Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
The official report of the Pennsylvania State University Inquiry Committee into the actions of Dr. Michael Mann is available here. It is the Report of the Inquiry that Mann says exonerated him completely of the three most important allegations.
From Cartoons by Josh
The Inquiry Report was written by professors. As you might expect, it has plenty of extra words and paragraphs. So let’s take a tour through just the highlights of the Inquiry Report.
The quotations in bold italics are from the report. Nothing is taken out-of-order, and I have endeavored to include sufficient context. Here’s where the story started:
Beginning on and about November 22, 2009, The Pennsylvania State University began to receive numerous communications (emails, phone calls and letters) accusing Dr. Michael E. Mann of having engaged in acts that included manipulating data, destroying records and colluding to hamper the progress of scientific discourse around the issue of anthropogenic global warming from approximately 1998. These accusations were based on perceptions of the content of the widely reported theft of emails from a server at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in Great Britain.
Given the sheer volume of the communications to Penn State, the similarity of their content and their sources, which included University alumni, federal and state politicians, and others, many of whom had had no relationship with Penn State, it was concluded that the matter required examination by the cognizant University official, namely Dr. Eva J. Pell, then Senior Vice President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School. The reason for having Dr. Pell examine the matter was that the accusations, when placed in an academic context, could be construed as allegations of research misconduct, which would constitute a violation of Penn State policy.
A fine start. Numerous people are calling for an investigation, so Penn State will look to see if one is justified. They go on to cite the relevant policy statements that Mann may or may not have violated:
Under The Pennsylvania State University’s policy, Research Administration Policy No. 10, (hereafter referred to as RA-10), Research Misconduct is defined as:
(1) fabrication, falsification, plagiarism or other practices that seriously deviate from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research or other scholarly activities;
(2) callous disregard for requirements that ensure the protection of researchers, human participants, or the public; or for ensuring the welfare of laboratory animals;
(3) failure to disclose significant financial and business interest as defined by Penn State Policy RA20, Individual Conflict of Interest;
(4) failure to comply with other applicable legal requirements governing research or other scholarly activities.
RA-10 further provides that “research misconduct does not include disputes regarding honest error or honest differences in interpretations or judgments of data, and is not intended to resolve bona fide scientific disagreement or debate.”
That seems quite clear. Then they look at the “purloined emails” (love the term they use) and discuss what they plan to investigate:
From November 30 to December 14, 2009, staff in the Office for Research Protections culled through approximately 1075 of the emails that were purloined from a server at the University of East Anglia. Emails were reviewed if they were sent by Dr. Mann, were sent to Dr. Mann, were copied to Dr. Mann, or discussed Dr. Mann (but were neither addressed nor copied to him). In summary, the following were found:
• 206 emails that contained a message/text from Dr. Mann somewhere in the chain;
• 92 emails that were received by Dr. Mann, but in which he did not write/participate in the discussion; and
• 79 that dealt with Dr. Mann, his work or publications; he neither authored nor was he copied on any of these.
From among these 377 emails, the inquiry committee focused on 47 emails that were deemed relevant. On December 17, 2009, the inquiry committee (Pell, Scaroni, Yekel), Dr. Brune and Dr. Foley met to review the emails, discuss the RA-10 inquiry process and go over what their respective activities would be. It was agreed that these individuals would meet again in early January and that they would use the time until that meeting to review the relevant information, including the above mentioned e-mails, journal articles, OP-ED columns, newspaper and magazine articles, the National Academy of Sciences report entitled “Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years,” ISBN: 0-309-66144-7 and various blogs on the internet.
Well, that all sounds impressive, until you finish reading the entire report. At that point you realize that the paragraph above is the last you hear of any of this stuff. None of the important questions are ever answered. Which 47 emails were deemed to be relevant, and why? What was learned from the 47 relevant emails? Which “blogs on the internet” did they review, and what were the results? Which OP-ED columns did they read, and what did they conclude? We never find out anything further. The rest of the report is silent on everything listed in that section.
So it is just handwaving about the emails, presenting lots of numbers and no content. They also list all those things that they are supposedly going to look into, newpapers and journal articles … and then they never refer to any of that again. Without details, that is just filler, hollow claims without a stitch of followup or substantiation. Meaningless. We don’t even know if they understood the import of the emails, or which ones they found important. Nothing.
