10 ms·

You'd think an organization as important as NASA wouldn't have to worry about budget cuts year after year.

GTP 11y ago
You'd think an organization as important as NASA would have chosen better which tapes were suitable to erase and which not.
- dijit 11y ago
  that's employee time, thus, money.
coldpie 11y ago
The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology is chaired by Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas who denies climate change science and is currently busy wasting gov't time and funds harassing NOAA scientists. It's all going to be fine... it's all going to be fine...
- Agustus 11y ago
  Mr. Smith does not deny climate change science, he is a skeptic, not the same. As a congressman, he is afforded the roles of his position to investigate corruption or suspicions of corruption, which in this case includes an agency using taxpayer dollars avoiding the release of information to a committee. The NOAA situation is one where the agency should openly share data with the committee and Mr. Smith would go away, by stonewalling, the agency does not help the cause of science or dissipate suspicion of obfuscating results.
  - coldpie 11y ago
    """It was inconvenient for this administration that climate data has clearly showed no warming for the past two decades. The American people have every right to be suspicious when NOAA alters data to get the politically correct results they want and then refuses to reveal how those decisions were made. NOAA needs to come clean about why they altered the data to get the results they needed to advance this administration’s extreme climate change agenda.""" http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/10/congressman-doubles-down-accuses-noaa-scientists-of-doctoring-results/ http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/10/congressman-doubles-d... Fffffffffffaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrttttttttttttttttttttttt
    - creshal 11y ago
      > NOAA provided Rep. Smith with all the data, methods, and explanation he requested but has refused to hand over the communications of its scientists, which it regards as protected. I'd better hope so.
      - Agustus 11y ago
        Ridiculous, a government agency with individuals paid for by the American tax payer is not willing to release to the American public internal communications.
      - tertius 11y ago
        Why? We don't allow this in business, why should we allow this in the government? Think Steve Jobs asking a VP to show his reasons for obfuscating the reasons for sales figures reported over a period and then adjusted. VP: Sorry, that's confidential. In this situation, I'm paying the administrator (that person that governmental agencies are accountable to) to make sure those agencies aren't obfuscating their own reasons. I demand answers, whether those answers lead nowhere is inconsequential.
        mturmon 11y ago
        That's not the correct analogy. The House has oversight to be sure money is not wasted, but not to monitor all dialogue between scientists. For a summary of what's going on, better than I can do here, see this letter from another member of the House science committee: http://democrats.science.house.gov/sites/democrats.science.house.gov/files/Ranking%20Member%20Johnson%20Letter%20to%20Chairman%20Smith%20on%20NOAA%20Subpoena.pdf http://democrats.science.house.gov/sites/democrats.science.h...
        Agustus 11y ago
        The letter does not help the situation: * The letter says: "In your various demand letters you noted the scientific study in question was of some consequence, and could potentially have an effect on policy decisions. However it should be emphasized that the issue in question is a scientific research study, not a policy decision by a Federal agency. As such, this is not an area of delegated legislative authority by Congress to the Executive (unless you are proposing that Congress should somehow legislatively overrule peer-reviewed scientific findings.)* First, Mr. Johnson, cutely tries to defer that science is not going to be used in a policy manner. Right now, the President of the United States is engaged with making policy decisions from scientific studies, so his premise is flawed to begin with. Also, all of the pushes for climate change agendas feed from scientific studies. Second, pointing to the delegation of authority and making a cute reference to legislating peer-reviewed scientific findings is a nod to The Daily Show crowd's jokester attitude. Third, the last line from the paragraph says that "you have not articulated a legitimate need for anything beyond what NOAA has already provided" plays into my argument from before about a government agency obfuscating. One could argue that the obfuscation is to hold a checks and balance, but then why is a legislature member worried about what the executive branch is doing? The executive branch should be defining what it will fulfill in FOIA requests and why. Also, the entire letter points to my earlier discussion that while one can have the data, the models, and the methodologies, the reasoning behind the change appears to be left off and NOAA is not helping the concern with the agency when it does not come out with this. Even if they came right out and said, look, we used an incorrect number of significant digits, that is why our models appeared misleading before, it would be a quick story, make the rounds on skeptic sites, and then could move forward. So, why obfuscate?
sharpray 11y ago
Are the people handling the tapes personally worried about budget cuts, or does NASA have separate jobs for separate concerns?

