Cuccinelli takes aim at Michael Mann

It turns out Michael Mann, he of “Mike’s Nature Trick,” spent five years at the University of Virginia selling his snake oil the theory of man-made global warming – and scoring nearly half a million in taxpayer money.

Well, Ken Cuccinelli noticed, and he wants to know what he was doing with the dough (Watts Up With That, emphasis added):

Now, it appears, (Cuccinelli) may be preparing a legal assault on an embattled proponent of global warming theory who used to teach at the University of Virginia, Michael Mann.In papers sent to UVA April 23, Cuccinelli’s office commands the university to produce a sweeping swath of documents relating to Mann’s receipt of nearly half a million dollars in state grant-funded climate research conducted while Mann— now director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State— was at UVA between 1999 and 2005.

If Cuccinelli succeeds in finding a smoking gun like the purloined emails that led to the international scandal dubbed Climategate, Cuccinelli could seek the return of all the research money, legal fees, and trebled damages.

Unless I seriously miss my guess, this makes Cuccinelli the first public official to demand accountability from the folks who peddled this nonsense.

If he keeps this up, he could run for president – whether he likes it or not.

In the meantime . . . memo to the Nature Trick Mann: We want our money back.

Cross-posted to VV

Al Qaeda was never in Saddam-controlled Iraq, right?

Wrong (Agence France Presse via Weekly Standard Blog):

The Egyptian commander of Al-Qaeda forces in Iraq who was killed in a US-backed raid this month arrived in Baghdad under Saddam Hussein’s rule, a press report on Wednesday quoted his widow as saying.

. . .

She told her interrogators that her husband travelled to Iraq from the United Arab Emirates in 2002, the year before Saddam’s overthrow by US-led troops, the Al-Bayan newspaper reported.

“He arrived in Baghdad before me and I followed him shortly afterwards coming from Amman,” the paper, which is close to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, quoted her as saying.

“We lived in Karrada (in central Baghdad) for seven months, then in Amiriya (in west Baghdad), then we moved to Baghdad al-Jadida (in the east) in 2003 when Saddam’s regime fell with the entry of Americans into the city,” she said.

Hasna’s reported comments are significant because in the run-up to the US-led invasion, US officials alleged links between Saddam Hussein’s secular regime and Al-Qaeda, which were strenuously denied at the time.

I have always held that the WMD justification for liberating Iraq was weaker than the issue of al-Qaeda’s presence there.  I would suspect most Americans would agree with me.

This shows us that history and historians will view said liberation very differently than the critics who hounded George W. Bush on his way out of office last year.

Cross-posted to VV

On the Arizona illegal immigration law

I may be late to the party on this one, but that was deliberate.  I have held back opining on the new law for a couple of reasons.  First, the initial reports of the law’s provisions had me concerned (as it has many in the American right).  Secondly, and admittedly a little more important to me, was the Governor who signed it into law: Jan Brewer – previously known as a tax-hiking squish.

Then I read Byron York’s must-read pieces on the subject in the Washington Examiner, and things were cleared up nicely.

As an aside, there is no political reporter I trust more than Byron York.  Two years ago, when much of the American right (including many of my good friends) fell into mass hysteria about an accusation John McCain aimed at Mitt Romney (McCain said Romney supported setting a date for American withdrawal from Iraq), York – practically alone among National Review writers – calmly examined the quotes in question and concluded, rightly, that McCain had a point.

In this case, York has painstakingly noted that the Arizona law will not do what so many of its critics claim – namely, allow the cops to stop anyone, anytime, anywhere and demand proof of citizenship or legal residence.  As such, it’s actually a fine law, and very similar to law enforcement actions on this issue in Prince William County.

So why did so many think otherwise, and even worse, make comments on the law not knowing what was really in it?  I see two reasons.

Arizona is nearly 3,000 miles from Prince William.  Moreover, since the PWC controversy flared up at roughly the same time as the debate over President Bush’s Iraqi surge, it’s almost certain that no one in Washington was paying attention.  So, many of the folks who went through this debate a few years back were largely ignored as this came to fruition in the desert.  Had this been Virginia, Maryland, or another nearby state, the Prince William example would have played a starring role in the discussion, and much of the hysteria surrounding this would not have ensued.

The other reason is far more unfortunate and preventable, too many people in the chattering classes still pay attention to the New York Times.  It was a Times columnist, Linda Greenhouse, who got the disinformation ball rolling on this by getting the law wrong (Mark Krikorian explains the error on The Corner).  Please note that several major conservatives who have taken issue with the law did so after Greenhouse’s error (which she has since corrected – Corner again).

