Trick or Treat, Attorney General Cuccinelli!

The George Mason School of Public Policy reports:

The School of Public Policy and Transatlantic Policy Consortium will host a talk from Dr. Michael Mann on Monday, October 31 at Mason University’s Arlington campus. Mann is author of The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines and a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. The talk is free and open to the public. Click here for more information.

The FBI's Counterintelligence Strategic Partnership Unit Publishes an Ignorant White Paper

"[Dr. Pollack] extended his studies of Earth's atmosphere in collaboration with Carl Sagan and other colleagues to develop the nuclear winter scenario, a frightening extrapolation of the consequences of a global nuclear exchange. Published in the journal Science, the nuclear winter model fired the arms control movement of the 1980's and played a major role in encouraging U.S. and Soviet leaders to engage in serious disarmament talks. Pollack's contributions have shown that the study of other planets is not only valuable in and of itself, but also because of the new perspective it gives us of our own world...Someday, humans will walk on Mars, possibly even within Crater Pollack. Their presence on the red planet will owe much to the work of other explorers such as James Pollack, who devoted his life to studying other planets -- and helping us to appreciate and preserve our

own Earth."---NASA


This is a photo of the late NASA astrophysicist James Pollack. If he were alive, I am sure this award-winning scientist would be very surprised to learn that an FBI white paper is giving credibility to an absurd book called Comrade J, which claims that nuclear winter is a "KGB hoax."


Dr. Pollack had a crater on Mars named after him, according to his NASA biography, but the anonymous FBI official who wrote this white paper only has rocks in his head. Maybe instead of spreading vague, ignorant allegations about climate scientists in Comrade J, the FBI could have checked with NASA.


The Counterintelligence Strategic Partnership Unit of the FBI published a white paper in order to warn scholars about KGB spies, but what scholar will take FBI cautions about national security seriously when they publish such shoddy scholarship and malign the reputations of scientists who are also concerned about national security?


The FBI should retract this paper, admit their errors, and apologize to the scientists they have maligned by giving credibility to the book Comrade J. See here and here for some background.  

ROSHYDROMET Hosts "Problems of Adaptation to Climate Change" (November 7-9, 2011)

Correction: The conference RACC 2011 is not hosted by the Russian Academy of Sciences, although they participate. The main organizer is the ROSHYDROMET, the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring.


On November 7-9, 2011, ROSHYDROMET will be hosting an international conference titled "Problems of Adaptation to Climate Change."


According to the (Russian language/English language) program, Alan Robock, a Rutgers expert on nuclear winter, will be presenting a paper titled "Smoke and Mirrors: Is Geoengineering the Solution for Global Warming?" Dr. Robock has a Geoengineering power point (revised April 16, 2011) with the same title on his site that will probably be similar to his presentation before the RASS 2011 Conference.


No word on whether loopy FBI conspiracists armed with poorly-documented white papers will suddenly descend on Red Square and embarrass the American Government and climate scientists by peddling the moonshine promoted in the book Comrade J: nuclear winter is a KGB hoax.


If the Russians think that nuclear winter is a KGB hoax, as the FBI white paper's cited source Comrade J alleges, then why do the leaders of this Russian conference on climate change seem to be considering geoengineering ("climate stabilization using new technologies") to cool the planet? The Russians are considering putting aerosols in the atmosphere in order to reflect the sun. Evidently, the Russians are considering creating a "controlled" nuclear winter.


The Russian conference discusses adapting to and mitigating the problem of global warming, but they also anticipate that global warming will bring some benefits. They mention limiting emissions of greenhouse gasses, but they don't say people should replace fossil-fuels with renewable sources of energy.  See the short-sighted "vision" of the conference.

Declassified CIA Report on Stalin's Doctors' Plot

The CIA has declassified a July 15, 1953 report on the Stalin-era "The Doctors' Plot." I have written about the Doctors' Plot before on this blog (scroll through these articles), but it is interesting to read what experts could glean in 1953. This political cartoon from the Soviet humor magazine Krokodil depicts a "greedy" Jewish doctor being unmasked for plotting to kill Soviet leaders. Money from the doctor's alleged CIA masters is falling out of his pocket.

