Pinocchios for Perry

     The Washington Post’s fact check guy, Glenn Kessler, has given Texas Gov. Rick Perry “four Pinocchios” in response to the Republican's recent remarks about global warming.
     I especially enjoyed Kessler’s take on Perry's charge that lots of scientists have been “manipulating data”:

     Despite our repeated requests, neither [of Perry’s spokesmen] provided any evidence to back up Perry’s claim that “a substantial number of scientists … have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects” — perhaps because that particular scandal appears to be a figment of Perry’s imagination.
     Perry appears to be referring to hundreds of e-mails that were stolen from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Britain and then disseminated on the Internet in 2009. One e-mail made references to adding a “trick” in the data, leading climate change skeptics to claim the data was manipulated.
     But, although Perry claimed the scientists “were found to be manipulating this data,” five investigations have since been conducted into the allegations — and each one exonerated the half-dozen or so scientists involved.
     So, in contrast to Perry’s statement, there have not been a “substantial number” of scientists who manipulated data. Instead, there were a handful — who were falsely accused.

     Concludes Kessler:

     Perry’s statement suggests that, on the climate change issue, the governor is willfully ignoring the facts and making false accusations based on little evidence. He has every right to be a skeptic ... but that does not give him carte blanche to simply make things up.

     Recently, SOCCCD trustee Tom Fuentes met with Perry. Evidently, Perry passed Tom's "first lady" test: "One of the gauges I have is to get to know the political wives. That tells you a lot," said Tom.

IN OTHER NEWS:

Court: Teacher can't be sued over anti-Christian remarks (OC Reg)

A federal appeals court on Friday tossed out a lower court's ruling that Capistrano Valley High School teacher James Corbett violated a student's constitutional rights by making comments disparaging to religion, saying Corbett could not have known he might be breaking the law….