As big a story as "Climategate" is and how meaningful it is to all of us 'proles who would find themselves under under the eco-ninnies twin hammers of tax and regulation, the national news wires still don't exactly bristle with activity concerning this issue.

Some things are starting to get through, however. And I suspect it has more to do with the decisions made locally to run some stories on this rather than any shift in views of Hearst Corporation proper.

So far, the only story turned up on the MyWestTexas.com site using the search term "Climategate" is this commentary in the Fat-Cat Planet Raper Oil Section of 12/13/2009 from Michael Economides and Art Horn.

Another trickle comes today in the form of an editorial piece from Jonathon Gurwitz.

Still, it is a trickle. I'll take it.

And it could be even bigger today. There are reports out that the Russians are saying that all of the temperature data provided by them to the Climate Research Unit was horribly cherry-picked to begin with and what data was used was essentially water-boarded to show a warming trend.

The Russians have all of this raw temperature data that hasn't been massaged by the Warm-mongers and it shows no warming trend. Now, a lot of times these temperature readings are rightly adjusted for other factors to try and get an accurate reading. But the CRU depends heavily upon these after-the-fact adjustments to get their "warming". When asked for the raw temperature data that they used the CRU said that they had thrown it all out due to a lack of storage space and that only the "adjusted" data remained. How convenient.

How can the CRU defend it's "science" when it lacks the original data with which they could show their methods and practices when adjusting the temperature data?

And here is the interesting thing: How can the Climate Research Units guys refute what the Russians are saying about the temperature data readings when they themselves...theoretically...threw all the raw data in the dumpster years ago?