Jim Tynen writes is his column at The Daily Herald
Consider the resemblences between the Climategate and Penn State scandals.
Climategate emails — leaked, not “stolen” — reveal the key players as egocentric, ruthless game players. As per this report. And this comment.
Note how often they admit they are cooking the data. “As one e-mail states: ‘The figure you sent is very deceptive . . . there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC [the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change].’”
So they’re aware, but they plug on. It reminds me of the Penn State scandals. A grad student, later a coach, sees a coach molesting a boy in the shower. There are plenty of other complaints, even investigations. But nothing happens. They do not act; many seem oblivious to the problem.
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Not to be construed as offering legal advice, but the Climategate 2 emails will probably bolster Dr. Tim Ball’s defense of the lawsuit filed by Michael Mann (which now in context seems just another extension of his standard bullying tactics).
Perhaps someone conversant with Canadian libel law could comment: is someone guilty of libel for making statements which turn out to be true if the defendant did not possess evidence of their truth at the time? If libel can be defended based on information developed *after* the fact, then I would think Dr. Ball would have basis for discovery of *all* of Mann’s emails or other communications which establish a pattern of unethical behaviour [I’m not British, but when I post to this blog, the spell-checker insists on British spelling], incomplete or misleading representations to funding agencies, congressional committees, etc.
If Dr. Mann can be served with a subpoena during discovery, the Penn State could be similarly served. There would be no FOI-exemption dance possible here. They either certify under criminal penalties they the requested documents do not exist or they cough them up.
Another interesting question for those with appropriate knowledge: If a suit is filed in Canadian courts by a U.S. Citizen, would Canadian discovery powers reach CRU in the UK? Is there some kind of reciprocity agreement between the two countries to cooperate on matters of discovery?
This is update worthy;
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/11/penn_states_open_records_exemp.html
It’s not just a cultural thing at Penn State. Avoidance of records disclosure, like emails involving Michael Mann and their climate dept, is a feature of the school policy, voted on and enacted by the Pennsylvanian government.
It’s a government supported coverup that is all encompassing. Set in place before Mann left Virginia.
Probably the reason for his transfer to Penn State in the first place.
It has always been the position of the elite in any society to place themselves above the laws and standards of that society. I think the old adages about power corrupting are more true then we may wish to think. No group, no class, no association, no profession is beyond it.
Pitt and Penn State have been exempted from the state open records laws. Their budgets, for example, are kept secret.
Think about it: a huge university, getting millions from taxpayers, and its records are kept secret. So people in it become used to immunity to the normal scrutiny a high school principal or small-town mayor gets.
This certainly explains why Mann moved to Penn State.
Alan Watt says:
November 29, 2011 at 10:00 am
Not to be construed as offering legal advice, but the Climategate 2 emails will probably bolster Dr. Tim Ball’s defense of the lawsuit filed by Michael Mann (which now in context seems just another extension of his standard bullying tactics). …
Thanks Alan, that’s exactly what I mean.
Even if the libel was after the (first) release of the Climategate files, they show a lot more about the intentions and strategies of “the Team” to muzzle uncomfortable people.
IE see the great efforts of “investigations” about Steve McIntyre.
Dr. Ball commented the first Climategate files 2 years ago and he commented the libel case.
Since then, it somehow became a little bit quiet around him.
I hope, Dr. Ball has not surrendered yet and I would appreciate only a few personal words from him about a possibly turn for his charge, resp the new insights of Mr. Mann’s attitudes.
I noted the connection to my wife the day we started seeing the CG II emails. She’s been gradually changing her opinion about AGW over the years (CG I was a big eye-opener for her), and as soon as I started to describe the stark similarities in how Penn State has been dealing with both scandals, she got it. She’s pretty disgusted, to say the least.
Well, Thank God, at the University of Illinois, we’re only inept!
Tucci78 says “Which implies, I expect, that sodomitic “horseplay” between adult men and prepubescent boys goes on in the facilities of NCAA Division I programs all across the fruited plain as a natural (well, maybe not natural, strictly speaking…) part of the “jock culture,” and we should all just back off and get on with the game.”