Back to the report. Next they discuss who would make up the inquiry team, followed by this explanation of how they defined the allegations against Dr. Mann:
At the time of initiation of the inquiry, and in the ensuing days during the inquiry, no formal allegations accusing Dr. Mann of research misconduct were submitted to any University official. As a result, the emails and other communications were reviewed by Dr. Pell and from these she synthesized the following four formal allegations. To be clear, these were not allegations that Dr. Pell put forth, or leveled against Dr. Mann, but rather were her best effort to reduce to allegation form the many different accusations that were received from parties outside of the University. The four synthesized allegations were as follows:
1. Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to suppress or falsify data?
2. Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data, related to AR4, as suggested by Phil Jones?
3. Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any misuse of privileged or confidential information available to you in your capacity as an academic scholar?
4. Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research or other scholarly activities?
I was surprised by the vague, broad, and unspecified nature of these allegations. If they actually had read and understood the purloined CRU emails, I would have thought that they would have identified the specific instances of things in the emails that looked shonky. But at least they cover the ground.
After further procedural matters, they report how they decided on what exact questions to ask Dr. Mann:
… it was decided that each committee member would send Dr. Foley specific questions that would be added to the four formal allegations and that would be used by the committee during the interview of Dr. Mann. These were compiled into one document. It was also decided that during the upcoming interview of Dr. Mann, Dr. Foley would ask each of the initial questions with follow up questions coming from the other committee members, and he would moderate the interview.
That is followed by their report of the first actual piece of investigation, their interview with Dr. Mann. They report on this interview as follows:
In an interview lasting nearly two hours, Dr. Mann addressed each of the questions and follow up questions. A recording was made of the meeting, and this recording was transcribed. The committee members asked occasional follow-up questions. Throughout the interview, Dr. Mann answered each question carefully:
• He explained the content and meaning of the emails about which we inquired;
• He explained that he had never falsified any data, nor had he had ever manipulated data to serve a given predetermined outcome;
• He explained that he never used inappropriate influence in reviewing papers by other scientists who disagreed with the conclusions of his science;
• He explained that he never deleted emails at the behest of any other scientist, specifically including Dr. Phil Jones, and that he never withheld data with the intention of obstructing science; and
• He explained that he never engaged in activities or behaviors that were inconsistent with accepted academic practices.
OK. They met with Mann for two hours, what I would see as a preliminary interview to get his claims on the record so they could be checked. He told them he was totally, completely innocent and as pure as new driven snow. The interview was recorded and transcribed.
So far, the inquiry was going very, very predictably, basic stuff. First Step. Initial Interview With Subject. Subject denies everything. Interview recorded, transcribed, and done. Check the first box on the checklist.
But at that point, things take an astounding turn. Here is the very next event in the chronology, as described in the very next paragraphs of the Report.
On January 15, 2010, and on behalf of the inquiry committee, Dr. Foley conveyed via email an additional request of Dr. Mann, who was asked to produce all emails related to the fourth IPCC report (“AR4”), the same emails that Dr. Phil Jones had suggested that he delete.
On January 18, 2010, Dr. Mann provided a zip-archive of these emails and an explanation of their content. In addition, Dr. Mann provided a ten page supplemental written response to the matters discussed during his interview.
They asked him to provide them emails? They asked him to assemble and send them the evidence against himself?
He works for Penn State. The ownership of the emails is theirs. They are investigating him. The very, very first thing that is done in an investigation of this sort is to do an email dump of the subject of the investigation. Then the investigators go through to see what they can find.
THEY ASKED MANN TO ASSEMBLE THE EMAIL EVIDENCE AGAINST HIMSELF!!! I know I’m shouting and that’s impolite, but it needs to be shouted. If any one thing about this Inquiry characterizes the bumbling incompetence of the Inquirers, surely it is that single fact — that they let him pick and choose the evidence to be used against him. I mean, you could stop right there and go home knowing all you need to know about the quality and impartiality of the Inquiry.
