Judge blocks Cuccinelli investigation into Mann UVa issues

In an opinion issued this morning, Judge Paul M. Peatross Jr. ruled that Cuccinelli failed to show a sufficient “reason to believe” that UVa possessed any documents related to Mann that suggested a fraud occurred.

This case smells like it goes toward an inside whistleblower.

I hope Cuccinelli appeals the judge’s dismissal. the AG’s position seemed to be well founded.

So much for openness as a value point in and of itself. To be honest the best way to allow Cuccunelli to look a fool is to allow the process to continue until no fraud is found. There’s a lot of dirt under the rug, but fraud won’t be found there. So far, incompetence is not illegal in this country. Exposing that is what Mann has been spared.

Then what good is an attorney general or a subpoena?

To serve and protect… Mannkind.

If this is just a witch hunt funded by people who find Mann’s research “inconvenient”, as he says, why not just release everything? Seems like he would be completely vindicated if there is nothing to hide. By hiding behind legal blockades it leaves the impression that there is something that would be very damaging if it was made public. Oh yea, and what about all the other emails that have never been made public? Those would answer a whole bunch of questions.

PaulW,
Are you Mann’s sock puppet, or are you just thick?
The next thorough investigation of Mann will be the first.
A thorough review or audit of Mann, CRU, Hansen, Schmidt, etc. has yet to take place.
Mann, and the UV system got millions in tax payer dollars. They have the right to know what it was spent on, since we now know the science was garbage.
Scientists are not some medieval religious order, immune to mere secular authorities. It is long past time to subject Big Science to the same standards of accountability and disclosure as anyone else.

The Russians often change the party line about the “plots” of crafty scientists and throw the conspiracy theorists under the bus.
For example Izvestiya (3-19-92) reported:
[Russian intelligence chief Yevgeni Primakov] mentioned the well known articles printed a few years ago in our central newspapers about AIDS supposedly originating from secret Pentagon laboratories. According to Yevgeni Primakov, the articles exposing US scientists’ “crafty” plots were fabricated in KGB offices.
Actually, the Russians own up to their propaganda campaigns pretty often. You might want to think about that.

What are these CIDs that he can issue, which “carry the same weight as a subpoena?
SaveE.

The persecution of Mann is led by a man who was given 55,000 dollars from a criminal named Bobby Thompson. http://www.tampabay.com/specials/2010/reports/navy-veterans-association/
Why did Cuccinelli give this obvious criminal “the benefit of the doubt” while persecuting a scientist that is very highly regarded by experts in his field?
I bet Dr. Mann didn’t get 55,000 dollars from a criminal.
Cuccinelli is probably getting funding from fossil fuel entities to persecute Mann.
I remember that the Russian gas company Itera gave a lot of money to Congressman Weldon’s daughter.
I think Cuccinelli is a stooge of the fossil fuel industry.

Mann has his records locked up tight. It’s Obamesque…

Theo Barker says:
August 30, 2010 at 1:33 pm
“Why is a county judge ruling on a state matter?”
Because the investigation is being made under ‘civil rules’ rather then ‘criminal rules’.

Snapple,
Despite your name, I think you have been drinking too much AGW Kool-aid. But thanks for stopping by. While you won’t get booted from this site for expressing contrary opinions, you will need to put a little more effort into it to get someone to take you on.
Mods – a snip for Snapple for being off topic (Russian conspiracy theories) might have been in order.

#
#
paulw says:
August 30, 2010 at 1:39 pm
This are aggressive and shameful actions by Cuccinelli. Dr Mann was found to have done his job properly. Instead of letting it go, this polarizes the debate. As if the goal is to silence scientists and bring fear.
____________________________________________
What is the matter Paul, afraid they may audit you and find out about all that iffy stuff and you will have to give back all the grant money???
As a tax payer AND as a chemist I am very happy to see Cuccinelli putting some fear into scientists – they need it given the amount of lying I have seen while working as a chemist and lab manager.
Why is it that people think a PhD automatically means the guy is honest?

And exactly how would the Judge know there was no fraud if he won’t let anyone see the emails that would prove the fraud? The standard is probable cause, and it is an easy one to meet.

I suspect this has more to do with politics and getting votes then anything else. The problem, while everyone is talking about Mr. Mann, the university is ultimately responsible. It is the university’s reputation and management that stand to loose the most. The other side effect is taking attention away from the issue of scientific competence and shifting it to “possible financial misconduct”. Now if the university is maleficent, that should be what the issue is. If Mann is incompetent or in other ways less then honorable in his research, reporting and or teaching, then go after that. As I see this from here in Calgary, it is a no win for anyone, as it is presently presented.

