I thought I’d seen the end of this after we first saw it back on May 26th of this year. I wrote then:

How not to make a climate photo op

You have to wonder- what were these guys thinking? The only media visual they could have chosen that would send a worse message of forecast certainty was a dart board…or maybe something else?

MIT’s “wheel of climate” – image courtesy Donna Coveney/MIT

But no, they apparently didn’t get enough press the first time around. I mean, come on, it’s a table top roulette wheel in a science press release. Today we were treated to yet another new press release on the press mailing list I get. It is recycled science news right down to the same photo series above which you can see again in the press link below. The guy on the left looks slightly less irritated in the new photo at the link. Next, to get more mileage, I think we’ll see the online game version.

So what I think we need now is  a caption contest for the photo above. Readers, start your word skills. I’ll post the best three captions from comments in a  new post later.

Oh and if you want to read about the press release, here it is below:

From MIT Public Release: 2-Oct-2009
There’s still time to cut the risk of climate catastrophe, MIT study shows

A new analysis of climate risk, published by researchers at MIT and elsewhere, shows that even moderate carbon-reduction policies now can substantially lower the risk of future climate change. It also shows that quick, global emissions reductions would be required in order to provide a good chance of avoiding a temperature increase of more than 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level — a widely discussed target.

Read the rest of this entry »

h/t to WUWT reader Keith.  Excerpts from:

NASA scientist pleads guilty to directing contracts to wife’s firm

By Robert Brodsky rbrodsky@govexec.com September 30, 2009

An award-winning NASA scientist has admitted to directing thousands of dollars in sole-source agency contracts to his wife’s firm and failing to report the income on a financial disclosure form.

Mark Schoeberl, 60, of Silver Spring, Md., a senior manager and scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center, pleaded guilty on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Md., to one count of felony conflict of interest.

Schoeberl, who has worked at NASA since the early 1980s, was charged last week after authorities completed an investigation run out of NASA inspector general’s office.

“When government officials direct business to themselves or their family members, other people are deprived of a fair chance to compete,” said U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein. “It is illegal for any federal employee to make an official decision that directly affects their financial interest, unless they disclose that conflict of interest and get approval from the government.” Read the rest of this entry »

Now we know why they like global warming so much – it’s hot.

Excerpts below of the original story here: Porn surfing rampant at U.S. science foundation

Jim McElhatton

EXCLUSIVE:

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. Read the rest of this entry »