But as tempting as going home might be at this point, the report continues, and so perforce we also must continue along the weary trail of their tortured caricature of an inquiry. However, as we proceed, remember that they asked him to assemble the evidence against himself. I’d heard stories that professors were out of touch with the real world, but c’mon, folks, don’t professors watch cop shows once in a while? That’s bozo level Investigation 101. Do an email dump of his machine and the email server, then compare the emails that were deleted from his computer to the emails that remain in the server.
But nooooo, he’s their esteemed colleague, that would be unseemly, so they politely asked him to send them the email evidence showing whether he had deleted emails or done anything else underhanded … words fail me.
After their killer hard-hitting look at the email question, and their collegiate discussion with their esteemed colleague, what did they look into next? The Penn State clown car careens on to the next step in their relentless inquiry, as shown by the next paragraph:
On January 22, 2010, the inquiry committee and Dr. Brune met again to review the evidence, including but not limited to Dr. Mann’s answers to the committee’s questions, both in the interview and in his subsequent submissions. All were impressed by Dr. Mann’s composure and his forthright responses to all of the queries that were asked of him. At this point, Dr. Foley reviewed the relevant points of his conversation with Dr. Gerald North, a professor at Texas A&M University and the first author of the NAS’ 2006 report on Dr. Mann’s research on paleoclimatology. Dr. Foley also relayed the sentiment and view of Dr. Donald Kennedy of Stanford University and the former editor of Science Magazine about the controversy currently swirling around Dr. Mann and some of his colleagues. Both were very supportive of Dr. Mann and of the credibility of his science.
Just kidding about the relentless inquiry, that was it. Four days after getting the emails from Mann, the party was over. At that point, looking for evidence was passé. All relevant questions had been asked. They were finished with the inquiry part, no more evidence collection, that was it, time to examine the collected evidence.
The above paragraph says that with the inquiry safely behind them and all relevant evidence gathered, they met to consider that evidence. Bear in mind that the totality of the evidence that they report being collected by their inquiry was:
1. Mann denied everything, and they were impressed with his style.
2. Two friends of Mann told Dr. Foley that they were supportive of Mann.
3. None of the emails chosen by Mann showed any evidence of wrongdoing.
Based on that evidence, four days later, on January 26, 2010, the inquiry committee met to announce their findings.
After a careful review of all written material, and information obtained from the purloined emails, the interview of Dr. Mann, the supplemental materials provided by Dr. Mann and all the information from other sources, the committee found as follows with respect to each allegation:
OK, moment of truth, drum roll, please …
Regarding the first charge, ladies and gentlemen of the Jury, did Dr. Mann engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to suppress or falsify data? How does the Penn State Jury find?
As there is no substance to this allegation, there is no basis for further examination of this allegation in the context of an investigation in the second phase of RA-10.
So take that, you callous unbelievers, there’s no need for any kind of further investigation. Case closed, total exoneration. And further …
The so-called “trick” was nothing more than a statistical method used to bring two or more different kinds of data sets together in a legitimate fashion by a technique that has been reviewed by a broad array of peers in the field.
Nonsense. The “trick” is a way to hide adverse data, something that scientists should never do. At least they have proven conclusively that the inquiry committee members were neither statisticians nor mathematicians. And that they weren’t investigators either, or even inquirers. But I digress …
Regarding the second allegation, did Dr. Mann engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data, related to AR4, as suggested by Phil Jones, how does the Jury find?
As there is no substance to this allegation, there is no basis for further examination of this allegation in the context of an investigation in the second phase of RA-10.
The emails Mike provided showed no wrongdoing regarding AR4, so again no investigation is necessary … I’m not sure how they got around the CRU email where Mann told Jones that he would pass Jones’s request to (illegally) delete any AR4 emails on to Gene Wahl. That one is real hard to peanut butter over, but somehow they did it.
Maybe that email wasn’t one of the 47 relevant emails. Or maybe it was, but they just identified the 47 relevant emails and never asked Mann about them … we don’t know.
In any case, regarding the third allegation, did Dr. Mann engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any misuse of privileged or confidential information available to him in his capacity as an academic scholar, how does the Jury find:
As there is no substance to this allegation, there is no basis for further examination of this allegation in the context of an investigation in the second phase of RA-10.
Same same, no investigation needed, everything is for the best in this the best of all possible worlds for the first three inquiries.
