Ken Cuccinelli’s witch hunt against climate scientist Michael Mann was stopped by the Supreme Court. Good for UVA for failing to roll over and play dead. However, in the wake of this law suit are a lot of unpaid bills. UVA had to raise about $600,000 to cover its legal costs . Then there are the bills generated from the State Attorney General’s office. Let’s hear Cuccinelli try to tell us to ‘stop the spending.’ He has lost his fiscally conservative street cred.
This witch hunt was motivated by Cuccinelli’s own personal political agenda rather than from anything real that happened or any reasonable suspicion of wrong-doing while Dr. Mann was in residence at UVA. The newly elected attorney general had a bug and he rashly wasted the taxpayers’ money pursuing his own silly paranoid anti-scientific endeavors.
According to the Washington Post:
Mr. Cuccinelli’s inspiration appears to have been the conspiracy theorizing that emerged from the so-called Climategate scandal, in which global-warming opponents stole scientists’ e-mails — including a few of Mr. Mann’s — and then misinterpreted them to justify their activism.
Now that the Supreme Court has shut Mr. Cuccinelli down, what’s left is a range of consequences that can only hurt the commonwealth. The university had to raise nearly $600,000 for legal fees — money the cash-strapped university should have been able to use for something productive. On top of that are the public resources of the attorney general’s office that Mr. Cuccinelli wasted. Scientists in Virginia now have reason to wonder whether they will suffer similar pressure if they publish research government officials don’t like. And, because of some of the Supreme Court’s legal findings, the powers of the attorney general to pursue actual fraud have been clipped.
How many scientists will not want to work at UVA because of the climate of fear inspired by Cuccinelli? Virginia has a long history of enlightenment that goes back to the time of Jefferson, Washington, and even further. To have Cuccinelli try to ride his wave of anti-intellectual hocus pocus through the state at our expensive is simply unacceptable. Mr. Jefferson would not like his school under attack and Virginians are tired of this administration causing them continual embarrassment.
That man is a disgrace to our state.
The utter disrespect for “Acedamia” should concern all American citizens. Global warming is an accepted science from virtually all leading scientific organizations.
The “why” is still being debated. Seems to me, given the industrial age, and massive razing of forests inconjuction with pollutants, it is only common sense that human action has had an impact on the worlds climate.
I think of the Earth as an organism. It is organic, the trees, the water, the various plants, and all the other living components that are directly affected by outside influences.
We humans are organic, when we put crap into our bodies, via smoking, excess alchohol, drugs, chemicals, etc etc, are we not most often than not negatively affected? Maybe you hear the stories of the old guy that drank whiskey and smoked cigars but lived to be 100. I sure as hell and am not going to depend on blind genetic luck, I think I’ll try to at least be conscious of what I put into my body, its only common sense. Why does anyone think the Earth in any different?!
@Elena
My grandfather didn’t drink much, but smoked cigars regularly. His favorite breakfast was warm bacon fat poured over a plate of crispy bacon, eggs and toast. He also endured a lot of stress from my grandmother complaining about the cigars and bacon fat all the time. All of that killed him at nearly 100. And, he was a WWI vet. She lived even longer and was 99 when she passed away.
My other grandmother lived to nearly 100, and grandfather to his late 80s.
Without smoking, only minimal drinking, and less bacon fat, does that mean I’ll live into my 100s?
It was probably your grandmother’s complaining that killed him 🙂
The issue here is Cuckoonelli, not bacon fat.
@Starryflights
In the context of Elena’s comment on the impact of drinking and smoking on health, I think bacon fat and other dietary matters are quite relevant.
I think money is the issue. He squandered a million dollars when all is said and done. On what? His own pet political agenda. He went off on some conspiracy theory on our money.
Fiscal conservative my tail! Someone else’s money. Ours.
He disgusts me. He doesn’t deserve to be the next governor. Furthermore, he isn’t a team player. How many times is Bill Bolling going to get screwed over?
@Moon-howler
Squandering our tax dollars for political gain is an issue. The social issues this administration has pursued may have hurt the state’s ability to attract jobs as well. How many companies are going to choose a state which has been the butt of recent jokes when there are states with moderate administrations and reputations? Tax breaks aren’t everything a company considers when relocating.
@Censored
Cuccinelli also went on that cultural warrior rampage as soon as he took office over removing gays from the protection of anti-bullying on campuses. How many quality faculty members might think twice about going to a school in a state that allows some members of a student body or staff to be bullied? Cuccinelli went out of his way to remove ‘sexual orientation’ from the list of who could not be discriminated against. Shame on him.
We also have a defense of marriage law in our state. That cute little political ploy took place to get out the vote to ensure someone got elected in 2006. I can’t remember who but it was definitely a get out the vote measure. I would like to see that bad boy repealed. It didn’t win by THAT many votes. It just makes us look like a redneck state. It also has restrictions on heterosexual couples who live together.