I think Mann is a scoundrel but am relieved this is not going through. Those who, as I do, remember Congressman Dingell’s efforts to bring scientists to account in the ‘eighties will recall how futile his efforts were and how they came to be seen as hounding innocent eggheads. Scientists should do their own policing, and do it well. This is what this website is about.

Snapple,
Are you an environmental activist?

Snapple says:
August 30, 2010 at 2:29 pm
….I think Cuccinelli is a stooge of the fossil fuel industry.
_______________________________________________________
Snapple, you have it donkey backwards. MANN is the stooge of the fossil fuel industry.
TheClimategate e-mail on Global Governance & Sustainable Development (B1) – Ged Davis is the key. Here is who Ged Davis is. A thirty year Shell Oil executive with UN and IPCC connections!!!!!
Here is the context and history:
In Maurice Strong’s 1972 First Earth Summit speech, Strong warned urgently about global warming he saw to it that Greenpeace got a free pass to the summit. Strong is a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation (Standard Oil money) that funds Greenpeace and WWF. Strong started in the oil business in 1952 working for the Rockefeller’s in Saudi Arabia and went on to be president and CEO of several oil companies.
Here is the WHY of “Global Warming”:
Obama’s Chief Science Adviser is John Holden.’In their 1973 book “Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions,” Holdren and co-authors Paul and Anne Ehrlich wrote:
“A massive campaign [read global warming] must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States. De-devolopment means bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with the realities of ecology and the global resource situation. Resources and energy must be diverted from frivolous and wasteful uses in overdeveloped countries to filling the genuine needs of underdeveloped countries.”
And Strong is again very active in the campaign for Global Governance:
UN REFORM – Restructuring for Global Governance
Our Global Neighborhood – Report of the Commission on Global Governance: a summary analysis
The de-development plan is UN Division for Sustainable Development – full text of Agenda 21
Maurice Strong
David Rockefeller Studies Program – Global Governance & Climate Change
Council on Foreign Relations web site, David Rockefeller Honorary Chairman – Global Governance
David Rockefeller quotes on global governance
    At Baden-Baden , Germany , in June 1991 , David Rockefeller stated : 
     “We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time magazine, and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during these years. But the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government which will never again know war, but only peace and prosperity for the whole of humanity. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in the past centuries.”  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8450
Snapple, are you sure you want a world ruled by Oil Execs and Banksters????

Snapple,
Instead of engaging in ad hominem slanders, why don’t you explain for us why UVA promptly released the emails of climate scientist Patrick Michaels when requested by a private “environmental” organization, but is into a hard stonewall mode on the emails of Michael Mann, whose POLICY of using cherry-picked data and improper statistical methods are a blatent violation of the Scientific Method?

During the 1980s, the Soviet state security, the KGB, orchestrated the infamous “AIDS made in America” campaign of defamation against American scientists. In 1987, the famous Soviet physicist Roald Sagdeev, who recently criticized Attorney General Cuccinelli’s persecution of climate scientist Michael Mann, publically denounced the pseudoscientific AIDS conspiracy theory. This may have happened because President Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of State, George Shultz, told the Russians to stop spreading disinformation about how our scientists made AIDS.
Unlike Virginia’s Attorney General Cuccinelli, America’s Secretary of State Shultz, a Republican, defended America’s scientists from those who would defame them and smear them in front of the whole world. Mr. Schultz appreciated how important American science is for the progress of the entire world.
Cuccinelli calls himself a “conservative,” but there is nothing conservative about destroying American scientists and discrediting their research research with fabricated “fraud” charges. There is nothing conservative about risking the future of our nation and the whole world.
Mr. Cuccinelli should follow the lead of the American statesman George Shultz, instead of toadying to the destructive sponsors of the pseudoscientific denialist movement. He should be defending scientists from persecution, not setting the mob on them at taxpayer expense.

Dave says:
August 30, 2010 at 4:01 pm

The obvious conclusion (here) is that the judge must be
part of the conspiracy. Thus the “home town” comment.

Wow. You seem to see people claiming conspiracies all over
the place. A “home town” ruling just means the judge had the
latitude to give the local folks a break and make the outsider
(the AG) cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s.
There’s nothing conspiratorial about this ruling from national,
international, or transnational interests. It’s about a state law
being applied in a very limited circumstance concerning an
institution of higher education that’s not a direct party to an inquiry
about possible fradulent accounting in grant reporting.
The AG’s legal brief is available on line.

REPLY: No the logical conclusion is that if there’s nothing to hide, release it, clear the air.
That’s exactly what got Nixon in so much extended hot water.
Watching Attn. Gen John Mitchell’s stonewalling face spout one 5th after another really cheesed America off.
The taste of things hidden is fresh in the mouth.

