Two different accounts of the hearings. The first, in the Guardian, suggests that MPs were too gentle with Jones.

Jones did his best to persuade the Commons science and technology committee that all was well in the house of climate science. If they didn't quite believe him, they didn't have the heart to press the point. The man has had three months of hell, after all.

Jones's general defence was that anything people didn't like – the strong-arm tactics to silence critics, the cold-shouldering of freedom of information requests, the economy with data sharing – were all "standard practice" among climate scientists. "Maybe it should be, but it's not."

And he seemed to be right. The most startling observation came when he was asked how often scientists reviewing his papers for probity before publication asked to see details of his raw data, methodology and computer codes. "They've never asked," he said.

He gave a little ground, and it was the only time the smile left the face of the vice-chancellor, Edward Acton: "I've written some awful emails," Jones admitted. Nobody asked if, as claimed by British climate sceptic Doug Keenan, he had for two decades suppressed evidence of the unreliability of key temperature data from China.

But for the first time he did concede publicly that when he tried to repeat the 1990 study in 2008, he came up with radically different findings. Or, as he put it, "a slightly different conclusion". Fully 40% of warming there in the past 60 years was due to urban influences. "It's something we need to consider," he said.

Nor did the MPs probe how conflicts of interest have become routine in Jones's world of analysing and reconstructing past temperatures. How, as the emails reveal, Jones found himself intemperately reviewing papers that sought to criticise his own work. And then, should the papers somehow get into print, judging what place they should have in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), where he and his fellow emails held senior positions.

Maybe some tougher sledding for Jones ahead, though:

But the committee will be hard pressed to ignore the issue after the intervention of no less a body than the Institute of Physics. In 13 coruscating paragraphs of written evidence to MPs, it spoke of "prima facie evidence of determined and coordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law", "manipulation of the publication and peer review system", and "intolerance to challenge ... which is vital to the integrity of the scientific process." Ouch.

Another account, this time in the Register, suggests the questioning was tougher than that -- or, at least, that friendly warmista MPs began the hearings supporting Jones but by the end were increasingly skeptical and even exasperated.

Climategate hits Westminster: MPs spring a surprise

'Don't panic, carry on' isn't working

By Andrew Orlowski

Parliament isnÂ’t the place where climate sceptics go to make friends. Just over a year ago, just three MPs voted against the Climate Act, with 463 supporting it. But events took a surprising turn at ParliamentÂ’s first Climategate hearing yesterday.

MPs who began by roasting sceptics in a bath of warm sarcasm for half an hour were, a mere two hours later, asking why the University of East Anglia’s enquiry into the climate scandal wasn’t broader, and wasn’t questioning “the science” of climate change. That’s further than any sceptic witness had gone.

In between, theyÂ’d wrought an admission from CRU director Phil Jones that heÂ’d written some awful emails, and that during peer review nobody had ever asked to see his raw data or methods.

Perhaps the Honourable Members had noticed an incongruity. The Vice Chancellor of East Anglia, with Jones seated next to him, had said CRU had made a significant contribution to the human scientific understanding of climate change. Yet the practices of CRU looked more tatty and indefensible as the hearing went on. How could CRU be crucial to the science, but the science could not be discussed? Something was not quite right.

The final report, expected before the election, may not reflect the events of the day. But itÂ’s worth recording. The shift was down to Graham Stringer BSc, an analytical chemist and the only scientist on the MPs' committee.

Lugubrious might be a word invented especially for Stringer, who had run Manchester for 12 years before becoming an MP in 1997. HeÂ’d shunned the glamour of high office, and become a local hero back home by campaigning against the Manchester congestion charge.

But Stringer had done his homework, and through patience and dogged persistence, he began to swing the chairman behind him. Mirroring the collapse in public sympathy for climate science since the scandal broke, the stalwarts so vocal at 3pm were silent by the close.

