Climategate

As expected, Kate Shepard does an excellent job summarizing that crazy time.

Though I feel she lets journalists off a little too easy. I downloaded the hacked e-mails as well, and it took me all of one afternoon to understand that these e-mails were normal when you're working in a field that is so excessively competitive due to the high stakes. All they had to do was ask a scientist--any scientist working in any high-stress setting: doesn't even need to be a climate scientist!--and they could have seen what was going on.

The big unanswered question is still, however, who hacked CRU and who paid the hacker? Part of me says that it must have been orchestrated through some think tank that was pissed about the FOIA being ignored. Most likely a think tank not headquartered in Washington, but an overseas think thank with ties to some of the organizations here. But after all that I've read, and thought about the timeline of the events that transpired...there's no evidence for that. Many of the usual suspects seemed as surprised by this as our side was, and it was only after a few hours (days), that they got their story straight and had a coordinated message ("HIDE THE DECLINE!!").

Still, it'd be nice to know whodunnit.