And as to the final allegation, did Dr. Mann engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research or other scholarly activities, how does the Jury find?
The Jury finds nothing!
Fooled you, huh, and it fooled me too. But then I remembered that these are university professors. They know the rules. And it’s against the rules to deal conclusively with every single item on any given agenda. For at least one item, you are required to form a new committee to further investigate the matter. And true to their code, they decided Allegation Four was just too tough to answer. So they closed their report by punting the ball to a new committee. This is a committee to do an investigation into allegation four …
And that was it, folks. That was the inquiry that Mann says “exonerated” him of any wrongdoing on the first three allegations of misconduct. The inquiry that decided that there was no need for an investigation on the three most important allegations, case closed.
But wait, it gets worse. You remember that the Report said the interview with Mann was recorded and transcribed? Perhaps it got misplaced or something, because it hasn’t been released. So the Inquirers haven’t bothered to let us know what questions Mann was asked, or what his answers were.
But at least the Inquirers have been good enough to tell us the crucial information, that they were impressed by Dr. Mann’s composure and his forthright responses …
Me, I’m sitting here at my keyboard and busting out laughing at this pitiable grade-school excuse for an inquiry. I mean, it’s the perfect storm of inquiries. Ask Mann if he’s innocent, ask him if he’s got any incriminating emails, talk to two of his friends, collect a bit of unspecified information from unknown “sources”, and then deny the need for any further investigation, based on the lack of evidence of wrongdoing … that’s delicious. They studiously avoid collecting any evidence, so studiously that they don’t talk to a single critic of Mann’s actions.
And then they say that there isn’t enough evidence to justify an investigation, and they decline to show us any of the evidence! Man, that is as sweet a scam as I can imagine, right up there with Catch-22.
In a bizarre way, the outcome of this Inquiry is custom made for Michael Mann. Here’s why. You remember that for years we couldn’t tell if Mann had done anything wrong with the Hockeystick, because the data wasn’t released?
Well, to close the circle, now we can’t tell if Mann was forthright with the Inquiry Committee, or even what he questions he was asked, because the data wasn’t released.
Perfect symmetry.
Penn State Alumni, where is the outrage? Might be out there and I missed it, but roar, Nittany Lions, roar!
OTHER VOICES
Steve McIntyre has interesting analyses here and here. In the latter he highlights issues arising from the fact that this was an inquiry into whether enough evidence exists to justify an investigation, and not the subsequent investigation itself.
This was an inquiry, for which you would expect lower standards of proof. All you need is enough facts to justify an investigation. Now me, at that lower standard I thought the Climategate emails were prima facie evidence that an investigation was warranted, not some pissant inquiry. But despite their dedicated and exhaustive searches for evidence, the dedicated Inquirers couldn’t even satisfy that lower inquiry standard and ask for an investigation … ah, well.
Steve also discusses Cuccinelli here.
Steve Milloy raises addition questions here.
Fox News weighs in from the right.
Bishop Hill adds to the story here.
Lucia hosts a discussion at the Blackboard.
The Report of the final Investigation into the part of the Inquiry that couldn’t be decided by the previous Inquiry is here. The Investigation into the fourth allegation of the Inquiry report says there was nothing to see here, move along. I know you are surprised by that news.
Willis
The Penn State inquiry sounds like the Spanish inquisition compared to the ones carried out here in the UK by various half baked tame Parliamentary committees and former bosses of the accused.
tonyb
I wonder if the professors “investigating” Mr. Mann yawned as much as the Senators did during Clinton’s impeachment trial?
LOL!…That was the “Hockey Stick Illusion” !!
Great condensation of this sham inquiry, Willis. This really caught my eye:
The committee did not “…talk to a single critic of Mann’s actions.”
Elmer Gantry is a paragon of honesty compared with the players in this investigation comedy.
“pissant” Is that from the french verb pisser?
“These accusations were based on perceptions of the content of the widely reported theft of emails from a server at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in Great Britain.”
The Inquiry Report starts off with an unproven assumption.
Nice right-off-the-grill bias.
Would you like to supersize that? OK. A Grand Jury would have no problem handing down an indictment.