Russia’s President Medvedev recently stated that global warming is happening. RIA Novosti (7-31-10) reports that President Medvedev stated:
“What is happening to our planet’s climate should motivate all of us, I mean, states and heads of non-governmental organizations, to take more active steps to resist global warming.”
This affirmation of global warming is an about-face for President Medvedev. As noted above, when he visited Tomsk two months after the Copenhagen Climate Conference, President Medvedev characterized the global-warming debate as “some kind of tricky campaign made up by some commercial structures to promote their business projects.”
It should be pretty obvious that President Medvedev’s former views are shared by U.S. and British global warming denialists.

Unlike Pravda,
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has examined every one of the hacked CRU emails and has strongly affirmed that it finds nothing more than “candid discussion of scientists working through issues that arise in compiling and presenting large complex data sets”.
On 29 July 2010, the EPA denied 10 petitions which challenged the Agency’s 2009 determination that climate change is real, is occurring due to emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities, and threatens human health and the environment.
The petitions claimed that climate science could not be trusted, citing the CRU emails and asserting a conspiracy that they said invalidated the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the US National Academy of Sciences, and the US Global Change Research Program.
After months of serious consideration of the petitions and of the state of climate change science, the EPA has found no evidence to support these claims. In contrast, it says its review shows that climate science is credible, compelling, and growing stronger.
The agency reviewed all of the stolen CRU emails, concluding:
… petitioners have routinely misunderstood or mischaracterised the scientific issues, drawn faulty scientific conclusions, resorted to hyperbole, impugned the ethics of climate scientists in general, characterised actions as “falsifications” and “manipulation” with no basis for support, and placed an inordinate reliance on blogs, news stories, and literature that is often neither peer reviewed nor accurately summarized in their petitions. Petitioners often “cherry-pick” language that creates the suggestion or appearance of impropriety, without looking deeper into the issues or providing corroborating evidence that improper action actually occurred.
The agency makes clear that:
Petitioners’ assumptions and subjective assertions regarding what the e-mails purport to show about the state of climate change science are clearly inadequate pieces of evidence to challenge the voluminous and well documented body of science that is the technical foundation of the Administrator’s Endangerment Finding.
(from: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment/petitions.html)

Snapple says:
August 30, 2010 at 4:58 pm
1. Cuccinelli inaccurately asserts that the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age “disappeared” in Mann et al.’s original hockey stick paper.
2. Cuccinelli misrepresents the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
3. Cuccinelli falsely maintains that climate scientists are primarily motivated by money, and suggests they are skewing their research results to attract grants.
4. Cuccinelli exaggerates the importance of the hockey stick, implying that it provides the rationale for laws that would require emissions reductions.
5. Cuccinelli cites a paper that criticized the hockey stick, but fails to cite refutations of that paper’s conclusions or the unusual circumstances under which it was published.
6. Cuccinelli uncritically cites a study by Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick that erroneously criticized Mann et al.’s hockey stick research.
7. Cuccinelli implies Mann was hiding something in a data folder marked “CENSORED,” but fails to acknowledge that the folder was publicly available.
8.Cuccinelli extensively cites the 2006 Wegman report, but fails to note valid criticisms of that report.
9. Cuccinelli incorrectly cites three emails that were stolen last fall from Mann.
10. Cuccinelli and his staff again make a basic mistake when describing the now well-known email that features the phrases “trick” and “hide the decline.”
11. Cuccinelli confuses the Muir Russell report’s criticism of a Phil Jones graph with Mann et al.’s hockey stick research.
12. Cuccinelli’s filing demonstrates a lack of understanding of how science works.
http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/cuccinelli-court-filing-basic-errors-0430.html#3

—————–
Snapple,
You better file your stuff quickly with the attorneys for UVa!!! You might save Michael Mann. Quick. Don’t waste our time here. You won’t help Mann on this blog.
I am sure you can really help him. But better hurry up before Cuccinelli surely files another CID very soon.
John

luca turin says:
August 30, 2010 at 3:51 pm
I think Mann is a scoundrel but am relieved this is not going through. Those who, as I do, remember Congressman Dingell’s efforts to bring scientists to account in the ‘eighties will recall how futile his efforts were and how they came to be seen as hounding innocent eggheads. Scientists should do their own policing, and do it well. This is what this website is about.
_________________________________________________
Unfortunately Scientists doing their own policing doesn’t work. They go after those who are not “Team Players” and crucify them. See: Lewis B. Allyn expulsion from the American Chemical Society – for telling the truth (pg 36)

Snapple says:
August 30, 2010 at 4:58 pm

1. Cuccinelli inaccurately asserts that the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age “disappeared” in Mann et al.’s original hockey stick paper.

