Friday, February 27, 2009
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,501064,00.html
I guess it's ok for government employees to publicly call for unlawful conduct, so long as the "side they're on" is supported by the party in power.NASA's chief climate scientist is in hot water with colleagues and at least one lawmaker after calling on citizens to engage in civil disobedience at what is being billed as the largest public protest of global warming ever in the United States.
In a video on capitolclimateaction.org, Dr. James Hansen is seen urging Americans to "take a stand on global warming" during the March 2 protest at the Capitol Power Plant in Southeast Washington, D.C.
But critics say Hansen's latest call to action blurs the line between astronomer and activist and may violate the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from participating in partisan political activity.
"Oh my goodness," one of Hansen's former supervisors, Dr. John Theon, told FOXNews.com when informed of the video. "I'm not surprised ... The fact that Jim Hansen has gone off the deep end here is sad because he's a good fellow."
Theon, a former senior NASA atmospheric scientist, rebuked Hansen last month in a letter to the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, saying Hansen had violated NASA's official position on climate forecasting without sufficient evidence and embarrassed the agency by airing his claims before Congress in 1988.
"Why he has not been fired I do not understand," Theon said. "As a civil servant, you can't participate in calling for a public demonstration. You may be able to participate as a private citizen, but when you go on the Internet and call for people to break the law, that's a problem."
NASA spokesman Mark Hess...defended Hansen.
"He's doing this as a private citizen on his own time and there's nothing wrong with that," Hess told FOXNews.com. "There's nothing partisan here. You don't give up your rights to free speech by becoming a government employee."
Matt Leonard, a project coordinator for Greenpeace, one of more than 90 organizations endorsing the protest, said several thousand people are expected to participate and "peacefully disrupt operations" at the plant just blocks from Capitol Hill.
Participants are willing to "put their bodies on the line to stop climate change," including risking arrest, Leonard said.
Meanwhile, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., urged Hansen to rethink his plans...
Rohrabacher, a member of the House's Committee on Science and Technology, called on Hansen to "step out" of his role.
"He obviously doesn't feel comfortable with the restraints that come with being a scientist rather than a political activist," Rohrabacher said. "Most of us have always thought he has been hiding behind a scientific facade, and really, he was a political activist all along."
Chris Horner, author of "Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed," also denounced Hansen's latest call to arms against climate change.
"He's providing ample cause to question his employment on the taxpayer dime," Horner told FOXNews.com. "He's clearly abused his platform provided to him by the taxpayer, principally by the way he's been exposed of manipulating and revising data with the strange coincidence of him always found on the side of exaggerating the warming."
Horner claimed that Hansen doctored temperature data on two occasions in 2001 and once in 2007 in attempts to show an impending climate catastrophe.
"He's creating an upward slope that really wasn't there," Horner said. "At some point you have to say these aren't mistakes."
SMFH...
or is the climate change thing your own personal Moby-Dick? 
