All Things, Great [or] Small

These are the things that BushCo. will lie about or spin.

Not content to lie about, then spin the aftermath of "the great," that being the Iraq War and all the reasons leading up to it, this misadministration is even trying to dissemble and spin "the small," a movie, by telling NASA not to talk about it - at least initially.

From the New York Times:

"Urgent: HQ Direction," began a message e-mailed on April 1 to dozens of scientists and officials at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

It was not an alert about an incoming asteroid, a problem with the space station or a solar storm. It was a warning about a movie.

In "The Day After Tomorrow," a $125 million disaster film set to open on May 28, global warming from accumulating smokestack and tailpipe gases disrupts warm ocean currents and sets off an instant ice age.

Few climate experts think such a prospect is likely, especially in the near future. But the prospect that moviegoers will be alarmed enough to blame the Bush administration for inattention to climate change has stirred alarm at the space agency, scientists there say.

"No one from NASA is to do interviews or otherwise comment on anything having to do with" the film, said the April 1 message, which was sent by Goddard's top press officer. "Any news media wanting to discuss science fiction vs. science fact about climate change will need to seek comment from individuals or organizations not associated with NASA."

NASA - and the administration - have backed off their strict embargo on information about the movie and the issues it will surely raise, but the official list of questions and answers that agency members will likely have to stick to has not been approved or released yet.

Says one anonymous scientist: "It's just another attempt to play down anything that might lead to the conclusion that something must be done" about global warming, one federal climate scientist said. He, like half a dozen government employees interviewed on this subject, said he could speak only on condition of anonymity because of standing orders not to talk to the news media.

Why confront those annoying, disturbing questions when "we" won't be around anymore anyway?