The last half hour, in which three of the biggest global warming advocates assured the Committee to keep calm, donÂ’t panic, and carry on - had a slightly surreal air to it.

Jones initially stated that the methods were published in the scientific papers, “there’s no rocket science in them”. He can’t have thanked his boss Acton for butting in to say that CRU was “not a national archive” and had no obligation to preserve the raw temperature data.

Willis, who’d earlier given Lord Lawson and Benny Piesar of the [global-warming skeptic organization] Global Warming Policy Foundation a withering roasting, wasn’t impressed. “We can’t understand why you wouldn’t want to,” he complained.

“We are longing to publish it,” claimed Acton, a bit too unctuously.

“Why can’t independent people check your scientific papers?” asked Stringer.

“It isn’t traditionally done,” replied Jones. Stringer continued, quoting Jones' email to Warwick Hughes, famous before Climategate broke, refusing to give data. Jones had said, "Why should I make the data available when your aim is to find something wrong with it?"

Stringer said scientists make their reputations by proving or disproving what other scientists have done. He forced Jones to admit that contrary to his initial statement, the code wasnÂ’t available for independent scientists to test the work. So how can science progress, Stringer wondered.

Jones admitted he had “obviously written some very awful emails”. Stringer said science “shouldn’t have to rely on an individual request for other scientists to get the data”.

Previously sympathetic MPs were beginning to be more hostile. One asked why it was so unusual for somebody to replicate Jones' work from scratch. Jones said that during the peer review process, nobody had ever asked for raw data or methodology.

...

Stringer felt the taxpayer was being cheated. The attitude seemed to put the scientists above ordinary scrutiny, and beyond questioning by the people who paid their wages. He mentioned that the US DoE part paid for CRUÂ’s work. Jones replied they can go get the raw data elsewhere.

Acton didn’t help when he said UEA was “longing” to release the raw data. If that was true now, everyone knew it wasn’t true for years.

By this point Jones and Acton appear to have lost the sympathy of the CommitteeÂ’s Chair, Willis.

What staggered him, he said, was Acton’s statement that the integrity of the UEA was the most important question. “Surely scientific integrity on the world's leading global question should be the question. Have you not miserably failed?” he asked.

It was a sign how differently the middle ground views climate scientists since the Climategate Affair broke.

A guy named Russel was picked by the University to investigate ClimateGate-- but he looked only at the hacking angle, and not at the underlying issue of whether the withholding of data was itself wrongful. He got some grilling, and provided an astonishing quote:

Russell said it was a process enquiry not a substance enquiry – one for the great book of bureaucrats’ quotes. He looked alarmed at the prospect of an enquiry looking at climate science. “Where would it end? What kind of questions would people ask?”

We can't have people asking questions of scientists!

That's as much as I can quote, but both articles are worth reading in full.

Thanks to ArthurK.

Posted by: Ace at 12:07 PM | Comments (351)
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Actually... this is pretty defensible.

There aren't too many criminal charges that can flow from just thinking bad thoughts or saying bad words. The most important exception is the law against conspiracy, but that requires an agreement that a crime will be committed, and an overt act in furtherance of that conspiracy (like buying rubber gloves after agreeing that a home will be burglarized).

It's hard to lay a conspiracy charge based on someone giving sketchy advice to someone. The ACORN people, by and large, didn't really agree that a brothel should be opened, in the way the law of conspiracy means it. Mere acknowledgement that you've told me you're going to commit a crime doesn't make me a co-conspirator, even if I offer the advice "Don't leave any fingerprints, dude."

Of course, if the advice goes so far as to constitute an "overt act," you can get charged. If I sit down with you and plot out your burglary step-by-step for five hours, I'm pretty sure I'd get charged as a co-conspirator, even though I never really "agreed," per se, the burglary should be committed. I imagine they'd just sort of assume my agreement from my plotting.

But then there are the tax charges -- stuff I don't know about. I don't think the Brooklyn DA knows about those laws either, as I don't think he'd have jurisdiction to bring a federal tax-avoidance charge.

