If you're at all interested in global warming, or long for the good old days of programming in Fortran (who knew I would've been better off learning Fortran than Pascal in high school?) then you should check out some of the analysis going on over at Climate Audit.

Steve McIntyre and friends are trying to figure out how NASA scientist and global warming alarmist James Hansen is "adjusting" for the Urban Heat Island effect and determining exactly how and how much the Earth is warming.

For a graphical look at the goings on, I present to you this chart of the temperature data for Wellington, New Zeland. The black lines are the raw temperature data (in degrees Celsius) and the red lines are Hansen's "adjustment."

The numbers stop mysteriously in 1988 because that's apparently when the city of Wellington plunged into the sea. Just kidding. It didn't plunge into the sea -- but NASA did lose it. Seriously.

For those of you just a little bit outraged that your local newspaper or TV newscast failed to report on the correction to the temperature numbers that made 1931 the warmest year on record and dropped 1998 to No. 2, don't dismay.

Hansen has done some further rejiggering to his methods and now 1931 and 1998 are tied.

And they want to destroy the economy of most of the Western world and condemn the world's poor to continued poverty, disease and despair based on research of this dubious quality?