Cuccinelli Covers Up Virtue
Eli has learned that updates don't bring eyeballs. As a scientist, he knows all about the least publishable fragment (LPF in the trade) and thus this post which brings news but not too much.
As previously reported in Rabett Run, and first spotted by Coby Beck, Ken Cuccinelli, the Virginia Attorney General is seeking for Emails of Mass Destruction (EmMD) in any scraps of paper that Michael Mann left at UVa, or any scraps of paper that mention Michael Mann in other people's filing cabinets or any punched tape (thanks to ford perfect for that) that contains the secret key to the climate conspiracy. As far as Eli remembers, the last time anyone used punched tape was before Mann was born or thereabouts, but we are sure that in a store-room somewhere, next to the Ark of the Covenant, lies a barrel of punched tape prophesying the future role that the Lord and his prophet, Al Gore, set forth for Mike to play. Seriously, the UVa AG's office might invest in some new cut and paste for their requests.
However, as alluring as all of this is, there is even a better target for Mass Snarking than the EmMDs. Word has come that Ken Cuccinelli, Va Attorney General is engaged in a massive cover-up of Virtue, photoshopping a breastplate on her upper body so that he will not be tempted to screw the Virginia state flag, while he attempts to screw Mann. How John Ashcroft like, but how predictable
And, oh yes, if you read the previous post, you will find that S. Fred, is leading the team searching for the EmMD. As Andy says, "Even Fred Singer now admits they are still looking for the smoking gun. What is it with Republicans and elusive weapons." Bunnies can go over to Fred's new command bunker and razz him.
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31 comments:
Some requests deserve umpteen thousand lines of uncommented FORTRAN 66 on punched tape which almost, but doesn't quite compile in response.
This may be one of them.
This is beyond ridiculous. How many times can Mann be vindicated before these idiots realize that they're grasping at straws? This is no longer just a baseless fishing expedition. Cuccinelli is a fucking fascist.
Eli, please do sign all correspondence with, Eli Rabett PhD followed by a list of your associations ;)
WHat is it with SInger and always spouting that he has a PhD. He really does over value himself.
Time to fight back Eli, please FOI Michaels, Christy, Spencer, Lindzen etc. for their emails and financial records. And, yes, I am quite serious. Blogging is great and helpful, but only goes so far, one has to follow through! How much longer are we going to let Mann et al. be the whipping boy for these nutters without fighting back?
One very unhappy bunny.
And yes, I would very much like to hear Curry take issue with this and condemn Singer at al. in the very strongest terms.
MapleLeaf
Oddly there's been no mention of the fact that Cooch has Tyranny looking much perkier. Not defeated, just resting between bouts as it were.
Deny,deny, deny... We deny Man-made-global-warming, you all deny the power of God. Now it looks to me, from way up here, that you both are going to get to the bottom of the 'Science'. Real people are looking at just what Peer-Review means to Bunnies who take AGW, soooo seriously. Now adults are going to check your homework and give the grade you deserve... good or bad. This is a good start for a reality check:
http://www.noconsensus.org/
Don't get too overheated Rabbits, overpopulation is bad. Time to catch an early flight, gotta fly-
by-by
I have noticed that septics and contrarians tend to make a point of advertising the fact they have a doctorate, if they have one.
Spencer is among these.
Snow Bunny says:
I'm curious -- What standing does the AG of Va have?
Aren't the grants federal? Does the VA provide grants for paleoclimate research?
Mann's use of Virginia facilities would have been covered by teaching duties, wouldn't they?
Hopefully, U of Va lawyers can toss this off.
I'm not sure. A good humiliating defeat , while flying quite a bit above the average neo-con head, does get noticed by the others.
Sooner or later people will realise that the smoke is from the usual suspects ( Dr. Singer, come on down) but there is no fire.
Am I missing something, or does this sillyness not miss Mann altogether. He isn't being asked to do anything because he isn't there.
Stupid Starling, I took a look at your supposed report card on the IPCC report. I only looked at the 3 chapters in WG1 which received a "B". In particular for chapter if one discounts references to conference proceedings, previous IPCC reports, textbooks and historic papers one is left with 3(!) non peer reviewed sources. One to Popper, one to Kuhn and one to an article in Newsweek which was used as an example of articles in the popular press about a new ice age.
I give the auditors a F for now knowing their shit.
Given that Singer is one of the eager beavers on this fishing expedition, has anyone considered the possible virtues of a counter-claim against the Attorney's office?
Could Mann or some supporters launch a similarly-termed FOI claim /against/ the Attorney General's office, looking for anything which either mentions him or mentions people who have mentioned him, or mentions people who /might/ have mentioned him or /thought about/ mentioning him?
Given the Singer connection, I wonder what kinds of interesting material might eventually emerge from such a gesture?
Agree with Zibethicus and others - where are the efforts to dig out the dirt on these official witch hunts? Time for the US-based bunnies to get digging.
Without looking, you usually cannot FOI a prosecutor's office to prevent defense councils from fishing.
Where is Mann's long-form birth certificate?!
"Without looking, you usually cannot FOI a prosecutor's office to prevent defense councils from fishing."
Singer himself, then?
Let /him/ have a little taste of how it feels...
Zibethicus: "Singer himself, then?"
These people are usually smart and can often hide behind their not being funded by the taxpayer but by private finance. It's one of the most asymmetrical aspects to the conflict between science and pseudo-science. It would probably take a court order and a lot of proceeding legal shennanigans to get to see the material we'd all love to read about.
They may be stupid, but they're not stupid.
