elfs | If I had all the time in the world...

The collapsing dollar
The collapsing Arctic ice sheet
The collapse of commercial fishing
The collapse of world biodiversity
The pending collapse of industrial agriculture, which relies on petrochemicals for its efficiency
The coming resource wars
The coming mass migrations due to those wars

Singularity Alert: Craig Venter's lab works to scale production of octane-producing bacteria.

Venter has announced that he expects, within two years, to have a carbon-fixing sunlight-fueled bacteria that produces methane or octane, two critical components of common fuels like gasoline, in commercial quantities. "We are a ways away from designing people. Our goal is just to make sure they survive long enough to do that."

Maybe we get to keep those high-performance farm machines and petrofertilizers after all. What was Brad DeLong's point in yesterday's "From Malthus to the Singularity?" Oh, yeah, Malthus was wrong because we've been very good about inventing our ways out of disaster. Let's hope we keep being very good at it. Craig Venter sounds like he's very good at it.

Silly alert: American Family Association utterly shocked to discover gays and lesbians are seeking political office and influence.

The article goes into absurd, hand-wringing detail, claiming to have uncovered "Teh Gay Agenda." The most laughable comment? "Members of the homosexual lobby have done a masterful job of equating their chosen, changeable sexual behavior with immutable characteristics such as skin color."

Tell me your Christianity wasn't a choice. Go ahead.

More silly: Texas Governor Rick Perry says heterosexuals must be sex-obsessed monsters..

Well, no, actually what he claims is that homosexuals are that. But his reasoning equates to the subject:

INTERVIEWER: But don't you think that homosexuals might also be interested in being loyal and thrifty?

PERRY: The argument that gets made is that homosexuality is about sex. Do you agree?

INTERVIEWER: No.

PERRY: Well, then why don't they call it something else?

Arrgh! The Stupid, It Burns!

Sarah Connor Alert: DARPA proposes componentized satellite network.

Way cool, the idea of having communication, routing (and power?), and so forth in hub satellites and then making microsatellites that outsource the bulk of their brains to the hubs. Bluetooth in space, sorta. (Come to think of it, this is exactly the way the Pendorian exploratory space fleets operate; for every manned ship, there are four or five automated outriders with engineering and rescue capability, all run by the AI-- and sufficient space in each for the AI to keep running if necessary.)

William F. Buckley explains the current era:

Conservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great.