Is one government propaganda mill being overwritten by a different government propaganda mill. Just my personal opinion, of course.

Sure that's his opinion. But now he has deftly tagged EPA as a "government propaganda mill", not to be trusted under any circumstances. To be ignored, no matter who's boss. Boy, isn't he the careful, skeptical objective journalist...perfectly open minded!

The EPA website wouldn’t be my first choice for researching the climate no matter who was running it. It’s a political entity more than a scientific one.

That is his opinion. As he himself admitted in the first sentence. TB believes scientific agencies (and practitioners) are just as biased and have similar agendas to oil companies and other highly profitable polluters. That is an assumption, and a biased one on his part. It is not an obvious fact.
It is just another false equivalency he has devised to demonstrate his supposed neutrality. What TB has accomplished in that one remarkable sentence is that EPA, its data, the scientists who work there, and anyone who has ever been associated with it or them cannot be trusted.

I did look at the history of weather severity quite a while back. After looking at a lot of sources and papers, I saw that the most common answer from scientists is “we don’t really know for sure.” Apparently there are far too many variables involved to nail the answers down. To be fair, I haven’t revisited the question since then, so something new might be out there.

If the "most common answer from scientists" is that it is not known how long-term climate trends yield short-term weather, doesn't this suggest that most scientists are NOT careerist hacks desperate to cherry pick facts to push their pet theories so they can get grants and university tenure?

Unfortunately, too many people on either side are cherry-picking the data to sell the answer they want to sell. What is left out is as important as what is mentioned.

I guess the "either side" remark is supposed to establish TB's bona fides as a fair and objective observer, not a partisan propagandist. What is being left out is his side has billions invested in the status quo, has millions to spend to keep it that way, and has a past history of doing exactly that on a variety of issues in the past. (Means, motive and opportunity) They are not equivalent to the scientific community. Scientists can make mistakes, and they can be dishonest, but they do not have trade associations, lawyers, lobbyists, PR departments, and politicians on the payroll. They can't afford it.

Just one example: remember the news article about the march that took place on the “warmest April 29 ever at Washington Airport?”

I looked it up:

http://www.weather.gov/lwx/dcanme#apr

April 29 was indeed a record high (91) in 2017. What the news article left out is that the day before and the day after had record highs, too (92). One in 1957, and one in 1942. The record highs for the 26th and 27th were in 1915, (94 and 95). Just for fun, look at the month of May.


This whole argument is bogus, and a deliberate distraction. What a news article says, however misleading, cannot be used to demonstrate the unreliability and bias of climatological scientists. Even if it is deliberately and maliciously misleading, it just demonstrates the bias of a newspaper reporter.

This takes nothing away from the accuracy of the 2017 number. Just puts some perspective on it.

That's mighty white of you.