That Big Brother is one prickly taskmasker, is he not? From the Washington Times, “Climate scientist sees cover-up”:
A NASA scientist who said the Bush administration muzzled him because of his belief in global warming yesterday acknowledged to Congress that he’d done more than 1,400 on-the-job interviews in recent years.
James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who argues global warming could be catastrophic, said NASA staffers denied his request to do a National Public Radio interview because they didn’t want his message to get out.
But Republicans told him the hundreds of other interviews he did belie his broad claim he was being silenced.
“We have over 1,400 opportunities that you’ve availed yourself to, and yet you call it, you know, being stifled,” said Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican.
Mr. Hansen responded: “For the sake of the taxpayers, they should be availed of my expertise. I shouldn’t be required to parrot some company line.”
In a bitter hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is investigating whether there was political interference into climate science, Republicans and Democrats accused each other of “smearing” the other’s witnesses.
[…]
Mr. Hansen yesterday said the Bush administration threatened him and his office over his stance on global warming.
“It was an oral threat made to a public affairs person in New York and relayed to me,” said Mr. Hansen, who is listed as a senior adviser to Mr. Gore and consulted on Mr. Gore’s global warming film, “An Inconvenient Truth.”
Citing what he called a “growth of political interference,” Mr. Hansen said he was forced by NASA officials to deny an interview request from NPR because press officials believed the network to have a liberal bias.
But Mr. Issa noted that Mr. Hansen conducted 15 interviews in the month after accusing the Bush administration of censorship.
Wait, NPR has a liberal bias…?
Anyway, it’s hard to disagree with the charge that the administration is out to stifle Hansen’s speech. I mean, only 1400 interviews? Why, it’s almost as if the Dark Lord Rove himself has put a jackboot directly on this guy’s throat and threatened to start eating fettucini alfredo by the bucketful.
Now I know why we haven’t heard a peep about global warming recently.
(h/t Ace, who has more here)
1400 interviews in the past few years? When does the silly bastard actually do his job?
Don’t you think that he thinks that’s his job?
“She turned me into a newt!”
“A newt?”
“I got better.”
He could just quit, and then talk to anyone he wanted to whenever he wanted to. For the sake of we taxpayers, we should be availed of his ability to find the door.
Fire the ignorant idiot.
Were you aware that James Hansen won the prestigious Heinz Environment Award? You can read more here.
It’s not huge, but,
Which is a coupla years salary, maybe, for a Columbia prof.
This is just another manifestation of the stupid meme that criticism equals censorship.
It’s all the rage for artists and actors to claim they are victims of “censorship” when people call them idiots, or for them to sit in interview studios droning on incessantly about how they’re not allowed to say what they want.
Which they just said. Publicly. Without consequence, other than annoying the crap out of sane people.
So here we have a member of the most popular up-and-coming science cult, constantly in the media, pushed in academia, dominating kids’ and educational TV – and when someone tells him to get back to freakin’ work and stop whining, he’s being “stifled.”
Oh, and NPR does have a liberal bias, and I’m pretty sure a NASA exec and NPR reporter giving each other lovey-doveys isn’t really what NASA is funded for.
I tell you, the global warmening movement and the anti-war movement are both buttressed by some kind of super-titanium-carbon-fiber. The weight of the irony alone could crush basic principles of physics. They must have devised a way to harness the logic vacuum that is prevalent in these movements. Forget ‘thinking outside the box’. We’re going to have to fold space/time to defeat these people.
Check out this textbook used in San Francisco schools (h/t Zombie)
Me, neither. Nary a word. Nada.
Back in the realm of non-sarcasm, though, a thought occurs: why doesn’t this brave, courageous man just quit his NASA gig and just tour with the Goracle? I’d guess the groupies would be of a slightly better grade than for just your basic scientist toiling in tortured obscurity with his dissent brutally crushed by Bushco.
(OK, I didn’t really make it completely back from the realm of sarcasm.)
I’d love to see his official job description.