Penn State is still walking around with egg on it’s face: Failure to investigate, which is a much louder statement than anything contained in any report. Credibility ruined.
Mighty high price to pay for a scientific hypothesis of dubious nature, yes?
Whatever Michael Mann is or isn’t, he’s surely one mighty expensive tenure.
So a report that keeps its data and calculations a secret and produces a “trust us, we are telling you the truth” document has been produced.
Since that is actually a description of how Dr. Mann does “science” can anyone be surprised that his university and his fellow professors have just done the same thing?
The rotten acorn doesn’t fall far from the sickly tree.
This is yet another example of insidious, corrupt and sinister power that would appear to be emanated from the so-called new world order (NWO), exerting financial pressure on Penn State University’s directorate, who in turn direct their attentions to looking after no.1.
It is also another example of Lord Christopher Monckton’s view, and others’, that this NWO is hell-bent on dampening any alternative opinion as much as possible, thus including news media and the 4th estate, as well as universities.
They’re behaving this way because they think they can get away with it; i.e., because they think history (a warmer climate) will vindicate them — or at least have the effect of disarming potential critics. They’re really incapable of outside the box thinking.
PS: I.e., they can’t imagine that “everything they know is wrong.”
This is one PSU alum who is shamed by all of this. And I have gone on the record to the President’s Office as stating that Mann belongs in jail. My answer to fund raising appeals will be the only thing they ever hear. Indeed, the “no” will be stated quite clearly. I will continue to support the track and XC programs but never the University as a whole. And I’ll spread the word to all I encounter. It’s a shame too, since the State of Pennsylvania already short-changes PSU compared to every other State School in the nation.
And, “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!” to Willis.
From Fox News:
“On Friday, Rep. Darrell Issa, the ranking Republican on the House Investigations Committee, charged that the Penn State’s failure to settle all the charges and called into question professor Mann’s work. He is demanding that all grants to the noted scientist be frozen.
Mann, according to published reports, has gotten a grant almost $550,000 in stimulus money to study climate change and is part of a nearly $2 million grant to Penn State to study the impact of climate change on various diseases.
“Until the investigation is completed,” Issa said, “the National Science Foundation should immediately freeze all grants and funding, including the $541,184 stimulus grant, to Professor Mann.”
According to the Fox report, two Penn State legislators are proposing that the state investigate Mann themselves but there is no investigation underway so one has to wonder to what investigation was Issa referring?
OT, but resembles the story on what Mrs. B. Gates said to Bill the morning after the wedding night: “Oh, dear, NOW I know why you namned your company microsoft…”
(Sorry, couldn’t resist..)
Brgds/TJ
I’m sorry to report that this doesn’t surprise me Willis. Going through the CSU system rather recently myself I can say that a few of the physics courses I took from (for all intents and purposes) crooks. Not all of them are this way, mind you, not even most of them. Just a select few are this way really. But in a system where you can get away with nearly murder and not get fired (due to tenure), those few psychos who can get away with anything will usually try and succeed; and otherwise honest people are nearly compelled to lower their own standards of action due to extremely bad examples. Worse yet, it completely waters down any internal enforcement of rules. So now when a real conflict arises, no one in the department is willing to make a tough enforcement decision because it means that previous slaps-on-the-wrist must be revisited. It takes a true gem of a professor to both help his graduate students graduate, and hold themselves completely above the sleaze factor that many University departments inevitably contain. Most of the Profs I met and got to know could do one or the other, but not both. A rare few did neither and were simply there to get rich by any loophole available. These slime would publish total crap on string theory which they found a partially-insane imported post-grad who doesn’t understand American living standards to do for them for free and then pat themselves on the back for maximizing the units/credits for which they are paid while minimizing lecture time by any means possible.
And of course, to the Mann/Hansen apologists I’m the insane one for even daring to imply that not all scientists are these wholly altruistic inhuman beings of divine knowledge that they hold them as.
Bring out the Comfy Chair!
You need to put a “health” warning at the top of this post, otherwise people are going to be complaining about drenched keyboards.
In a way, this is cheering news, like Patchy staying on at the IPCC. It’s like the old Westerns that you see, where the Injuns are attacking and the guy in charge tells the defenders not to shoot until the very last minute and then all the attackers die, instead of a few getting picked off and the rest getting through while they’re still reloading.
