Today’s lesson for UVA students: Fight subpoenas
By Brian Kirwin | Friday, May 28th, 2010 | PolicyIf you’re a liberal, you get to have your own rules. You get to attack Karl Rove when he fights a subpoena. You get to protest at every fundraiser he attends while he does so. You get to have liberal editorial boards back your efforts and call on Rove to “do the right thing” and act like they support the law.
Then when Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli subpoenas documents for taxpayer-funded research, everyone can do a complete 180 and cheer fighting the subpoena. Fighting subpoenas is a good thing for liberals to do. It’s just a bad thing for conservatives to do.
Just like religious involvement in politics – it’s bad for conservatives, but just peachy for liberals.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi can tell church leaders “I want you to speak about it from the pulpit” about amnesty for illegal aliens – “You have to tell them,” she says.
If a Republican Speaker of the House told churches what they “have to tell” their congregations, liberals would be in full attack mode.
But it’s liberal Nancy. Editorial writers agree with her. No problem.
Same thing with whether or not someone should fight a subpoena. If you’re liberal, yes. If you’re conservative, no.
Cuccinelli’s probe concerns research on Global Warming-that-isn’t-warming-so-we-better-call-it-climate-change.
Virginian-Pilot Editor Donald Luzzatto said on WHRO’s What Matters that research is “what a University is about” – certainly news to the students who are paying untold thousands for an education.
Now, UVA has asked the courts dismiss Cuccinelli’s subpoena seeing if taxpayer dollars were used appropriately. Why?
Liberals don’t like to be questioned. That must be it.
If someone sneaks across the border and illegal enters the country, liberals think that when a police officer asks if that person is a citizen, the police officer is the problem.
Liberals think that when they get government funding for research, and someone from government wants to question to make sure that no fraud was involved, the question is the problem.
“This investigation is a threat to scientific discoveries everywhere,” Francesca Grifo, the Union of Concerned Scientists ‘ director of scientific integrity, said in a statement. “The University of Virginia is right to stand up to this bullying and fight for the ability of scientists to do their best work.”
The Union of Concerned Scientists???? Oh, that’s just funny. What are they gonna do? Go on strike? Get a job in the private sector for once in their lives?
But see..they don’t even want to be questioned! If everything was on the up and up, wouldn’t they want to say “Here’s the paperwork. Taxpayers paid for it. We’d be glad for the public to see the work they paid for?”
But they don’t. They want the checks to keep rolling in, and want no one to ever question what they did while taking all the money.
The ability of scientists to do their best work? Here’s a notion. Teach a class. Do your darn research without sucking up to taxpayers for your salary.
See, we taxpayers like to have a thing called “oversight” when it’s our money being spent. As long as I’m footing your bill, you are accountable to me.
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The right wants to jeer him. The left wants to censor him. Moderates usually want both. Brian Kirwin is a political consultant and public relations strategist in Virginia Beach with a lightning-rod flair. Brian also serves on the VB Arts & Humanities Commission and frequently appears on Hampton Roads theatrical stages, if only to prove that all actors aren’t liberals. Kirwin’s columns stir up debate and hit the political scene with no punches pulled.
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15 Responses to "Today’s lesson for UVA students: Fight subpoenas"
News flash Brian: All subpoenas are not created equal.
The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering.
The closed-mindedness of these supposed men of science, their willingness to go to any lengths to defend a preconceived message, is surprising even to me.
My first thought on the refusal of UVA to comply with Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s extremely reasonable subpoena to obtain information on Michael Mann’s fraudulent activities and conspiracy to embark on schemes that could lead to trillions of dollars of lost wealth around the globe in coming decades.
Brian, what pure bunk, period. If you can’t see the effect on free speech and academic freedom, you are blind to the consequences of an attorney general run amuck. I would think that any corporation considering a Virginia location that deals in intellectual property, or science and technology, or research, would simply cross Virginia off the list. I guess you and the AG consider thought control to be a new function of state government. Isn’t that a bit of an extension of the power of the state? Gee, I thought you opposed that.
Mike, taxpayer money isn’t free.
Neither is thought control, Brian.