You scoff, but you want to know the real penalty for speaking truth to power?
Additionally, Mr. Hansen reported,
Additionally,
I hope you’re happy now!! Bastards!
If anyone wants to pay me enough, I can prove that the globe is headed towards a constant temperature of 74 degrees F.
An air conditioned planet of constant tepidity should be our goal.
“So how are they smearing you,” Yossarian asked.
“With the truth,” said Hansen.
“The truth?” asked Yossarian.
“The truth.”
“That’s a pretty darn good dirty underhanded punch in Billy Petrole’s soft white underbelly of a smear,” Yossarian said.
“The best there is,” agreed Hansen. “The best there is.”
I can’t stand the underhanded, disingenuous and deceptive means liberals use to further their cause.
GOSH!!!!
I wish there were a way to expose the truth of their socialist agenda unequivocally. I don’t understand how the majority of Americans don’t see how anti-American it is; how incompatible with the constitution it is.
Maybe we should make Mr Hanson watch this movie. Oh wait that would violate the Geneva convention ‘cause Mr H is at war with the truth making him an enemy combatant.
<a href=”http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4520665474899458831″>
Will you accept payment in offsets ?
So when did he have the time to personally… ummmmmmm… actually review the data he was constantly speaking about?
Just asking…
Damnit, Damnit, Damnit. Why won’t anyone listen? I am Time’s Man of the Year and I caused Global Warming. It’s my fault and I ain’t gonna stop until it’s Hot, Hot, Hot!
So, this is what the House is going to be doing with itself for the next 2 years?
Only if we can keep the account “offshore”.
I hear Bejing has the proper climate for these kind of endeavors .
Too bad To Tell the Truth is off the air. I could see him sharing bon mots with Peggy Cass and Kitty Carlisle.
I hope so! Keeps ‘em from screwing our armed forces, our economy, my wallet, and the interns.
“So, this is what the House is going to be doing with itself for the next 2 years?”
Can you say that on the internets?
But then, again, what are cloak rooms for?
Yeah. They’re still not convinced that the opposition party can be as cleverly asinine as they.
It’s not really censorship if the government only bans a few books?
Global what?!
Oh dear God in heaven why didn’t somebody tell me?
Actually I’d prefer they play this cat and mouse bullshit the next two years than, you know, legislate. Cause then we’d really be screwed. Which is why this whole divided government bit may not be so bad afterall.
You know, I think Alphie is pulling our leg. I’m not falling for it. I’m calling Alphie OUT.
Alphie,
Of what banned books are you speaking?
When was the last year any book was banned in the United States?
1950 or so?
metaphor: a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them (as in drowning in money)
The Bush administration is to be commended because, while they tried to engage in censorship, they were really bad at it (go figure)?
They’ve got a framework of scrith.
While in the real world, we look at an unsourced accusation from a political hack and realize he’s probably talking out his ass. Particularly since the screaming of “I’m being censored!” while giving thousands of interviews and getting acres of press has become a popular tactic of late.
Anyone else reminded of Anthony Lowenstein? He’s the Australian self-hating Jew who natters on about how he’s “censored”—in every newspaper, on every TV channel, and on every radio station in Australia.
alpo, shouldn’t you be off masturbating over the latest from your beloved, fierce mujahadeen?
Iraq jihadis putting kids in car bombs to bypass checkpoints
A winning strategy, eh alpo?
What, exactly, did the government “ban” him from saying?
Another small slice from the testimony:
Philip Cooney, former chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, acknowledged at a House hearing that some of the changes he made were “to align these communications with the administration’s stated policy” on climate change.
The extent of Cooney’s editing of government climate reports first surfaced in 2005. Shortly thereafter, Cooney, a former oil industry lobbyist, left the White House to work at Exxon Mobil Corp.
Oops.
My favorite was Tim Robbins’ “chill wind” speech decrying the censorship that he claimed was prevalent.
Other than the laughably phoney accent he used, the fact that he gave his speech, unbothered, at The National Press Club, seems to have not affected his irony detectors.
