That's right Michael Mann, science and politics don't mix

Science is a strange area of our world that many don't understand, some don't care and others think they know, but don't. Despite all of that, science is a necessary part of life that has put us in the world we are in today.

The problem comes when science and government collude in order to push legislation. One particular issue that's been at the forefront of Congress is global warming/climate change; a ridiculous notion that the modern human industrial population is somehow responsible for the planet's climate to change.

Climate change/global warming skeptics, which have been likened to Holocaust deniers, have always known that the science was being manipulated, we just never had concrete evidence. That is until last fall when someone had the cajones to swipe years worth of back and forth emails between scientists at the Hadley Climate Research Unit at East Anglia.

One particular scientist came to the forefront of the scandal, who was investigated by Penn State University and was quickly exonerated, wrote a piece on the Washington Post today complaining that politicians need to stop attacking climate change scientists.

If you don't who Michael Mann is, just Google his name with "misused Keith Briffa tree ring data". I'm not going to get into this issue, but, there is no doubt that Mann's conclusions were completely wrong. Whether it was done purposely or not is up to you to decide, but, suffice it to say that the infamous and thoroughly debunked "Hockey Stick" was born out of it. If you want to see the email exchange between Phil Jones and Michael Mann on his "nature trick", click here.

In his WaPo article, Michael Mann bemoans:

As a scientist, I shouldn't have a stake in the upcoming midterm elections, but unfortunately, it seems that I -- and indeed all my fellow climate scientists -- do.

You're right, Micheal. But, not having a stake in it prevents further grants to continue the man made climate change absurdity.

He further complains:

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has threatened that, if he becomes chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, he will launch what would be a hostile investigation of climate science. The focus would be on e-mails stolen from scientists at the University of East Anglia in Britain last fall that climate-change deniers have falsely claimed demonstrate wrongdoing by scientists, including me. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) may do the same if he takes over a committee on climate change and energy security.

You reap what you sow, Michael. I'm sure you've heard of the old saying about sleeping with the devil. As to wrongdoing, the emails make it quite clear what was going on, just looking at the data tells us that. If there wasn't anything to hide, then why force other scientists to use FOIA to get the data?

Continuing on, he talks about his quick exoneration:

My employer, Penn State University, exonerated me after a thorough investigation of my e-mails in the East Anglia archive. Five independent investigations in Britain and the United States, and a thorough recent review by the Environmental Protection Agency, also have cleared the scientists of accusations of impropriety.

Which means nothing. I wouldn't expect anything less of Penn State University to support their faculty members, particularly when it means no more government grant money if they threw you to the wolves. As for the EPA, they have the same agenda as climate change scientists do, so there's no surprise there.

Nonetheless, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is investigating my previous employer, the University of Virginia, based on the stolen e-mails. A judge rejected his initial subpoena, finding that Cuccinelli had failed to provide objective evidence of wrongdoing. Undeterred, Cuccinelli appealed the decision to the Virginia Supreme Court and this week issued a new civil subpoena.

That's right, Michael. Because the questions still haven't been satisfactorily answered. We all know that it's not the emails in and of themselves, it's the data contained within those emails that screams abuse. Particularly when it's used to sway Congress to pass job killing legislation, like Cap and Trade.

What could Issa, Sensenbrenner and Cuccinelli possibly think they might uncover now, a year after the e-mails were published?

The truth is that they don't expect to uncover anything. Instead, they want to continue a 20-year assault on climate research, questioning basic science and promoting doubt where there is none.

Gee, I don't know Michael. How about REAL questions, instead of the likely softball queries you got from Penn State? You claim Issa wants to continue a 20-year assault on climate research, however, you fail to understand that it's not the research, it's the suspect data that is vomited from it.

Cuccinelli, in fact, rests his case largely on discredited claims that Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) made during hearings in 2005 at which he attacked me and my fellow researchers. Then-Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.) had the courage and character to challenge Barton's attacks. We need more political leaders like him today.

That was in 2005 and your point is?

We have lived through the pseudo-science that questioned the link between smoking cigarettes and lung cancer, and the false claims questioning the science of acid rain and the hole in the ozone layer. The same dynamics and many of the same players are still hard at work, questioning the reality of climate change.

You just had to go there. Remember this from Congressman Ed Markey:

MARKEY:  The evidence is overwhelming.  There are a few people who are still fighting it in the same way that there were people still fighting the science of whether or not tobacco caused lung cancer but we could not rely upon that small minority when the overwhelmingly majority said the fumes in human beings were killing them in the same way that we new see that the fumes going into the atmosphere is having a dramatically negative impact on our planet.

This logical fallacy of a weak analogy is how they are trying to steer this issue. During Congressional hearings, it was discovered that the CEO's of big tobacco had lied all along about their research. This is the crux of the matter behind the anthropogenic climate change hoax, not the science, which is sound, but, the manipulation of said data from the science. Science demands that evidence be verifiable and results be reproducible in the real world, not ten, fifty or a hundred years into the future.

The rest of his article can be read at the Washington Compost