York himself noted the mistake so many of the law’s critics have made in his second Examiner column (here’s the link again).

From where I sit, Arizona is basically following Prince William’s example, in which case, I can fully support what they’re doing.

Cross-posted to VV

It’s a bailout bill, and it should be opposed (UPDATED)

Unless I missed it (and if I did, I expect to see multiple examples in the comments), the Virginia blogosphere has been largely silent on the Dodd Bailout bill making its way through the Senate.

Today is the first cloture vote.  I sincerely hope that the 41 Republicans oppose cloture and block the bill via filibuster.

The bill grants the federal government the power to do the following: (a) determine at any time that a firm is “too weak to survive” (which is much more worrying than “too big to fail” – and that’s saying something) and seize control of it, (b) usurp corporation charter powers from the states, (c) “charge” banks a fee to create a bailout fund – a fee which is actually tax-deductible, thus the government, i.e., you and me, will pay for it through the back door.

In short, it’s TARP with all of the power and a little of the money.  It’s a bad bill.

Cross-posted to VV

UPDATE: The Republicans held firm, and won over Ben Nelson, too.  Good for them.

Dial M for mangled

I confess, I lifted the title from Anthony Watts.  His WUWT post on the Nunavut, Canada weather data fiasco is an eye opener.

We have examples of the “missing M” problem (see here for background), which led to temperatures in Arctic Canada surging from six below zero to seventy-three degrees in one hour – on New Year’s Day 2007, plus some other strange outliers.  Throw in an apparent keystone-cops attempt at a coverup within the Canadian bureaucracy (note to Canuck libel lawyers: I said “apparent”) and we’re off to the races.

All of this comes in the midst of Virginia’s lawsuit against the EPA’s would-be carbon regulations.  I only hope someone in the AG’s office read this or Anthony’s blog.

Cross-posted to VV

Looks like “global warming” wasn’t the only issue where the EPA used faulty data

One of the reasons I was so fond of Ken Cuccinelli’s lawsuit on our behalf against the EPA’s carbon regulations was his willingness to take on the long unchallenged but severly suspect “data” behind the theory of man-made global warming.

As it turns out, my state senator (Ryan McDougle) found another issue where the EPA was fudging numbers:

Two veteran members of the Virginia General Assembly and co-chairs of the Joint Republican Business Caucus, Delegate Tim Hugo of Clifton, Virginia and Senator Ryan McDougle of Mechanicsville, Virginia announced the release of a letter today to Governor Bob McDonnell, which noted that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – Chesapeake Bay Program has been using faulty data in their efforts to encourage the six (6) Bay states and the District of Columbia to strengthen their stormwater management regulations.

. . .

The basis for much of the encouragement of the Bay states, including Virginia and the District of Columbia by the U.S Environmental Protection Agency – Chesapeake Bay Program has been a widely cited and widely published sound-bite as follows: “From 1990 to 2000, impervious surfaces increased by 41% -a rate of 5 times greater than the 8% of population growth during that time.”  

. . .

NOW, a private firm based in Prince William County, Virginia, Wetland Studies and Solutions, Inc. (WSSI), one of the region’s most respected environmental consulting firms, has analyzed the EPA’s Phase 5.2 watershed model and reached a very different conclusion.  WSSI’s lengthy analysis determined that, between 1990 and 2000, population increased by 10.3% and impervious surface increased by 14.2%, not by a 5-to-1 ratio claimed by the EPA, and only by a 1.1-to-1 ratio in Virginia during that period.  Delegate Hugo and Senator McDougle noted that the WSSI analysis has been shared with the EPA and was not refuted by the federal agency.

. . .

Both Veteran State Legislators encouraged Governor McDonnell to ask the EPA how long they have known about the inaccuracy of the 5 to 1 ratio, especially since the EPA website indicates the population had been recalculated in February, 2009.  They also ask the governor to ask about the purpose of the EPA in continuing to promote the 5 to 1 ratio in the Stormwater debate.

All I can say is, Senator McDougle, please do not give up eastern Spotsylvania during redistricting next year.

Cross-posted to VV

Meanwhile, in New Jersey

The land of my birth made me proud once more.

New Jersey is one of the very few states (and perhaps the only one) where local school budgets must be approved by the voters in annual referenda.  Usually, these are low-key affairs (although in my home town of Cranford, the late 1980s had some fireworks).  Last decade, Governor Christie Whitman raised some eyebrows when she asked New Jerseyans to vote down school budgets that were particularly spendthrift.

