The American Spectator

Yesterday’s White House Jobs Forum included a “green economy” component, in which “East Coast urban entrepreneurs” sought to ingratiate themselves with the Obama Administration so as to obtain government subsidies for products and services that nobody wants. Watch for the deals to be consummated in the next stimulus bill.

Another excuse for eco-conscious job creation is in the field of research. Climategate scientist Michael Mann, the discredited “hockey stick” chart creator whose $6 million in government grants I listed in this space on Wednesday, was one of those who seized the opportunity when Congress and the President enacted the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February. In June he obtained a National Science Foundation grant of $541,184 for a three-year project titled, Toward Improved Projections of the Climate Response to Anthropogenic Forcing: Combining Paleoclimate Proxy and Instrumental Observations with an Earth System Model. You can read the scientific jargon that explains the project at the Recovery.gov Web site.

Here’s what three of my scientist friends — definitely not in the global cooling denier camp — had to say about the grant and Penn State University’s investigation of their high-profile climatologist:

• Think PSU’s “investigation” will find anything wrong with Mann? Their conflict of interest is massive. Stimulus…climate change…Mann…egad!! The proposal looks like straightforward crank-grinding that Mann has used for years.
• This it total unadulterated [BS], which they fund automatically because MANN IS THEIR MAN.
• Mann is swallowing an ever bigger chunk of money these days. This is why he will not be removed from his position at PSU — he is the cow with the milk. All these mentions of investigations are a joke to all of us, since I am sure of the outcome already. Mann is so covered…

In keeping with the spirit and expectations of February’s jobs stimulus, Mann held up his end of the bargain for taxpayers by using the half-million dollars to create 1.62 jobs. His (or PSU’s) description of the jobs created:

A Principal Investigator, one Research Faculty (Co-PI), one faculty senior personnel, one part-time graduate student, one part-time Post-Doc scholar, and one under-graduate student were assigned to this research project. This will provide an opportunity to expand experiences and work-study for the students, while facilitating the objectives and the project.

Considering the high regard that science bureaucracies and PSU hold for Dr. Mann and his ginned-up “research,” and the $334,064-per-job value he provides for taxpayers by stimulating our economy, you might think he could tap the Obama-logic for an even greater sum: