I’ve been largely without internet access over the last few days, so I am a little late in seeing Sheril Kirshenbaum’s post at The Intersection on her project Silence Is The Enemy, dedicated to raising awareness about/fighting rape and sexual assualt in Liberia and around the world.  Please head over there and read it, and do take the time to read the Kristof piece that in part inspired it as well.

When faced with such seemingly insurrmountable problems, there can be a tendency to feel overwhelmed and powerless to do anything about them. But if you’re reading this, you probably believe that even the largest crises we face can be combatted, and that everyone can do his or her part to that end. 

The following blogs are donating their June revenue to MSF (aka Doctors Without Borders) in support of the project, so please click through as many times as you can throughout the month: 

• The Intersection
• On Becoming A Domestic And Laboratory Goddess
•  Aetiology
• Neurotopia
• Bioephemera
• The Questionable Authority
• Adventures in Ethics and Science
• DrugMonkey
• Blog Of The Moderate Left
• Seattle Grassroots Examiner

A full listing of the blogs supporting Silence Is The Enemy is here. The Facebook group is here.

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There has been a remarkable amount of movement towards a Presidential candidate in the scientific community over the past few days. Nature, Seed, and a record 76 Nobel Laureates in science and medicine endorsed Barack Obama on October 29th, 2008.

I don’t believe that this is going to have a material effect on the election, but it’s quite impressive in its own right.

Has Nature ever endorsed a Presidential candidate before?

At The Oil Drum:

To keep up the illusion that growth is making us richer we deferred costs by issuing financial assets almost without limit, conveniently forgetting that these so‐called assets are, for society as a whole, debts to be paid back out of future real growth. That future real growth is very doubtful and consequently claims on it are devalued, regardless of liquidity.

Read the whole thing. An honest-to-goodness sane economist.

I’m going to post a brief blurb on the VP debate last night and climate, but before I do, I thought I’d pass along Todd Palin’s liveblogging of the event. Some of it is a little inside baseball if you haven’t been following the election closely, but I think it’s hysterical.

Connie Lautenbacher is stepping down as the head of NOAA at the end of the month. He had been making noise about leaving before the end of the current administration’s term, so this shouldn’t be viewed as a weathervane for the upcoming election. Indeed, even if McCain were strongly favored to win, Vice Admiral Lautenbacher would no doubt be just as eager to step down:

[And to think just three years later that same John McCain would be running with a GOP platform that largely dismisses anthropogenic warming, surrogates who suggest he'll do nothing about the issue, and a Vice Presidential candidate who repeatedly denied anthropogenic climate change before coming to some sort of garbled "middle ground" that makes no sense whatsoever policy-wise. What a contrast in rhetoric.]

I hope that regardless of who next takes the helm at NOAA, its climate science will be less politicized.

[h/t The Great Beyond]

I saw this film last night and had the opportunity to sit through a Q&A with the producers and “stars” of the documentary. I’m still chewing on the movie itself. It certainly had some flaws (its current 83 at metacritic is a bit high and will likely come down if there is a nationwide release, IMO), but overall it was a solid documentary.

There is no mention of climate change in the film, and I am as leery as everyone else is of tying Katrina directly to anthropogenic warming, but as I walked out of the theater I couldn’t help but think how this film could have done what Sizzle attempted to do with its Katrina section in a much more powerful way.

It’s a film that’s worth a view. If it comes through your city, or if it ever gains a nationwide release, I certainly recommend seeing it.

It isn’t amusing any more, if it ever was.

If you are a member of the media, and you have “reported” credulously that it is even remotely plausible that the collisions (or even more ridiculously, turning the damn thing on) will destroy or end the world, you are contributing to a serious problem. People are receiving death threats and killing themselves because of the atrocious media hysteria.

Those who persist in perpetuating these unfounded, sensationalized rumors after being corrected, and especially those who do so after being made aware of the negative consequences of their actions, are morally if not legally responsible for the results of their actions. Due diligence- it’s your job:

• Study of Potentially Dangerous Events During Heavy-Ion Collisions at the LHC: Report of the LHC Safety Study Group (2003)
• CERN Scientific Policy Committee (SPC) Report on the LHC Safety Assessment Group (LSAG) Documents
• Review of the safety of LHC collisions (Ellis et al. 2008)

On a lighter note:

Read this Op-Ed from the senior economics writer* for the WSJ, complete with requisite nod to well-documented front group and propaganda outlet CEI. Keep in mind that the Wall Street Journal is (along with FT) the financial paper of record for the American business world, the same paper that published this offal.

Ponder along with Michael Tobis whether or not “the mainstream of economics is not a science; that we attend to their advice, especially on long-term decisions, at great peril.”

Enjoy your weekend.

*Stephen Moore is not simply a reporter for the WSJ- he is a die-hard supply side, limitless-growth economist who sits on their editorial board. While this is nominally an op-ed, it is reflective of the beliefs of an economist who is not only respected by the WSJ, but instrumental in shaping its positions.

[UPDATE: Solve Climate isn't exactly bowled over by Mr. Moore's "rant" either.]

James “The Amazing” Randi is stepping down as the President of the James Randi Educational Foundation, and has asked Phil “Bad Astronomy” Plait to take his place. Please, please, please head on over to BA and congratulate Phil on this enormous and truly deserved honor. And perhaps the best news for the rest of us (in addition to knowing that the JREF is passing into great hands) is that Phil will be continuing Bad Astronomy even as he embarks on this new and exciting journey.

Congratulations, Phil! I’m sure you will do the Randi Foundation proud.

Via Sully, here’s what’s happening in your neck of the ‘tubes.