Alfie, he gave 1500 interviews. I ask again. What specifically was he “banned” from saying in any of those interviews?
If they were busy censoring him, don’t you think they might have started out with his overt campaigning for Kerry?
So Alphie, was it censorship when the Clinton’s had disagreements with federal offices as well?
Oh yeah, I forget, I have to “get over” Bill CLinton.
Sorry I asked that.
If you just want to focus on the straw man instead of looking at the whole testmony, TomB,
The Neocon Youth leader’s e-mails did show an attempt to censor Hansen, and he admittted to the attempt in the hearing.
Is incompetence still be floated as a valid defense of the administration?
Hey alf, I found testimony from another scientist censored by the government:
University of Alabama Climatologist Roy Spencer’s Oral Testimony
March, 19 2007
I would like to thank the Chairman and members of the Committee for the opportunity to provide my perspective on the subject of political interference in government-funded science.
I have been performing NASA-sponsored research for the last twenty-two years.
Prior to my current position as a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, I was Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, and was an employee of NASA from 1987 to 2001.
During the period of my government employment, NASA had a rule that ANY interaction between its scientists and the press was to be coordinated through NASA management and public affairs. Understandably, NASA managers do not appreciate first learning of their scientists’ findings and opinions in the morning newspapers.
It was no secret within NASA that I was skeptical of the size of the human influence on global climate. My views were diametrically opposed to those of Vice President Gore, and I believe that they were considered to be a possible hindrance to NASA getting full congressional funding for Mission to Planet Earth.
So, while Dr. Hansen was freely sounding the alarm over what HE believed to be dangerous levels of human influence on the climate, I tried to follow the rules. On many occasions I avoided answering questions from the media on the subject, and instead directed reporters to John Christy, my co-worker and a university employee.
Through the management chain, I was politely told what I was allowed to say in congressional testimony. In fact, my dodging of committee questions regarding my personal opinions on the subject of global warming was considered to be quite humorous by one committee, an exchange which is now part of the congressional record.
I want to make it very clear that I am not complaining—I am only relating these things because I was asked to. I was, and still am, totally supportive of NASA’s Earth satellite missions…but I understood that my position as a NASA employee was a privilege, not a right, and that there were rules I was expected to abide by.
Partly because of those limits on what I could and couldn’t say to the press and congress, I voluntarily resigned from NASA in the fall of 2001. Even though my research responsibilities to NASA have NOT changed since resigning, being a university employee gives me much more freedom than government employees have to express opinions.
So, while you might think that the political influence on our climate research program started with the Bush Administration, that simply isn’t true. It has ALWAYS existed. You just never heard about it because NASA’s climate science program was aligned with Vice President Gore’s desire to get rid of fossil fuels.
The bias started when the U.S. climate research program was first initiated. The emphasis on studying the PROBLEM of global warming, of course, presumes that a problem exists. As a result, the funding has ALWAYS favored the finding of evidence for climate CATASTROPHE rather than for climate STABILITY.
This biased approach to the funding of science serves several goals which favor a specific political ideology:
1) It grows government science, environmental, and policy programs, which depend upon global warming remaining as much a threat as possible.
2) It favors climate researchers, who quite naturally have vested interests in careers, pet theories, and personal incomes.
3) And, it provides justification for environmental lobbying groups, whose very existence depends upon sustaining public fears of environmental disaster.
_________________________________
Oh, the humanity! It’s worse than you thought.
Raise your hand if you got the reference.
You mean where he goes on to admit he gave over 15 interviews on the subject AFTER being “censored”?
You say that he was kept from saying certain things (“banning a few books”), what are those things?
Oh, and he admitted he broke the rules:
You’re so concerned about “lobbyists”, but the fact that James Hansen is a paid shill for the climate alarmists doesn’t bother you, alphie?
Dr. Hansen may be reached34 care of Teresa Heinz and her quarter-million dollar payout.
