This morning brings more woe for Penn. State University (PSU). Prosecutors reveal they are today filing charges against former president Graham Spanier. Spanier is widely suspected as leader of the conspiracy that covered up former football coach, Jerry Sandusky’s sexual abuse of boys at Penn State. Sandusky is now serving 30 to 60 years in state prison. Questions are being asked whether state prosecutors will indict PSU climatologist, Michael Mann, too.
NBC’s Michael Isikoff reports, “Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly and state Police Commissioner Frank Noonan have scheduled a news conference in the state capital of Harrisburg to announce what the sources describe as a major new development in the case. “ But this sorry web of criminal conspiracy may soon trap another PSU bad boy climatologist, Michael Mann. As I reported recently, there are eerie similarities in the way Spanier dealt with complaints against Sandusky and Mann.
The news will be a huge worry for Mann who last week rendered himself liable to criminal charges for perjury after the Nobel Committee affirmed he lied about being a Nobel Peace Prize winner in sworn statements in two high profile libel suits. Mann’s employer has spent the last week removing all reference to Mann’s counterfeit claims from PSU publications and website.
Investigative reporter, Ed Farnan contacted me to advise: “I have a call into the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office to see if they are looking in to the Climate science dept. as it was always under the protective wing of Graham Spanier.” So get out the popcorn, pull up a ringside seat and watch the next stage of this epic slow motion train wreck spill out. More here.
johnosullivan 
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Assiduously sticking to the science as usual I see…good work John.
Mr Mennie,
In case you haven’t noticed, Michael Mann has been shown by evidence from the Nobel Committee to have lied in two separate court cases, rendering him liable to criminal prosecution for perjury on at least two counts in two countries. He has also withheld scientific data that may prove whether he also committed a criminal fraud in his ‘hockey stick’ graph. Because he unethically withholds such data it was he who first raised those suspicions and accusations against him. That he chose to file those absurd libel claims in response, rather than allow other scientists to check his data, is why he is in this predicament now.
In lawsuits Mann filed in Vancouver, Canada last year and last week in Washington, DC, he made sworn pleadings hoping to persuade two juries that he is not a corrupt scientist. He said, because he is a Nobel laureate (a lie) his character is beyond reproach. Dr Mann wanted to be believed on the basis that a Nobel prize winner would not conceal data for unethical/illegal purposes. But he never was a Nobel prize winner – all that hogwash has been blown away now.
Absent examination of the r squared numbers for his hockey stick that he refuses to disclose, plus the fact he has lied under oath at least twice, it is now reasonable to infer his claims about his science are also bogus. If you do not see the connection then you are either hopelessly biased or incredibly naive.
Steve,
We will stick to the science as soon as the climate alarmists stick to the science. As it is, they are doing politics of alarm and rather poor pseudoscience. Oh they use a lot of sciency looking words, diagrams, graphs, and equations but they repeatedly cook the data, refuse to expose the details of their work, and confuse output from dodgy simulations for evidence. These are the least of their flaws and is but a starting point for their divergence from actual science.
The best argument they have is their so called consensus of climate scientists. What was it, 74 out of 77 approved climate scientists agreed the glob was warming an man was part of the cause? Even if there were 74 million out of 77 million scientists who agreed that is still not evidence of anything but that they agreed. The argumentation degrades rapidly from that point.
John..you no doubt are aware first of all, that the certificate declaring Dr. Mann as having contributed, as a principal contributor to the IPCC report, to the winning of the Nobel peace prize was not – as you stated – made by Mann and further the certificate (issued by the IPPCC itself) had Dr. Mann’s name printed on it as did the names of other contributors who shared proportionally in the winning of the award.
And as a lawyer such as yourself (or legal consultant or litigation advisor..whatever) with much experience in litigating international cases of fraud you know that mistakes are made in the presenting of legal documents…you know, misplaced commas…spelling mistakes..misinterpretations which may at times be of serious import. Your near hysterical reaction (to be polite about it) to this small item on the part of Mann’s lawers smacks of desperation. I recall the same hystrionics over the stolen emails – hystrionics that created much heat and little to no light.
