Wow. In the middle of the battle, the warmists erroneously send up a flare from their position, drawing undue attention to the target. I rather expected a moribund outcome from this investigation, maybe a couple of embarrassing quotes, maybe a hotheaded Santeresque comment by Dr. Michael Mann about Dr. Pat Michaels, but that was about it.
Now, with them trying to retroactively change the law as a way to head off the investigation, it makes me wonder if maybe there’s really something profound there in those communications after all. Bad move fellas, you just made the Q Score for this story triple.
From the Daily Progress:
By Bryan McKenzie
Two Democratic state senators are proposing to change state law to thwart Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s efforts to investigate a former University of Virginia professor’s research on global warming.
The proposed legislation would repeal sections of Virginia law that give the state’s attorney general authority to issue civil investigative demands, similar to subpoenas, to gather documents in relation to a civil investigation conducted by the office.
The bill is in response to efforts by Cuccinelli, a Republican, to investigate possible fraud by former UVa professor Michael Mann in relation to five taxpayer-funded research grants between 1999 and 2005.
The senators, A. Donald McEachin and J. Chapman Petersen, will meet this morning with Del. David J. Toscano, D-Charlottesville, at the Capitol to discuss the legislation.
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Read the article in full here
h/t to Bishop Hill
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Manybody here talkin’ about UVa closet. Is that some sort of tanning aid? Is there UVb closet too?
What are the great icons that got the AGW scare going?
(1) Mann’s hockey stick – still teetering along with thimble-rigged reinforcements. “It’s never been so warm so suddenly before”
(2) Mauna Loa CO2 has been rising so unearthly steadily that we don’t even need to remember Al Gore’s second infamous Hockey Stick for CO2.
(3) Hiding UHI. This has a double effect (a) it makes the temperature increase look violent (b) it removes the solar correlation.
(4) The Arctic. Nobody goes there, so anything goes.
Maybe there’s evidence of a genuine conspiracy to “get rid of the MWP”. Whatever, I’m happy to keep drawing attention to what Steve Mosher pointed out, the AR4 wording that suppressed McKitrick and Michaels’ paper on UHI, that means Jones & Wang 1990 still hold sway. This too I think should be a matter for the courts.
I didn’t think Ira Glickstein’s figures were right, so I collected evidence for the stronger UHI figures that I suspected. The evidence is also suggestive of a weaker natural trend and a weaker human CO2 effect than Ira claims.
I am opposed to this type of political inquiry into scientific institutions. Even if Mann did use the funds and misrepresent the data, that does not deserve this type of relentless investigation.
If he had used the funds to hire strippers and have wild parties an investigation would be warranted, but that is simply not the cause of the investigation.
One of the biggest problems with the entire debate is the political aspect. Cuccinelli is the worst type of political activist who is abusing his power to persecute someone who he disagrees with politically.
Mann is scum, I am not arguing that. He is a bad scientist, but Cuccinelli is a horrible Attorney General and he is abusing his position. Al Gore abused his power to turn climate science into a political machine. Cuccinelli is no better.
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2010/10/cuccinelli-a-problem-that-everyone-should-agree-on/
Seems like a whole lot of trouble just to stop someone from seeing some emails…
..didn’t we elect a president because one of his promises was to be the most open and transparent
richard verney says:
This type of action potentially has dramatic unintended consequences and if the law is amended, it may be that some time down the future when there is a Democrat Attorney General, that the Democrats will rue the day that they made such amendment.
The liberal side of politics are always proposing short-term “fixes” like this. Then when it turns around to bite them on the posterior they blame “evil Right-wing extermists” and proceed to introduce another “fix” to solve the (unintended consequence) problem caused by their original “fix”.
This will all boil down to this when scullduggary is uncovered:
Who done it?
Notme.
jorgekafkazar says:
January 18, 2011 at 4:36 pm
David L says: “What skeletons do they have in that UVa closet to make them go to such great lengths to hide some emails?”
Obviously, enough evidence that the whole AGW con may unravel world-wide. The Warmists will throw money at this problem until it goes away. They have a budget of billions, and much of it is YOUR money, anyway. “To infinity and beyond!”
—
Gee, that’s an exact description of how the mafia operates.
Take your money under penalty and then use it against you.
John Kehr,
Are you assuming that you have all the information that AG Cuccinelli has?
Investigators don’t reveal their information until they make a report.
I would be a good idea to forward this to the people at Fox. Bill O’ Riley springs to mind.
No they won’t be changing the law, I strongly suggest. Dems control the State Senate, but Repubs control the Assembly and the Governorship. So, end of story on legislative fixes. In fact, considering that EPA is about to put the kibosh on anything generating power (in what seems an increasingly cold time), a move of this sort this may generate a lot of political interest. I’m sure Mann et al. REALLY don’t want that.
Might they be trying to cover MM’s backside over suspicious this like this from one of the “crew”: http://www.climate-gate.org/email.php?eid=332&s=tag73
“Otherwise NOAA will be suspicious.”
Nah, nothing to see here, move along folks.
cheers
“It’s not about the truth at all; it’s about something plausible.” — M. Mann
“The proposed legislation would repeal sections of Virginia law that give the state’s attorney general authority to issue civil investigative demands, similar to subpoenas, to gather documents in relation to a civil investigation conducted by the office.”
The two “senators” must be transplants from West Virginia — deport them : )
I think the dumbest statement in the comment section over there was:
“It is also these same climate change atheists who challenge Mann’s
statistical analysis,” and they do so based entirely on stolen e-mails in which the term “trick” is used. The “trick” is a technique to meld two sets of data (temperature readings and tree-ring growth), and it was presented openly in peer-reviewed scientific journals (which means a high level of scrutiny of the methodology used).”