Brian: You can’t argue with Mike’s logic. Clearly — if you refuse to believe in global warming, you are obviously an advocate of thought control!
The response of these alarmist scientists to the Climategate scientific fraud scandal has little to do with their responsibilities as scientists and everything to do with saving their political position.
The entire Climategate issue was based on AGW advocates (I will refrain from calling them scientists) refusing to release their data, code and methods so that their scientific publications could be replicated, validated or falsified.
Climategate: Alarmist Scientists Plan a Snow Job
by Myron Ebell
According to recently disclosed e-mails from a National Academies of Science listserv, prominent climate scientists affiliated with the U.S. National Academies of Science have been planning a public campaign to paper over the damaged reputation of global warming alarmism. Their scheme would involve officials at the National Academies and other professional associations producing studies to endorse the researchers’ pre-existing assumptions and create confusion about the revelations of the rapidly expanding “Climategate” scandal.
The e-mails were first reported in a front-page story by Stephen Dinan in the Washington Times today. The Competitive Enterprise Institute has independently obtained copies of the e-mails. A list of excerpts, with descriptive headlines written by me, can be found below. The entire file of e-mails has been posted as a PDF and can be read here.
In my view, the response of these alarmist scientists to the Climategate scientific fraud scandal has little to do with their responsibilities as scientists and everything to do with saving their political position. The e-mails reveal a group of scientists plotting a political strategy to minimize the effects of Climategate in the public debate on global warming.
Selected Excerpts.
Note that the descriptive headlines in italics are by me. The statements in quotation marks are excerpts from the e-mails.
Can we get corporate funding for some splashy ads in the NY Times?
Paul Falkowski, Feb. 26: “I will accept corporate sponsorship at a 5 to 1 ratio….”
But our ads will be untainted by corporate influence.
Paul Falkowski, Feb. 27: “Over the past 24 h I have been amazed and encouraged at the support my proposal has received from Section 63 and beyond. We have had about 15 pledges for $1000! I want to build on that good will and make sure that the facts about the climate system are presented to a very large section of the public—unfiltered by the coal, oil and gas industries….”
What is it about the New York Times? Aren’t Paul Krugman and Thomas Friedman enough?
Paul Falkowski, Feb. 27: “Op eds in the NY Times and other national newspapers would also be great.”
Scientists should be effecting social and political change.
Paul Falkowski, Feb. 26: “I want the NAS to be a transformational agent in America.”
Snow in Washington is anecdotal, but no snow in Vancouver is proof.
Paul Falkowski, Feb. 27: “…the coal, oil and gas industries (who, ironically, are running commercials on NBC for the winter Olympics, while the weather is so warm that snow has to be imported to some of the events.)”
Robert Paine, Feb. 27: “The beltway’s foolishness about climate change seems especially ironic given the snowless plight of the Vancouver Olympics.”
David Schindler, Feb. 27: “I’d add that Edmonton is near snowless….”
This is a political fight, and we’ve got to get dirty.
Paul R. Ehrlich, Feb. 27: “Most of our colleagues don’t seem to grasp that we’re not in a gentlepersons’ debate, we’re in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules.”
Top scientists adore Al Gore.
David Schindler, Feb. 27: “I recall an event at the Smithsonian a couple of eons ago that I thought did a great job, & got lots of media coverage. AL Gore spoke….”
Paul Falkowski, Feb. 27: “Al Gore has a very well written article in the NY Times.”
Forget the science, we want energy rationing!
William Jury, Feb. 27: “I am seeing formerly committed public sector leaders backing off from positions aimed at reducing our fossil fuel dependence.”
They’ll forget Climategate if an authoritative institution repeats the same old line.
Paul Falkowski, Feb. 27: “An NRC report would be useful.”
Steve Carpenter, Feb. 27: “We need a report with the authority of the NAS that summarizes the status and trends of the planet, and the logical consequences of plausible responses.”
David Tilman: Feb. 27: “It would seem wise to have the panel [writing the report] not include IPCC members.”
Stephen H. Schneider, Mar. 1: “National Academies need to be part of this….”
Stephen H. Schneider, Mar 1: “It is imperative that leading scientific societies coordinate a major press event….”
The last academic defense: It’s McCarthyism!
