Competitive Enterprise Institute takes Action

"Climate Gate" Development: CEI Files Notice of Intent to Sue NASA
By Chris Horner

Today, on behalf of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, I filed three Notices of Intent to File Suit against NASA and its Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), for those bodies' refusal - for nearly three years - to provide documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act. The information sought is directly relevant to the exploding "ClimateGate" scandal revealing document destruction, coordinated efforts in the U.S. and UK to avoid complying with both countries' freedom of information laws, and apparent and widespread intent to defraud at the highest levels of international climate science bodies. Numerous informed commenters had alleged such behavior for years, all of which appears to be affirmed by leaked emails, computer codes and other data from the Climatic Research Unit of the UK's East Anglia University.

All of that material and that sought for years by CEI go to the heart of the scientific claims and campaign underpinning the Kyoto Protocol, its planned successor treaty, "cap-and-trade" legislation and the EPA's threatened regulatory campaign to impose similar measures through the back door.

CEI sought the following documents, among others, NASA's failure to provide which within thirty days will prompt CEI to file suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia:

- internal discussions about NASA's quiet correction of its false historical U.S. temperature records after two Canadian researchers discovered a key statistical error, specifically discussion about whether and why to correct certain records, how to do so, the impact or wisdom or potential (or real) fallout therefrom or reaction to doing so (requested August 2007);
- internal discussions relating to the emails sent to James Hansen and/or Reto A. Ruedy from Canadian statistician Steve McIntyre calling their attention to the errors in NASA/GISS online temperature data (August 2007);

- those relating to the content, importance or propriety of workday-hour posts or entries by GISS/NASA employee Gavin A. Schmidt on the weblog or "blog" RealClimate, which is owned by the advocacy Environmental Media Services and was started as an effort to defend the debunked "Hockey Stick" that is so central to the CRU files. RealClimate.org is implicated in the leaked files, expressly offered as a tool to be used "in any way you think would be helpful" to a certain advocacy campaign, including an assertion of Schmidt's active involvement in, e.g., delaying and/or screening out unhelpful input by "skeptics" attempting to comment on claims made on the website.

This and the related political activism engaged in are inappropriate behavior for a taxpayer-funded employee, particularly on taxpayer time. These documents were requested in January 2007 and NASA/GISS have refused to date to comply with their legal obligation to produce responsive documents.

This is the entire blog post, but go over to American Spectator and take a look. Be sure to look at the comments of this post. My husband is a scientist who has been very distressed at the political trend of the publications mentioned in the comments.

Moral Reasoning

Moral Reasoning 22: Justice is a class being taught by Michael Sandel at Harvard. Michael Gerson has an op-ed on it in the Washington Post.

I found the article very interesting, it lays down no this is right, this is wrong messages about the class. It discusses the effects and consequences of different reasonings and judgements.

An interesting article, go read it.

Back tracking on the Speech

WH withdraws call for students to 'help' Obama - a Washington Times article by By Matthew Mosk

UPDATE: President Obama's plan to inspire the nation's schoolchildren with a video address next week erupted into controversy Wednesday, forcing the White House to pull out its eraser and rewrite a government recommendation that teachers nationwide assign students a paper on how to "help the president."

Presidential aides acknowledged the White House helped the U.S. Education Department craft the proposal, which immediately was met by fierce criticism from Republicans and conservative organizations who accused Mr. Obama of trying to politicize the education system...

The article has more about all the different excuses and explanations by the presidential aides. Read if you want, but the idea they didn't have a clue we didn't all see the President as a "glorius leader" is evident in the whole idea
At least they have had the sense to back off, even if just a little.

National Keep-Your-Kids-Out-Of-School-Day

So says Shawn Mallow at theWizbang blog. I was out most of the day and the headline on the Drudge Report about the President and his national address to the children was the first thing I noticed. By the time I was up to blogging it was everywhere. We all have the same idea. Don't Let Your Kids be Propagandized! Of course they are every day but look what he's planning now.
It's all at docstoc.com:

President Obama’s Address to Students Across America September 8, 2009

PreK-6 Menu of Classroom Activities: President Obama's Address to Students Across America Produced by Teaching Ambassador Fellows, U.S. Department of
Education September 8, 2009

Before the Speech:
Teachers can build background knowledge about the President of the United States and his speech by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama and motivate students by asking the following questions:

Who is the President of the United States?
What do you think it takes to be President?
To whom do you think the President is going to be speaking?
Why do you think he wants to speak to you?
What do you think he will say to you?

Teachers can ask students to imagine being the President delivering a
speech to all of the students in the United States. What would you tell students? What can students do to help in our schools? Teachers can chart ideas about what they would say.

Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?

During the Speech:
As the President speaks, teachers can ask students to write down key ideas or phrases that are important or personally meaningful. Students could use a note-taking graphic organizer such as a Cluster
Web, or students could record their thoughts on sticky notes. Younger children can draw pictures and write as appropriate. As students listen to the speech, they could think about the following:

What is the President trying to tell me?
What is the President asking me to do?
What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?
Students can record important parts of the speech where the President is asking them to do something. Students might think about:

What specific job is he asking me to do? Is he asking anything of anyone else? Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American people?

Students can record any questions they have while he is speaking and
then discuss them after the speech. Younger children may need to dictate their questions.

After the Speech:
Teachers could ask students to share the ideas they
recorded, exchange sticky notes or stick notes on a butcher paper poster in the classroom to discuss main ideas from the speech, i.e. citizenship, personal responsibility, civic duty.

Students could discuss their responses to the following questions:
What do you think the President wants us to do?
Does the speech make you want to do anything?
Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us? What would you like to tell the President?

Teachers could encourage students to participate in the Department of Education's "I Am What I Learn" video contest.On September 8th the Department will invite K-12 students to submit a 2 video no longer than 2 min, explaining why education is important and how their education will help them achieve their dreams. Teachers are welcome to incorporate the same or a similar video project into an assignment. More details will be released via http://www.ed.gov/.

Extension of the Speech:
Teachers can extend learning by having students
Create posters of their goals. Posters could be formatted in quadrants or puzzle pieces or trails marked with the labels: personal, academic, community, country. Each area could be labeled with three steps for achieving goals in those areas. It might make sense to focus on personal and academic so community and country goals come more
readily.

Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.

Write goals on colored index cards or precut designs to post around the classroom.

Interview and share about their goals with one another to create a supportive community.

Participate in School wide incentive programs or contests for students who achieve their goals. Write about their goals in a variety of genres, i.e. poems, songs, personal essays.
Create artistic projects based on the themes of their goals.
Graph student progress toward goals.

I have printed the whole document of instructions, excuse me "suggestions." Everyone should be aware of what is going on here. Now, it is possible I could have misconstrued something here, (no, it's not!) possibly it's just going to be a pep talk to get those kids alearnin', but we all know if George W. Bush had even had one little thought of doing something like this he would have been impeached for sure.