Dr. Mann did contribute to the IPCC..this is true. The IPCC shared the Nobel peace prize with Al Gore..this is true. Dr. Mann as a principal writer of the report was presented by the IPCC with a certificate underlining his contribution to the winning of the award…this is true. To my knowledge Dr. Mann has never presented himself as a Nobel Laureate and to suggest as much based on his displaying of this certificate is not true.
I find it utterly distaseful on your part to be appearing to further smear Dr. Mann by slyly linking him with Mr. Sandusky’s disgraceful conduct based soley on the fact that they held positions at the same university.This from a man who is purportedly driven by such a desire for the truth that he forms a group dedicated to getting to the bottom of the fraudulent ‘junk’ science being foisted on us poor plebs.
Lionell..Hi Lionell…I understand your point but would add that other than a great many scientists agreeing about it, the theory of Relativity or, for that matter, the theory of gravity are not proven to be ‘true’ but are still very useful for explaining a lot of other phenomena. A lot of scientists agreeing about something does not make it so…but if the preponderance of evidence points in a certain direction then lo and behold, a lot of scientists doing the research are probably gonna agree.
Ahh Steve, I see, this is the same line as was presented in reply to the Climategate emails ? ‘It was all an Honest Misunderstanding’ 🙂 it must be apparent to you that that particular dog is maybe getting a little elderly to still hunt ??
Things are definitely changing for Mikey yesterday on Real Climate he was a Nobel Prize winner
Today he is not
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/michael-mann/
Can wait for this case to go to court
Steve said: “…the theory of Relativity or, for that matter, the theory of gravity are not proven to be ‘true’ but are still very useful for explaining a lot of other phenomena.”
They are NOT explanations of anything real, they are simply useful models with the capability of providing good enough predictions for engineering purposes. As such, they can be considered to be true as far as they go but they are ONLY models of reality and not reality itself. Interestingly, this is how we humans deal with reality. We use demonstrably reliable models of reality. Because of that ability to be reliably demonstrated, they are connected to reality and deserve the label “objective”: a non contradictory integration of what is, what is perceived, and what is conceived in an ever expanding field of non contradiction.
The problem with CAGW and Mann’s so called scientific output is that the term “objective” as defined above does not apply. However, the output is based on a model and that model can produce predictions. Unfortunately, the predictions are only useful for political purposes and have no value for engineering purposes. Hence we deal with the political aspects here rather than focus on the so called science of CAGW. We focus on the science elsewhere.
Lionell..
Firstly, I did not say that the theories of Gravity and Relativity were explanations of anything real or unreal. Altho’ I didn’t use your wording, I think I presented them as models that are very useful in explaining aspects of reality. Many of those predictions having to do with the orbit of Mercury or the existence of black holes are not only useful for engineering purposes but give us valuable information about the fundamental workings of the universe.
I agree that the creation of models is the only way we have of dealing with reality and in that sense science is never really ‘settled’. This does not mean that we chuck the models. They are useful for explaining and for directing us to further research. As long as they are useful in this way we have a ‘consensus’ about their validity and value – a consensus that is always in jeopardy as new evidence may at any time require us to re-appraise it.
What makes you so confident that the huge prepondernce of evidence on the side of AGW is any less ‘objective’ than any other man-made (and therefore, ‘subjective’) theory?
As well, -and I think its a nit worth picking – I think climate models produce projections, not predictions.
Steve,
Review my specification of the attribute “objective” and tell me how the AGW model meets those requirements.
To be objective: “a non contradictory integration of what is, what is perceived, and what is conceived in an ever expanding field of non contradiction.”
Steve,
The alternatives of internal to the mind (you call subjective) and external to the mind (you call objective) do not exhaust the state field. There is also the integration of that which exists, the perception of that which exists via existent sensory mechanisms, and the non-contradictory conceptualization of that experience (I call THIS objective). This experience also includes the experience of carefully considered experiments and accidental/intentional/incidental observations. The information loop between the mind and external reality is thereby closed and has its own error correcting mechanism: the requirement of non contradiction in the entire field of knowledge. If a contradiction has been found, an error has been made. The challenge is to find the error and correct it. That is done by the self same process.