Ugh….the stupid…it burns….
Anyway, I think this entire fiasco points to how well connected Mann is. The most interesting thing about the Climategate emails (to me) was his communication with people in the Obama admin and in the media. It would be a goldmine if THOSE communications were released in full.
When politicians take idiotic actions like these it makes me wonder what is going on behind the scenes.
John Kehr –
I would be inclined to agree with you regarding academic freedom. But this is not some marginal issue. It is entirely central to US energy and climate policy, with monetary values in the billions to trillions of dollars. The conduct, analyses, data and conclusions of UVA climate scientists are material–and in the form of the ‘hockey stick’, central–to beliefs about climate change. Therefore, an aggressive pursuit of the truth is warranted.
The make-up of Virginia’s Senate is 22 Democrats and 18 Republicans.
The make-up of Virginia’s House of Delgates is 53 Republicans, 44 Democrats, 2 Independents, and 1 vacancy.
The Governor, is Bob McDonnell, a Republican.
Virginia Democrats can’t pass any bill for at least two years. So one has to wonder why they have elected to embarrass themselves for proposing such a cover-up law.
Sooner or later the University of Virginia is going to understand that its interests diverge from those of the Piltdown Mann and his shy private financiers. The Regents may find it in their interest to make that determination sooner rather than later. It’s not as if they can plead ignorance of the situation.
===========
John Kehr
Calling both sides names doesn’t necessarily improve your cred with either side.If this AG has no case it will all come out in the wash.Lets have a look at what He has before jumping to conclusions. We seen enough evidence to be convinced of the other sides guilt but you want to crucify this guy because He is skeptical. Pleeeeease!
Looks like the greens can buy politicians in the U.S. just like they do in Canada:
http://www.financialpost.com/cash+sands/3675309/story.html
Even BP, with all their billions in dirty, climate change-inducing oil revenue, couldn’t do that…
John Kehr
Every scientist who willingly accepts taxpayer money for their research is giving up their right not to be audited at any point in the future. As the saying goes, they made the bed now they must lay in it.
Accountability is a tough concept, but I’m all for it. If Mann didn’t want to be accountable he should not have taken funds. End of story.
Now it is the right of the State of Virginia to audit what he did with the funds.
I take money from my Company. By dong so I give to the Company certain rights. It’s a fair deal to me. And I am definitely accountable to the Company for my actions.
Doh! Bad strategical error….. Even the Leftist Journo’s will have doubled taked with this…. Their little heads swiveling around and their eyes goggling…
Now they will be wondering what Micheal Mann and Co have hidden…. and perverse people that they be, the Lefty Journo’s will want to know, even if it burns their leftist eyes and makes their fact avoiding ears bleed…. They won’t be able to help themselves. Like moths to a candle.
… What’s in those emails, Lefty Journo’s?…. What secrets lie there? C’mon, take a peek…… We know you want too….:-)
I wish there was more information about the specific changes to the civil investigative demand powers of the AG the lawmakers are proposing:
“repeal sections of Virginia law that give the state’s attorney general authority to issue civil investigative demands, similar to subpoenas, to gather documents in relation to a civil investigation conducted by the office”
is so broad that the AG would be neutered in investigating any civil matter, which clearly wouldn’t be in the Commonwealth’s interest. Certainly that isn’t what is being proposed.
In climate science, the incentive system is backwards.
A scientist is rewarded greatly for exaggerating and a scientist is punished for trying to be objective. Noble cause corruption.
And Mann was the enforcer handing out the punishment in many different examples which are demonstrated in the emails at the very least. Many careers have been ruined.
Maybe Mann is not quite the force he used to be, but something has to be done about changing this backwards incentive system. A few punishments thrown the other way, against exaggeration, could help to swing momentum back to the way science is supposed to work.
I’m okay with this case being one of the starting points given that many careers have been ruined by the objective of this case already. Fair game. Noble cause.
And they complain about AGW skeptics? They bring in the uberlawyers to make a law to prevent them from being compelled to release their data and methods? And they wonder why there are skeptics?
This should absolutely tell anyone watching that they must have something extremely damaging to hide.
John Kehr says:
January 18, 2011 at 4:54 pm
I am opposed to this type of political inquiry into scientific institutions.
========================================================
Sorry John, but I disagree. This is something that has gone on for too long. In the arena of ideas and freedom, one rises and falls on the value of their work product. Even schools. The fact that they cannot and require mine and your money to sustain themselves speaks volumes. I cannot express the acrimony I feel about our “institutions of higher learning”. But, I can express this; it isn’t freedom that they are pursuing, it is license. There is no government funded institution that has a license to pervert the minds of our children. It isn’t ok to intentionally lie to our children and demand that we pay for it. And, it is my prayers that it doesn’t stop there. I hope AG’s from all states go to all schools in all fields and make these people accountable for the prevalent stench that permeates from these institutions. My wife recently took a couple of American history courses. We paid an enormous amount of money for the texts. Taught by an instructor that couldn’t put 2 sentences together without using profanity. The texts could do no more than TWO PARAGRAPHS ABOUT ABRAHAM LINCOLN!!! It was basic American history. Leif recently showed a video about how our young people don’t know basic science. That is lamentable. What is outrageous is that they aren’t taught basic American history. Don’t get me started on mathematics.
We have a house and it is in dire need of cleaning. The house keepers have refused to clean it for decades. It is past time.