It's not a slow news week. It may very well be an attempt to plow under the "Christmas in Cambodia" thing, as well as the disappearance of related documents from J F'n K's website.
I was kidding about the slow news week. :-)
It could also be that this scientist is posturing to the "environmentalist" candidate for funding the monitoring of the vocano. I wonder if Kerry will pick up on this in the days to come...