Where Are They?

Nick Bostrom hopes that the search for extraterrestrial life is unsuccessful. In the May/June 2008 issue of Technology Review, he writes:

"What could be more fascinating than discovering life that had evolved entirely independently of life here on Earth? Many people would also find it heartening to learn that we are not entirely alone in this vast, cold cosmos.

"But I hope that our Mars probes discover nothing. It would be good news if we find Mars to be sterile. Dead rocks and lifeless sands would lift my spirit.

"Conversely, if we discovered traces of some simple, extinct life-form--some bacteria, some algae--it would be bad news. If we found fossils of something more advanced, perhaps something that looked like the remnants of a trilobite or even the skeleton of a small mammal, it would be very bad news. The more complex the life-form we found, the more depressing the news would be. I would find it interesting, certainly--but a bad omen for the future of the human race."

Find out why he thinks so here.

"Obama vs. the Phobocracy"

Nebula Award winner Michael Chabon's eloquent February 4th op-ed piece on Barack Obama can be found here, and seems more relevant than ever.

After Too Long, a New Story

A new story by me, "The Rotator," featuring a couple of high-level miscreants, will be out in Future Americas, edited by John Helfers and Martin H. Greenberg for DAW and available for sale on June 3, 2008.

Food

Barbara Fisher, at her food blog Tigers & Strawberries, writes about wasted food and what might be done to keep so much food from being wasted.

An American Hero

Joe Conason writes about Matthew Diaz, "a truth teller who deserves justice," here, at Salon. Conason points out: "What his story shows, once again, is that the durable old stereotype of the military man who yearns for authoritarian rule and brutality is largely false...[Diaz] has proved that the most reliable defenders of the Constitution these days are not in the civilian ranks of government but among the senior military officers. It was the neoconservative law professors and political bureaucrats who authorized, encouraged and justified the worst depredations against human and constitutional rights, from Abu Ghraib to Gitmo. It was the men and women in uniform who warned against those policies and tried to amend them."

Well worth reading, especially after the declassification of John Yoo's evil memo.