You Know It's Over When the Science Mags Start Quoting Bloggers

Pardon me Element Listers, for I know that I've been absent from the blogosphere lately. I blame a bad head cold that hit me last Thursday, which makes thinking and websurfing not as fun or fast as usual. Anyway, it seems that the blogosphere is abuzz with comments about Andrew Revkin's article in the NY Times regarding the Bush Administration's latest attempt to silence any government employee who dares to admit that global warming is real or a threat, least of all climate expert and director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, James Hansen. According to Revkin, "The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists." Now, Scientific American editor John Rennie, has taken Kevin Vranes of No Se Nada blog - and (fellow) Ph.D. graduate of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University where Hansen is an adjunct faculty member - to task for his comment that Hansen went too far in advocating a particular response to observed global warming. (I'd be interested to know if Kevin ever took a class from Hansen.) I'm not going to get into the particulars of the debate here, except to provide links - like this one on drowning polar bears and this one on the Bush Admin's record of ignoring science - and point out that you know you've hit it big when the mainstream science media take the time to mention your blog, much less criticize your blog. It warms my heart to see young bloggers swinging bats with the big guys. Go get 'em, bloggers.