At a minimum, since the climate simulations do not simulate all the features of the climate system (especially clouds) they are not a complete and accurate model of the climate system. Yes, they are useful, but only in a political sense. However, it is quite common to see an argument for CAGW based upon the output of said simulations. This means the output of faulty and incomplete simulations is being used as evidence of something real. It is not, it is only evidence of the operation of the faulty simulations and has nothing to do with the real world except by assertion but not by actual rational and objective (as above) connection.
If the climate simulations fail to reproduce the past and/or fail to predict the future, they are not valid. CO2 has increased almost linearly for the past decade and a half. During that time the global temperature has been a random walk about a statistical zero anomaly. The simulations say the anomaly must increase in step with CO2. This has not happened, therefor the simulations are not valid even as a pure curve fitting exercise.
The primary use of the output of the climate simulations is for their impact on philosophically and scientifically ignorant politicians (almost all of them) and on the credulous public at large who are also largely philosophically and scientifically ignorant. The proof of this last item is that a majority of the public VOTED for the politicians.
CAGW is science? No way and no how! It is nothing but the politics of fear. It is the same as the boy who cried wolf frightening Chicken Little.
Lionell…
I know in my heart of hearts that this is destined to be a mostly futile exercise and will lead us down a path far from any discussion of the science of global warming but before I leave the field:
You say…”To be objective: “a non contradictory integration of what is, what is perceived, and what is conceived in an ever expanding field of non contradiction.”
We really have no way of saying WHAT IS in a way that is objective..it is always a subjective call based on information gained thru our ‘existent sensory mechanisms’…it can’t be other than subjective as we are all subjects..not objects. Further all we have to communicate with others is language, itself a means of modelling what we call ‘reality’. So philosophically speaking, there is no such thiing as an ‘objective’ view of reality.
And it seems to me from what you said that the methodology used with models is much like the methodology we use in what you describe as our creating an ‘ever expanding field of non-contradiction’…faulty perceptions produce faulty versions of reality and these are ‘corrected’ and slowly we eradicate the errors in perceptions and move closer to a correct ‘reality’.
None of the models are right…just like none of our personal perceptions are absolutely correct but they are useful. And from what I’ve read, models have a pretty good record of back projecting so they are not entirely based on voodoo.
In any case, the evidence for global warming is based on much more than model ouptput..melting ice, sea level rise, etc etc and observations of anomolous weather events are pointing more and more to the correctness of the premise of AGW..And just as we can’t point to any one particular home run scored by a player using steroids and say that THAT particular home run was ’caused’ by steroid use we do know the odds of hitting home runs increases with steroid use.
And I’m not sure why you persist in using the acronym CAGW…It’s a strawman and is equivalent to asking someone if they have stopped beating their wife.
And while I agree that we are infantilized and caused to live in fear about a great deal – both by our government and corporations – I don’t feel this is a valid argument for dismissing AGW.
I’m positive I’ll not be changing your mind any time soon so I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree. May the force be with you.
Steve says “We really have no way of saying WHAT IS in a way that is objective..it is always a subjective call based on information gained thru our ‘existent sensory mechanisms’…it can’t be other than subjective as we are all subjects..not objects.”
How do you know that? If what you say is true, how can you know that there are objects and subjects? Could not it all be your subjective opinion not based upon anything real? Perhaps only a fantasy or a dream or a nightmare? Or perhaps a pathetic joke of a matrix like program? Shouldn’t you be in doubt of your own existence let alone the existence of anything else?
Lionell..you’ve made my point beautifully..
Steve,
Then why should anything you say have any relevance to me whatsoever? By your principles, you don’t really exist in any knowable way. You are nothing but a figment of my imagination. Sadly, by your same principles, even that cannot be known.
I apologize for having thought that you actually existed and had some ideas worth discussing and found that I was only talking with myself. It turns out that you are nothing but a fleeting shadow and a fading echo in a demented hall of mirrors. It is sad, really, because you appeared to have such promise. I am going to have to have a word with my imagination for it to come up with more substantial conversation partners.
I will say that I have never met a more consistent disciple of Kant as yourself. That finding in itself was worth the effort.
PS: Reality does exist. I is possible for man to acquire knowledge of that reality. It is not a figment of my, yours, or anybody’s imagination. However, that knowledge is not easily gained and the method to gain it must be and has been discovered by man. If you are interested in discussing that method, I am willing to continue. Otherwise, as you decided in your prior post, there is no further point to our conversation.