Question – why did UVA spend $600,000 in legal expenses instead of just turning over the data and other information for everyone to review? Science is supposed to be an open and objective process. Moreover, VA taxpayers have already paid for the research and the professor’s salary. Why can’t we see the details and decide for ourselves rather than just take the professor’s word for it? Maybe it’s UVA squandering taxpayer money instead of Cuccinelli.
Maybe Cuccinelli is on a politically-inspired witch hunt and is full of you know what. How will we know with UVA keeping all of this information under wraps? Sounds very Nixonian rather than Jeffersonian to me.
By the way, I support Bill Bolling in the primary so I’m not just trying to defend Cuccinelli.
UVA didn’t roll over and play dead. They defended intectual integrity. Why should they allow themselves to be bullied? Why does some dumb ass attorney general have the right to demand anyone’s email and correspondence? Do we live in a police state?
Looking at the broader picture, what scientist or academnician would ever want to do work at a university that would allow the attorney general to come grab up correspondence for political purposes? The court decided that Cuccinelli didn’t have the right to access the email. UVA has to set a standard and stick to it. Good for UVA. It really is all about principle.
Frankly, I am shocked that you would think that UVA should release other people’s intellectual property. Its thing like this that make it harder and harder to ever consider voting Republican ever again.
UVA’s scientific reports, like any good scientific reports, are published after being peer reviewed by qualified professionals. The data and methodologies are all described in depth, in accordance with sound scientific procedure. These reports welcome criticism. If their conclusions are in error, there are perfectly legitimate avenues to challenge them on the basis of scientific procedure. There is absolutely no need for the heavy hand of the state to get involved.
The only person acting “Nixonian” in this sorry saga is Cuckoonelli
I believe they also were trying to grab up the email of all secretaries, assistants and underlings. I assume that included emails to people’s mothers, friends, wives and kids.
I doubt that most of us have the scientific background to make a qualified assessment of the work of Dr. Mann based on his emails, much less determine the validity of climate change theory. Hell, most people don’t believe the information from NASA satellites or the rise in coastal water levels. Why base anything on email. Is that like reading tea leaves?
The main purpose of peer review is to ensure that no one strays from the accepted dogma in their field. Einstein created his theory of relativity while working as a patent clerk and circulated it independently from his “peers.” If it had been submitted for peer review and editing modern physics would likely be decades behind where it is now.
I’ve spent a lot of my career in academics and went private sector largely because of this lack of objectivity. Seniority, jealousy, politics and other personal factors largely determine what’s published and what’s not. That’s especially true in a politically sensitive area such as climate change.
I chose not to pursue a career in academics because of this sort of nonsense. Also, we wouldn’t think twice about submitting a FOIA request for emails or anything else when we suspect backroom dealing and conflicts of interest among politicians. Why is it a violation of academic freedom to ask that a publicly-funded university and a professor being paid by taxpayers document that his work is indeed independent and objective. It seems to me they would eager to substantiate that.
I am not so sure that public funding entitles us to the intellectual property of others. Given that scene, what is to prevent actual someone from walking off with all the raw data.
No one says that academia is free from a raft of bad things. It is fraught with jealousy and back stabbing. Don’t you think that is irrelevant in this case? Cuccinelli wanted to use his attorney general trump card and it simply didn’t work.
The court ruled that Cuccinelli was not entitled to the information. Maybe they smelled the same rat the rest of us did.
I speak from experience when I tell you that if you are working on grant and invent something it would be highly unusual for you to retain the intellectual property rights to your creation.
You don’t retain intellectual property rights when you work for corportations either, necessarily. They keep the patents also.
So having said that…..Cuccinelli needs to not use office to advance his own agenda. That is a fairly simple concept.
For people who want smaller government, some of you all want in every orafice and crevice, don’t you? Why not just set up a police state?
As you are probably aware, Mann uses tree ring data as a proxy for historical temperature trends. Tree ring data have played a crucial role in the argument that today’s temperatures are much warmer than at any period in the record. Unfortunately (for climate alarmists), there is good evidence that tree ring data has diverged from the true surface temperature. In the leaked emails, Mann discusses the need to suppress this divergence, because the argument that today’s climate is anomalously warm falls apart without the proxy data.
This is all from memory, but I believe it is correct. So there does appear to be evidence of suppressing inconvenient truths.
So what? I don’t care if Dr. Mann dresses up in a monkey suit, that doesn’t give Cuccinelli the right to his correspondence. We don’t live in a police state.
When I was in the military, we had to take FOIA training every year. We were told that our emails could be released to support FOIA requests if their topics concerned “official business”. I am not saying that I agree with Cuccinelli’s heavy-handed approach, but I am not sure why emails relating to Mann’s research could not be obtained under the FOIA. Perhaps it has to be a private citizen that makes the FOIA request.