Eli:
Let me get this right, you're apoplectic because a state AG is making a preliminary investigation to see if state funds were properly used in the manner in which they were doled out.
And you see this as attack on science? Man oh man you have come a long way girl.
Perhaps you ought to think about your current mindset and ask yourself why a large number of US states and cities are veering to the point of insolvency.
What does it cost to run the AG's office each month? What about the entire department? I expect it is more than $0.5m. How much of this is wasted taxpayers money - eg on limos, drivers, meals and other perks of office? Is it possible to get a breakdown of his credit card expenditure for the last year?
And you see this as attack on science? Man oh man you have come a long way girl.
Perhaps you ought to think about your current mindset and ask yourself why a large number of US states and cities are veering to the point of insolvency.
Mol, if there's anyone in your household who can read, ask him/her to read the AG's demand to you. If you still can't figure out that the primary goal of the demand letter is harassment and intimidation, then you are even more stupid than your first impression here indicates.
My Virginia cousin Brer Bunny of Tidewatership Down has dispatched this to his man in the State House -
BE IT ENACTED
That the 1930 vexiliar act of this legislature be amended thus:
The great seal of the Commonwealth of Virginia shall consist of two recyclable metallic discs, two and one-fourth inches in diameter, with an ornamental border one fourth of an inch wide, with such words and figures engraved thereon as will, when used, produce impressions to be described as follows:
On the obverse, Virtus, the genius of the Commonwealth, dressed as an Amazon customarily masectomized, her remaining bosom exposed, resting on her spear point downward dexter, touching the earth; & holding in her left hand, a sheathed sword, or parazonium, pointing upward; her head erect and face upturned; her left foot on the form of Tyranny represented by the prostrate body of Attorney General Cuccinelli, head sinister, his fallen crown nearby, resting on a copy of The Weekly Standard. Above the group and within the border conforming therewith, shall be the word "Virginia," and, in the space below, on a curved line, shall be the motto, "Sic Semper Tyrannis."
On the reverse, shall be placed a group consisting of Stultus, the culturally tone deaf State Climatologist, holding two ear trumphets; on his right, a white bearded figure in the robes of a UVA Professor Emeritus, hawking remaindered copies of Unstoppable Global Warming with both hands; on his left, Ceres smoking a cornucopia of tobacco.
Eli is not apoletic, Eli, is of the resigned school. Still, pointing out stupidity is the bunny's major character flaw.
mol said...
Eli:
Let me get this right, you're apoplectic because a state AG is making a preliminary investigation to see if state funds were properly used in the manner in which they were doled out.
And you see this as attack on science? Man oh man you have come a long way girl.
Except of course that only one of the grants was funded by the Commonwealth of Virginia, and Mann was not the PI on it. All the others are from federal sources and the Virginia statute cited does not give the AG the authority to investigate those. Definitely a fishing expedition/harassment. To demand any communication with Mann from 1999 to the present on such flimsy grounds is a stretch. Hopefully, UVa will tell him he's over-reaching and deny him the material.
Phil, you're awesome. That's two things I've learned today that I'll be having fun with over the following weeks.
Denier (pulling tongue): "But Hansen predicted back in 1988 that the New York West Side highway would be underwater by now, while he was looking at the highway from a window."
Me: "Oh dear, he must have been time travelling. Said highway collapsed in 1973, finished demolition in 1986, permission to reconstruct was given in 1993, they began reconstruction in 1996 which was not completed until 2001."
H/T to Lee at Deltoid.
Priceless.
Mol:
Please estimate the money to be spent by the UofV to satisfy this demand. This is also public money.
Will we be entertained in a few months by a confused AG demanding all the things they posess regarding this waste of public funds.
Maybe , if not by then institutionalized, our busy boob burier will serve himself with papers demanding to see any papers he has on himself.
I wonder how much it would cost, hypothetically speaking of course, to have Hackers R Us fiddle with some old files.
Eli
If you're suggestion is right then Mann has nothing to worry about as the UV will tell the AG where to get off.
However I suspect there's a little more to this than meets the casual eye.
My guess is that the AG already knows what to look for before he grabs the little fella by the suspenders and gives him a decent whack across the bottom
Can the AG be subjected to a FoI request in return - requesting
1) all correspondence between himself and others which led to his decision to issue his FOI,
2) all financial records that would allow the cost of his actions to the tax payer to be gauged, and
3) full details of what he expects to find and why.
Mol, if the AG knows what he is looking for, why has he requested every item of paper and data Man ever touched. He clearly doesn't have a clue.
*My* guess is that one of several familiar people with VA addresses put this bug in Cuccinelli's ear...
Note: this in Eli's post, but to reaffirm: Virtue is the main figure on the Virginia state flag...
so someone should ask him if he will change that also...
I suggest watching Richmond Times-Dispatch, including Cuccinelli halts use of new lapel pin ... making them collectors' items worth much.
Mashey:
When you walked around the office with a Hooters lapel pin featuring a pair of decent sized boobs did it make you feel a little unconformable?
My dear Mol,
I'm not surprised you don't recognize Virtue -- given your dishonest propaganda, I wouldn't expect you to.
Nor is it surprising your first association with a naked women is Hooters. Next time you're there, tell your Mom the reality-based community says hello.
You know I'm here,
Everybody knows I'm here
I'm your hoochie coochie, Mann
Everybody knows I'm here.
Snow Bunny : UPDATE
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/virginiapolitics/?hpid=topnews
UVa not to resist (it wouldn't be legal) but encourages protests from scientific organizations.
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