Profound Quotes

"Neither is it that US foreign policy is cruel because American leaders are cruel. It's that our leaders are cruel because only those willing to be inordinately cruel and remorseless can hold positions of leadership in the foreign policy establishment; it might as well be written into the job description. People capable of expressing a full human measure of compassion and empathy toward faraway powerless strangers - (let alone American soldiers - do not become president of the United States, or vice president, or secretary of state, or national security adviser or secretary of the treasury. Nor do they want to." From 'Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower' by William Blum

From "9-11, Six Years Later": "If one looks at the credentials of skeptics compared to the credentials of defenders of the official line, it is impossible to dismiss skeptics as kooks. There are many people with strong imaginations on the Internet, but serious skeptics stick to known facts, known violations of standard procedures and the laws of physics. The vast majority of the people who call skeptics "kooks" are themselves ignorant of physics and have little comprehension of the improbability that such an attack could succeed without either the complicity or complete failure of government agencies. " Paul Craig Roberts

"Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular? But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right." Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Science journalists ask Harper to stop muzzling research and free expression | The Vancouver Observer

Science journalists ask Harper to stop muzzling research and free expression

Alexis Stoymenoff
Posted: Feb 16th, 2012
As world-renowned scientists and communicators are gathering in Vancouver for the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Canadian science journalists released an open letter today directed at Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The letter is an appeal from leading scientific and journalistic organizations, urging Harper and his government to stop muzzling federal scientists. Groups like the World Federation of Science Journalists and Canadian Journalists for Free Expression are taking the government to task for attempting to silence respected voices in the scientific community, seeking freedom for researchers to speak to media without consent.

“Over the past four years, journalists and scientists alike have exposed the disturbing practices of the Canadian government in denying journalists timely access to government scientists. Open letters to your government from concerned journalists have been followed by editorials and public lectures calling for improved access. Still, cases of government muzzling of publicly funded scientists continue,” the letter reads.

The authors list a few key examples of “muzzling” by government agencies like Environment Canada, and say the government has continually restricted media access to important research. The coalition of organizations who wrote the letter also used it to announce the launch of a joint campaign to draw attention to this issue and press officials for change.

“Clearly Canadians have the right to learn more about the science they support and to have unfettered access to the expertise of publicly funded scientists,” said the letter.

“Prime Minister, we want freedom of speech for federal scientists because we believe it makes for better journalism, for a more informed public, for a healthier democracy, and it makes it more likely that Canadians will reap the maximum benefit from the research they fund.”

To read the full text of the open letter, click here.

Science journalists ask Harper to stop muzzling research and free expression | The Vancouver Observer.

February 19th, 2012 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment |

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