Excuse me? Not even close. It IMPLIES that our universities have become essentially a joke and very expensive ones at that, across the board They are in their own little world and the rules that the rest of us live by, they are exempted from, shielded by their tenure. The media and politicians have made that possible ignoring their crimes until they get caught. Obviously the billions spend on climate grants, laws changed, damage to our economy and rights in the name of global warming due to these “climate scientists” and Al Gores fantastic fantasy, are not severe enough for that accountability thing to kick in.
At 10:46 PM on 29 November, scm15010 had responded to sarcastic post of 5:51 AM on 29 November with:
Which in turn implies that scm15010 couldn’t figure out the difference between a snerk and a sincerity if one were to put a [sarc] tag into the text in big, bold print.
Not that I’m going to argue with the observation that American undergraduate and graduate schools (with the exception of outfits like Hillsdale College) have become for the greatest part not only ruinously, wastefully expensive but also objectively injurious – not just ineffective but pathogenic – in their effects on young minds.
Speaking of Hillsdale College – of which I am not an alumnus, but which I know about because of their publication of Imprimis, a monthly newsletter and broadsheet I’ve been reading now for about thirty years in spite of its social conservatism (which I’m not) and persistent cozening up to the Republicans (not only “no,” but “Hell, no!”) – I’d been informed by a specialist to whom I’ve referred patients that his daughter was of age to attend college, and she couldn’t find a school that didn’t disgust her.
I made some non-specific suggestions – find a small school so she won’t get “lost” in a student body the size of a reinforced mechanized corps, check out the bibliographies of the professors in the departments important to her desired major field of study (just the titles can tell you something useful about ’em), and for ghod’s sake encourage her to acquire marketable skills by looking at the online jobs listings like Monster.com or even get in touch with headhunters working in the field(s) closest to where she thinks she might want to carve out a career for herself.
At our next couple of meetings – CME activities, “corridor consults,” the usual kind of Brownian motion encounters – he mentioned his daughter’s on-again, off-again interest in this mega-university and that Enormous State Meatgrinder, until finally he told me that she’d settled on a little place in Michigan I’d probably never heard of.
“Hillsdale College,” he said, a bit sheepishly. “I know it’s not famous or anything, but it’s supposed to be a good little school, and they’ve got the courses she wants.”
Yeesh. He tells me she’s doing pretty well there two (or is it three?) years on, but I don’t think either the kid or her dad have been paying any attention to the football program (Division II, Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, finished 8-2 this season to win the conference).
No indications of shenanigans in the showers with glabrous trebles as yet, but give ’em time….
Er, should I do a “[/sarc]” here to make it smack-in-the-schnozzola obvious?
Scm15010 PLEADS GUILTY to not recognizing sarc…. jeez!
Division I Universities ARE a joke–farm clubs for the NFL and NBA.
At a local NBA farm club, “Athletics” is an “Administration” (not “Academic”) department, with Buildings and Grounds.
At 8:40 AM on 29 November, Larry Sheldon had observed:
Might could be they got an “affirmative action” credit or some such. Besides, wouldn’t “convicted felons” tend (all other things being equal) not only to work for a lesser compensation package and bring a bit of “real world” practical experience to the education of our young college men and women?
Mr. Sheldon then asks:
Why, it’s in University Park, Pennsylvania, in Centre County, along with most of the rest of the Penn State facilities. Smack in the middle of Hostigos.
Dunno what it’s like this time of year, but I was out in the town of State College, on the main PSU campus, for a conference on the writings of H. Beam Piper one summer about twenty-something years ago. Nice, picturesque, relatively small “flyover country” college town it was, back then.
But, of course, that was before they let Michael E. Mann and his co-conspirators set up in town.
State Rep. Eugene DePasquale, D-York County, says withholding those records is wrong, especially as Penn State scrambles to rebuild trust. He plans on Monday to introduce legislation with 31 co-sponsors to extend the Right-to-Know Law to Penn State and three other state-related universities — the University of Pittsburgh, Temple and Lincoln — that are largely exempt from it.
It’s easy to see why Mann moved to Penn State.
One question here for the uninitiated. Comments from warmists state on other sites have stated that FOIA has published only partial Emails contents to help color the context of team’s meaning. Was Climate-gate 2 an unedited dump or are some Emails “edited” for effect?
Alan Watt;
I think the spellcheck is a function of your browser. The site itself doesn’t do any, AFAIK. In FF, Tools>Content>Languages. If you use the “Add” function, you get about 20 varieties of English to choose from, and then prioritize.