Nasty Little Man

The attack on science continues

This first came on my radar screen a month or so ago, and now it's in the NY Times. According to NASA's "top climate expert", higher-ups (read: political appointees) have told him to put a cork in it when talking about global warming.

But Dr. Hansen said that nothing in 30 years equaled the push made since early December to keep him from publicly discussing what he says are clear-cut dangers from further delay in curbing carbon dioxide.

In several interviews with The New York Times in recent days, Dr. Hansen said it would be irresponsible not to speak out, particularly because NASA's mission statement includes the phrase "to understand and protect our home planet."

Dr. Hansen is loyal to science (gasp!), but the lackees above him are loyal to party.

But Dr. Hansen and some of his colleagues said interviews were canceled as a result.

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.

It's not news that the Bush and their knuckle-draggers on the right have an open hostility toward scientists, professionals, and the educated. Anyone recall Bush's reaction to the 2002 EPA report about global warming?

"I read the report put out by the bureaucracy."

Or how about the DOJ's reaction to its lawyers suggesting that a voter identification law in Georgia be rejected due to its discriminatory nature?

A team of Justice Department lawyers and analysts who reviewed a Georgia voter-identification law recommended rejecting it because it was likely to discriminate against black voters, but they were overruled the next day by higher-ranking officials at Justice, according to department documents.
...
State Rep. Tyrone L. Brooks Sr., a Democrat and president of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, said he was not surprised by the Justice Department's position in the case.

"Some of my colleagues told me early on that, because of politics in the Bush administration, no matter what the staff recommendation was, this would be approved by the attorney general," Brooks said. "It's disappointing that the staff recommendation was not accepted, because that has been the norm since 1965."

(FYI, that law was struck down as unconstitutional by a federal district court, which stated that the photo ID requirement was the equivalent of a poll tax, and the ruling was upheld by the circuit court.)

And then, of course, there's good ol' Dover.

Considering the (legal) bill, former student Max Pell said it was almost a joke that the board that voted for the policy came into power on a platform of saving money on a new school building project.

Pell is a Penn State pre-med student who spoke against the concept of intelligent design during one of the June 2004 board meetings and was ridiculed by former board member Bill Buckingham.

The New Dark Ages can't be far off.

posted by Kinder Gentler Little Man @ 9:12 PM