Paul Chesser over at the AmSpecBlog on CRU’s Phil Jones — including an amusing quote from Myron Ebell.

[Jones] provided the comments in an interview with the alarmist-friendly Guardian, which also helpfully linked updated statements from Jones and vice chancellor for research Trevor Davies, where Jones elaborated:
My colleagues and I accept that some of the published emails do not read well. I regret any upset or confusion caused as a result. Some were clearly written in the heat of the moment, others use colloquialisms frequently used between close colleagues.
So, “haste” and “heat” are to explain Jones’s efforts to manipulate data. The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Myron Ebell understands:
For people who don’t know any better, this looks like Professor Phil Jones, director of the CRU, is saying that he has used a “trick” that he got from Professor Michael Mann in order to “hide the decline.” First of all, we know that Professor Jones is a man of high integrity (as well as high competence in his field), so he would never do anything dishonest, sneaky, or duplicitous. Second, “trick” is a technical term often employed by the cream of climate scientists. It simply means employing a clever (or “slick”) method to accomplish some technical goal (in this case, “to hide the decline”). Anyone can see that “trick” is a much shorter and more elegant way to say that. And you’ve got to admire the verbal facility of these tip-top scientists. They are as articulate and literate as they are scientifically tip-top.