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
Anyway, how dare a politician question a scientist? All the poor scientist wants to do is force everyone to pay social engineering taxes based on the scientist’s fluffy consensussy doctrine; how dare these politicians demand a say in taxation policy when well-meaning sciency scientists assure us it’s necessary?!
Welcome to Massachusetts election law 101! The old “unintended consequences” can be fun to watch if you believe that God has a sense of humor.
When John Kerry looked like he might be president and open up a seat in MA that the gov (R) would fill the legislature (D) changed the law to require a special election, regardless the cost to the taxpayers. Fast forward to 2010 with a new gove (D) when Scott Brown wins the special election for the seat formerly held by Teddy Kennedy.
Kharma, it’s what’s for dinner.
thegoodlocust says:
January 18, 2011 at 5:23 pm
“Ugh….the stupid…it burns….”
The willfully ignorant are worse than the cursed stupid. Apparently the person you quoted never heard of McIntyre or ClimateAudit.
An example, ……. I see this, “The Northern Hemisphere sea ice and snow cover has responded quite sensitively to warming over the last 30 years,” Flanner said of his findings. I go the site and show them a graph of the NH winter snow extent. After a while an industrious person points out that the spring NH snow extent shows a decline. And, indeed, it does. But, they failed. The graph clearly shows no sensitivity to temps. http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_seasonal.php?ui_set=nhland&ui_season=2 compare
U of M. Ann Harbor……..Willfully ignorant or willfully misleading. Stupid, they can’t help it. Willfully ignorant…….. That’s what puts a fire in my ………
Wow. Indeed.
There must be something really damaging in there if they are going to these lengths….
Dear me.
Sometimes people reveal things in writing that the probably wish they hadn’t.
A commenter self-named “democracy” over there says, “What the Cooch fails to cite is that it is climate change atheists like himself who are the ones with the ‘criticism’ of Mann’s findings.”
Oh my, “climate change atheists”!
What is an atheist? One who does not believe in a given concept of the divine; a denier of religion.
Rarely does one see so bald an admission that climate change, for the vast majority of its innumerate adherents, is merely a belief.
How dare anyone not believe in Gaia. Or Thor. Or Quetzalcoatl.
It’s like the dems just kicked the top off a fire ant mound—the blogosphere is going to swarm all over this
FOI is supposed to be enough. But that’s not enough according to these two. Not only is FOI being resisted by global warming scientists but now Democrat ‘lawmakers’ want to help the resisting. How dirty!
Why, oh why, all these lengths to hide global warming ‘science’?
What’s next—the President ordering the stop of FOI in the area of ‘global warming’?
Maybe he should so that the world will see politics running naked in global warming ‘science’!
Wow alright – there MUST be excitement to be had in reading the communication exchanges between MM and fellow members of the Team.
John Kehr says:
January 18, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Maybe you should be opposed to this type of scientific obstruction of political inquiry. I know I certainly am.
The legislation will not pass in the Va. legislature…
You’d think they’d say:
“HEY WORLD, COME AND LOOK AT THE SCIENCE! HERE IT IS, LOOK! NOW! HURRY UP! SEE THE DATA THAT SHOWS HOW POLLUTION IS CHANGING THE CLIMATE AND HORRIBLE DISASTERS ARE COMING TO THE EARTH AS A RESULT! SEE HOW AWFUL MANMADE CO2 IS? SEE? WE’VE BEEN SAYING ALL ALONG THE WORLD NEEDS TO BE SAVED! NOW YOU CAN SEE FOR YOURSELF! THANK GOD YOU LOOKED AT ALL OF THE SCIENCE OUT IN THE OPEN SO YOU WILL ACT NOW TO STOP THE WORLD FROM THE AWFUL CONSEQUENCES OF MANMADE CO2!!”
They don’t say that, do they. What they do is put up more and more walls instead.
Any bill can be proposed. A bill could be proposed …” that 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.”
If, only if, such a bill was allowed to the floor for a vote, and if it passed, Cucinelli would be required to drop his suite regardless of when the suite was filed. VA law would effectively be changed. To attempt to continue would be met with dismissal of the case based on the new VA law.
Having said that, the bill will never see the light of day. There will never be a vote. It’s a futile attempt to cover for Michael Mann. What else would explain the continued legal barricades that have been raised by UVA , the courts and now a couple of state senators? Where there is smoke there is fire.
The glaring issue that Senator Toscano fails to mention is that Mann’s work was taxpayor-funded. If there is fraud, and I expect there is, there is also a crime that can be prosecuted. That’s what this is all about. We’ve all seen the emails and we’ve all smelled a rat. This is far from over.