Alphie,
Bringing policy in line with someone further up the food chain is, or, as you quote ”align … communications with the administration’s stated policy” happens all the time, and isn’t censorship. The vast, vast, vast majority of the time, it’s extraordinarily minor stuff, and most of the time is intended simply so that overall message is coherent.
For instance, General Pace’s clarifying comments about his opinion on homosexuals in the military is simply hewing back to established doctrine and legislation – not censorship.
BRD
I don’t remember the legislation that stated homosexuality is immoral, BRD.
And when the opinions of an oil company lobbyist and a college dropout are considered “science” something’s a little off, don’t you think?
Back to the point, amoeba rectum…let’s define censorship–is it that 1,401st interview that would have broken the chains of oppression on Dr. Hansen?
And in light of your remarks, I guess we just need to chuck everything that came from anyone without a piece of paper or who might have worked in private industry.
Einstein? What did he know?
And I won’t even bring up where Lurch and the Mrs.’s new book on global hysteria fits into your truthiness algorethm (nice pun, huh?).
Al Gore was an oil company lobbyist? I just thought he owned a lot of Occidental Petroleum shares?
And I think Al Gore was a divinity school dropout.
But your point still stands, considering his opinions “science” is a little off.
AL GORE!!!!!
I have nothing else to add. I just get a lot of enjoyment out of alfie making a huge asshole out of himself…
The incompetent Bushies probably gave the job of censoring Hansen to those same dummy-dodos who were in charge of stopping the Park Service from talking about the age of the Grand Canyon.
That’s good, because he does it every day.
BECAUSE OF THE TRUTHINESS!!!
Wish,
Are you saying censorship is okay as long as it’s done sparingly?
No, alphie, we’re saying that for censorship to be okay it would have to be actually occurring.
alpo, why don’t you spare us your assinine inanity?
“I did not have sex with that woman…” Government lying, done unsparingly.
Quick, alphie, I need your help! The local library already has 1400 copies of An Inconvenient Truth but refuses to purchase copy 1401. CENSORSHIP!!!! OPPRESSION!!! Oh, the humanity!!!
Is this the same crowd that believes a non-binding Congressonal resolution equals treason?
Fair and balanced indeed.
Perhaps the one using creative definitions should explain to us the definition, as it applies specificaly to this instance, of “censorship”
How does this relate to anything we’ve been discussing?
Or, in smaller words, what the hell is your point?
Listening to alphie I am reminded of the bumper sticker: “This is no ordinary fool you’re dealing with.”
alphie, if I am bullshitting with a coworker and my boss tells me to shut up and get back to work, is that censorship? What if I am bullshitting with a reporter for NPR?
The alphie motto: “One by one, the penguins are stealing my sanity.”
answer hazy, try again later. it’s like a magic 8 ball of, um, irrelevancy. just keep shaking it to see how many answers it has. it seems to get stuck on Iraq a lot.
I’m just saying the people who view Congress simply expressing their opinion on something as dire interference seem to have a somewhat more nuanced view of the administration people who were actively altering documents and restricting scientists access to the media.
How come?
Can’t be politics, can it?
Now here’s real censorship, by liberals, at San Francisco State University (SFSU) via Volokh.
Someone noted: An investigation in response to speech, if sufficiently prolonger or burdensome, can itself violate the First Amendment, even if no finding of guilt or penalty or imposed. See, e.g., White v. Lee, 227 F.3d 1214 (9th Cir. 2000) (fair-housing investigation violated First Amendment).
Uh, alpo, no one restricted this guy’s access to the media. Read that bit again about how he was interviewed 15 times in the month after he claimed he was being “censored”. Assuming those interviews only took place on week days, that’s better than one interview every other day.
I’m sure you’re going to play the “they just weren’t very good at it” card again, but for saner people, who don’t have your worldview, the evidence is no one was trying to restrict his access to the press.
