IN RESPONSE TO AN ATTEMPT TO “REINVENT” THE CLIMATE-CHANGE DEBATE, WILL BAUDE PROVIDES THIS:

We may well be causing climate change, but it’s not clear there’s anything we as individuals or we as a country are really equipped to do about it. So much of the damage is already done, and so much of the future damage will be caused by activities that the United States government can’t control, that no useful policy proposals that are plausible– or even conceivable given our current political institutions. Thus, the science of climate change really isn’t relevant to any important decisions, or even any important political activism, until scientific solutions or political institutions radically change. We can just ignore it.

Appropriately humble, and quite possibly correct. Related: The Economist: A Cooling Consensus. “Dramatic warming may exact a terrible price in terms of human welfare, especially in poorer countries. But cutting emissions enough to put a real dent in warming may also put a real dent in economic growth. This could also exact a terrible humanitarian price, especially in poorer countries.”

SOME THOUGHTS ON MEN AND SOCIETY. “If the high heel was on the other pedicured foot, and women were seen as perennial boneheads in need of rescue, we’d cry sexism. Yet, we openly criticize our own ‘lazy, immature’ husbands and fuel a stunted characterization of men in the media and pop culture.”

POLITICS IN THE ERA OF HOPE AND CHANGE: “Kill Whitey” New Black Panther Arrested In New York. “It is my understanding that the New Black Panther Party is the functional equivalent of the KKK.” Well, unless you’re the Justice Department in Washington.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: The U.S. Could Totally Kill Edward Snowden With A Drone Strike. “Hong Kong is an island; it’s a port city surrounded by deep water. In 2008 the Navy demonstrated something called Submarine Over-The-Horizon Organic Capability—launching and controlling a lethal Switchblade drone from a submerged sub. The Switchblade is a one-use drone, powered by a quiet electric motor, that weighs about six pounds and flies up to 50 mph for 15 minutes. Switchblade carries a high-explosive warhead that can blow up everything within a 1-, 5-, or 7-meter range around the drone; it can take out an individual, or a truck. A high-resolution video camera in the nose allows a human operator to verify the target before detonating the drone. This is a far less destructive than the 20-pound warhead on the Hellfire missiles fired by Reaper drones, which can cause considerable collateral damage.”

HELEN STIRS THE POT: ‘Get the Hell Out of Bed!’ Fox Hosts Debate Claim That Men Are Boycotting Responsibility. The book, of course, is Men On Strike. Is Tucker Carlson an “Uncle Tim?”

NO MORE OF THIS CRAP: Passing It To Find Out What’s In It, Again. “The Hoeven-Corker amendment to the Gang of Eight bill is essentially a new bill. It is almost 1,200 pages long. Some parts of it are identical to some of the provisions of the original Gang of Eight bill, some parts are very different, and some parts are slightly different in ways that could prove very important but difficult to understand in a hurry. But it has to be understood in a hurry. Given the length and complexity of this proposal, I think it is fair to say that not more than a handful of the senators voting on it on Monday—which is apparently when the vote is scheduled—will really understand it in any detail. There is almost no way any of the senators voting on it could have read it all, and it’s unlikely even their staff members could do so in a thorough and responsible way in that time. Only the people who wrote it will know what it says, and I imagine it was written in parts by numerous people from several Senate offices. That means there is probably no one who really knows what it says.”

SYRIA, WAVES OF EGYPTIAN FIGHTERS, and the ominous shape of things to come.

RICH LOWRY: Rand Paul’s Moment.

DESIGN: Would An Hourglass Traffic Light Work Better?

FOURTH AMENDMENT ENTHUSIASM: Nancy Pelosi Booed, Heckled At Netroots Nation. “House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was booed by progressive activists Saturday for defending President Obama on the NSA’s surveillance programs and suggesting that alleged leaker Edward Snowden broke the law.”

DISCOVERY: Lawyers eye NSA data as treasure trove for evidence in murder, divorce cases.

CAMPAIGN: Data Miners Liken Obama Voters To Caesar’s Palace Gamblers.

SENATE: Sens. Paul and Lee Lead Bipartisan Effort Against Obama’s Unauthorized Syria Intervention.

INEQUALITY: Taxpayers pay millions for fed workers’ student loans. “A review of congressional spending records by USA TODAY and the non-profit Sunlight Foundation, a watchdog group, showed that the House of Representatives spent almost $15 million last year to pay down staffers’ student loans, while the Senate spent almost $6 million. . . . Federal agencies — which provide more detailed information — spent about $72 million in 2011, the last year for which data are available, to pay down student loans for 10,134 federal workers.”

THEY’D RATHER YOU TALK ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE: Oh, yeah, the economy.

DESIGNING A BUILDING VIA “SOLAR CARVING.”

Developed in-house, the technique uses incident angles of the sun’s rays to inform building design. In addition to sunlight, the architects also considered other environmental elements in the process, ensuring the park would retain ample fresh air and its signature river views. And on top of all its eco-sustainability, the Solar Carve Tower is hardly an eye sore. Upon completion–anticipated for 2015–the building’s nontraditional style is more than likely to turn a few heads. Especially considering it’s one of the city’s best-lit addresses.

That’s cool.

HMM: Fear Of Thinking War Machines May Push U.S. To Exascale.

All is proceeding at James Miller has foreseen.

THIS LOOKS INTERESTING: The Ageless Generation: How Advances in Biomedicine Will Transform the Global Economy.

FASTER, PLEASE: SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell: The Case for Commercial Rockets.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: My new crush says he’s in an “open marriage.” Should I go for it?

BOB ZUBRIN: PRISM Costs Lives. “The issue comes down to this: The NSA metadata-collection program costs lots of money, and had funds not been expended on it, they could have been used to support other programs that might have been far more effective in saving American lives. If we are to assess the rationality of government expenditures to protect the lives of Americans through massive domestic surveillance, we need to compare this program to others aimed at saving American lives.”

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 44.

DANIEL DREZNER GIVES US WHAT PASSES FOR HOPEFUL NEWS THESE DAYS: “So the good news is that reports of declining U.S. influence have been greatly exaggerated. The bad news is that it’s not obvious to me that the U.S. economic leadership is exercising that power responsibly.”

VIDEO: Helen on Lou Dobbs talking about her new book, Men On Strike.

UPDATE: Reader Henry Louise Cate writes: “Saw video of Helen’s interview & ordered ‘Men on Strike!’ Was going to wait until I could get it from the library, but decided I needed my own copy to loan to friends! Keep promoting her book, I finally decided to get it!” Since you ask . . . .