Stephen H. Schneider, Mar. 1: “…Senator Inhofe, in a very good impression of the infamous Joe McCarthy, has now named 17 leading scientists involved with the IPCC as potential climate ‘criminals’. …. I am hopeful that all the forces working for honest debate and quality assessments will decry this McCarthyite regression, and by name point out what this Senator is doing by a continuing smear campaign. …. Will the media have the fortitude to take this on–I’m betting a resounding ‘yes!’” [Note that Schneider has already sent this e-mail to the media asking for their help.]
Jim, if your position is that I “can’t argue with Mike’s logic,” then you are practicing the textbook definition of thought control.
I’ll argue with whomever or whatever I want.
Genius…
Next!
Fire and Ice
Journalists have warned of climate change for 100 years, but can’t decide weather we face an ice age or warming
U.S. Funds Nearly $4 Billion in Climate-Change Research
Global warming is a good business to be in for government funding. More than 99.5 percent of American climate change funding comes from the government, which spends $4 billion per year on climate change research.
Researchers use this money to promote doom and gloom reports on what man is doing to his world.
The bigger and more catastrophic climate change cataclysm becomes, the more it is justifiable to take more money and exert more control – a cycle that feeds itself. Scientist and environmentalist Stephen Schneider explained these tactics.
“On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but – which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.” (Discover, October, 1989)
Environmental lobbying, a $1.6 billion industry, puts increased pressure on government to spend more on global warming and take more control.
Calls for higher taxes, more regulation and greater government intervention in private businesses increase as environmentalists propagate scarier scenarios.
Sorry to break it to you Mike and Steve, but UVA is a PUBLIC college which means that the rules are different for them, if this was a private univiersity, funded privately, then I might agree with you, but when it is my tax money, I have a right to know how they are spending it. And this garbage about “thought control” classic liberal double speak – you have no problem with “thought control” when you are telling students they can’t express their religious views on a publically funded campus, but it is thought control to ask a “scientist” how he spent the tax payer’s money? For the life of me I cannot figure out how liberals deal with their completely ILLOGICAL positions
That’s pure bunk as well. The Commonwealth does support colleges and universities in Virginia so that state residents can pay lower tuition, but that does not allow the AG to stage a witch hunt when he does not agree with a scientist on the faculty. Frankly, for this to even be a point of discussion of this forum is absurd. Why would those who claim to believe in the constitution and the Bill of Rights be on the side of an AG who is trying to deny those very same rights to university professors, scientists, and researchers? Never mind the chilling effect on academic freedom, scientific research, and by extension, economic development, that in Virginia, the conclusions of scientists and researchers must be “politically correct” as determined the Attorney General of Virginia. Do the zealots herein realize the derision and condemnation they are bringing down upon the Commonwealth? Apparently not, for in Virginia, ideology trumps everything.
Lest there be any doubt that these scientists did anything wrong, Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explains what the CRU documents reveal: “They are unambiguously dealing with things that are unethical and in many cases illegal…” “[S]cientists manipulating raw temperature data….“ “The willingness to destroy data rather than release it. The avoidance of Freedom of Information requests….“ [66] Thus, while UEA and Pennsylvania State University said they were investigating the matter [69], the UK Met Office (which works closely with the CRU and relies heavily on its product) announced a 3-year project to re-examine 160 years of temperature data, signalling its own lack of confidence in its CRU-based record.
Data fudging and secrecy aside, by 1998, Earth had stopped warming and begun cooling, despite record levels of CO2 (large blue event box with a bomb icon). This divergence between AGW theory and reality grew so enormous that by October 12, 2009, Kevin Trenberth, in a fit of frustration, e-mailed his colleagues: “Where the heck is global warming?“ “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” The reason he gave for their inability to account for cooling was that “[T]he data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.“ In other words, the findings indicating cooling were wrong, but the climate models, predicting warming, were correct. This, arguably, is the key revelation of ClimateGate. It makes self-evident that blind faith and bankrupt logic are now masquerading as rational science. No matter how much techno-babble is used to make today’s climate models sound impressive, they have all proved wrong. The hockey team scientists admit they have no clue why this is so, though other scientists do (see “Climate Corrections” [92]).