You have to hand it to alphia, that’s pretty much what this congress has been doing. Jonah Goldberg has it right (Democrats Betraying Their Base)when he says: Suddenly, it looks as if the Democrats are the Republicans on fast-forward. It’s early yet, and the Democrats did finish their mini-Contract with America  the so-called first 100 hours  with mixed success on the substance but great fanfare in the media. Yet items like upping the minimum wage and shafting oil companies, although certainly not insubstantial, were primarily symbolic.
The most important issue in the November elections was the war in Iraq. The weasel words and euphemisms  “strategic redeployment,†“course change,†whatever  couldn’t conceal the simple fact that the Democrats were elected largely to end the war. That was certainly how the party’s liberal base saw it, then and now.
But look at how the Democrats are behaving. They’ve completely failed to stop the surge, and their latest efforts to derail the war are so convoluted  timetables on top of timetables  that even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, a co-sponsor of legislation to withdraw troops by September 2008, can’t explain them.
Wish,
Are you saying censorship is okay as long as it’s done sparingly?
Posted by alphie
I know I’m going to regret this; So tell us Alphie, what is your definition of ‘censorship’? C’mon. Don’t be shy.
Why would we think Congress would be able to stop the civil war in Iraq with a piece of paper when the U.S. military has been unable to stop it with 4 years and $500 billon, money?
Congressional legislation = piece of paper.
You tell me, amoeba rectum…
I mean, that is why you and the rest of your commie America-haters voted for the Dems.
What were you thinking?
Alphster,
Don’t lose the plot here – the General Pace example was simply to note that bringing communications more closely into line with general doctrine isn’t unusual, happens all over the place, and isn’t the province of one side of the debate or the other.
That’s it. That’s all.
As regards your claim of censorship, you’ve quoted something that you say supports your assertion. I say it doesn’t.
So, one way to advance this discussion a great deal is to lay out what this “censorship” term you’ve been using means to you.
BRD
Hanson’s just full of crap again. Its not the first time Hanson has exaggerated this nonsense.
It’s all about victimization.
I’m a victim of censorship because I think we will all be victims of Global Warming because I’m a victim of the rich who pollute the earth!
The professor is just burnishing his victimization credentials to bolster his credibility of being a victim of Global Warming.
It’s Darwinian, Hanson knows which side his rice cake is tofu-ed: To the Victims go the spoils!
That’s why there is no point at all arguing with dumbass alphie–his blog is titled “Alpha Victim” ferchrissakes! Even if you win the argument, you lose because you victimized him by winning giving him the perceived high ground in Our One Nation Under Dog.
Hey, Gray,
How was your taxpayer funded junket?
Hanson is a teeny bopper band.
James Hansen is the scientist.
If you’re going to posit a straw man about someone’s motivations, at least learn to spell their name.
Ahem…
Tuck Tab A into Slot B.
What’s your next stupid point, a.r.?
Are you saying James Hansen was a victim because he had to work with Al Gore, wish?
A.R.–you’re the one who brought up motivations.
Are you truly this stupid?
Shut your fucking piehole, jihadi.
Shut your fucking piehole, jihadi.
Wasn’t that a Clash song?
You know, this “noble and incorruptible scientist” crap has got to come to a stop.
Hansen is an administrator, as far as I know an appointee, and certainly serving at the pleasure of those higher in the political food chain. And oh, yeah, a political advocate campaigning against his bosses.
Oh, and a scientist. And a human being, like the rest of the scientists. You know, fallible.
Meaning with flaws. Like hubris. Campaigning against your boss and then publicly complaining of “censorship” when you’re told to stop… well, that ain’t humble stewardship of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
Hubris. A common trait, actually.
Alphie is simply imitating his Dear Leader John Kerrey. he’s supposedly against censorship, even though he cannot/will not define it. He is however, unwilling to acknowledge that NASA has restrictions on what its employees may say. When this is presented, along with an example where someone on the other side of the debate ran afoul of the exact same restrictions, Alphie then manages to reverse himself by applauding censorship, when the ‘victim’ is in the expert opinion of Alphie, an oil company shill.
