Nothing to See Here

Looks like Michael Mann and the climatology community at Penn State got an all (a mostly, largely, nearly, ninety-nine percent, practically) clear from the panel investigating them. [Props to JimR for keeping me accurate.] Read the report from Penn State here.

Actually, if you’re not associated with a university that pays a university subscription to climate wire, you may not be able to read that. Even still, I’m fairly sure I can quote this without copyright infringement:

An internal inquiry has largely cleared Pennsylvania State University climatologist Michael Mann of scientific misconduct, but the university said yesterday that it will continue to probe whether the researcher undermined public trust in science.

Disaster Signal

Here’s Roger at the BBC table defending his research on a climate signal in the disaster data. Need background? Yulsman gives us the full skinny.

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FOIA Exemption

Lookie here. Turns at that those of us who have been saying that not every scientist is required by law to release all of their data or their research if they’ve been FOIA’d…why, we’ve been right all along. I think it’s even true ethically speaking. It could not be the case, and it ought not to be the case, that every scientist should be required to release all information and all data if someone files a request for that information.

Nipples

There. I said it. Those outside of the Boulder area may be intrigued to learn that the city council is considering passing a new ordinance banning the exposure of female nipples in public. Yes, you heard that right. And yes, it’s that stupid. Male nipples? No problem. They’re generally littler, and somehow less offensive.

Presumably, this proposed ordinance comes in response to some streaking activity that has characterized a few events over the past several years — the naked pumpkin run, the naked bicycle ride, the Pearl Street orgy — so the solution is to pass an ordinance that makes nudity a mere misdemeanor, rather than a felony.

Oh, nudity wasn’t ever actually a felony. It’s just that that’s the best law we had to handle issues of naked people wearing pumpkins on their heads and running through the streets at midnight on Halloween, when all the young impressionable children might be gawking from their windows and exposed, unwittingly, to a pornographic display that could titillate only Ichabod Crane and/or Tim Burton.

Sigh. So much for the “liberal mecca” of Boulder.