Does one really have to go beyond that incorrect assertion?
DaveE.

Medvedev isn’t going to kick the gift horse in the mouth. If the US is bound and determined to throw itself on its idealogical sword, why shouldn’t he encourage America to do so? Russia would join China in reaping the benefits of a ruined America.

Still on the witch hunt! GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY! because thats what we want to think!

Joe says:
August 30, 2010 at 5:34 pm

No the logical conclusion is that if there’s nothing to hide, release it, clear the air. And I don’t appreciate your illogical conclusion about WUWT. – Anthony

No, Anthony. The logical conclusion is that Cuccinelli had zero evidence that Mann had done anything wrong, and the judge therefore properly ruled that the Commonwealth had zero basis to pursue this. In fact, his ruling essentially said: if you happen to find something, feel free to come back.

———————-
Joe,
I think you do not have the meaning of the court ruling quite right. Cuccinelli is probably quite encouraged by the ruling. Basically, the judge did not accept the argument of UVa that State of Virginia did not have a right to serve a CID on the UVa. A win for Cuccinelli . What the court said was that Cuccinelli needs to frame his CID and reasons for it more precisely. I think Cuccinelli is likely to do just that very quickly. And maybe keep doing it until it is precisely enough to proceed.
Joe, see mpaul’s excellent comment above at:

mpaul says:
August 30, 2010 at 2:29 pm

John

Phil says:
“According to the following quotation: “Cuccinelli did not show, Peatross wrote, any evidence that Mann’s work was “misleading, false or fraudulent in obtaining funds from the Commonwealth of Virginia.””, the judge appears to take the view that Cuccinelli is limited in his action to grants from Va. Of the 5 grants in question only one was from Va and Mann was not the PI on that one so perhaps he’s targeting the wrong person?”
I suspect that Cuccinelli will re-issue a revised CID related to the Va grant and will simultaneous appeal the ruling that the other 4 are not subject to Va jurisdiction. If false claims were made, they were presented to UVa for payment through Va bank accounts. As such, they come under Va jurisdiction. This is a matter of law and not of fact — as such it is grounds for appeal.
False claims can be made by people other than a PI obviously.

mpaul says:
August 30, 2010 at 2:29 pm
The judge’s ruling was very narrow. He simply said that Cuccinelli’s CID was defective while affirming the right of Cuccinelli to issue CIDs to investigate fraud at universities. UVa had argued that the AG had no right to investigate wrong doing at universities. This is a silly argument — if not the AG than who? UVa was essentially arguing that no one has the right to investigate them for financial fraud. This argument was clearly shot down. I imagine that the AG will now re-issue the CID with sufficient specificity regarding the alleged conduct. My bet is that we will see a new CID in 48 hours.
UVa can now not argue that the CID is improper; they can now only try to shoot it down based on technical defects, which is a loser because the AG will eventually get the CID technically correct. UVa also can not argue that the alleged conduct does not rise to the level of fraud — that’s for a grand jury to decide. In our system, the accused does not get to decide whether the accusation has merit or not.
Game, set, match Cuccinelli.
_______________________________________________________
Interesting take on it mpaul. I think you may be right….. As you said, Cuccinelli should be issuing another CID shorty then.
Hey Snapple you wearin’ yer tin foil hat mate?…. You better be careful. Those Russkies will pinch yer thoughts before you even have ’em ya know!…;-)

“Snapple says:
August 30, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Russia’s President Medvedev recently stated that global warming is happening.”
My god! That’s just the proof I needed!! Why have I wasted all this time as a sceptic?? Thank you Snapple, thank you.
cheers David

[fake email ~ ctm]

Snapple says:
“1. Cuccinelli inaccurately asserts that the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age “disappeared” in Mann et al.’s original hockey stick paper.”
Snapple, please post a graphic (link?) of the hockey-stick graph that shows the MWP and LIA. One of the (many) reasons why this wretched graph was roundly condemned was because the flat stick DIDN’T show those two periods.
Oh, one other thing: I’m not Russian and have never been given any money by ‘Big Oil’

Snapple [August 30, 2010 at 4:39 pm] says:
Mr. Cuccinelli should follow the lead of the American statesman George Shultz, instead of toadying to the destructive sponsors of the pseudoscientific denialist movement. He should be defending scientists from persecution, not setting the mob on them at taxpayer expense.
Taxpayers are the mob thank you very much. This is the direction we are headed so you better get used to it. Stand in front of this freight train at your own peril. Taxpayers are finally waking up and they are the last line of defense to the socialist onslaught. We must make it so dangerous and painful to go near taxpayer dollars that it becomes a last resort, instead of the only resort.
The probe by Cuccinelli is a miniscule baby step towards getting taxpayer accountability, much more pain is required. If a scientist or anyone accepts one single penny of TAXPAYER money they better be fearing that the wrath of god will descend upon them if they squander/lie/cheat/distort/waste/etc ad nauseum. If Mann is the first so be it, but he will not be the last.
Why don’t you just be honest with your left-wing self and say this: How dare you taxpayers try to police and account for your donations to the state! Don’t you know it is for the greater good?
When you grow up and begin to write checks of five and six figures to state and federal government EVERY year (not to mention property/school taxes) then come back and talk to me. In the meantime switch your handle from Snapple (what, was koolaid already taken?) to Twinkie.