GTP 11y ago

You'd think an organization as important as NASA would have chosen better which tapes were suitable to erase and which not.

dijit 11y ago
that's employee time, thus, money.

coldpie 11y ago

The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology is chaired by Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas who denies climate change science and is currently busy wasting gov't time and funds harassing NOAA scientists. It's all going to be fine... it's all going to be fine...

Agustus 11y ago
Mr. Smith does not deny climate change science, he is a skeptic, not the same. As a congressman, he is afforded the roles of his position to investigate corruption or suspicions of corruption, which in this case includes an agency using taxpayer dollars avoiding the release of information to a committee. The NOAA situation is one where the agency should openly share data with the committee and Mr. Smith would go away, by stonewalling, the agency does not help the cause of science or dissipate suspicion of obfuscating results.
- coldpie 11y ago
  """It was inconvenient for this administration that climate data has clearly showed no warming for the past two decades. The American people have every right to be suspicious when NOAA alters data to get the politically correct results they want and then refuses to reveal how those decisions were made. NOAA needs to come clean about why they altered the data to get the results they needed to advance this administration’s extreme climate change agenda.""" http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/10/congressman-doubles-down-accuses-noaa-scientists-of-doctoring-results/ http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/10/congressman-doubles-d... Fffffffffffaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrttttttttttttttttttttttt
  - creshal 11y ago
    > NOAA provided Rep. Smith with all the data, methods, and explanation he requested but has refused to hand over the communications of its scientists, which it regards as protected. I'd better hope so.
    - Agustus 11y ago
      Ridiculous, a government agency with individuals paid for by the American tax payer is not willing to release to the American public internal communications.
    - tertius 11y ago
      Why? We don't allow this in business, why should we allow this in the government? Think Steve Jobs asking a VP to show his reasons for obfuscating the reasons for sales figures reported over a period and then adjusted. VP: Sorry, that's confidential. In this situation, I'm paying the administrator (that person that governmental agencies are accountable to) to make sure those agencies aren't obfuscating their own reasons. I demand answers, whether those answers lead nowhere is inconsequential.
      - mturmon 11y ago
        That's not the correct analogy. The House has oversight to be sure money is not wasted, but not to monitor all dialogue between scientists. For a summary of what's going on, better than I can do here, see this letter from another member of the House science committee: http://democrats.science.house.gov/sites/democrats.science.house.gov/files/Ranking%20Member%20Johnson%20Letter%20to%20Chairman%20Smith%20on%20NOAA%20Subpoena.pdf http://democrats.science.house.gov/sites/democrats.science.h...
        Agustus 11y ago
        The letter does not help the situation: * The letter says: "In your various demand letters you noted the scientific study in question was of some consequence, and could potentially have an effect on policy decisions. However it should be emphasized that the issue in question is a scientific research study, not a policy decision by a Federal agency. As such, this is not an area of delegated legislative authority by Congress to the Executive (unless you are proposing that Congress should somehow legislatively overrule peer-reviewed scientific findings.)* First, Mr. Johnson, cutely tries to defer that science is not going to be used in a policy manner. Right now, the President of the United States is engaged with making policy decisions from scientific studies, so his premise is flawed to begin with. Also, all of the pushes for climate change agendas feed from scientific studies. Second, pointing to the delegation of authority and making a cute reference to legislating peer-reviewed scientific findings is a nod to The Daily Show crowd's jokester attitude. Third, the last line from the paragraph says that "you have not articulated a legitimate need for anything beyond what NOAA has already provided" plays into my argument from before about a government agency obfuscating. One could argue that the obfuscation is to hold a checks and balance, but then why is a legislature member worried about what the executive branch is doing? The executive branch should be defining what it will fulfill in FOIA requests and why. Also, the entire letter points to my earlier discussion that while one can have the data, the models, and the methodologies, the reasoning behind the change appears to be left off and NOAA is not helping the concern with the agency when it does not come out with this. Even if they came right out and said, look, we used an incorrect number of significant digits, that is why our models appeared misleading before, it would be a quick story, make the rounds on skeptic sites, and then could move forward. So, why obfuscate?

sharpray 11y ago

Are the people handling the tapes personally worried about budget cuts, or does NASA have separate jobs for separate concerns?