Regional drought increase. 1988 News article.

Response to the following:

http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/09/03/james-hansen-celebrating-25-years-of-official-incompetence/

Steven quotes a news article about Hansen, a climate scientist.(http://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/07/us/ferocious-storms-and-drought-seen.html)

It does look like Steven is right, according to the NOAA,  there does seem to be little or no trend in the USA for severe droughts (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/us/) measured by the modified Palmer drought indices. But the problem is, I don't know exactly what Hansen was saying because I cannot find the original source to the news article (although a 1988 paper did exist it is now apparently inaccessible). I do think this is important to check, as it is unclear from reading the newspaper article whether hansen was referring to global or just US trends - there was a mention of mid and low latitudes which is also somewhat ambiguous without a quantitative definition, this is why I need the original paper. Finally it is necessary to look at exactly what analysis Hansen was doing, what data sources/models e.c.t. and if necessary appropriately peer review 25 years later. With time models and theories are refined in science, that is the natural process. However ridicule is not helpful in this process, even if the original model turned out to be flawed which I will have to retain judgement on in view of the lack of original source material that I can find anyway.