Snapple wrote:
“Cuccinelli calls himself a “conservative,” but there is nothing conservative about destroying American scientists and discrediting their research research with fabricated “fraud” charges. ”
“… He should be defending scientists from persecution…”
Snapple, let me set you straight on two quick things, so maybe we could get over this. First, it isn’t the “charge” that discredits the research, it is the “investigation.” If there’s no misconduct, there’s no negative result. It’s that simple.
Second, nobody should be defending scientists from persecution. The scientific method does that. If they followed the scientific method, then there can be no success for an investigation. If they didn’t… Then they shouldn’t be scientists. Pretty simple, no?

Rob:
“The only difference would be that Mann’s carreer is finished.
Is that what you guys are after ?”
Yes, of course, for the sin of obstruction, obfuscation, bullying, instead of doing what a scientist should do.. admit the mistake, correct it, and move on. Mann fired himself when he did that. The end of his carreer is just the logical outcome.

” Dr Mann was found to have done his job properly.”
Ahhh… Ummm…. NO.
Paulw displays his fundamental bias here.
Dr. Mann was found to have done his job SHODDILY, but not improperly enough to warrant more than a whitewashed slap on the wrist. That is a FAR CRY from doing one’s job “properly”.

Bill D.
Not a bad idea… the AG of the Commonwealth of Virginia would probably do a far more honest “peer review” than so-called “climate scientists” do for each other’s papers… I think it definitely has some merit!

Snapple says:
August 30, 2010 at 4:58 pm
Your link, which you offer to support your view, has nothing to do with the NAS, Wegman, M&M investigation by Congress. It is a stand-alone report from 2006 by a 12 member committee assembled by North. It is rife with factual errors and reeks of misconceptions peddled by AGW mainstreamers, most of which have all been dealt with and refuted on this site and others…with facts. It does have salient and concise points concerning the MBH 98/99 conclusions:
___________________
NAS 2006
“However, the substantial uncertainties currently present in the quantitative assessment of large-scale surface temperature changes prior to about A.D. 1600 lower our confidence in this conclusion compared to the high level of confidence we place in the Little Ice Age cooling and 20th century warming.”
“Even less confidence can be placed in the original conclusions by Mann et al. (1999) that “the 1990s are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium” because the uncertainties inherent in temperature reconstructions for individual years and decades are larger than those for longer time periods, and because not all of the available proxies record temperature information on such short timescales.”
“We also question some of the statistical choices made in the original papers by Dr. Mann and his colleagues.” (Recall that during the M&M, Wegman, and North testimonies before congress that North was asked directly, “Do you agree with the Wegman conclusions?” he stated catagorically, “Yes”.)
“One significant part of the controversy on this issue is related to data access. The
collection, compilation, and calibration of paleoclimatic proxy data represent a
substantial investment of time and resources, often by large teams of researchers.”
“The committee recognizes that access to research data is a complicated, discipline-dependent issue, and that access to computer models and methods is especially challenging because intellectual property rights must be considered.”
“Our view is that all research benefits from full and open access to published
datasets and that a clear explanation of analytical methods is mandatory.” (Mann never did and still has not been held accountable)
“Peers should have access to the information needed to reproduce published results, so that increased confidence in the outcome of the study can be generated inside and outside the scientific community”. (Mann never has and still has not been held accountable)
“Paleoclimate research would benefit if individual researchers, professional societies, journal editors, and funding agencies continued their efforts to ensure that existing open access practices are followed.” (Few have, and still have not been held accountable)
____________________
They also catagorically state that they believe “man-made” global warming is occurring. IMHO it is not the best of strategies to defend your point from within a camp that blatantly supports your (wrong) conclusions from the outset. That’s already been done as we have seen, with predictable outcomes: whitewash.
Are you in Russia? Are you an expatriot? We’re wondering about all the references: where are you coming from with this? If you’re not living there, please go. You are part of the problem.
It’s obvious where your loyalties lie. Mr. Cuccinelli represents an opportunity for the TRUTH to be exposed: that our tax dollars were used fraudulently, are being used fraudently and we want it to stop NOW!
My feeling, at this point in the game, and after the monumental amount of outright lies and misinformation that has issued from this person and his camp that Mr. Cuccinelli is uniquely suited to bust this wide open given the very reasons you try to discredit him with:
I almost hope he does have “criminal” (mob?) ties as it will most likely take the same techniques used by AGW believers to bring this eddifice of smoke and mirrors down.

