US Dem Congressman Indicted!

WASHINGTON - U.S. Democratic Rep. William Jefferson was indicted on Monday on 16 counts that accuse him of soliciting bribes and paying off a Nigerian official, a U.S. Justice Department official said.

The official said the counts charge Jefferson with racketeering, soliciting bribes, fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
(c) Reuters 2007.

Kind of lends a whole new perspective to the "Culture of Corruption", huh Nancy? So much for the Democratic Congress.

brooklyn

How Did a Rocket Scientist Get so Dumb?

Michael Griffin, NASA

How, because of Global warming stupid! Al Gore is a Glodal warming Rockstar. How did he get that way? He learned a very valuable lesson from the Clintons, learn what people care about and tell the people what they want to hear, whether its inconviently true or not!

Dr. Michael Griffin is a Rocket Scientist whom some people have implied is ignorant, how did he get that way? Why one simply learns what is true, state what is true and partisans will not want to hear it and they will call it ignorant!

Let me explain, recently Dr. Griffin has come under fire for a couple of statements that he’s made about global warming. Dr. Griffin said, that he is not sure that Global warming is a problem we [human beings] must wrestle with.

“I have no doubt that … a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with. To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change.

First of all, I don't think it's within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown. And second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings — where and when — are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take.” – Dr. Michael Griffin, NASA, chief administrator

Makes sense to me! The Second thing that Dr. Griffin said was, “Nowhere in NASA's authorization, which of course governs what we do, is there anything at all telling us that we should take actions to affect climate change in either one way or another.” (Original NPR transcript)

So just what is going on here? Well, Michael Griffin is the Chief Administrator at The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and statements such as these are just shocking coming from someone in his position.

James Hansen, an advocate for Global warming/climate change, expressed shock at Griffin's comments.
Asked his response, Hansen said: "I almost fell off my chair."
"It was a shocking statement because of the level of ignorance it indicated with regard to the current situation," Hansen said. Humm…shocking? Ignorance?

Congress does not like Dr. Griffin either. Why? Because congress wants to turn The National Aeronautics and Space Administration into The National Climate Change/Global Warming and Researching Other Stuff Administration (NCCGWROSA)

Rep. Bart Gordon, chairman of the Science and Technology committee in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, said this about NASA’ budget which Dr. Griffin submitted to Congress,
"Based on NASA's own five-year budget plan, the agency will be unable to start any of the new Earth observations initiatives recommended by the National Academies for the foreseeable future. That's not going to get us where we need to be in our understanding of climate change."

What? What are new Earth observations initiatives? In plan language it’s using all of the governments resources (even NASA’s) to convince the American people that the climate is changing.

But, Rep. Gordon shouldn’t the budget of The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) an agency of the United States federal government, responsible for the nation's public space program be spent on the exploration of space?

And in addition to the space program, NASA is also responsible for long-term civilian and military aerospace research. Did you know Rep. Gordon that since February 2006 NASA's self-described mission statement is to “pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics research.”

So Rep. Gordon, do you understand that neither is it stated or implied in NASA’s mission nor was it ever intended that NASA be the nation’s pop science laboratory for the advancment of the theories of Global warming aka climate change? Rep Gordon it’s not NASA’s job to advance the cause of Global warming!

Yet when NASA’s chief administrator tells you that in truth, all of a sudden that administrator is ignorant, kind of dumb, a denier.

But nothing could be further from the truth, Dr. Griffin is a rocket scientist with a M.B.A., he earned his PhD in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland, he was head of the space department at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, he was a veteran aerospace executive who has held a variety of senior-level positions at the Pentagon, at NASA and in industry. And now he’s top Administrator at NASA but you don’t trust him.

Instead you trust Al Gore a man with absolutely no real scientific back ground and for all of Gore's later fascination with science and technology, he often struggled academically in those subjects. The political champion of the natural world [and now Global warming,] received that sophomore D in Natural Sciences 6 (Man's Place in Nature) and then got a C-plus in Natural Sciences 118 his senior year.

The self-proclaimed inventor of the Internet [Gore’s exact words on that subject were, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."] avoided all courses in mathematics and logic throughout college, though he did score high on the math portion of the SAT. In addition to that Gore’s high school math grades had dropped from A's to C's as he advanced from trigonometry to calculus in his senior year.

Gore took the religious studies courses while also working full time as a journalist at the Nashville Tennessean, and after getting off to a strong start with an A-minus in Ethics, he failed to complete any of the three courses he took in the fall of 1971, and those incompletes eventually lapsed into F's. He returned for another semester in the spring of 1972, when two more incompletes turned into F's. Two years later, he enrolled in law school and spent three semesters there taking heavy course loads while still working at the newspaper. He performed satisfactorily, with a high grade of 81 in Legal Writing and a low grade of 69 in Civil Procedures II.

Partway through the spring semester in 1976, he decided to run for an open seat in Tennessee's 3rd Congressional District. His mother, Pauline Gore, herself a lawyer, tried to persuade him to remain in school while running, but he withdrew, turning away for good from the academic life, while beginning a political career in which he increasingly took on the characteristics of a scholar. -- David Maraniss and Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, March 19, 2000

Dr. Michael Griffin is a legitimate rocket scientist, unlike Al Gore, a pretend academic, and a Global warming Rockstar, and unlike Gore Dr. Griffin’s opinion can be trusted. When Dr. Griffin was being recommended for the job of top NASA administrator congress was enthralled with him.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., an influential member of the Senate Appropriations Committee who knows Griffin because of his work at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, said the president made “an outstanding choice.”

In a statement issued by Mikulski she said Griffin “has the right combination of experience in industry, academia and government service. He has a proven record of leadership and a passion for science and exploration. I welcome his nomination.”

House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert, whose committee has called on Griffin to testify as an expert witness on NASA issues, also endorsed Dr. Griffin at the time his nomination.

"We are extremely pleased that the president has nominated Mike Griffin to be NASA Administrator,” Boehlert said in a statement. “Dr. Griffin has long been a resource to the Science Committee, both as a public witness and in providing private counsel. He has broad expertise, knows NASA inside and out, and is an imaginative and creative thinker and leader. He is also known for his candor and directness. We look very forward to working with Dr. Griffin at this critical time for NASA."

Finally, the insanity of it all is that Dr. Michael Griffin is charged with making ignorant statements regarding Global warming, when it is Mr. Gore who is pushing unproven popular science on college campuses across America claiming that the science is settled and there is total agreement throughout science with his prescribed theories on Global warming.

And so a rocket scientist got dumb because he didn’t forsake his candor and academic training to follow along blindly and obediently with world opinion of 170 nations who agreed that the climate is changing and that is a serious problem with enormous repercussions. And Al Gore is a Global warming Rockstar because he is championing this cause whether it’s right or wrong!

If I’m taking a class on global warming I’m sitting in Dr. Michael Griffin’s class, I’m pretty sure that Al Gore doesn’t have the credentials to teach one.