It doesn’t matter, its all academic now.
Global Warming is officially over thanks to the good efforts of governments, bureaucrats and climate scientists.
Related post from Bishop Hill.
jorgekafkazar says:
“to infinity, and beyond”.
“resistance is futile”.
The same standard for NCAA athletes should be at least applied for scientists.
In all seriousness why (and oh why!) can’t “The Hockey Team” see that it is in their best interests to make public all the (publically funded) raw data, all the (publically funded) computer codes that manipulate and model that data and all the communications between themselves on the subject?
That way the public will see that they were right all along.
Won’t they?
I’m not certain what a person is supposed to think about all this. what this really shows me is that FOI needs to be drastically strenthened. If a SINGLE dollar of taxpayer money goes into an institution, everything in that institution should be public. everything, every bit of information about it, available for public consumption. AND it should be at the institutions expense, as a requirement for recieving taxpayer money.
I want to see every scrap of paper, email, test, textbook, newsletter, pamphlet, teaching notes, video lectures….. ALL of it.
and NOTHING done with an institution’s property is “private.” if you want to secretly crunch numbers, buy your own computer and start a dark secret blog
solrey says:
January 18, 2011 at 5:21 pm
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.
One wonders why he isn’t investigating the Principal Investigators of those grants rather than Mann?
Any bill can be proposed, even a bill as ridiculous as this one. The VA senate could conceivably pass the bill–it has the numbers. But when it reaches the assembly it will surely fail. If it somehow reached Bob McDonnald’s desk (it never will) he will veto the bill. There are not enough votes to override the governor’s veto power. It will never see the light of day.
So, what’s this all about?” Cover for Michael Mann. If there is fraud, and I expect there is, there is a crime, and it can be prosecuted. Fraudulent misuse of taxpayor funds is an indefensible act that breaks the public trust. Why would the UVA, the courts and now three state senators go to such lengths to raise legal barricades to access data that belongs to the public? Where there is smoke there is fire.
What aggravates me is the fact that while senator Toscano, et al complains about the wasted taxpayor money being spent to litigate this case, he fails to acknowledge that it was taxpayor money that was used to prop up what appears to be fraudulent climate science! We’ve all seen the emails. If there was fraud it should be exposed and prosecuted.
This is just another attempt to distract, prolong and cover up this issue. It will fail. If I were Michael Mann I would be very worried too. I think it also demonstrates how well networked this whole cover up was. Just my thoughts.
Phil. says:
“One wonders why he isn’t investigating the Principal Investigators of those grants rather than Mann?”
What makes you so sure he’s not?
John Kehr says:
January 18, 2011 at 4:54 pm
“….I am opposed to this type of political inquiry into scientific institutions……”
I would see some of the idea behind your position, in that you don’t want to see the spirit of investigation squashed by constant investigation.
But I think that in cases like this, they have abondoned the scientific inquiry defence, when they chose to either become activists or support activism. Mr. Mann is not a scientist badgering away at an abstract question in the halls of acedemia, he is a political activist, that also is a scientist. When he stoppped just researching and starting campaigning and writing his endless opinion pieces, he stopped being just a scientist.
He is not just doing his research and quietly publishing. He is publishing something then doing a round of yelling from the rooftops, “look at my work”. Then attacking everyone who might question him or want to do opposing research. Then proclaiming how we need to change policy to suit him.
In my opinion, activist scientists need to be treated with more scepticism already, not given a free ride on the coat tails of more objective individuals.
In addition, it is easy enough to argue that Mann and his group have done more to discourage open investigation in science than the AG probably will. I say lets air out the dirty laundry, if there is any, and try to move on.
We all know he brought it on himself. Something about “living in glass houses…”
If I ever get another speeding ticket I want these Dems to retroactively change the law for me.
I wish to propose to our esteemed friends in the IPCC cheerleading squad that they immediately replace the offensive term “global warming deniers” with “climate change atheists”. It’s so much more civil, and what’s even better, it’s far more accurate.
The ones with open but skeptical minds could even be called “climate instability agnostics”. There might even be hope for some of them. Call it Pachauri’s Wager…
Hmmm….
The two Virginia state senators and the single (so far)
delegate should be filing lobbyist contact reports and the
lobbyists involved should be filing expense reports to
the state.
The lobbyists should have on file what organizations or
instiutions they represent or are affiliated with when
lobbying for this bill.
If the lobbying was done directly by the UofV, then
their legislative liason officer should have a report on
this effort that is subject to FOI requests.