Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli's AGW Witch Hunt Continues

eldavojohn writes "A letter from Representative Edward Markey outlines Ken Cuccinelli's latest civil investigative demand targeting 39 people instead of just Michael Mann. You may recall that the original investigation was quashed by a judge, but the latest request demands records from people seemingly unrelated to Mann, including an Indian glaciologist. The Bad Astronomer calls Cuccinelli out in a similar manner and lists Cuccinelli's doubts about Mann's papers, including, 'Specifically, but without limitation, some of the conclusions of the papers demonstrate a complete lack of rigor regarding the statistical analysis of the alleged data, meaning that the result reported lacked statistical significance without a specific statement to that effect.' The school that hosted the research announced the new investigation, and the Union of Concerned Scientists accuses him of harassing scientists."

Comments

I Left Out The Best Part

[eldavojohn]

From the UVA article:

The litigation has so far cost the university $352,874.76, Wood said, adding that the fees have been paid for from private funds.

And that's just legal fees from the university's side of things, the state itself has its own costs to look at for the first investigation and I'm sure many people are spending hours handling this. So you might be wondering what the original research that Mann did cost the university? Answer: under $500,000. So with this latest round of litigation, the Attorney General -- who is championing this effort under the guise of protecting tax payer dollars -- will force the state of Virginia to pay up again.

When I submitted this, I was hoping to find some news of this latest round from the more conservative press (Fox News, Washington Times) instead of the more liberal (New York Times, Washington Post) but there's nothing from that side of the spectrum. I think a local paper put it best in an editorial entitled Cuccinelli Needs to Cut Our Losses.

Re:No the way to do it

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

I just don't understand how a movie (which I haven't seen, I guess, so I can't really judge) can be thousands of times worse than what Cuccinelli's doing. One is a bit of free speech that people are capable of ignoring if they desire. The other cannot be ignored, since it's couched in the auspices of the courts and the Office of the Attorney General - ignoring it may mean fines, contempt citations, obstruction of justice charges, etc.

What Cuccinelli's doing is thousands of times worse than the 10:10 movie.

If it is the "movie"(it was actually a commercial for a new "no pressure" campaign) I saw on youtube, then the 10:10 spots were advocating killing those who fail to conform to the forced reductions of greenhouse gases. Now if incitement to violence(actual, not couched in slang or idioms) isn't worse than a lawyer asking some questions, I'd love to know what planet you live on. But hey, only crazy right wingers are violent

Don't bet against Cuccinelli

[Spazmania]

The man's a brilliant lawyer. I've read a number of opinions he offered as AG. They are uniformly well argued, even when I wish the conclusions were otherwise. Worse, from the perspective of those who support Mann, Cuccinelli thoroughly analyzes the relevant law and doesn't misinterpret it to fit his preconceptions. Unlike former Virginia AG's, I didn't find a single example where I said, "No, that's obviously not what the law you just quoted means."

If Mann cut any corners, Cuccinelli will crucify him.

Re:Don't bet against Cuccinelli

[Sockatume]

Unfortunately for Mann the new case hinges on an issue of fact - the statistical validity of the analysis - that lies deep in Mann's territory. He has to demonstrate fraud on Mann's part, as fundimental requisite of the statute this brilliant lawyer somehow forgot when he filed his first case. There's years of evidence and hundreds of researchers, going back to the original peer review, which have viewed it as being made in good will. What's the plan here? Hire some pseuds and try to bullshit the audience into believing Mann's stats were not bad, but deliberately cooked? It's nonsense.

Re:Back to the actual Science...

[danbert8]

It's really hard to do validation without the source data... Also, it's really hard to do validation on extrapolations done by computer models. In addition, it's really hard to do validation on climate (which changes on a scale of 10s of thousands of years) with a few hundred years of decent data and only about 100 of good data.

That's why science is based on experiments that are repeatable, not on computer models. I wouldn't believe in nuclear power either if we didn't have several examples of working reactors. If someone just said, "based on my computer model, U235 should undergo fission in a controlled process", I wouldn't be the first in line to bet on it. The computer model may be correct, but it also might be incomplete or have a high degree of unaccounted for variables.