Va's AG continues to abuse his office
 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...050304139.html

"In light of the Climategate e-mails, there does seem to at least be an argument to be made that a course was undertaken by some of the individuals involved, including potentially Michael Mann, where they were steering a course to reach a conclusion," he said. "Our act, frankly, just requires honesty."
:har::har::har::har::har::har:

That has got to be one of the most intellectually disingenuous statements I've seen in a long time.

What an obvious fishing expedition!!!

There's a reason virtually all of the top flight American colleges and universities are located outside of the Bible belt, who's interests it's pretty safe to say this guy represents.

Someone on another site who holds a PhD offered this observation:

"Having met Dr. Michael Mann, I assure you he is no Mick Jagger or [insert rock star of your choice]. The dude is straight up, no frills, honest, and not out to pull the wool over anyone's eyes. He openly admits that there are still things that need to be worked out and he prefers discussing climate change happening differently in various world regions rather than the single averaged study that was published (he was part of that work, but his research focuses on how different regions will be affected by climate changes).

Also, when you score money for research (climate or any other kind) it doesn't go to pay personal bills. The money goes for equipment, research related travel, time on fancy fast computers, slave wages for lab techs/grads/undergrads/postdocs, and ****ing university overhead. Occasionally, grants provide some funding for conference travel and article publication (many scientific journals charge authors as well as put them through the peer-review process). AFAIK grant money does not score one a salary. This may differ in some of the medical sciences or engineering stuff, but in academia a prof is paid a salary (usually pretty crappy in comparison to the money they could make in private industry) by the university and their grant money pays for research.

This is yet another attempt to defraud science. This is not the work of healthy skepticism (which scientists engage in a lot as part of their knowledge creation model - you have to show good evidence or you get a torn a new one), this is the work of someone who most likely owes some corporate sponsor a favor and/or truly believes that the pursuit of knowledge and overall improvement of the well being/sustainability of our shared planet is a terrible thing. F__k Cuccinelli."

Dude has his own thread goin :yeah:

Maybe, but the quote in the second post is pretty much on the money imho (as a scientific type).

Also the guy is using his office to push his own private agenda and circumvent due process. I would call that an abuse of his position.

When unable to argue, ridicule?

Ayup. And people already knew what a nut he was before they elected him.

Torvald, you continue to show how much of a political hack you are. Somehow this is a "threat to science" - when the only thing requested were documents regarding research and grant applications, as well as correspondance between Mann and other scientists. The man was being funded by taxpayers - and yet somehow making sure that he was on the up and up is an "abuse of power"....

So what your trying to say is any greeny, liberal pet project of social engineering that chooses to operate under the guise of "science" should just be given a pass and not have to actually be monitored. The reality is that just the IT notes show the data used in much of the climate data studies is more than just suspect, but inherently unverifiable AND unsourceable. That doesn't mean global warming isn't happening, but it also means that the claims that it is are much less than "irrefutable". Protecting the taxpayers from being defrauded - is what the man's job is.

Sorry you don't like that fact, but then, we can't really expect a political hack like you to be able to use any reasonable judgement on what is right and wrong.

Well said Hap.

Neo, please define due process in this situation. You're usually pretty level headed and I'm genuinely curious how you see this as an abuse.

Well the AG will have a tough time proving a violation based on the definitions contained in the VFATA.

This smells of just a political ploy which, in my opinion, will hurt the Republicans in the long run. Virginia does not have the money for such ploys. But the AG is within his rights to do this.

I think some of the voters are starting to regret last year's election. If only the Democrats had viable candidate in that election.... But they didn't. :nope:

Thanks Mr. Deeds.... for nothing. :down:

Meaning he is using an act that is akin to a subpoena, that doesn't require any other legal body other than himself to sign off on it, no judges or anything. He doesn't even seem to need to have any actual evidence of wrong doing. I have a problem with all of that, especially given his history, and very obvious bias. He his using his office to for his own personal agenda, which I think is wrong no matter what side of the fence the agenda is on. I also don't think he should have that kind of power to begin with (I do not like that act as it is).

Also there is the problem that he appears to be heavily warping that act (I very much doubt this was the intent of the act). As was mentioned, grant money does not pay for the professor's salary, only the research and associated costs. So the first 2 parts of the act that he is invoking is out ("of the act forbidding employees from making false claims for payment, submitting false records for payment or conspiring to defraud the state"), and I wish him luck proving conspiracy to defraud when the prof doesn't even profit from the research (other than keeping his job at the university by engaging in research, but that is something else which I will leave for now). Plus of course he doesn't seem to have any actual evidence.

Of course the big thing is that this AG is not doing this to make sure the research is on the "up and up". He wouldn't have a clue one way or the other as he isn't a scientist. He is doing it to fuel his anti GW campaign which includes suing the EPA, and as such is warping this act to fish around for 'evidence'. Add to that his constant references to the 'climategate' emails (of which the official investigation found absolutely no evidence of any wrong doing BTW) as evidence that the science is false. Only thing I wonder though is if he is doing this because he genuinely believes it, or if he is just pandering to his perceived constituents. I suspect the latter mostly.

