By Jim McElhatton

Employee misconduct investigations, often involving workers accessing pornography from their government computers, grew sixfold last year inside the taxpayer-funded foundation that doles out billions of dollars of scientific research grants, according to budget documents and other records obtained by The Washington Times. The problems at the National Science Foundation (NSF) were so pervasive they swamped the agency’s inspector general and forced the internal watchdog to cut back on its primary mission of investigating grant fraud and recovering misspent tax dollars.

“To manage this dramatic increase without an increase in staff required us to significantly reduce our efforts to investigate grant fraud,” the inspector general recently told Congress in a budget request. “We anticipate a significant decline in investigative recoveries and prosecutions in coming years as a direct result.” The budget request doesn’t state the nature or number of the misconduct cases, but records obtained by The Times through the Freedom of Information Act laid bare the extent of the well-publicized porn problem inside the government-backed foundation.

For instance, one senior executive spent at least 331 days looking at pornography on his government computer and chatting online with nude or partially clad women without being detected, the records show. When finally caught, the NSF official retired. He even offered, among other explanations, a humanitarian defense, suggesting that he frequented the porn sites to provide a living to the poor overseas women. Investigators put the cost to taxpayers of the senior official’s porn surfing at between $13,800 and about $58,000.

“He explained that these young women are from poor countries and need to make money to help their parents and this site helps them do that,” investigators wrote in a memo. The independent foundation, funded by taxpayers to the tune of $6 billion in 2008, is tasked with handing out scientific grants to colleges, universities and research institutions nationwide. The projects it funds ranges from mapping the genome of the potato to exploring outer space with powerful new telescopes. It has a total of 1,200 career employees.

Recent budget documents for the inspector general cite a “6-fold increase in employee misconduct cases and associated proactive management implication report activities.” The document doesn’t say how many cases were involved in the increase, and officials could not immediately provide a figure. See story here.

It is sadly ironic that the NSF which is responsible for funding climate porn is so involved

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On “Who Says Global Warming Is a Scam?” ABC Filters Out Comments

ABC Nightline posted a story “Who Says Global Warming Is a Scam?” here. It was summarized:

More than one in four weathercasters, according to this recent study from George Mason University and the University of Texas, which also found a nearly even split among meteorologists who believe in global warming at all and those who do not. Tonight, as Earth Day turns 40, the plan is for correspondent David Wright and producer Max Culhane to take a closer look at what many may consider a surprising level of skepticism the people trusted to deliver our daily weather report have in the scientists who study climatology.

Basically, what’s the disconnect? Why does it exist? And is it potentially dangerous for a television meteorologist to disregard global warming while informing the public about weather?  Notably, while a broad majority of Americans—72 percent—believe global warming is for real, that number has dipped from a 2006 high of 85 percent, according to the most recent ABC News/Washington Post poll on the issue. A note, however, from our polling director Gary Langer, who wrote this blog at the time about the political forces behind the decline—namely Republicans and conservatives who may be basing an answer to a question of science on a partisan policy perspective.

ICECAP NOTE: That obvious bogus polling information and blaming republicans and conservatives by the pollster for the decline led me to submit a comment. It appeared on the site for a short while, then was moderated out. i repeated it a second time. Same results. Here is what I said. I did a screen capture to show it was viewable on the page for a short while.

Wake up America, or you will find them picking your pockets once again in the name of saving the planet. Actually all you will be doing is making big NGOs and other corporations richer at our expense and supporting big government programs based on a ‘scam’ the MSM is complicit in. Who says it is a scam. Well at least 31,000 scientists who endorsed the Petition Project and the 1000 scientists who will converge on Chicago in May from over 20 countries for the International Conference on Climate Change.

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Utah Record Cold Temperatures Disappear
By Bruce Hall, Hall of Record

Previously, I reported that NOAA/NCDC has a committee to determine all-time statewide weather records. This web page was added to the NOAA system and allows individuals to look at the approved records. While there have been some minor changes in a few states, the change to the record minimum temperature in Utah is rather dramatic ... it is now 19 degree warmer!

