LOL... I'm prob too old to know if this is correct, but I believe it is supposed to be Pwned, without the O. And I think it was a result of the word owned being filtered out in chat scripts. A clever way around the filter was to type it with a 'P' instead. could be mistaken tho.
I always thought it was a typo, 'p' instead of 'o', akin to the typo exclamation !!!1!!!1! Too much excitement at the keyboard. ; )
And it's mostly the oil industry's fault. Of which you are an admitted member of. You gonna practice what you preach or continue profiting from adding CO2 to the environment?
I agree with your point in terms of a single company conducting research. In that case it would be a wash. The problem with this particular instance is that the main organizations 'calling the shots' and presenting the data to the public are g-ment funded, and that funding mostly comes from one side of the isle. Indeed, big oil has their scientists too, but they don't work for "NASA" or "IPCC". It is interesting to me that NASA and UNEP scientists are publicly viewed as being independent, when they are mainly g-ment funded and the bulk of the money comes from those parties with a particular ideological mindset. It's hard for me to consider that independence. If I'm Joe Sixpack, watching NatGeo TV for example, and the camera pans over to a man and the caption flashes his name and title with NASA, there is an automatic credence associated with everything he says. But if instead the title is "Climatologist: Halliburton Oil Company", my mind immediately screams bias.
What I'm suggesting might be better represented by my own circumstances. I work as an R&D scientist (nothing to do with climate) for a Fortune 100 company in the US. It is absolutely in the best interests of the science if I am completely non-biased in all my research. But I don't choose what to research. I'm told where the focus is going to be by my superiors. They are not scientists, they are executives. If my research suggests to the customer that our product is not needed, or that a cheaper product from a competitor is a passable substitute, then my value to my organization goes down. Pretty tough to fall on my sword in the name of accurate scientific representation. And there is a lot of money to be made/lost on both sides of the climate issue, and just like in my situation, scientists are not calling the shots or cutting the paychecks.
Well, would government ("g-ment") scientists gain or lose value, as you put it, when they report to their superiors that the Earth is warming alarmingly, probably because of Man's activity, and that g-ment should consider regulating business, a very unpopular activity with both business and the electorate? One would think their perceived value to g-ment would go down, and their value to business would plummet, particularly since those two entities are more like one these days. Yet, the scientists persist with that report... why?
your definition sounds correct. so I will stand corrected. nevertheless.. I like the epic part. when a guy presents a satellite chart and implies you are too stupid to understand it, and the poster says he tuned the instruments before they launched into outer space... I believe that would be epic internet pwnage. especially when the guys et handle has something to do with: The impedance of free space, Z0, is a physical constant relating the magnitudes of the electric and magnetic fields of electromagnetic radiation travelling through free space.
Anyone can google that stuff, it is the best way to come up with cool avatar names, imho. Ok, what 377 said was, "So twisting the meaning of some graphs and distorting scientific results is perfectly acceptable and indeed minor compared to what they are prepared to do." This implies that dcraig is wrong to interpret the chart as indicating sea levels are rising, in other words they are not rising, or they are falling. But you'd have to twist the chart to believe that, which is what dcraig did--he did not say 377 was too stupid to interpret it, more like he is implying that 377 is ignoring it. There is no ownage here unless sea levels are in fact falling. Are they?
Ok from your perspective there would not be "pwnage". I do not know if levels are raising or falling because I think it depends on the look back period. But from my perspective I saw a guy distort a chart being a wise ass saying what you can't read a chart? .... and I saw a guy saying my instruments made that chart you dipshit.