skippy the bush kangaroo

Saturday, January 28, 2006

awol’s weird science

climate expert says nasa tried to silence him - the top climate scientist at nasa says the bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming. [--snip-]

he fell out of favor with the white house in 2004 after giving a speech at the university of iowa before the presidential election, in which he complained that government climate scientists were being muzzled, and said he planned to vote for senator john kerry. [--snip--]

he said he was particularly incensed that the directives affecting his statements had come through informal telephone conversations and not through formal channels, leaving no significant trails of documents. [--snip--]

in one call, george deutsch, a recently appointed public affairs officer at nasa headquarters, rejected a request from a producer at national public radio to interview dr. hansen, said leslie mccarthy, a public affairs officer responsible for the goddard institute.

citing handwritten notes taken during the conversation, ms. mccarthy said mr. deutsch called n.p.r. "the most liberal" media outlet in the country. she said that in that call and others mr. deutsch said his job was "to make the president look good" and that as a white house appointee that might be mr. deutsch's priority. [--snip--]

mr. acosta, mr. deutsch's supervisor, said that when mr. deutsch was asked about the conversations he flatly denied saying anything of the sort. mr. deutsch referred all interview requests to mr. acosta.

ms. mccarthy, when told of the response, said: "why am i going to go out of my way to make this up and back up jim hansen? i don't have a dog is this race. and what does hansen have to gain?”

''i don't know why you're talking about sweden,'' bush said. ''they're the neutral one. they don't have an army.''

lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: ''mr. president, you may have thought that i said switzerland. they're the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.'' then lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.

bush held to his view. ''no, no, it's sweden that has no army.''

the room went silent, until someone changed the subject. (without a doubt)

posted by Pudentilla at 12:29 PM |