But it was nothing like this year, when Governor Chris Christie tried to pare down the state budget and a teachers’ union boss responded with a prayer for his death.  Christie asked voters across the state to reject budgets, and the result was a stunner (Star-Ledger):

New Jersey voters took a stand on school spending and property taxes Tuesday, rejecting 260 of 479 school budgets across 19 counties, according to unofficial results in statewide school elections.

In the proposed state budget he unveiled last month, Gov. Chris Christie slashed $820 million in aid to school districts and urged voters to defeat budgets if teachers in their schools did not agree to one-year wage freezes. The salvo ignited a heated debate with the state’s largest teachers union.

Christie said the cuts were necessary to help plug an $11 billion state budget gap.

In many districts Tuesday, the governor made himself heard as 54 percent of the spending plans were rejected, according to unofficial returns. If the trend continues, it would mark the most budget defeats in New Jersey since 1976, when 56 percent failed. Typically, voters approve more than 70 percent of the school budgets.

It was quite the contrast to see New Jersey voters rise up just as Supervisors in my county (Spotsylvania) were imposing a tax increase on us (although here, the school system responded to state funding reductions by swallowing hard and cutting the budget; it was the rest of county government that presented the problem – more on the local scene later).

I delved into the individual results, and they were eye-opening.  Budgets were voted down in Elizabeth, Plainfield, and Perth Amboys – places not previously known for listing to Republicans on any issue (of the three, Christie’s best was Elizabeth, which he still lost by more than 2 to 1).

I must say, the Elizabeth numbers were particularly heartening.  Waaaay back when, Michael McGuire (my grandfather) was president of the Elizabeth City Council, and he was one of the ever shrinking number of taxpayer-friendly Democrats.  Mike McGuire retired four decades ago, and departed this life in 1975, but his spirit guided the voters of his city.

Cross-posted to VV

Hey, maybe man really did cause “global warming”

Just not in the way that you think.  Anthony Watts (Watts Up With That) has a long, detailed post, and you should read every . . . single . . . word, but essentially, it is this: several temperature reporting stations have data that is missing something very important: a minus sign.

In other words, data that should be below zero degrees celsius is reported as above zero celsius.  Of course, the error is regionally based (emphasis in original) . . .

You wouldn’t notice METAR coding errors at the equator, because the temperature never gets below 0°C. Nobody would have to code it. In middle latitudes, you might see it happen, but it is much more seasonal and the difference is not that great.

For example:

M05/M08  to 05/M08 brings the temp from -5°C to +5°C, but in a place like Boston, Chicago, Denver, etc a plus 5C temperature could easily happen in any winter month a -5C temperature occurred. So the error slips into the noise of “weather”, likely never to be noticed. But it does bump up the temperature average a little bit for the month if uncorrected.

But in the Arctic and Antarctic, a missing M on a M20/M25 METAR report makes a 40°C difference when it becomes +20°C. And it doesn’t seem likely that we’d see a winter month in Siberia or Antarctica that would normally hit 20°C, so it does not get lost in the “weather” noise, but becomes a strong signal if uncorrected.

Meanwhile, whaddya know!  “Man-made global warming” is now being theorized to show up first in the polar regions.

Watts ends with a classic:

It has been said that “humans cause global warming”. I think a more accurate statement would be “human error causes global warming”.

And how!

Cross-posted to VV

Meanwhile, over in Britain . . .

Well, geez, you spend one weekend cleaning out your garage and across the pond all hell breaks loose.

What was a tightening election between the whitewashed Conservative opposition and the deeply listing Labour government became a free-for-all as the third party Liberal Democrats have surged into contention (see Polls of Polls at ConHome).

Now, first off, for anyone looking for a repeat in America this year, don’t bother.  Unlike here in the US, the Liberal Democrats have long been a staple of British politics (in fact, their ancestor, the Liberal Party, was the governing party in the UK less than a century ago).

As for Britain itself, the vaguaries of the various Parliamentary districts mean Labour can actually finish third and still have more seats than anyone else – meaning they could govern with support from one of other two parties (more likely the LibDems).

The Conservatives are already talking about how this could happen, but I honestly don’t think they’ve gone far enough on this.  See, one of the basic assumptions of UK politics is that if the LibDems ever get into a position where Labour or the Conservatives need them to govern, they would demand proportional representation, thus to ensure they will always have a fifth to a quarter of the seats and can effectively hold the two big parties for ransom.

I think that’s certainly true, but if the LibDems do as well as the polls are saying now, they will demand more – much, much more; and something many in Labour would be more than willing to give them would be British enrollment in the European currency (the euro).

