As various people, myself included, predicted on Twitter, the AGW denialist crowd were quick to capitalise on a leading “legitimate skeptic” sympathising with their position, starting with James Delingpole over at the Telegraph. He accuses Randi’s pro-AGW followers of being “Warmist thugs” and “eco-facists”, and backs up the claim with these comments left on Randi’s blog post:

“It would be hard to imagine Randi siding with one of the many similar petition projects against evolution instead of accepting the consensus of biologists.”

Err, that’s an excellent point.

“What disturbs me is the phrase, “Warming will not be disastrous”. Tell that to the millions in Pakistan, India, and South America whose river sources will die with the glaciers from which they spring. Tell that to the thousands of parents whose children will die of malaria, dengue fever, and the other tropical scourges whose ranges are increasing as the climate warms.”

Facists, the lot of them!

“Objections to Randi’s position have been duly noted here and elsewhere, and they are not new — and neither is Randi’s cynicism disguised as skepticism. The logical fallacies are numerous in his post, and easy to identify, should someone wish to play a game of AWG-denial Bingo.”

Watch where you’re swinging that trident, you common thug!

Come on. Seriously.

While this isn’t a skeptical news item, it is an important one – this filter is a dramatic change in the rights to free expression in this country. The Twitter hashtag #nocleanfeed, which signified tweets opposing the filter, was recently trending, and Google came out with a statement against it. People are angry about this.

To find out more, you can visit No Clean Feed, Keep Your Filter Off Our Internet or the Wikipedia page about the filter.