Michael Mann: “Mr. Cuccinelli wants to prosecute people based on the words they choose to use. I’m not sure even George Orwell ever dreamed up anything that frightening.”
Tough call. How about 10:10 executing school children for not believing in your graph?
I am not sure fraud can be miscontrued as “words they choose to use”… not even by Mann… I see no comparison to “1984” and the investigation into possible fraud at the taxpayers expense.
I think we need another Godwin’s Law type thing for invoking Orwell/1984….
But some have invoked Orwell to describe the global warming movement. And I think they have a point.
William Happer, of Princeton, compared rewriting history and the Hockey Stick:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg-frkJBxm4
Godwin’s Law only applies when the comparison is not warrented… some people forget that point…
You can’t even consider to not go along with the program? That’s the moral high ground?
The immorality of ‘global warming’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9bEOB3x0dQ
“Tough call. How about 10:10 executing school children for not believing in your graph? ”
See, I like this.
Never let 10:10 die. Throw it in their face at every turn.
Arguing the science is one thing; stick to the facts there. But the second they try to make it about ethics or policy or “should” or “ought” or (one of their favorite words) “normative” or any such nonsense, nail them to the wall with 10:10.
This demolishes their moral authority pedestal.
I really do not think that choice of words is the problem with Dr. Mann’s work. It’s the choice of ethics and lack of integrity in the use of data and the expounding of opinion masquerading as rational conclusions with the goal to mislead and defraud the public.
That would be a bit more than simply criticizing a poor choice of words. But, does the Dr. claim that he is not in control of his words and means to suggest no responsibility for his writing?
Using public funds to produce fraudulent scientific results, with full knowledge of the inappropriate nature of the data handling and processing, is not legal and is an actionable offense. It is not taking away from the parallel discussion of global warming to also pursue this course of action. It would be wrong to let it go just because he claims other (higher) issues.
Mann would maintain that, in the course of a bank robbery, shooting a bank guard might be a greater offense than robbing the bank and, thus, he should not be prosecuted for the bank robbery. Nope, try him for both.
Mann has presented unscientifically handled data and results and used public funds in the process. Two different offenses, two different developments.
“This demolishes their moral authority pedestal.”
I suppose if “they” (AGW believers) had produced the video or supported it — but “they” pretty much have criticized it.
Also, I think we can all agree that an AG should be held to a higher standard that a group that makes web videos.
Piers Corbyn makes some good points in this interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAkfEX0sqAI
Oh, come on.
The stupid video was a stupid video. What it portrayed didn’t actually happen.
What the Attorney General of the State of Virginia is doing is very real.
The correct title for this page isn’t “Words vs Thoughts”, it’s “Deeds vs Things That Never Happened.”
In his new CID he essentially says that he can prosecute scientists for being wrong. Forget fraud; it’s sufficient to just be sloppy:
The real killer, by the way, is this: Now that the Coochster is reduced to investigating one paper rather than five, the hockey stick is no longer in the picture. The remaining paper had nothing whatsoever to do with global warming or paleoclimate.