Virginia's Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's defamation and persecution of the famous climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann reminds me of the Stalin-era Doctors' Plot. How shameful that, instead of upholding justice, Virginia's Attorney General persecutes our scientists by spreading lies about how greedy they are for U.S. government grants. In fact, Cuccinelli's father is a lobbyist for the gas industry, and Cuccinelli reportedly gets money from his father's company as well as from other fossil-fuel interests. In Virginia, the Attorney General's office has been kidnapped by the fossil-fuel interests. Eventually, people will realize that the despicable Attorney General Cuccinelli is a demagogue and a liar. Cuccinelli hypocritically campaigns against sex-trafficking in Northern Virginia, but I think he is a prostitute who sells his office for money.

Scientists Revolt Against Political Interference and Censorship from Texas Governor Perry's Environmental Appointees

"Officials in Rick Perry's home state of Texas have set off a scientists' revolt after purging mentions of climate change and sea-level rise from what was supposed to be a landmark environmental report. The scientists said they were disowning the report on the state of Galveston Bay because of political interference and censorship from Perry appointees at the state's environmental agency."--The U.K. Guardian (10-14-11)


The UK Guardian (10-14-11) has published an article titled "Rick Perry Officials Spark Revolt After Doctoring Environmental Report." The Guardian reports that Mother Jones (10-12-11) has tracked the changes in the report that were given to them by Professor John B. Anderson at Rice University. This story was reported earlier at Climate Progress (10-12-11).


I am so glad that America has been blessed with brave scientists who are not afraid to step forward in defense of our country and confront the lies of powerful "conservative leaders" like Rick Perry who are in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry. The scientists are the real conservative leaders because they are conserving both our environment and our democracy. Thanks to the courage of America's scientists, the average voter continues to have access to peer-reviewed scientific opinion instead of being fed a diet of propaganda, slander, and lies that will cause misery and death for untold numbers of people all over the world.


The Guardian (10-14-11) reports:


Officials in Rick Perry's home state of Texas have set off a scientists' revolt after purging mentions of climate change and sea-level rise from what was supposed to be a landmark environmental report. The scientists said they were disowning the report on the state of Galveston Bay because of political interference and censorship from Perry appointees at the state's environmental agency.

By academic standards, the protest amounts to the beginnings of a rebellion: every single scientist associated with the 200-page report has demanded their names be struck from the document. "None of us can be party to scientific censorship so we would all have our names removed," said Jim Lester, a co-author of the report and vice-president of the Houston Advanced Research Centre.

"To me it is simply a question of maintaining scientific credibility. This is simply antithetical to what a scientist does," Lester said. "We can't be censored." Scientists see Texas as at high risk because of climate change, from the increased exposure to hurricanes and extreme weather on its long coastline to this summer's season of wildfires and drought.

However, Perry, in his run for the Republican nomination, has elevated denial of science, from climate change to evolution, to an art form. He opposes any regulation of industry, and has repeatedly challenged the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Texas is the only state to refuse to sign on to the federal government's new regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. "I like to tell people we live in a state of denial in the state of Texas," said John Anderson, an oceanography at Rice University, and author of the chapter targeted by the government censors.

That state of denial percolated down to the leadership of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The agency chief, who was appointed by Perry, is known to doubt the science of climate change. "The current chair of the commission, Bryan Shaw, commonly talks about how human-induced climate change is a hoax," said Anderson.

But scientists said they still hoped to avoid a clash by simply avoiding direct reference to human causes of climate change and by sticking to materials from peer-reviewed journals. However, that plan began to unravel when officials from the agency made numerous unauthorised changes to Anderson's chapter, deleting references to climate change, sea-level rise and wetlands destruction.

"It is basically saying that the state of Texas doesn't accept science results published in Science magazine," Anderson said. "That's going pretty far."

Officials even deleted a reference to the sea level at Galveston Bay rising five times faster than the long-term average – 3mm a year compared to .5mm a year – which Anderson noted was a scientific fact. "They just simply went through and summarily struck out any reference to climate change, any reference to sea level rise, any reference to human influence – it was edited or eliminated," said Anderson. "That's not scientific review that's just straight forward censorship."

Mother Jones has tracked the changes. The agency has defended its actions. "It would be irresponsible to take whatever is sent to us and publish it," Andrea Morrow, a spokeswoman said in an emailed statement. "Information was included in a report that we disagree with."

She said Anderson's report had been "inconsistent with current agency policy", and that he had refused to change it. She refused to answer any questions. Campaigners said the censorship by the Texas state authorities was a throwback to the George Bush era when White House officials also interfered with scientific reports on climate change.

In the last few years, however, such politicisation of science has spread to the states. In the most notorious case, Virginia's attorney general Ken Cuccinelli, who is a professed doubter of climate science, has spent a year investigating grants made to a prominent climate scientist Michael Mann, when he was at a state university in Virginia.

