A couple of years ago, I went to trial in a breach of contract case in which the defendant’s entire defense rested on denying that he knew something he obviously knew.
I had a little fun with this. When it came time to argue the case to the jury I pointed out that the defendant had employed the “Captain Renault Defense,” and to explain what I meant by this, I played this clip from Casablanca. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that I won that case.
I was reminded of this by one of the responses to my last post. I pointed out that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had been caught massaging the global temperature numbers, because the real numbers stubbornly refused to fit the climate alarmist narrative.
Our frequent guest Seversky weighed in by attempting to defend NOAA’s antics. Which leads me to ask this question: Excluding climate alarmist true believers, is there a single person on the face of the planet who could not have predicted that after NOAA massaged the numbers, the result would be an increase in temps?
Yep, Seversky is the Captain Renault of the climate debate:
“I’m shocked, shocked to learn that after NOAA massaged the numbers the temps went up. You know it really could have gone either way.”
The irony, of course, is that Seversky is a frequent contributor to The Skeptical Zone, where they are skeptical of everything. Well, everything except the dominant narrative. As Sev’s comment demonstrates, they accept that with a brassbound fideism that would make a medieval churchman blush.