Anyhow I think that this whole thing is politically motivated. I am also concerned on the direction this will take.

Well if the AG was not worried about this, he would be concentrating on "breastgate"

http://aidanmaconachyblog.blogspot.c...-covering.html

As a resident of North Virginia, if a nipple on our seal is the most pressing issue affecting Virginia, then we are in a great position.

But we aint in that great of a position. :nope: I think someone needs to inform the AG that he was elected to do a job for the Commonwealth, not just his political agendas.

Neon, while I agree your normally level headed about this kind of thing, a couple of things I have to rebut.

Ok - so you do you hold this same standard when there is any kind of legal case? District Attorneys shouldn't be allowed to investigate issues, since they issue this kind of directive all the time for grand jury investigations. Or is it only not ok because he is going after a "scientist"?

Ok - now here your mixing your opinion of his bias (which I admit is very likely) with his legal grounds for investigating - which is his authority to look into whether taxpayers were defrauded. As a human he has the right to his own skepticism, and as an elected officer he has the right and duty to look into things he feels are questionable.

Ok, here this isn't even a gripe about what the man is doing - but about the fact you don't like the law as it is written. Where were your objections to this law previously? Or again, is the objection only due to it being about "science" and the legitimacy of documents submitting asking for taxpayer dollars?

Ok, funny that the school seems to have no issue with compliance - and if this was a "heavy warping" of the act as you claim, they would be well served (on principle as well as for precedent) to balk and take the matter before a judge. Yet - that isn't happeneing.

Well - thats why the word OR is used - it can be ANY of the three. As for defrauding the state, it does not require the professor to profit - though him keeping his job does in fact means he profits. Defraudng the state means exactly that - note the act doesnt say "defrauding the state to line your own pockets". So there is no legal arm twisting going on here - the investigation is fully in line with the act as written.

Uhm.... you do know this is termed an investigation, right? The whole idea of investigations is to determine IF wrongdoing has occured and to gather the evidence necessary to prosecute it if such wrongdoing exists. This means that IF charges are brought against Mann, or anyone else for that matter, they get to have their day in court just like everyone else. This is little different than the beginnings of grand jury proceeding for a criminal case. Yet somehow these scientists - who have done their utmost to hide their data and processess, should not be forced to have a bit of light shown on their actions?

Well this is pure opinion as to the "why" - and his stated reason is different than your opinion. So your opinion means that regardless of him conforming to the laws of the commonwealth, this is wrong. Again, is it him thats wrong, the law that is, or both? And I wonder if you would see it as wrong if the shoe were on the other foot - and he or another AG or political officer held a pro GW stance and used their office to push that agenday? I ask because there have been many that have - and this is the first time I have seen you say a word about it. After all, the actions by the sitting governor(a democrate at the time) of VA regarding professor Patrick J. Michaels didn't at all involve a politician holding a scientist up for ridicule just because the scientist questioned global warming, did it?

As for the "climategate" clearing - you mean by the rubber stamp group that everyone knew what the outcome was before it started? Just a slap on the wrist going "well the CRU should have been more open".... Yea, that was real convincing.

Now we get somewhere..... ok lets just pretend it IS politically motivated and has little to do with protecting the interest of VA taxpayers. Even so, your concerned with the "direction" this could take. You mean it might start an OPEN scientific debate about the whole global warming issue? You mean it might mean that more and more of the downright abysmal scientific practices used by the CRU might be shown - casting further doubt on their research and findings? Yes, that would be horrible wouldnt it? Or would it return some integrity to the research?

After all - take the time to read the IT journal in which data was "rebuilt" - half the time the guy admits there is NO info on WHERE the data actually came from. No weather station data, just temps - no history on location, or even the ability to verify if the data even came from a station! Just numbers - with no explanation of where they came from - to be plugged into the datasets.....

Sorry - but that isn't good science - and so looking into one of the main players involved in passing that off as "research" - a person who as you put it - got to keep his job by applying for grants to perform said research - is not an abuse. An investigation is reasonable - because it IS the taxpayers money.

Of course :) and naturally I shall re-rebut ;)


As a matter of fact I do hold the same standard. In a normal criminal case he couldn't gather evidence like that with out getting a judge to sign off on the search, and to do that he would need some evidence to get that. I object to him being able to do something like that on his own without having to get judicial approval first.

Sure, I just do not like him using his position to grind his own axe. Having your own opinion is one thing, but using your position to forward that opinion is another. Is he serving the people or himself, and how much of the people's money is he going to waste on what is very likely to be a frivolous case. I think that legal investigations should be held to the same standards as scientific investigations, in that they should be as bias free as possible.

I wasn't aware of the law before this, but I would still object anyhow as I think it gives too much power to the office. He shouldn't be able to commit searches of any kind (and this is a search for 'evidence') with out probable cause, and without having the judicial system approve it first.

Of course not, the university doesn't want to take on the cost of fighting it. Universities will typically comply with such stuff. Its the student body that is more radical and takes a stand on such stuff, not the stuffed shirts. The only way the university would get involved is if the request was totally out of bounds, or they were threatened financially about it.