Blade is absolutly correct.
We, the taxpayers, ARE the mob, and we should not only expect, but DEMAND proper accountability for what our taxes are being used for. If there is even the slightest reason to SUSPECT that our tax money is being used on downright shoddy, perhaps even fraudulent “research”, then it is the JOB of the State AG to investigate such things on behalf of the tax-payers.
Snapple completely failed civics apparently.

The AG need to tone down his personal ‘involvement’ and just send in a couple new law school grads and a few old accountants. If there’s anything, they’ll find it for him.

Theo Barker says:
August 30, 2010 at 1:33 pm
The “county” judge is just the first level it has to go through. Just because the Commonwealth AG (Cuccinelli) instigated the inquiry, does not mean it goes directly to the Virginia Supreme Court. The AG is just the highest ranking lawyer in the Commonwealth government, not a special litigator.

paulw,
I took the survey; however didn’t see the results. Noted that while most questions were balanced, some seemed biased.
Just FYI, I’m not a scientist, but a mechanical engineer with a BS. I believe I understand the scientific method, and I’ve had more than enough thermo, chemistry and physics to understand the issues presented with climate change. I just see way too much spin, too many people profitting and a lack of openness to believe the CA portion of CAGW.

PeterB in Indianapolis says:
August 31, 2010 at 8:19 am
“ONE of the jobs of a State AG is to ensure that the money belonging to the taxpayers of the State is spent wisely and honestly, not fraudulently. Obviously you completely fail to understand this.”
He understands it perfectly. He just doesn’t think it applies to climate scientists. Well, maybe some climate scientists – if it was Lindzen on the receiving end Snapple would be snapping with delight, and no mistake.

Marco : Thank you.
Great summary of the events and finally a voice of reason in this blog.

Djozar: I took the survey; however didn’t see the results. Noted that while most questions were balanced, some seemed biased.

Normally with such surveys they collect submissions over a period of time and publish a paper or report once they process the data. For the survey to work, they probably need a representative sample of contributors.
I hope the results of the survey show a balanced view of what people believe about science. It is important to stick to science in this debate and leave out politics and personal feuds/beliefs.

Hey ‘Rob’& ‘Marco’,
Here’s an example and link (there’s tons, just bling or google ‘climategate emails, harry the programmer’). Read carefully because this is what FRAUD looks like, sounds like, smells like, etc. I didn’t think you were serious about getting the facts so I thought I’d try and help you out in case you came back to follow-up.
Double quotation marks are ‘Harry’s’ actual notes released with the Climategate emails, single quotation marks are the ‘oneutah.org’ authors comments.
“Here is an example of actual code from the CRU. Try explaining this away warmers…”
;
; “”Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!
;
yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]
valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,$
2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor
(…)
;
; APPLY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION
;
yearlyadj=interpol(valadj,yrloc,x)
densall=densall+yearlyadj””
“‘valadj’ is an array that if we plug in the numbers we get Michael Mann’s hockeystick. The programmers have hard coded a predetermined result. So now when they plug the actual numbers in no matter what they are it will always result in the hockeystick even if temperatures remained the same.”
“For example. Just for the sake of arguement lets say the average temperature remained constant at 70 degrees last century. When you run the numbers through their “fudge factor” you still get a hockey stick. Even a decline in temperatures would still result in a hockeystick. Way to hide the decline!”
“Just imagine if there really was global warming and they ran those numbers through the magic global warming program then we would really be frying.”
Link:
http://oneutah.org/2009/11/28/climategate-source-code-more-damning-than-emails/
What do you think? Is it a duck or not? At the oneutah.org site they even have graphs illistrating the examples mentioned. Go see, read, and understand. It’s worse than you thought. 😉