All the “science” and all these shoddy non-enquiries are like a game of Jenga. Pretty soon, they’ll pull one more stick and the whole rotten edifice will come tumbling down. Patience should be our watchword here.
One can hardly fault Mann with declaring an exoneration. Faced with the alternatives, a whitewash was the best he could have hoped for. He got it, so he is putting the best spin on it. He knows he did it, most of the thinking world realizes he did it, so the kangaroo court was purely for talking points and the mind-numbed robots to repeat.
And in the final analysis, is that not exactly the results obtained?
“bumbling incompetence”? On the contrary, they achieved exactly what they set out to achieve.
Mann is all washed up. Expect to find him netting mosquitos in outer Mongolia in a couple of years time.
How many malaria nets, and how much medicine could go to the poor to fight malaria, with Michael mann’s 2 million dollars for disease / climate change research..
read the below (the warmist BBC no less) and see if Michael Mann has a MORAL case to answer. How many lives could have been saved, for frivolous research, at least that is how the MALARIA EXPERTS seem to see it.
BBC- Climate change is ‘distraction’ on malaria spread”
By Richard Black- 20 May 2010
“Climate change will have a tiny impact on malaria compared with our capacity to control the disease, a study finds.”
“Noting that malaria incidence fell over the last century, researchers calculate that control measures have at least 10 times more impact than climate factors.
Research leader Peter Gething from Oxford University described the CLIMATE LINK as an “UNWELCOME DISTRACTION” from the main issues of tackling malaria.
The paper, by scientists in the UK, US and Kenya, is published in Nature.
“We were looking to quantify something that perhaps we already knew with regard to the interaction of climate and malaria,” Dr Gething told BBC News.
“A lot of the studies proposing there would be a dramatic increase in a warmer world have been met with guarded criticism, and often what’s been said about them surpasses what the actual science indicates.
“So this redresses the balance a bit.”
Dr Peter Gething from Oxford University:
http://www.map.ox.ac.uk/team/
“I’d say what we’ve shown is that if we can provide people with existing technologies such as drugs and bednets, we have the capacity as a global community to reduce the misery this disease causes,” said Dr Gething.
“Climate change is, in our view, an unwelcome distraction from the main issues.”
——————————
Any thoughts……….
Forgot the BBC link.
BBC- Climate change is ‘distraction’ on malaria spread”
By Richard Black- 20 May 2010
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10127989
“Climate change will have a tiny impact on malaria compared with our capacity to control the disease, a study finds.”
“Research leader DR Peter Gething from Oxford University described the CLIMATE LINK as an “UNWELCOME DISTRACTION” from the main issues of tackling malaria.”
“He works for Penn State. The ownership of the emails is theirs. They are investigating him. The very, very first thing that is done in an investigation of this sort is to do an email dump of the subject of the investigation. Then the investigators go through to see what they can find.”
For God’s sakes it is not a police investigation of a child porn ring. They cannot just seize his computer because of some internet blogs say bad things about the man. Since you have never been involved in an “investigation of the sort” you have no idea what you are talking about. There is no way they are going to issue a 1000 page document assessing every rumour spread by ignorant blogers and politicians.
What you want is a which hunt. You want to harass any researcher who reaches conclusions you perceive as at variance with your uber-free market ideology. When science and religion have clashed science has won in the end and it will be the same here.
Willis,
Well done.
Things have crystallized into sharp & pinpoint focus.
If I lived in the State of Pennsylvania I would email the Pennsylvania Attorney General Office and the Federal Gov’t Reps for the State of Pennsylvania.
John
Sorry boys : This isn’t the only evidence of Mann’s pure heart. Enquiry after enquiry ( some people don’t understand the term ” false witness ) have produced exxoneration for Mann and bupkess for the tea party.
As the founding president of the Wake Up And Smell The Coffee Party, I congratulate Professor Mann for producing a paper that has survived one of the most voluminous attacks known in science and has always proved to be correct. Mann didn’t need Wakl and Annan: the boiling oil poured down on the heads of illinformed economists and mine promoters and the failure of these sterling individuals to construct any coherent criticism proves the robust health of Mann’s work.