As Jim Treacher writes, “Climategate is a story about computer hacking in much the same way Watergate was a story about parking garages”, as the bloggers at The Pool Bar dive into the email list itself:

The files and e-mail exchanges from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at University of East Anglia are damning in several respects. What’s readily apparent to anyone reading objectively is that CRU systematically engaged in a practice to stifle peer review of their work. This is a fact and not subject to dispute, and by itself ought to be sufficient to summarily dismiss any reports or recommendations coming from CRU.

Also readily apparent is advocacy for a specific outcome of their work. Take it away, AoSHQ:

> >From: Phil Jones [mailto:p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx]
> >Sent: 05 January 2009 16:18
> >To: Johns, Tim; Folland, Chris
> >Cc: Smith, Doug; Johns, Tim
> >Subject: Re: FW: Temperatures in 2009
> >
> >
> > Tim, Chris,
> > I hope you’re not right about the lack of warming lasting
> > till about 2020. I’d rather hoped to see the earlier Met Office
> > press release with Doug’s paper that said something like -
> > half the years to 2014 would exceed the warmest year currently on
> > record, 1998!
> > Still a way to go before 2014.
> >
> > I seem to be getting an email a week from skeptics saying
> > where’s the warming gone. I know the warming is on the decadal
> > scale, but it would be nice to wear their smug grins away.

Dammit…curse this global cooling! I want to wipe some “smug grins” off people’s faces! Oh, and never mind the fact that 1998 was NOT the hottest year on record. That was 1934, but that hardly fits the anthropogenic global warming narrative. This reveals an emotional investment in a desired conclusion which is incompatible with objective, honest scientific inquiry.

Meanwhile, Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters spots “ClimateGate’s Michael Mann Being Investigated By Penn State”:

As a result of the growing ClimateGate scandal, Penn State University is investigating Michael Mann, its high-profile professor on the sending and receiving end of controversial e-mail messages recently obtained from a British Climate Research Unit.

Mann, as one of the originators of the infamous Hockey Stick graph, is the climatologist at the very heart of the global warming myth.

As the creator of “Mike’s Nature trick,” a particularly damning phrase used in one of the e-mail messages in question, Mann is also a key figure in ClimateGate.

Given his importance to the climate movement and all those involved including Nobel Laureate Al Gore, President Obama, and Congressional Democrats desperately trying to enact cap and trade legislation, it will be very interesting to see how this press release from Penn State gets reported in the coming days (h/t Anthony Watts via Marc Morano):

Hopefully newspaper readers and other legacy media consumers will report the details that MSM journalists deign to admit, as this amusing video unearthed by Treacher and Kate of Small Dead Animals highlights:

embedded by Embedded Video

YouTube Direkt

(Incidentally, could they investigate the other Michael Mann to uncover how he wound up making his big screen Miami Vice remake so dull?)

Related: James Lewis writes, “It’s just like the Nixon tapes, except that emails are a lot more accurate than John Dean’s memory.” (H/T: Tim Blair)