Several courts have rejected Cuccinelli's demands for a subpoena for the emails. In Utah, meanwhile, Mike Noel, a Republican member of the Utah state legislature called on the state university to sack a physicist who had criticised climate science doubters.

The university rejected Noel's demand, but the physicist, Robert Davies said such actions had had a chilling effect on the state of climate science. "We do have very accomplished scientists in this state who are quite fearful of retribution from lawmakers, and who consequently refuse to speak up on this very important topic. And the loser is the public," Davies said in an email.

"By employing these intimidation tactics, these policymakers are, in fact, successful in censoring the message coming from the very institutions whose expertise we need."

Michael E. Mann: "The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines"

The famous climate scientist Michael E. Mann has written a soon-to-be published book titled The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines. At the end of his forthcoming book, Dr. Mann describes the fake November 2009 "Climategate" scandal, which erupted after hypocritical cyber-criminals who called themselves "honest men" hacked into the server of that the University of the Climatic Research Center (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, stole climate scientists' emails, and posted them on the Internet.


The criminals hoped to ruin the scientists' careers by mischaracterizing the meaning of their emails, but I read what actual scientists are writing about climate change and soon concluded that the criminals were the liars. So far, the British authorities have not identified the culprits.


Attorney General Cuccinelli even tried to force the University of Virginia to hand over Dr. Mann's emails by claiming that they would show that he had defrauded the taxpayers.


Cuccinelli, an arrogant demagogue who grandstands for the Tea Party movement, is the one who should be investigated for fraud against taxpayers. I think that Cuccinelli gets money from the fossil-fuel interests in exchange for persecuting climate scientists. Cuccinelli's own father is a career lobbyist for the natural gas industry. His company gave the Attorney General 96,000 dollars according to information posted on the Internet.


I think Cuccinelli is a dangerous political gangster, not a law officer. He has hijacked the Attorney General's office in order to persecute climate scientists whose research threatens the profits of the fossil-fuel industry; however, when he attacked Dr. Mann, Cuccinelli was barking up the wrong tree!


I have learned from "Climategate" that the Republican Party that I used to vote for is nothing but a pack of cynical liars who persecute scientists on behalf of their financial donors. 

Unrepentant Political Gangster Ken Cuccinelli's Dirty Dozen Lies

This Stalin-era political cartoon from the satirical magazine Krokodil (January 1953) depicts the "Doctors' Plot." A "saboteur-doctor" is being unmasked as a poisoner of the Soviet political and military leadership. Dollars from the CIA are falling from the doctor's pocket. As soon as Stalin died, in 1953, Soviet leaders reevaluated and denounced this conspiracy theory. Perhaps the most famous denunciation of the Doctors' Plot was made by Nikita Khrushchev in his "Secret Speech" to the 20th Party Congress in February, 1956.

Over a year ago, on August 2, 2010, the Union of Concerned Scientists documented twelve mistakes in Virginia Attorney General Cuccinelli's attack on the famous climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann. More than a year has passed, but the arrogant Cuccinelli stubbornly refuses to admit his mistakes and continues to persecute Dr. Mann in spite of the fact that scientists keep pointing out his errors. I think Cuccinelli continues to persecute Dr. Mann because his father is a lobbyist/consultant for the gas industry. It seems to me that our so-called "law officer" is nothing but a political gangster, the "sword and shield" of the fossil fuel industry who has hijacked the AG's office on behalf of his sponsors. Attorney General Cuccinelli is attacking the climate scientist Dr. Mann and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 4th Assessment Report, which is accepted by the National Intelligence Council (16 U.S. intelligence agencies).

Here is what the Union of Concerned Scientists wrote on August 2, 2010:

Latest Court Filing from Ken Cuccinelli Continues to Make Basic Scientific Errors

Below are a dozen of the most egregious errors the Union of Concerned Scientists found in Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's July 13 court filing requesting documents from the University of Virginia related to climate scientist Michael Mann.

1. Cuccinelli inaccurately asserts that the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age "disappeared" in Mann et al.’s original hockey stick paper.

2. Cuccinelli misrepresents the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

3. Cuccinelli falsely maintains that climate scientists are primarily motivated by money, and suggests they are skewing their research results to attract grants.

4. Cuccinelli exaggerates the importance of the hockey stick, implying that it provides the rationale for laws that would require emissions reductions.

5. Cuccinelli cites a paper that criticized the hockey stick, but fails to cite refutations of that paper’s conclusions or the unusual circumstances under which it was published.

