In the past 24 hours: I have received a note from one of my friends who took part in the protest at NOAA headquarters. Ironically , the former head of NOAA was there whose tenure regarding the National Weather Service was questionable -- at best.  and, another friend forwarded the piece below from Dr. Cliff Mass of the University of Washington's meteorology department. I recommend reading it.  Subject:   Reality and Opportunity We are all scientists and we are trained to deal with reality. To propose hypotheses and to test them. We need to do the same in the current situation. There are lots of worries about NOAA being terminated by the administration.   Reality : this  can not happen  because NOAA is enabled and tasked by legislation....lots of legislation. NOAA is not going anywhere. The observational systems overseen by NOAA are not going anywhere. There are all kinds of diabolical suggestions on this list of the private sector secretly rubbing the...