These problems would have been publicized years ago if the AGW theorists didn’t have powerful allies: policy makers in virtually every professional scientific body, editors of virtually every major scientific journal, and reporters and editors at virtually all mainstream media outlets. Few provided unbiased, impartial forums where alternate views and evidence were aired and debated. Instead, most took official positions, invariably with an air of authority, and spared no effort to ensure that voices against the artificial consensus were quashed by editorial fiat and a persistent campaign of vilification, intimidation, and ridicule.
Twenty-first Century science has borrowed a page from the medieval Church in using fear and persecution to silence skeptics. The oppressed have become the oppressors. Given that most professional scientific bodies and peer-reviewed journals have been active accomplices in this scandal, one wonders how many other “scientific consensuses” have been similarly engineered.
1. [T]he authors co-operated covertly to ensure that only papers favorable to CO2-forced AGW [Anthropogenic Global Warming or man-made global warming] were published, and that editors and journals publishing contrary papers were punished. They also attempted to ‘discipline’ scientists and journalists who published skeptical information.
2. [T]he authors manipulated and ‘massaged’ the data to strengthen the case in favor of unprecedented CO2-forced AGW, and to suppress their own data if it called AGW into question.
3. [T]he authors co-operated (perhaps the word is ‘conspired’) to prevent data from being made available to other researchers through either data archiving requests or through the Freedom of Information Acts of both the U.S. and the UK. [17]
The reason why even the Guardian’s George Monbiot has expressed total shock and dismay at the picture revealed by the documents is that their authors are not just any old bunch of academics. Their importance cannot be overestimated, What we are looking at here is the small group of scientists who have for years been more influential in driving the worldwide alarm over global warming than any others, not least through the role they play at the heart of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Professor Philip Jones, the CRU’s director, is in charge of the two key sets of data used by the IPCC to draw up its reports. Through its link to the Hadley Centre, part of the UK Met Office, which selects most of the IPCC’s key scientific contributors, his global temperature record is the most important of the four sets of temperature data on which the IPCC and governments rely – not least for their predictions that the world will warm to catastrophic levels unless trillions of dollars are spent to avert it.
Dr Jones is also a key part of the closely knit group of American and British scientists responsible for promoting that picture of world temperatures conveyed by Michael Mann’s “hockey stick” graph which 10 years ago turned climate history on its head by showing that, after 1,000 years of decline, global temperatures have recently shot up to their highest level in recorded history.
Given star billing by the IPCC, not least for the way it appeared to eliminate the long-accepted Mediaeval Warm Period when temperatures were higher they are today, the graph became the central icon of the entire man-made global warming movement.
Since 2003, however, when the statistical methods used to create the “hockey stick” were first exposed as fundamentally flawed by an expert Canadian statistician Steve McIntyre, an increasingly heated battle has been raging between Mann’s supporters, calling themselves “the Hockey Team”, and McIntyre and his own allies, as they have ever more devastatingly called into question the entire statistical basis on which the IPCC and CRU construct their case.
The senders and recipients of the leaked CRU emails constitute a cast list of the IPCC’s scientific elite, including not just the “Hockey Team”, such as Dr Mann himself, Dr Jones and his CRU colleague Keith Briffa, but Ben Santer, responsible for a highly controversial rewriting of key passages in the IPCC’s 1995 report; Kevin Trenberth, who similarly controversially pushed the IPCC into scaremongering over hurricane activity; and Gavin Schmidt, right-hand man to Al Gore’s ally Dr James Hansen, whose own GISS record of surface temperature data is second in importance only to that of the CRU itself.
The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering.
Mr. Hawkins’ attempt at role reversal is ridiculous and laughable, yet herein, I am afraid he is believed by most of the posters who are blinded by ideological furvor, much like zealots in the past were blinded by religious fervor. With republicans nation wide calling for the repeal of the civil rights act, the phasing out of Medicaid, Medicare, and social security, and the denial of any role of man in climate change, it appears that the inmates are in charge of the asylum. I hope and trust that there are some republicans with the courage to stand up and say no, this is absurd, but frankly, when the mob takes over, few have the fortitude to act responsibly.
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