From NOAA:
An un-official temperature of -62 F at Middle Sink, UT was reported by the Utah State Climatologist on Jan 30th, 2002. Middle Sink, UT is located in the upper reached of the Logan river drainage between Logan and Bear Lake. If this reading is accepted as an official record this would be a new January record low for Utah. The current January record is -50 F set at Strawberry East in 1950. The all time record low was set at Peter’s Sink at -69 F on February 1, 1985.

From the new U.S. State Climate Extremes Committee webpage for Utah (enlarged here):

I’ve requested clarification from NOAA. Right now, I do not have a “warm and fuzzy feeling” about the integrity of the data. See post here.

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Prominent Climategate Figure Threatens Lawsuit over Spoof Video
Jeff Davis, No Cap and Trade Coalition

Washington, DC - Penn State University’s Michael Mann, one of the central figures in the Climategate scandal, has threatened legal action against Minnesotans for Global Warming (M4GW) over the group’s popular satirical YouTube video “Hide the Decline.” The No Cap-and-Trade Coalition, a group that includes M4GW, responded today at an event at the National Press Club, releasing Mann’s threatening letter and an updated version of the “Hide the Decline” video. “We understand why Michael Mann is eager to silence public discussion of the hockey stick scandal,” said Jeff Davis of No Cap-and-Trade, “but truth is an absolute defense.”

The original “Hide the Decline” video, which had more than 500,000 viewers, was removed today from YouTube by M4GW’s Elmer Beauregard. It received national attention when Rush Limbaugh played it on his radio show and was later featured on CBS Evening News in the wake of the Climategate email scandal. “Hide the Decline” parodied Mann, the Penn State professor who is largely responsible for the creation of the now debunked “hockey stick” graph, which purported to show a dramatic spike in average global temperature during the 20th century after 900 years of relatively constant temperature.

“The video spotlighted a phrase from one of the central “Climategate” e-mails in which the University of East Anglia’s Phil Jones explains how he used Mann’s “Nature trick” to “hide the decline” of key temperature data. The hockey stick graph relied on “hiding this decline.”

When asked why he removed the video, Beauregard said “Right now, the last thing I need is a lawsuit. I can barely afford my electric bill.” Beauregard recently converted M4GW’s world headquarters (a recreational vehicle parked in Northern Minnesota) from propane to wood heat. “Mann should be glad to know that we don’t burn fossil fuels anymore - just trees,” said Beauregard. “M4GW was started to poke fun at Global Warming because I knew it was a joke, it’s hard to believe in Global Warming when you live in a place like Minnesota. During last winter we all wished we had some global warming, hence the name of our group,” said Beauregard. As global warming developed into a political issue, M4GW has tried to educate the public that CO2 is not harmful but part of the natural carbon cycle.

Minnesotans for Global Warming did comply with Mann’s cease and desist demand, taking the “Hide the Decline” video down from their YouTube account and webpage. The No Cap and Trade Coalition unveiled a new video they’re calling “Hide the Decline 2,” however. It was screened at a press conference on April 20th and is available on YouTube and NoCapAndTrade.com.

“If Doctor Mann decides to sue,” said Davis, “we would welcome the opportunity to do legal discovery. I believe he’s hiding more than just ‘the decline.’”

Speaking at the No Cap-and-Trade Coalition press conference was M4GW spokesman “Chicken Little,” a man in a chicken suit who goes to rallies crying “The globe is warming, the globe is warming!” When asked about the situation, Chicken Little said, “I used to believe in global warming - of course, I used to believe the sky was falling too, but Elmer set me straight.” Chicken Little went on to say, “I think it’s horrible that Elmer had to take down the video. Can’t a person have a little fun on YouTube anymore? Those Global warming guys sure don’t have any sense of humor.”

At the press conference, the No Cap-and-Trade Coalition handed out a historical review of the hide-the-decline controversy entitled, “Michael Mann: Defamed or Defined by Hide-the-Decline?” as well as mini-hockey sticks that read “Mann-Made Global Warming: Why We Should Be Worried About the Intellectual Climate.” Both versions of the “Hide The Decline” video can be viewed here . See the M4GW post here. See the new video lyrics here. New video below (Youtube removed it with a bogus rights claim, but it is available here from No Cap and Trade.