He is therefore against it, except for when he is for it.
he then either deftly evades, (or is oblivious to) the point that the exact same grounds for censorship that he cites makes Al Gore ineligible. I suppose that we can all now safely censor George Soros with Alphie’s blessing, since he is a stockholder in Halliburton.
Gee Alphie, this selective free specch thing you’re selling is kinda neat. Thanks to you, I don’t have to worry about finding a swiftboat in my bathtub.
The mere fact that this Hansen fellow wasn’t given a platform to speak about his speech being silenced at the National Press Club goes to show just how far we’ve descended into fascism in Chimpy McBu$hitler’s Amerikkka.
The man has been silenced, for Science’s sake!
Are you saying that they way Alfi argues is to ask people if they are saying things he might wish they had said but didn’t?
I’m not sure there’s much of an argument to be had here, furris.
I think most posters follow a very simple worldview:
I’m against anything the lefties are for and I’m for anything the lefties are against.
As this has proven to be such a loser, I’m curious to see if a new worldview emerges on the right or if they’ll just dive off the political cliff with the old one and cross their fingers.
So far, it looks like the cliff diving route.
As Norm MacDonald used to say in his act:
There’s no middle ground in cliff diving; you’re either grandmaster world champion, or stuff on a rock.
Lefties are for something? Do tell.
“I’m not sure there’s much of an argument to be had here, furris.”
Of course not. You’ve repeatedly ignored anything that dared disagree with the preconceived notions that you brought to this thread.
You whined about censorship. You refuse to define it. You refused to discuss another NASA employee being constrained on the same subject (though on the opposing side), and yet continue to claim that your hero is being silenced.
And now you have the gall to lament a perceived lack of a world view, finishing up with cliff diving!?!
Have you ever suffered the ultimate misfortune of being downwind of yourself? Intellectually speaking that is?
It’s not a pleasant experience.
…….you being a Reagan Righty of course.
I have to remember that the next time some lib complains about the Imperial Presidency. It’s rare to see an act of public self emasculation.
“One by one, the penguins are stealing my sanity.â€Â
Turing word: friends. And you are my friend. I love you man. And Jesus loves you.
You are too late alphie, the Dark Lord has assumed Kontrol!
MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA1
Curiously, if the Mythical Martian ever turned up and said to me, “Tell me, this alphie fellow. What’s his point?” I would probably have to say, “Well, he’s against whatever you’re for”.
Ironic. ish.
B Moe, another dagger in Al Gore’s heart.
The real story here is one we’re going to see a lot of the next couple of years. A biddable democrat controlled legislature is going to hold hearing after hearing on everything and anything dear to their fringe activist wing in an attempt to hamstring and distract the administration. There’s going to be a lot of headlines casting news items as indications of administration coverup feeding into that. Not every one will be seen as opportunity by congress – this one is unlikely to – but it’ll be a constant background buzz.
If the gap between the Bush’s and congress’ approval ratings widens by either Bush’s getting better or congress’ tanking further and it can be attributed to congress distracting itself from real business, it may stop. If the opposite happens, it’ll intensify.
Alternatively, the approval rating of Congress will continue to slide, and they’ll continue to hold their show trials. It was one of the major planks in their platform, wasn’t it?
I tend to picture him more as Allardyce T. Merriwether, slowing getting whittled away a little at a time.
True, but they are politicians first. They got a brief and modest surge of 6 or 7 points in approval in January/February, and are back to pre-november levels lagging Bush. If the leadership realizes that misinterpreting the reasons for change in guard as as broad support for anti-war anti-administration sentiment might swing the pendulum back in two years they’ll shift gears quickly enough. Power is power. Pols don’t throw himself on their swords because of the demographics in a colleague’s district. There’s a lot of indications that the rank and file is becoming increasingly aware of this in the run up to today’s house vote.
Puppies.
Puppies are cute and furry. But with global warming puppies won’t need fur.
Why are you trying to prevent the cure for global warming? You must be in favor of a secret genocidal plan against puupies. An anti-puppiest like Bush.