Profiting from it is generally an aspect of fraud (motive), and he did not need to commit fraud to keep his position per say. Results are results ,good or bad and that is the nature of research. His position at the university is not necessarily dependent on research, and certainly not on the results. This is one of the ways that we try to keep science from being bought, or releasing fraudulent science.

Yes, but he doesn't have probable cause. Do you really think if this was a normal investigation he would have gotten that search request past the bench? This is what I object to. That he is able to do this with out any evidence what so ever, and bypass the judicial system thanks to this act. He is able to do this simply cause he believes global warming is fake.

Also the last part of your statement is utter bunk, most of this stuff is freely available if you are involved with a research lab or any university. The only stuff that isn't available is IP(Intellectual Property) data which comes from some of the recording stations. That means someone owns the raw data, and is trying to make money off of it, thus it is not freely available. Or do you object to capitalism in action as is the case with IP data, which is the only data that is unavailable (unless you want to buy access to it)?

I think its a bit more then simply my opinion, and we both know stated reasons don't mean crap, especially from lawyers and politicians. If you look at his background, and what else he has been doing, I do think my opinion is reasonably backed up. I also as I have said before do not agree with the act he is using and the power it gives him.

As to your second question, the answer is yes. My position would not change one bit if it was the other way. I do not approve at all of what the democratic governor at the time did either. Please keep in mind that I am not politically motivated and don't believe in either camp. My opinions thus are also not based on politics. My goal here has always been to strip away all the political BS from the debate, as I think many opinions on science held by people here are far more politically based than fact based.

Now if there was some hard evidence that scientific fraud had been committed, then I would be all for this investigation.

Well no one else has been able to point at any solid evidence of any wrongdoing in that case. We went over that already in detail though.

Why pretend, the evidence is fairly strong that this is politically motivated. His previous track record shows his agenda pretty well I think.

I hope you are not putting my own scientific integrity into question, as the way you worded it and your use of quotations makes me wonder. The scientific debate is open, and always has been. There are more then a few respected scientists in the debate who don't agree. The problem is always when politics and money (economic interests) comes into the picture. If there is fraud, it will be found sooner or later by the scientific community itself. They are the only ones that are capable of judging if fraud has even occurred. Not the public, or the justice system on it's own.

I am concerned when the law gets involved in science when there is no evidence of any wrong doing. The scientific community doesn't think that this professor has committed fraud, there is no evidence of it in any of his research that I am aware of. That is why I am concerned. I don't like politics sticking its nose into scientific research. That is a source of contamination, not purity. Now if there is strong evidence of scientific fraud such as phony research and state/federal money payed for the research, then by all means pursue fraud charges. But this isn't the case.

Link it to me and I will take a look at it, and is this journal citing the original research? If so the data would be found in the original. Also it is not unusual for the final reports not to contain the raw data, though the sources will be listed someplace. I bet that I could probably find those sources if I did some digging.

Well I stand by my statements so far. I also didn't put it in those terms. I don't know the specifics of his employment at that university, or the terms their under. I do know though that the results of his research should not have any bearing on his employment, only that he does have research grants. Now it is expected that scientists be fruitful and publish, and that can be a source of pressure to get results (something that I am not fond of at all). The statement of publish or perish is very true.

I do not feel that an investigation is reasonable at this point in time, and certainly not via the act he is using which bypasses the judicial system.

Politics and religion so often remind me of each other, both are mainly faith driven. Anyhow I shall stick to my neutral ways.. to quote Zapp Brannigan "I hate these filthy neutrals Kif! With enemies you know where they stand but with neutrals? Who knows! It sickens me." :woot:

Why would they actively avoid following up on FOIA requests? Mann, et all, have suggested they were buried in such request by "deniers," but in fact there were only 2 or 3 such requests over a period of YEARS. In addition, the requests would not have been required had Mann et al published their data and code. Considering many of the journals they publish in claim to require data and code to be available this is even more striking.

They NEVER published the code used to generate their conclusions. Understandable given what crap their code is—it's embarrassing, I'm sure. This says nothing about the veracity of their claims, BTW, I'm speaking as an advocate for open science, particularly when public policy is involved (in which case openness should be mandatory, IMO).

People seem to treat publishing as the end result of the scientific method. It;s really just a beginning. You publish, then others replicate. If your conclusions come out of a black box, how can anyone replicate your model? In this case the model is the code. This would be like Newton writing that he had a theory of gravitation , then refusing to publish F=GMm/r^2 and instead publishing graphs of how his model predicts falling bodies.

Since climate science is driven by computer models, publishing the code is pretty much required to allow it to be checked.

I have to say as pure science, this would be creepy, but I'd simply not care. Once tax money is being spent to mitigate changes that are shown in simulations based on assumptions that changing a variable in simulations will change RL outcomes, I want that model to be in the public domain.

Politics aside, any reasonable person would agree that computer models used to set public environmental policy should be available for all to see and try out (along with any and all data required to get the predictions used for said policy).

Right?

Nah just found it funny :03: