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I had not seen that Web site; did you read the PDF response from Mann et al.? Here it is:

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/EandEPaperProblem.pdf

As it is still "early" in the evaluation of this publication the and controversy that it has created (or is in the process of creating), it appears to me that both sides have succeeded in making the issue confusing and with a seeming atmosphere of ignominy. Meaning: they're succeeding in making a major mess out of this.

Mann's been arrogant, and he didn't treat their requests with respect. (Given the attacks he's been subjected to, MAYBE that's expected, but now he's made it worse.) As for McIntyre and McKitrick, it doesn't look to me like they did the amount of checking and double-checking that they should have done before going to the presses with a major announcement of apparent "bad science" on the part of Mann et al. The subsequent editorializing also shows a impatience to influence public opinion without first doing some fact-checking. The NRO piece by Murray includes some material that previous editorials didn't; I think everybody should have waited about two weeks for the scientific community to weigh in before declaring Mann's work unsound. (To be sure, the editorials don't go quite that far, but they sure make a lot of implications.)

OK, moving on: as previously discussed with "neverdem", Mann et al. used the modern instrumental period to calibrate the proxy temperature data. They call 1902-1980 the "training interval". That allows a comparison of the proxy data to the instrumental data. If more recent proxy data are examined, they can't be directly compared because they haven't been calibrated the same way.

And also note that Singer's claim that the satellite data shown no appreciable warming since 1979 is inaccurate. All analyses of MSU and AMSU tropospheric temperature data shown some degree of warming, ranging from about 0.4 C /century to 1.2 C /century. The current "best" trend from the Spencer and Christy analysis is the MSU2LT data, a combination of MSU and AMSU data, that shows a 0.74 C/century trend.

I don't think there is much confusion at all. The analysis from McKitrick is very clear and the reply by Mann is evasive. It doesn't take a genius to see that Mann's group is dodging, weaving and stonewalling and McKitrick is trying to be cooperative.

I read that pdf file and what I see is a growing trend, not only in this case but others, to find statistical excuses for adjusting the data set upwards. John Daly has pointed out a couple of cases where data from weather stations in Australia have been tweaked up by NASA-GISS with no explanation.

http://www.john-daly.com/stationx.htm

Sorry, I may not be an expert, but I can tell when I'm being put on. The whole thing just looks more sad and amusing as every day goes by.

As for McIntyre and McKitrick, it doesn't look to me like they did the amount of checking and double-checking that they should have done before going to the presses with a major announcement of apparent "bad science" on the part of Mann et al.

Now we have two authorities stating that it is bad science (Wegman and Jolliffe), as was obvious to most unbiased scientists from the beginning (that includes M&M).

It is interesting that you were much more open minded and skeptical 5 years ago. What changed?