicating their results.

It has progressed from opinion and theory into dogma, and it is a dogma Governments and corporations have readily taken onboard due to their appettite for control and money making opportunities.

Almost correct, Gareth. It has passed directly from "hypothesis" to "dogma" without an intermediate stop at "theory" (the science never rose to that level of respectability).

Whether the e-mails were "stolen" is the least interesting aspect of the story, which of course is why most of the media seem fixated on it. Funny how none of them were terribly concerned about that aspect of the story when the Pentagon Papers were "leaked" (i.e., "stolen") back in the 70's. And yes, I think this is every bit as big a story as that was.

But then reality hits us- Russia is going through a heatwave! They are reported to be 6 to 8 degrees celsius above zero, instead of below!
And isn't Britain also warm for this time of year?

"Whether the e-mails were "stolen" is the least interesting aspect of the story"

Indeed. The circumstances make it pretty clear that the documents were leaked, not hacked. And apparently leaked by an insider at the University of East Anglia when the authorities there decided to reject the Freedom of Information Act request.

There is a really interesting story hiding there. The man (or woman) who could not take the climate of lies & deceit anymore and put the requested information into the public domain anyway -- potentially breaking one law to enforce compliance with another law. That's the kind of dilemma University ethics classes used to dwell on, before Political Correctness replaced thought.

NG: Heh heh, that *is* fairly funny.

On a more serious note, though, Australia is pretty cool for summer time. It's not really hitting the 40s like it should be.

Nuke Grey:

But then reality hits us- Russia is going through a heatwave!
And isn't Britain also warm for this time of year?

Can you define "global temperature" for me?

Right now it seems to be that we take temperature readings during the day, and average those, and temperature readings during the night, and average those, and then we average the day and night temperatures to arrive at an average day temperature (which means that a day from +15 to -10, and a day from +6 to +4 are treated the same, which can represent a HUGE climate difference (e.g. the difference between a land and a sea climate)).

Or are we taking peak highs during the day, and bottom lows during the night, and averaging those two to arrive at the day temperature?

Or should we take a weighted approach, so that three and a half hours at X degrees counts 3.5 times and 15 minutes at Y degrees counts 0.25 times?

And when we have the average day temperature, how do we arrive at an average year temperature? More averaging of averaged averages?

Is there any INFORMATION left after throwing away all this data?

And as far a local weather is concerned: this summer has been abysmally cold, so on average, this year is was due some warmer November and December weather.

--GJ--

That's the kind of dilemma University ethics classes used to dwell on, before Political Correctness replaced thought.

I started reading and then had to check the masthead - a link to Maclean's and a reference to Peter Mansbridge: Am I reading a Canadian blog?

And smart-aleck first commeter: `ahead' is the correct term here.

RBG

I think one of the most interesting aspects of this story is how it has wizzed around the world so fast. After all, these people want to rule the world, so it's only natural that the entire world would be interested.

Which that any particular gang of MSM people in one country have a hard job ignoring this, what with their viewers already able to read about politicians elsewhere in the world starting to make a fuss about it.

Do you think there might also be a patriotic vibe going on here? Canadians proud of Stephen McIntyre? And Brits ashamed that the hoax is centred on a British university.

Maybe British media people may now investigate American climate trickery, in order to spread the blame a little. There are plenty of places to look.

The smalldeadanimals blog was right on this story 2 weeks ago. The Globe and Mail which boasts it is Canada's National Newspaper is still in denial while fortunately the National Post has had a series of articles over the past year denying AGW. The G and M which I affectionately call The Grope and Flail has been so bad I've cancelled my subscription, mind you it took a week for that to go in effect.