Update: A new verion of the Mashey report is attached, with a whole new section of juicy emails

Plagiarism charges against George Mason University statistician Edward Wegman have brought the university’s administration to an apparent standstill, according to the latest report from John Mashey (attached).

Wegman actually stands accused of having committed a host of infractions with the “AD HOC COMMITTEE REPORT ON THE ‘HOCKEY STICK’ GLOBAL CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION” that he presented to Congress in 2006. The worst, however (and the easiest to prove) is that he or his co-authors plagiarized a huge amount of material from a book by one of their targets, Raymond Bradley. In many cases, the only differences between Wegman’s lifted quotes and Bradley’s original material occurred when Wegman (or his assistants) changed the text to change the meaning.

Per Mashey’s report, Rice University received a similar complaint against one of Wegman’s co-authors, David R Scott. Rice responded immediately, investigating the charge and clearing Scott as the culprit in nine days. Nine MONTHS later, GMU has made no finding. We wait with interest ….