6. Cuccinelli uncritically cites a study by Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick that erroneously criticized Mann et al.’s hockey stick research.

7. Cuccinelli implies Mann was hiding something in a data folder marked "CENSORED," but fails to acknowledge that the folder was publicly available.

8. Cuccinelli extensively cites the 2006 Wegman report, but fails to note valid criticisms of that report.

9. Cuccinelli incorrectly cites three emails that were stolen last fall from Mann.

10. Cuccinelli and his staff again make a basic mistake when describing the now well-known email that features the phrases "trick" and "hide the decline."

11. Cuccinelli confuses the Muir Russell report’s criticism of a Phil Jones graph with Mann et al.’s hockey stick research.

12. Cuccinelli’s filing demonstrates a lack of understanding of how science works.

CIA Drone Kills Al-Qaeda Operative Anwar Al-Awlaki

On Friday, September 30, a CIA drone killed the dangerous American Al-Qaeda operative Anwar Al-Awlaki in Yemen. Here is the story in The Washington Post (10-1-11). This traitor lived more-or-less around the corner from my old house, and I am glad the CIA finally killed him.


After 9-11, Al-Awlaki gave a two-part interview to National Geographic. He masqueraded as a moderate Muslim; but for some reason, I didn't believe him. Read "Attack on America: An Islamic Scholar's Perspective--Part I" (9-28-01) and Part 2 (9-28-01). Al-Awlaki was a stupendous liar who was probably up to his eyeballs in 9-11.

President Obama (9-30-11) said:

Earlier this morning, Anwar al-Awlaki -- a leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula -- was killed in Yemen. (Applause.) The death of Awlaki is a major blow to al Qaeda's most active operational affiliate. Awlaki was the leader of external operations for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. In that role, he took the lead in planning and directing efforts to murder innocent Americans. He directed the failed attempt to blow up an airplane on Christmas Day in 2009. He directed the failed attempt to blow up U.S. cargo planes in 2010. And he repeatedly called on individuals in the United States and around the globe to kill innocent men, women and children to advance a murderous agenda.

The death of al-Awlaki marks another significant milestone in the broader effort to defeat al Qaeda and its affiliates. Furthermore, this success is a tribute to our intelligence community, and to the efforts of Yemen and its security forces, who have worked closely with the United States over the course of several years.

Awlaki and his organization have been directly responsible for the deaths of many Yemeni citizens. His hateful ideology -- and targeting of innocent civilians -- has been rejected by the vast majority of Muslims, and people of all faiths. And he has met his demise because the government and the people of Yemen have joined the international community in a common effort against Al Qaeda. 

Cuccinelli Mafia Foiled Again: Climatologist Michael Mann Exonerated by Inspector General of the National Science Foundation!

"No direct evidence has been presented that indicates the subject fabricated the raw data he used for his research or falsified his results," the report concludes. "Lacking any direct evidence of research misconduct, ... we are closing this investigation with no further action."---National Science Foundation Inspector General


The famous climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann is constantly being hounded and persecuted by Virginia's demagogic Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. I think this is because Cuccinelli's father has spent his career as a lobbyist/consultant for domestic and foreign natural gas interests. The elder Cuccinelli's firm, Quest-Fore, reportedly gave 96,000 dollars to the Attorney General's political campaign.


Our Attorney General's office has been hijacked and transformed into an organ of persecution like the KGB: the Attorney General's Office is nothing but legalized lawlessness, the "sword and shield" of the fossil fuel interests on a quest for the scalps of climate scientists!


The Cuccinelli mafia organization defends the interests of the Republican Party's financial sponsors, not the people. Cuccinelli claims that he is protecting the people, but I think he is endangering our people with his lawless, dishonest inquisition against climate scientists. I would rather be protected by scientists like Dr. Mann than outposts of mafia structures like the Virginia Attorney General's Office. Instead of persecuting Dr. Mann, Cuccinelli should investigate the accused criminal Bobby Thompson, who gave him 55,000 dollars.


The Daily Climate is a very educational site that posts articles about climate change that appear in the mass media as well as their own articles. On August 22, Douglas Fischer, editor of The Daily Climate posted an article titled "Federal Auditors Find No Evidence to Support "Climategate" Accusations" (8-22-11). The Cuccinelli Mafia has been foiled again!


Dr. Mann has no illusions that this latest finding will silence his opponents, but he noted that this latest investigation "establishes that every credible body has found that there is no evidence at all for the allegations."