I suppose I could see grounds for such an unusual privacy policy. It protects controversial scientific theories from dooming a person's political or academic aspirations, though not from the ridicule of colleagues who receive the emails.

That's a valid point, but it doesn't apply in the case of a university email address (as opposed to a personal email address), especially when the data can be significant to future discussion of the process used today. Historical correspondence between scientists is more often harolded for its benefits to the scientific community than for any fear of political backlash.

And can you imagine what would have been lost had the public reacted in knee jerk fashion by keeping those letters private because of some short sighted political pundits?

So tell me again why we're okay with this today?

And yet, for decades after that original publishing of the US Constitution, those very tos and fros of negotiating were slowly trickled out, leading to some of the most foundational Supreme Court rulings which have preserved our country's freedoms.

Dismissing the process for the results is like missing the trees for the forest. Just as in politics, in the scientific method, the ends do not always justify the means, and pretending otherwise can lead to atrocities like eugenics. Apologies for invoking Godwin's law, but it does sufficiently demonstrate the point.

<sarcasm>Your exemplary use of the English language astounds, and it most certainly elevates your point to the level of attention gathering.</sarcasm>

In my government place of business we have a warning before login that we are required to accept which states that all our activities are subject to monitoring. Business email is for business use. Personal email is for personal use. It's not difficult for me to understand that and I'm a mere Computer Engineer. Certainly a respectable climate scientist of doctoral status should be able to understand such a social limitation.

The thought processes behind the research can often give insight to new data that arises later. Many of Einstein's theories would not be as well understood if not for his correspondence with other notable scientists of his day.

If the public pays for it, the public should receive it in its entirety.

I think you mean "gyro" ... but the argument is sound.

I salute you, anonymous coward, for you brought an evil grin to my face... even if only momentarily.

You only think you're laughing now.

I bought red Swingline staplers for everyone with which I had worked at the company. I labeled each "Property of <my name>" so they'd remember me.

It's not that bad. Results are more important than intraoffice politics, if your superiors enjoy making money.

I have been in this specific situation. In my case, the ultimate answer was to rewrite the portion of the program that was worst, mostly from scratch. We had some proprietary libraries for which we had obtained the source code. Going through said source showed that the flaws (in this case, performance drag) were well entrenched, so I decided it would be necessary to write our own code from scratch to replace it. There were no political ramifications because we no longer had a business relationship with the original company, as it had gone bankrupt, and the original code was now owned by our customer. It was on my head to succeed, and succeed I did. The performance of our software went well into the useful range and I had impressed my superiors immensely. Not only that, but about two weeks later, the other customer of our software had canceled their project, so this project that I had just brought to fruition was now the only project using our software. I saved 20+ jobs and was now in charge of our group's only project. I was a hero.

That's when politics begin to matter. Another group in the company had lost all it's customers at the same time as our group lost our other customer. That group's manager needed a project at which to work, so after arranging a public shaming of my group's manager and taking over my group, he had me moved to the basement in another building... literally... He had to replace me with 3 managers and 2 programmers and 4 operators, but then, he was able to charge the customer for 9 employees' time instead of just 1 employee's time. Now he looked like the hero and I was looking for another job. If not for charging time spent to the customer, he probably would have lost that fight.

The moral of the story is: Do your absolute best and, if money is more important in your company than politics, you will be rewarded.

"Amen! Preach on ma' brotha'!"

Seriously, though. That is exactly why I installed an ad-blocker. I specifically allow sites I visit in order to live up to that philosophy, but I have yet to see a single site since 1999 that hosts 100% of its own advertising. I actually enjoy seeing in house ads for exactly this reason, even if the site reviews the product it is advertising, because it shows that they give a care about their users/readers.

If all the money that has been given to banks in Quantitative Easing had instead been given to those who were receiving forclosure notices, the bubble would not have burst so detrimentally and the economy would be more stable for the common man today.

The simple fact is: Quantitative Easing is a method for the banks to keep the money in the banks and out of the hands of the people.

If all the money that has been given to banks in Quantitative Easing had instead been given to those who were receiving forclosure notices, the bubble would not have burst so detrimentally and the economy would be more stable for the common man today. The simple fact is: Quantitative Easing is a method for the banks to keep the money in the banks and out of the hands of the people.

Now explain to me how that is a right wing point of view...