The one guy who I thought might actually have some criminal liability was the guy who called O'Keefe and Giles in order to offer his assistance in smuggling girls over the border. That's an overt act, of course.

This is nonsense, though:

Brooklyn prosecutors on Monday cleared ACORN of criminal wrongdoing after a four-month probe that began when undercover conservative activists filmed workers giving what appeared to be illegal advice on how to hide money.

While the video by James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles seemed to show three ACORN workers advising a prostitute how to hide ill-gotten gains, the unedited version was not as clear, according to a law enforcement source.

"They edited the tape to meet their agenda," said the source.

This is more PR on behalf of ACORN. The tapes were not edited in a way that would change the character of what ACORN's employees said.

Whoa: The DA actually is a member of the ACORN party. (Originally I wrote "ran for office on the ACORN ticket," which is wrong.)

Posted by: Ace at 11:02 AM | Comments (97)
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Correction: This story ran February 2009. Obviously, it's old, and since we haven't heard about this since that time, it's safe to imagine it's very much on the back burner... for now.

Original misfired post follows.

...

This administration is beginning to act an awful lot like it only plans on being around until 2012. And he's kind of determined that Congressional Democrats won't survive the year.

Tipster Mike notes that yet another Obama promise -- "I couldn't take your guns away even if I wanted to" -- has hit its sell-by date.

The Obama administration will seek to reinstate the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 during the Bush administration, Attorney General Eric Holder said today.

Wednesday Attorney General Eric Holder said that the Obama administration will seek to reinstitute the assault weapons ban which expired in 2004 during the Bush administration.

"As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons," Holder told reporters.

Holder said that putting the ban back in place would not only be a positive move by the United States, it would help cut down on the flow of guns going across the border into Mexico, which is struggling with heavy violence among drug cartels along the border.

...

In a brief interview with ABC News, Wayne LaPierre, president of the National Rifle Association, said, "I think there are a lot of Democrats on Capitol Hill cringing at Eric Holder's comments right now."

So, if I'm understanding this, Mexican criminals ignore gun control laws (presumably "heavy violence" is still technically illegal in Mexico), which means not just that Mexico needs more gun control, but our nation as well.

Prepare for another round of the media stressing the term "semi-automatic," as if it's a curse word, in order to confuse the stupid and/or effete into thinking this is some exotic gun action (and may in fact be fully automatic).

Posted by: Ace at 10:24 AM | Comments (88)
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I hope the multiple exclamation points sufficiently communicated my sarcasm.

enoxo just wrote with the sketchy details, as reported on Fox:

New healthcare plan to be revealed tomorrow. A "streamlined" version of Democrat version.

Five areas where he's exploring Republican ideas: Health savings accounts, expanding them; $50 million in government pilot programs to reduce malpractice tort claims; putting doctors in as undercover medicare / medicaid fraud investigators; relook at reimbursement rates of medicaid; and get rid of Florida medicare advantage.

enoxo further writes: "That's it. Everything else is from the Senate bill, which would be approved first, and then, assumingly, these are added in a reconciliation bill after."

What the hell does "$50 million in government pilot programs to reduce malpractice tor claims" mean? You either institute real reforms (loser pays in the appropriate case; caps on pain and suffering; etc.) or you do not.

The $50 million "pilot program" sounds like some kind of idiotic informational nonsense where Obama spends taxpayer money to inform doctors how to avoid malpractice claims ("Don't allow patients to suffer negative outcomes" is pretty much the main idea).

This "pilot program" seems cooked up by malpractice doctors themselves.

Posted by: Ace at 10:13 AM | Comments (96)
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This is Liz Cheney's group. I think it's safe to say the Dark Side is strong in this one.

Not much new to say about this beyond Ace's take.

The left loves these progressive type lawyers who work for terrorists while simultaneously they want to send John Yoo and Jay Bybee to jail for helping to defend this country. Remember, they love America too, just differently than you and I.

They really should have gone for the whole BSG route and asked, Who are the Final 7? They could done the whole Last Supper thing too.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:49 AM | Comments (88)
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After last night's bombshell report that Paterson allegedly had state employees contact the woman involved in a domestic violence case against one of his top aides, resignation is simply a matter of time.

Now it looks like state Democratic leaders think the time is now.

Democratic Party officials are putting pressure on New York Gov. David A. Paterson to resign from office as additional details emerge about his alleged effort to intervene in a domestic-violence case involving a senior aide.

The state Democratic chairman, Jay Jacobs, headed to Albany Tuesday morning to meet with Mr. Paterson and encourage him to step aside, according to a source. Mr. Jacobs declined to comment, as did the Paterson administration.

Mr. Paterson suspended his campaign for governor Friday but said he is determined to complete the remaining 10 months of his term. Democrats are urging him to transfer power to his lieutenant governor, Richard Ravitch, whom Mr. Paterson appointed last year.

The scandal erupted last week when it was reported by the New York Times that the governor and a member of his security detail had reached out to a woman who had been seeking a protection order against David Johnson, a senior administration aide whom the governor has since suspended without pay.

Slublog emailed me earlier with this about the possibility of criminal charges against Paterson and wondering about the process of removing the Governor. Impeachment is more or less the same in NY as it is at the federal level...the lower house (the Assembly) impeaches and the upper house (the Senate) holds a trial. I doubt the legislature will get its act together to do this but my guess is they won't have to.

It's a question of when, not if, Paterson resigns. My money is on by the end of the week.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:58 AM | Comments (134)
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Democrats are at risk of losing their House majority over their profligate spending, their health care overreach and a general disdain for the way they do business and Steny Hoyer thinks the solution is raising taxes in an election year? Has Rove the Magnificent cultivated a mole in the House Democratic leadership?

“No one likes raising revenue, and understandably so,” Hoyer said in an address at the Brookings Institution. “But if you’re going to buy, you need to pay.

“If need be, I am hopeful that both parties will agree to look at revenues as part of the solution — not as a gateway to higher spending, but as part of a compromise that cuts spending and balances the budget,” he added.

Hoyer, a voice for centrists in the House leadership, said reining in record debt requires a combination of spending cuts and tax increases.

“It seems to me that the only solution that can win the support of both parties is a balanced approach: one that cuts some spending and raises some revenue while avoiding extremes in either direction,” he said.

Tax and budget experts suggest enacting only tax increases or relying only on spending cuts just wonÂ’t work.

The White House projects this yearÂ’s deficit to hit $1.6 trillion, and it expects annual deficits to average $850 billion over the next decade. Deficits will rise after that.

Now we all know that Obama's $250k/year protective threshold is crap. He's more or less admitted it and hell he's already violated it. And as Ace has pointed out here, there's simply not enough money to grab from those high earners to cover the costs of the Democrats spending. So they will go after the "middle class" because as the saying goes, "that's where the money is".

I love how the idea that spending cuts alone won't work, as if it's ever been tried. Of course, no one is actually suggesting that's what we do. Most people know the only way to get deficits and debt down is to increase growth (which leads to higher revenues) and decrease spending.

The problem with the 'tax your way to a prosperity' plan is it doesn't work. There's also the minor problem that increases in tax rates don't equate to higher revenue.

What will happen is Democrats will increase taxes and spending. They will base this increased spending on assumptions about increased revenues that will never materialize and actually lead to larger deficits, with the side benefit of lower economic activity at no extra charge!

The economics of deficit reduction isn't hard...cut spending and pursue economic policies that will spur growth. We've done the latter before so we know it's possible. The challenge is the politics of the former. Sure voters say they want to control spending but that's in theory not reality. "Cutting spending" is like "health care reform", it's real popular as an amorphic phrase, not so popular when you get around to doing it.

