Meet Dr. James Hansen, one of the founders of the religion called Anthropogenic Global Warming, more accurately denominated We're-So-Smart-We-Know-What's-Good-for-You.

Dr. Hansen has been an employee of the federal government for 30 years, at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, where he is now director, making $180,000 per year (plus lavish benefits) courtesy of the US taxpayer. One of his projects is to have the CEOs of large fossil fuel companies put on trial "for high crimes against humanity and nature." Is this a great system or what, where public "servants" get paid, handsomely, to advocate for political policies?

Now we learn that the good doctor has "earned" an additional $1.2 million or more in the past four years from "the very environmental organizations whose agenda he advocated." These fees and prizes are legal for a government employee, if he files the appropriate forms before taking the money. NASA says those forms do not exist.

Where are the left's activists to lecture us on the corrupting influence of money? Are they worried that all these fees, and gifts thinly disguised as "prizes," will affect their hero's objectivity? Isn't the man supposed to be a scientist?

All these "prizes" are just a means of keeping him on the reservation should his slumbering conscience prod him into engaging in real science.

One item is particularly intriguing:

$720,000 in legal advice and media consulting services provided by The George Soros Open Society Institute. Hansen said he did not take "direct" support from Soros but accepted "pro bono legal advice."

Three-quarters of a million dollars from our old friend Georgie for "pro bono legal advice"? Dr. Hansen apparently makes a distinction between direct and indirect bribes. I am reminded of Samuel Pepys, the seventeenth-century English diarist who served as Secretary to the Admiralty. Pepys describes taking envelopes from contractors but refusing to open them in his office. Imagine his delight on going home at night and discovering money inside. No bribery there!

Back to Dr. Hansen. Why the need for so much legal advice? Sure, he has been arrested a couple of times for demonstrating against the coal industry, but those were misdemeanor charges. Has he been charged with a serious felony? Or is he planning one, like urging Congress to steal trillions from the American public through cap and trade and other regulations on energy?

Henry Percy is the nom de guerre for a technical writer living in Arizona. He may be reached at saler.50d[at]gmail.com.