Sure when you see the list of 70 articles, it looks compelling. However, a little thought should tell you that's it's pretty thin evidence for his claims. If you average it out, it's a mere 7 articles a year spread across the entire English speaking world. That not terribly surprising that some articles would be written about it, given the combination of some unusually cold weather and the not-yet-settled debate in the climate science about whether the long-term natural cooling trend (plus aerosols) or shorter-term anthropogenic warming trend would be the primary driver for climate change in the near future.

Of course, as I often find when I look at the Watt's Up blog, the evidence only passes a friendly cursory review. Several of those 70 articles are repostings of the same article in different newpapers, and even more troubling is that some of the articles in that list aren't even about global cooling. For instance, they list a 1977 Times cover story called The Big Freeze. Apparently, it's about a cold and snowy winter, not a coming ice age.

Of course, this is not unexpected. Anthony Watts always seems to hold people who disagree with him to a much higher standard than those he agrees with. Just look at his treatment of Mueller who was an unquestionable god of climate science right up until he tried to tell Anthony Watts something he didn't want to hear, then suddenly he was a turn coat who sold out.

I think you need to think about this more. You are arguing that if I want to find out what people think about an issue now, let's say slavery, I should use a sample set that is spread across the entire lifetime of humanity. Is the opinion of someone who died 6000 years ago relevant to the modern view of slavery? Similarly, why would we care about the earth's climate 4 billion years ago, when determining if recent changes are man-made or not?

When you are asked to peer review an article do you take it on faith that the author is correct, or do you check his work to see if he made any mistakes?

The claim isn't that you're perfect or all knowing, it's that you don't blindly trust your fellow scientists and instead subject their claims to scrutiny, especially when they are within your field of expertise.

Milankovitch cycles

Food security

Because it hasn't "been going down for the last 15 years straight"?. The decade from 2000-2009 was warmer than any previous decade on record, 10 out of the 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998 (inclusive). Globally 2005 and 2010 were actually warmer than 1998. Lastly starting with an abnormal year (like 1998 which had an exceptionally strong El Nino effect) and not accounting for it's abnormality is either foolish bungling, or a deliberate attempt to deceive and manipulate others.

This is really basic stuff, if you don't know it, you're probably not knowledgeable enough to provide meaningful contributions to this discussion.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
- Upton Sinclair

Unfotunatetly, we see the same kind of wilful blindness is other fields too.

Actually, there's no measurable effect from "the brain believing". Placebos have no effect on any actual measurable health outcomes, they only have an effect on self-reported health outcomes. People say they feel better. People say their hangnail is cured. People say that they can feel that their cancer is in remission. However, when the doctors take the actual measurements, there is no measurable difference between the control group (who got nothing) and the placebo group, no matter how much the placebo group claims they are feeling better and no matter how much the control groups claims they are feeling worse.

The governor who did that likely wouldn't get re-elected if the law was important and popular. Would you care to provide a reason why free and fair elections are not a sufficent check against that behaviour?

In most cases it would dependent on the circumstances and whether the donation could be seen as compromising the figurehead's ability to lead. For example, the CEO of Chik-Fil-A will, most likely, be perfectly able to contribute to campaign against pornography, against religious freedom for non-Christians and against abortion without compromising his ability to lead, however, social conservatives would likely force him out for taking a stand on the opposite side of those issues (if they could, of course, I'm not sure how much ownership the CEO has). In this case, Eich donated money to a campaign whose sole purpose was to strip some people (including a number of the people working for him) of their rights, and it temporarily succeeded. That has to create some bad blood between him and the affected employees and that type of antagonism is not something to be taken lightly. Having done so and then having refused to recant his position, Eich had compromised his ability to lead and either they were going to go or he was going to go.

As I said, if he had been able to apologise and admit he had done something wrong, he likely would have been able to maintain the position, but if you can't publicly acknowledge that treating some of your co-workers as people deserving of fewer rights than yourself was a mistake, you aren't going to be able to lead them.

It wasn't just his political activism from 5 years ago that was the problem. If he had disavowed that behaviour, apologized to his employees and make an act on contrition (such as donating a significant amount of money to a pro-gay marriage organization or campaign) they could have buried the hatchet. However, apparently he still does not believe that his gay employees should be fully equal to the heterosexual ones. Effectively, he chose to step down rather than admit he was wrong.

You have it backwards, it's a religious ceremony around the secular activity of signing your marriage certificate. The religious ceremony has no legal standing if you don't sign the government's paper. Next you'll be telling us that only proper Christians should be allowed be married and that athiests, agnostics and those who worship the wrong god should also be excluded from marraige.

This is very simple, the amendment conflicted with a part of the constitution that wasn't amended, thus the amendment was determined to be improper and tossed out. It's actually the job of the courts to do that type of thing, though it would happen less often if politicans wrote fewer stupid laws.

Actually, I thought he was referring to the right-wingers who use the threat of a liberal bogeymen bringing back the "fairness doctrine" to cudgel you into voting for them.

As CTO he was in charge of making technology decisions, as CEO he's in charge of making decisions that affect the gay employees he considers to be less worthy than himself.

See the difference?

I thought that was why we allowed them to wear the shirts in the first place without kicking up a huge fuss... It's a convenient self-applied warning label.

Actually, he donated money to a campaign to strip some of his employees of the rights they had been granted by the state of California. That campaign temporarily succeed, those employees have a really good reason to oppose him. Additionally, he was put in a position where his personal views would likely be material to his performance of the office because he would be making the decision on whether his gay and lesbian employees would be treated the same as his straight employees and he is on record as opposing that equality. He has claimed he would not act on that belief in his position, instead of renouncing the view entirely so many people are (rightfully) skeptical that he would keep his personal prejudices separate from his professional decisions.

It is important to note that we did not hear any complaints about his prejudice until he was put in a position where his prejudice could materially affect the lives of his fellow Mozilla empoyees. It seems like many of the Mozilla employees were concerned not that he was a bigot but that we has a bigot who was put in a position to act on his bigotry (by design or by inconsideration).

Morally right? No, but that's because Eich's bigotry is morally wrong and the claim that OKCupid is anti-free speech would be a lie. He does, however, have the right to make such statements.