As nasty as they wanna be

Pursuant to yesterday's post, the NYTimes blog The Lede details some leaked information about the IPCC's report, which will apparently come out in three stages. The comments section is predictably ill informed and painful for a scientifically educated person to stomach. And the basis for debate continues to be obfuscated.

In other news, National Intelligence Chief John Negroponte is apparently barred by the White House from saying "global" and "warming" in conjunction with one another. Meanwhile a new executive order gives the White House greater ability to review and edit scientific documents, which flies in the face of the Union of Concerned Scientists. The UCS put out a 2004 report entitled "Scientific Integrity in Policy Making" alleging that the Bush White House had been altering reserach through funding cutoffs and document editing to further political aims rather than scientific ones. Over 11,000 scientists have signed on to the scientists' statement including 52 Nobel laureates, 63 National Medal of Science recipients, and 194 members of the National Academy of Sciences.