Kelly, I am not sure it was done under FOIA. I just know I feel it was wrong of him to do.
The problem is that the man uses taxpayor dollars for campaign projects. Another exhibit in my recurring theme that the term “conservative” has no meaning any more, particularly at the state and local level. It’s just a marketing label that works with a certain uncritical, manipulable and ill-informed demographic. One likes to think that politics is a means to an end – the selfless provision of good governance. Competent citizens step forward to take their turn at the helm. If politics instead becomes a way for political hacks to fund their quest for the next office by taking money from the pockets of the citizens, our democratic approach to finding able providers of governance is a thing of the past.
Kelly,
you said:
You just made two contradictory statements Kelly. Which one is it, you had a career in academics or you chose not to pursue a career in academics. You cannot have done both.
You know what I think “kelly”? I think you cut and paste data and present it as your own.
Scout,
You said
I am pretty sure we are past the hypothetical IF. I believe we do have a few rare dinasaurs that actually become public servants to SERVE the people. The longer I see politics up close and personal, the more discouraged I become.
Just trying to figure out what the argument is. I thought this thread was all about the big, bad gubmint violating someone’s IP rights. Does the individual own the work done while in the paid employ of the state or no? If yes it seems as clear as you would like to paint it. If no then surely the state has the right to audit work which it paid for, no?
No.
You are employing the long arm of the state that does not exist.
If Faulkner wrote a novel while in residence at UVA, who owns the book?
@Elena
Elena: you need to read more carefully. My posts above say absolutely nothing about a career in academics, or the lack thereof. That statement was made by somebody else.
Perhaps you should reconsider that statement about cutting and pasting ….
@kelly_3406 Actually, it was “Need To Know” who made the contradictory statements about having had and not having had a career in academia. Elena was correct in that respect.
@Elena
I said that I spent a lot of my career in academics, not my entire career. It’s not over yet and I haven’t been a full-time academic in many years. I was there long enough to see how that game is played and to learn that I did not want my future based on writing research that my “peers” would approve of and get published. There’s no contradiction there, just real life experience and a better understanding of how the world works.
my apology for attributing the comments to Kelly regarding career choices.
Yes, NTK,sorry, I do know that you are still in the prime of your career!
Kelly,
having corrected my statement, I still believe you have a nack for cutting and pasting other peoples thoughts and attributing them to yourself.
@Elena
I view this as a huge insult. I have a number of publications and patents, and have absolutely no NEED to cut and paste from anyone else. You are one to talk — i have seen absolutely no evidence that you have had an original thought ever. Either you need to show some proof to back up that statement, or you need to shut your f***ing mouth.
Kelly! NO. Elena is an owner of this blog. You are not to curse her or anyone else. Disagree fine. Curse no.
“tree ring divergence problem “to hide the decline” that a particular proxy showed etc etc.”
sounds familiar to me!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy
@Elena
I am not surprised that you would find something similar, because the issue has been discussed and written about by many people. Comment #18 is my own summary (in my own words) of the many sources that I have read on the Internet and elsewhere, including Mann’s original tree ring article and his leaked email.
You stated very clearly that I was “cutting and pasting”. If so, you should have no trouble finding the source with today’s modern search engines, so I challenge you to do just that.
p.s. I don’t think you will be able to find a more succinct, easy-to-understand explanation given from the skeptical viewpoint.
Kelly, I have not been following the discussion between you and Elena but you do need to apologize for talking to her in an abusive, bullying manner. It doesn’t matter what the discussion is over. You can’t use that kind of language at her. I have to insist on that.
Kelly,
First let me address you telling me to “shut the eff up”. That kind of bullying behavior is not permitted here.
Now, lets get to reality. You present yourself as though you are a PhD environmental scientist, I’m not buyin’ it! As much as I think Moonhowlings is a great place for passionate debate, it aint where rocket scientists come to argue their point 😉
Here is what I do know without having to pretend that I am a schooled scientist in global climatology!
We all know that certain types of fish, especially Albacore Tuna are high in mercury levels. How can anyone believe that global warming (accepted science) is not somehow related to human activity. Lets start with the obvious and more outward from there. If we are polluting our oceans, causing serious harm to coral and so many other sea life, how can we not include the atomosphere?
Oh, notice the blocking, this demonstrates that I am attributing particular data to a specific source.
http://water.usgs.gov/wid/FS_216-95/FS_216-95.html
I am aware of the importance of blocking off data or using quotes when it comes from a specific source. My statement above was my own words and did not come from a single source. Again, if I cut and pasted such a long statement, you ought to be able to find it and prove your accusations. Hint: you will not be able to, because there was no cutting and pasting.
If you withdraw your accusation (without any proof, I might add) perhaps I might consider an apology.