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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."
Any questions?
I have one. How do we get the vested interests out of the media and the political arena so that a proper, unbiased and informed debate can occur under the gaze of the general public? Take the (corporate owned) media and the (may as well be corporate owned) political parties out of the equation, and there would be almost no dispute that climate change is happening.
No, the one where they manipulated the statistical analysis programming to create false results, causing a hockey stick graph to form no matter what the inputs were.
Because of course, the only unbiased and honest people are those that agree with catastrophic AGW.
With that kind of basic premise, even legitimate investigations into behavior are going to be seen as witch hunts. The automatic assumption of good faith on your side and bad faith on the other side is what causes these kinds of things into escalating lawsuits - simply handing over the requested documents would've saved time, money, and apparently was impossible given the extreme level of distrust between the parties.
I guess I'd ask the following question of Mann's supporters - what evidence could possibly be uncovered by this investigation that would make it legitimate for you? If we got a hand written letter by Mann where he states "Those fools! I've completely faked my data, and they keep giving me more money, buahahaha!", would that exonerate Cuccinelli?