Even if we could control discretionary spending, and that includes defense spending which I'm betting a lot of you don't want to see cut, we still aren't anywhere near enough money. No, we too need to be Willie Sutton and go where the money is...entitlements like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Here again the economics are simple...when Social Security was enacted in the '30's* the life expectancy was 60-63 years, it's now almost 78. In that same time the retirement age has gone from 65 all the way up to...67. We simply can't afford to subsidize people for this long. Add in Medicare costs and the fact that the Baby Boomers are a huge population and...we are screwed.

Tax increases are not only the wrong medicine for what we are suffering from, they will only make things worse. Yet, this is exactly what the Democrats are suggesting and likely will push through. Did I mention we are screwed?

*As an aside, Social Security has been a bad economic joke from the start:

more...

Posted by: DrewM at 07:49 AM | Comments (230)
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Tuesday. Bleargh.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:24 AM | Comments (230)
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Pretty despicable if true.

According to one person who was briefed on the matter, the governor instructed his press secretary, Marissa Shorenstein, to ask the woman to publicly describe the episode as nonviolent, contradicting her accounts to the police and in court.

Mr. Paterson also enlisted another state employee, Deneane Brown, a mutual friend of the governor and the accuser, to make contact with the woman before she was due in court to finalize an order of protection against the aide. Ms. Brown, an employee of the Division of Housing and Community Renewal, reached out to the woman on more than one occasion over a period of several days, and arranged a phone call between the governor and the woman.

After the calls from Ms. Brown and the conversation with the governor, the woman failed to appear for the court hearing on Feb. 8, and the case was dropped.

These accounts provide the first evidence that Mr. Paterson helped direct an effort to influence the accuser.

The woman involved was adamant about perusing the order of protection until Paterson and his aides, including the State Police, spoke to her. Imagine if Paterson buddy had decided he was going to be Mr. Tough Guy again and she was severely injured or worse.

Paterson claims he's going to finish out the term which runs through the end of the year but given the arc of this story, that's becoming increasingly unlikely. With this escalation of his alleged involvement it seems his resignation is simply a question of when, not if. The new unanswered question is, will he face criminal charges?

Paterson is a sad joke and who simply has no political capital left at a time when the state is in dire financial straights.

The besieged Paterson will also have to deal with the MTA's eroding budget, a politically charged roads and bridges plan for the suburbs and upstate, and the need to pass a controversial law to make it easier to build power plants in New York.

Frankly, it's taken for granted at the Capitol that the odds are better than even that Paterson won't even be governor by the beginning of May.

But if and until he goes, the politically crippled governor is going to have to sit down with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate leader John Sampson, two fellow Democrats who loathe him, and show an ability to work with the leaders that he's never been able to show before.

New York is likely to wind up with Richard Ravich as Governor. He was appointed by Paterson in a move that many consider of dubious constitutionality. Quite frankly though, he's much better suited in terms of temperament and experience to deal serve as a caretaker for the rest of the year.

In other NY news, Harold Ford, Jr. finds out his no Hillary and won't run against Kirsten Gillibrand in the Democratic primary for Senate. Too bad the GOP can't find someone to run given that Gillibrand is Paterson's hand picked Senator.

Where are you George Elmer Pataki? A state turns its lonely eyes to you!

Posted by: DrewM at 06:57 PM | Comments (162)
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Monday all.

The official Man Card site is now online!
So no more having to fax or mail in forms. You can now order your Man Card and man card accessories online as well as get official rulings on behavior such as watching figure skating without a female present. And you can even file appeals for card reinstatement directly on the website and pay using credit cards or paypal.

There's even an iphone application for on the spot emergency Man Card revocations. Of course if you are in danger of losing your card, the wisest route is to let a trusted fellow moron or moronette hold it temporarily until you come back to your senses - there's a lot less humiliation and fees this way. (Thanks to MichaelInMI)

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:37 PM | Comments (609)
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