Gaylon
Yes I have read the Wegman report and yes I read the network analysis. My ability in maths and statistics could be easily challanged by a kitten and so I found it a hard going read.
Though I do remember being struck by the idea that a network analysis seemed to be a very peculiar thing to do for if Mann’s statistical competence was so lacking then a demonstration of such incompetence would be sufficient. Why anyone would find it necessary to analyse his professional network to underscore his error struck me not only as irrelevant but bizarre. You are either wrong or right regardless.
Are we really surprised that specialist areas of study are not characterised by large groups of people and that these people are found in specialist centers of limited numbers. Think of the golden age of physics all the action was basically taking place at the Cavendish, in Copenhagen and in Gottingen.
However I digress a little, as I admitted before I’m no great shakes with the numbers and that’s why I have to really be careful. But may I ask why you give precedence to Wegman rather than to the National Academy of Sciences. You of course can ask me the same and I doubt either of us will convince the other as to the supremacy of our respective reasoning but we must at least allow that two competent authorities have come to two different conclusions and it is in that contradiction that the charge of fraud withers. What we have is a scientific dispute…no?
Have I read all the climate gate emails? What all 168 megabytes? No. But I have read many of them. I’ve also read the Russell report and perused the extensive archived submissions made to the enquiry by both antagonistic and supportive parties. But here’s the problem, according to your lights if I find the report credible then I’m a…warmist. Whereas I think we have a difference of opinion. What we don’t have is a fraud.
I am not a US citizen and so was unaware how a paper published in 1998 reconstructing past temperatures impacts upon your tax obligations. I only note that since the paper was published your tax freedom day now falls earlier in the year (1998 c May 2 – 2010 April 9). So when you talk about this paper being an element in supporting oppresive taxation you may want to hide this particular decline.
Thanks for the advice regarding harry the programmer. I googled the phrase ‘Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!’ and you’re right I couldn’t believe what I read. As quote mining goes if the oneutah boys and girls were after diamonds they’d be zillionares. But joking aside when somebody selectively quotes and through that selective quotation distorts the truth then that is a percursor to fraud if not fraud itself.
And by the way CRU is not ‘THE source for global temeratures…’ it is one of four bodies that measure the global temp the other three being GISS, RSS and Dr Roy’s UAH which all show basically the same thing…ahem…cough…warming. But again no sign of fraud.

I’m sorry but America’s AGW congregation is grasping at straws. Anyone wanting to question “monies from criminals” only needs start with the current incarnation of POTUS to be overwhelmed. Anyone giving a pass to the way Mann was investigated “inhouse” by his own people can’t say a word about Enron, BP, Sunncor, Eon and every other component of their “Big Energy” boogeyman any more. Their “inhouse” investigations are as above board as anything Mann has been involved with.

Rob says:
September 1, 2010 at 12:42 pm
Wow…
The context that you so adamantly state is taken out of context is right there in front of you. How can you (rhetorical question: we know how) look right into the face of Manns nature trick and not see it? Again, a rhetorical question: we know how. That is the code man! Any data, numbers, random noise, street addresses, or phone numbers punched into that code produces a hockey stick shape. That is a fact. That is the “trick”!
As you state it,
“As you very well should know, the ‘trick’ refers to NOT plotting treering data after 1960 in the Hockey Stick graph, because tree rings show a ‘decline’ in growth after 1960 and do not follow instrumental temperature data any more (most likely due to increased sulfur oxides and other air pollution since 1960).”
Apparently you have been on the recieving end of some “misinformation”, no one disputs that our climate had warmed in the late 20th century (0.7C), and it has nothing to do with what happened “after 1960”, as you say. It has to do with the disappearing of the MWP and LIA, hence the “magic” of the “trick” that produces the straight shaft on the hockey stick (see Smokey’s link above for the corrected version). (I won’t even start on the reasoning that if the recent proxies diverged from the temperature record how does it then validate the past proxies). Your comment above does not address the issue at all, it circumvents it as you digress into sophistry about C02 for plant food (?).
[snip]

Smokey,
The link you give to the ‘corrected’ version of the hockey stick graph is from McIntyre and McKitrick (2003) (M&M 2003). That paper has some very serious flaws, one of which is that they discarded 70% of the proxy data. I won’t call that ‘fraud’, just a misunderstanding, for which M&M were corrected by Rutherford et.al (2005). But flawed as it is, did you notice that M&M graph stops somewhere in around 1950 or 1960 or so ? The steep increase (0.4 C or so recorded with instrument data) over the past 50 years is simply absent from their graph.
So, even M&Ms fabricated MWP is thus cooler than the world is today. Whatsupwiththat ?
And Gaylon :
you think that the “hide the decline” trick refers to the MWP and LIA, but you give no reference or reasoning why that would be the case. Let me guess : McIntyre’s paper ?
Also : your charished Harry did not work for Mann’s project. The inquiry reports mention that he was working on a aerospace project IIRC.
Mann did not need to artificially create a hockey stick blade. The instrument data over the past 100 years provides that blade all by itself.
And for both of you : If you really feel that your references or knowledge provides any evidence of fraud, then by all means, tell Cuccinelli. He is desperate. Please help the guy out before he realizes what the rest of the nation already knew from the start : that Climategate was a big bubble of air…

