Obama’s NASA Blueprint Is Challenged In Congress

From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — President Obama may have hoped that a speech a week ago at the Kennedy Space Center would sway skeptics to his proposed space policy, but a Congressional hearing on Thursday gave little signs that the lines of contention have shifted yet.

Opponents like Richard C. Shelby, the Republican senator from Alabama where NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center has been leading the design of the Ares I rocket that the Obama administration would like to cancel, continued to denounce Mr. Obama’s plans. Those plans call for ending NASA’s current Constellation program that was to send astronauts back to the moon and turning to private companies for transportation into orbit.

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Internet Industry Told To Respect Human Rights Abroad

Photo: Internet rights: Dick Durbin and Nicole Wong, vice president and deputy general counsel of Google, at a hearing of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law.

From Technology Review:

Senator Durbin promises legislation that would force companies to protect human rights.

Yesterday a leading member of Congress put pressure on Internet companies to support human rights and Internet freedom abroad. U.S. Senator Richard Durbin, the Democratic representative from Illinois and the Senate majority whip, said he plans to introduce legislation "that would require Internet companies to take reasonable steps to protect human rights or face civil or criminal liability." An aide later said the proposed legislation had not been written, but would likely be based on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

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U.S. Government Wants To Track Its Citizens Through Their Cell Phones

Feds Push For Tracking Cell Phones -- CNET

Two years ago, when the FBI was stymied by a band of armed robbers known as the "Scarecrow Bandits" that had robbed more than 20 Texas banks, it came up with a novel method of locating the thieves.

FBI agents obtained logs from mobile phone companies corresponding to what their cellular towers had recorded at the time of a dozen different bank robberies in the Dallas area. The voluminous records showed that two phones had made calls around the time of all 12 heists, and that those phones belonged to men named Tony Hewitt and Corey Duffey. A jury eventually convicted the duo of multiple bank robbery and weapons charges.

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My Comment: Only CNET is carrying this story (Update: Drudge is also carrying this story) on what should be a warning sign on where the US Government wants to go in conducting surveillance on its citizens. Hmmm .... so much for our privacy rights .... and from a Liberal President.

U.S. EPA Moves On Emissions As Congress Stalls

U.S. EPA moves on emissions as Congress stalls A Toyota Prius hybrid car drives past downtown Los Angeles on the 10 freeway, January 27, 2009. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

From Scientific American:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency formally declared that greenhouse gases endanger human health Monday, allowing President Barack Obama to show his commitment to act as a major climate change summit opened in Copenhagen.

The ruling by the EPA, widely expected after it issued a preliminary finding earlier this year, will allow the agency to regulate planet-warming gases even without legislation in the U.S. Congress.

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Obama: U.S. Needs To Lead Clean-Energy Race

President Obama speaking on clean energy at MIT on Friday.
(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET)

From CNET:

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--President Barack Obama on Friday called on the U.S. Congress to pass energy-and-climate legislation, a move he said would stimulate technology innovation and improve the economic competitiveness of the United States.

Obama delivered a speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology here after touring student laboratories and before attending a fund-raiser for Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

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Science Must Never Be Politicized Nor "Suppressed"

EPA analyst Alan Carlin raised questions about the impact of global warming on areas like Greenland. Shown here is an iceberg off Ammassalik Island, Greenland. (AP Photo)

Sen. Inhofe Calls for Inquiry Into 'Suppressed' Climate Change Report -- FOX News

Republicans are raising questions about why the EPA apparently dismissed an analyst's report questioning the science behind global warming.

A top Republican senator has ordered an investigation into the Environmental Protection Agency's alleged suppression of a report that questioned the science behind global warming.

The 98-page report, co-authored by EPA analyst Alan Carlin, pushed back on the prospect of regulating gases like carbon dioxide as a way to reduce global warming. Carlin's report argued that the information the EPA was using was out of date, and that even as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have increased, global temperatures have declined.

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My Comment: News like this only reinforces the perception that climate change is driven more by politics than by science.

CO2, EPA, Politics, And All That

From Watts Up With That?:

In a stunning act of political kowtowing, the EPA caved to special interest groups and politics and declared CO2 a “dangerous pollutant”, even though it is part of the natural cycle of life. Now the gloves come off and the real fight begins during the 60 day public comment period. If you’ve never stood up to “consensus” before, now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. See instructions below for submitting public comment. - Anthony

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Obama Names 4 Top Members Of Science Team

In this Oct. 17, 2007 file photo, John Holdren, professor of Environmental Science and Public Policy in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University, speaks at the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy presentations in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, File)

From Yahoo News/AP:

WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama's selection Saturday of a Harvard physicist and a marine biologist for science posts is a sign he plans a more aggressive response to global warming than did the Bush administration.

John Holdren and Jane Lubchenco are leading experts on climate change who have advocated forceful government action. Holdren will become Obama's science adviser as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Lubchenco will lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees ocean and atmospheric studies and does much of the government's research on global warming.

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Does Obama Want to Ground NASA's Next Moon Mission?

Barack Obama and NASA administrator Michael Griffin,
Charles Dharapak / AP; NASA; Matt Stroshane / Getty

From Time Magazine:

Getting into a shouting match with the HR rep is not exactly the best way to land a job. But according to the Orlando Sentinel, that's just what happened last week between NASA administrator Mike Griffin and Lori Garver, a member of Barack Obama's transition team who will help decide if Griffin keeps his post once the President-elect takes office. If the contretemps did occur, it could help doom not only the NASA chief's chances, but the space agency's ambitious plans to get Americans back to the moon.

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