That would be a complete disaster to the UK – especially now, with everyone in the “eurozone” forced to bailout Greece to keep the currency from collapsing, but the LibDems want it, and the people around UK PM Gordon Brown want it (especially Peter Mandelson, who is the British version of Karl Rove or C.D. Howe depending upon which side of the 49th parallel you call home), and unless the Conservatives win a majority, the LibDems + Mandy will run the show.  They could easily tell Brown it is the only way he can remain as PM (Brown remains widely reviled), and I suspect Gordon will take the deal.

Here’s the problem for the LibDems, Mandy, and Gordon: if there is one thing in Britain and Northern Ireland that is hated more than Brown, or the “nasty” Conservatives of old, or troughing MPs, or politics in general, it’s the euro.  That issue by itself enabled the Conservatives to win every European Parliament election for ten years (there have been three).  Voters couldn’t stand William Hague (I disagreed with them), but they elected more Tories to the EP than Labour in 1999.  Michael Howard was still trying (and failing) to get the party past Iain Duncan Smith (I really liked him, too, but onward), yet the Conservatives still limped to first place in 2004.  Last year, not only did the Conservatives finish first, but second place went to the even more euroskeptic UKIP.

In short, all the Conservatives have to do is calmly but firmly spell out the scenario I have described above, and they will easily score the victory they so long seek.

The question i this: can David “Mr. Nice Guy” Cameron make that case to the British and Ulsterian peoples?  Does he have the stomach for it?

We’ll find out over the next two weeks and change.

Cross-posted to VV

The NBA playoffs

The most underappreciated professional sport in the Virginia blogosphere begins its true showcase tomorrow, and in the interests of getting my fellow bloggers to pay more attention, I’m going to go out on a limb and make some predictions.  If you can’t watch the games, at least you can laugh at me!

So here we go, starting with the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals:

• Cleveland over Chicago – if the Bulls are lucky, they’ll win one game
• Orlando over Charlotte – Ewing’s Revenge, Part I (the longtime Knicks center is a Magic assistant coach, and Jordan is the Bobcats owner); this is the series I’ll try to watch the most, which is not to say it will be close, because it won’t.
• Atlanta over Milwaukee – I do think the Bucks will a game or two 
• Miami over Boston – a mild upset, but I think Boston is just too old

On to the Western Conference Quarterfinals:

• L.A. Lakers over Oklahoma City – Keep in mind, the Thunder actually won 50 games and ended up with the 8th seed.  Wow.  Meanwhile, the Lakers are banged up.  But Phil Jackson is already in Kevin Durant’s head (the man is a master manipulator, and perhaps the only coach who understands that fines for criticizing the refs are investments in better calls).  OKC will put up a fight, but I see the Lakers winning Game 4 and taking it in five games.
• San Antontio over Dallas – This is my first round upset special.  I’ve never really trusted Dallas to finish in the playoffs (and their run to the Finals in 2006 became the exception that proved the rule), while the Spurs have a wealth of experience (and that’s a Soros-sized understatement).  Spurs in 6.
• Phoenix over Portland – At the risk of spoiling it, this is the series to find out who gets to play the next victim to the Spurs.  I do think it will go seven, and provide some entertainig games.
• Denver over Utah – Barring the unforeseen, I’ll be liveblogging Game 1 of this series (10:30 ET tomorrow night).  It’s the toughest one to call, but I’m going to go with youth (Denver) in a seven-gamer.

Next up, the Conference Semifinals:

• Cleveland over Miami – too much talent.  Wade can get the Heat one game, but no more.
• Orlando over Atlanta – same situation.
• Lakers over Denver – I feel weakest on this one.  Denver gave the Lakers a run for their money last year, but LA was hurt.  They should be in better shape when this series starts.  I’ll say LA in six.
• San Antonio over Phoenix – I actually fell better about this call.  San Antonio is as under the radar as you can get in the West, and again, they have the experience in pulling these off that the Suns just don’t have.  Spurs in six.

Conference Finals:

• Orlando over Cleveland – The Ewing fan in me would call this the triumph of hope over experience, but last year and this season, Orlando has actually matched up well against the Cavs.  Does Cleveland really think Shaq and Antawn Jamison can make the difference?  Yeah, good luck with that.  Magic in Six.
• Lakers over San Antonio – Unlike the Spurs’ previous two opponents, the Lakers do know how to win in crunch time.  This one will go to seven games, but LA will move on.

Which leads us to the NBA Finals: Orlando over LA.  This really is hope over experience. I can say the Magic are a year older and wiser, and can learn from last year.  More importantly, Orlando has Games 6 and 7 at home, and I say they’ll need – and win – both to take the championship in seven games.

Cross-posted to VV