Gaylon
I don’t know if you’ll pop back on this thread but in any case I’ll post this.
I think what you said about the political agendas that arise from the science is for me the nub. Though I don’t see one amorphous agenda I see lots of competeing agendas. Sometimes well supported by the science and at times only scarcely.
For instance I really feel queasy when I look at the trumpeting of wind power. In Europe the wind power lobby has been massively successful in riding on the back of climate unease. The subsidies paid to make it appear ‘economic’ are extremely costly and yet its track record in abating emissions is simply piss poor. When you compare France (nuclear) and Denmark (wind), French emissions for energy production are roughly twice that of Denmark though France’s population is more than ten times greater. Have a peek at Scotland, its wind capacity exceeds that of its nuclear capacity and yet wind provides less than 7 percent of its electricity while nuclear bumps around 25 to 32 per cent.
Conversely I see all the energy the oil lobby expends in trying to diss the science. As a historically cheap high density fuel nobody is going to deny the massive importance of oil to the development of the western economies (and coal of course). But there are a suite of energy technologies that can deliver high density returns that would become reasonably attractive if the external cost of oil was charged. One way to keep that off the agenda is to throw up so much flack about the science pretty much the way our friends in tobacco did so many years ago (and yep I’m a hypocrite, I smoke and here in Italy I love nothing more than tearing down the autostrada tipping the clock at a 100 and still getting 35 -40 mpg).
So in short I more than appreciate your unease in seeing how one debate can get hijacked by another and how a vital clarity can be lost (in fact I more than appreciate it I share it). So I’ll always be happy to discuss the science but not what either of us might think or fear is the motive behind the science.
cheers
Marco

Alan Drennan says:
September 4, 2010 at 7:44 am
According to , Judge Peatross is hopelessly conflicted by the fact that his wife is an ex-employee of Mann’s department at the UVA. She has edited material published in the Climate Change arena for Mann’s colleagues.
_____________________________________________
Thanks,
It shows just how corrupt our whole political system has become. Of course that is nothing new. The guy with the money and/or political pull always gets a get out of jail free card. Reminds me of Senator Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne The left lament that the events surrounding Kopechne’s death damaged Kennedy’s reputation. The rest of us just wish an autopsy had been performed.

I did some research and learned that Cuccinelli’s father is a former marketing executive at the American Gas Association–the gas lobby. Now the elder Cuccinelli has an advertising/marketing company that probably also serves natural gas clients because the father’s expertise in that area is touted. It is even noted that Cuccinelli’s father has another business with clients in “Europe.” Maybe these “European” clients include natural gas companies such as the Russian Gazprom.
The father’s company gave Cuccinelli over 96,000 dollars for his campaign.
I am wondering if there is some conflict of interest here and if Cuccinelli has hijacked the AG office for the financial benefit of his family.
I remember that Congressman Weldon lobbied for the Russian-American gas company Itera, and his daughter got 500,000 dollars in “consulting fees.”
Sometimes professional services can be a way to disguise bribes, so the FBI raided Itera and investigated Weldon.
I think the federal authorities should investigate the possible conflict of interest as they did with Weldon.
Here are some details with links of what I found out.
http://legendofpineridge.blogspot.com/2010/09/attorney-general-cuccinellis-daddy-and.html
The claim that US scientists are greedy and corrupt is a staple of Russian propaganda. Remember when the KGB finally admitted that they had spread the lie that the Pentagon scientists made AIDS to kill blacks?
Izvestiya (3-19-92) reported:
“[Russian intelligence chief Yevgeni Primakov] mentioned the well known articles printed a few years ago in our central newspapers about AIDS supposedly originating from secret Pentagon laboratories. According to Yevgeni Primakov, the articles exposing US scientists’ “crafty” plots were fabricated in KGB offices.”
The Kremlin-financed English-language propaganda channel Russia Today puts those Western global warming denialists on TV. The Russian natural gas business pays the bills for the Kremlin, so they are protecting their profits.
The Russian propaganda generally maintains that global warming is a plot to destroy Russia economically. Last fall, President Medvedev called the global-warming debate “some kind of tricky campaign made up by some commercial structures to promote their business projects.”
Since NASA scientists helped the Russians spot their forest fires this summer, the Russian media has pretty much stopped defaming our scientists as greedy people who tell lies to get government money. Medvedev now says that global warming is happening. One Russian conspiracist claimed there is global warming but our scientists are causing it by beaming “secret climate weapons” at “certain countries” (Russia).
First our scientists were accused in the Russian press of inventing nonexistent global warming and now they are accused of causing global warming, but evidently Cuccinelli didn’t get the memo.
I think if Dr. Mann gets his trigger finger on any Buck Rogers “secret climate weapons” his first target won’t be Russia.