Tuesday, May 08, 2007

It's good work if you can get it


In 1997 a mass mailing appeared across the US sent by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, a one barn, no horse outfit that had specialized in curricula for home schoolers of the frum persuasion. The mailing included a letter from Fred Seitz, who signed as the former president of the National Academy of Sciences, neglecting to mention his extremely profitable experience as a front for the tobacco industry. There was also a manuscript formatted to appear as if it had been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and asked the recipients to sign a petition denying that greenhouse gases forced climate change

The manuscript was authored by Arthur B. Robinson and Zachary W. Robinson, his son, of OISM and Sallie L. Baliunas and Willie Soon who gave their institutional affiliation as the George Marshall Institute. Robinson et fils had no experience in climate issues. Baliunas and Soon were already well know. All this has been hashed out in detail before. See the links.

What's new is what Baliunas got from the Marshall Institute in 1997. $52,000 green smackers for consulting from their Form 990 (It's behind a subscription wall).

The Marshall Institute is required to report consulting fees about 50K$, not those below. There is no evidence that Baliunas received such a large fee in any other year since then. She served as a director from 2001-2004, and received nothing in 2001 and 2004. There is no report in 2002, and in 2003 she received ~24K$. Eli reports, you have the dirty thoughts.

8 comments:

  1. Eli, it's obvious that none of this is true. You fail to report that Baliunas is at Harvard.

    Apparently, you do not understand the American educational system, or you would not be making these slanderous allegations.

    Academics at the Ivy League don't take shill money.

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  2. the anonymouse is right! they have their TAs take it.

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  3. Anyone who thinks being in the Ivy League means that one is ethical need look no further than the Bush admin for disproof.

    Unethical behavior is inbred in many Ivy leaguers at a very early age.

    I went to an Ivy League school (Cornell) and during my freshman year, most of the engineers in the introductory computer science class were caught cheating on a computer assignment that they were supposed to do themselves. Like idiots, they basically all turned in the same program, which the Comp Sci Prof readily discovered with a program that he had written for that purpose.

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  4. Most people know about Bush, who is an Ivy League double-dipper -- Yale and Harvard. Twice as scrumptious.

    But how about Rummy? -- Princeton

    Cheney? -- Yale (a drop out, alas, but still an alum, nonetheless)

    Feith? -- Harvard

    Oh, and let's not forget about our little Wolfie -- (Cornell, unfortunately)

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  5. Oh, and lest the above list lead to charges of partisanship:

    Lieberman -- Yale

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  6. Let's not forget Ann Coulter (remember her voting shenanigans?) -- Cornell Law school

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  7. Uh, oh. It appears that Roger Pielke Jr. is not allowing comments over at the Nature blog.

    Not surprising.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Bubba Gump seems to be getting through -- when he's not removing his own comments(????), that is.

    "[comment removed at commenter's request]"

    That's a new one. Perhaps Bubba decided his comment was not grovelly enough.

    ReplyDelete

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