A look at how technology enables greater transparency...but not always both ways:

Google Goggles... or Project Glass... is finally announced.  See the official preview... and an amusing satire. These futuristic Goggles would project information directly in your field of vision, offering update… Read full post »

From the Transparency front. Taser Inc -- best known for its generally non-lethal but controversial “stun-gun” devices -- has released a mini-camera (about the size of a cigar stub) that clips on to a police officer's sunglasses or collar. The camera can record two hours of video… Read full post »

Okay, we've had a brief survey of our generation's would-be Nehemiah Scudder. Just last week's short list  of recent "Santor-isms" was enough to give any modern or compassionate or sane person the creepy heebie-jeebies. Do you doubt that I could go on and on?

Scary?  Sure. Can one… Read full post »

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is truly on a roll.  Feeling his oats, he has been laying down a hardcore line. And if this one week is any sample, we are in for one heckuva ride.

He started by impugning President Ombama's religious faith as "phony theology." This… Read full post »

Okay, so it's 2012 and you can expect a regular rhythm of postings that are... well... political.

== THE GREAT FURY OVER TAXES ==

To listen to Republicans, you would think we have the most oppressive tax rates ever, with the federal government hogging ever larger portions of… Read full post »

What books can we give our teens that don't mire them in a swamp of  vampires, domineering wizards or nostalgia for feudalism? These are a few of my personal science fiction favorites for young adults, weighted more toward SF and a little common sense mixed with lots of… Read full post »

Forget "left-versus-right." Or even arguments over taxes. The centerpiece of our current Phase Three of the American Civil War is the all-out campaign to discredit science.

Elsewhere I show that the War on Science is part of a much wider effort to destroy public trust… Read full post »

Steve Jobs had a knack for seeing the adult in a child, the grownup product that an infant idea could grow up and become. Looking at the toy computers that hobbyists soldered in their 1970s garages, he envisioned people like you and me wanting vastly more capable… Read full post »

One aspect of our re-ignited American Civil War is getting a lot of air-play. It is so-called “class war.”

That's the tag-line ordered up by Roger Ailes. The notion: that any talk of returning to 1990s tax rates - way back when the U.S. was healthy. wealthy, vibrantly… Read full post »

Even conservatives now admit that conservatism has changed.  Take the Ronald Reagan who Republican activists idolize in abstract; in real life he raised taxes, increased regulations, signed environmental laws, and (worst of all) negotiated countless compromise give-and-take, pragmatic measures i… Read full post »

The Silicon Valley Metronews features my article “World Cyberwar And the Inevitability of Radical Transparency.”  The topic is both ongoing and ever-new. I discuss how WikiLeaks ignited the first international cyber war -- and how pro-business laws enacted to promote the growt/… Read full post »

We all need a break from time to time. Where can you turn for a bit of lighter side of science online? It's elemental: Here's a look at some of the best, totally nerdy, science-oriented online comics. Listed in no particular order, this is only a sampling of the… Read full post »

Let's take a pause for a flight of fantasy, and imagine that we still had an America where political negotiation was possible, and people might listen to a "positive sum" proposal... one in which (at least in theory) almost everybody ought to be able to win. Yes, it is as far-fetched… Read full post »

As one who nurses a few conspiracy theories of his own -- but only ones that fit the Seven Secret Rules of Plausibility ;-) -- I actually find most of the run-of-the-mill-kneejerk stories, concocted by modern loonies (not only on the far right, but also plenty on the far-left and even… Read full post »

Why are SF and Fantasy so often grouped together? Obviously, because they share readership and so are well placed together in book stores. And... heck... some of us write both! Still, there are very real differences.

Look, fantasy is the mother genre -- e.g. Gilgamesh, the Illad, Odyssey and most reli… Read full post »

There are so many levels I want to write about, in responding to the horrible tragedy in Japan. I'll offer just two that come to my stunned mind, and follow up later.

First of all, this is breathtaking in its transfixing horror. The images and video footage show both how technologically advanced… Read full post »

The president’s State of the Union Speech was - at long last - the one I wanted him to give. It went after the very poison that has so sickened the United States of America. His call for us to shake off the Cult of Future-Hatred, indulged in by both right… Read full post »

First, regarding the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a few notes:

1) The dome-capture solution was stymied by “icy” methanic hydrates on the deep ocean bottom.  What this demonstrates - on the side - is that these clathrate hydrates are all over the place, not just in ar… Read full post »

Responding to Stephen Hawking's new Discovery Channel program, I debated the "alien threat" on Larry King Live with Michio Kaku, Seth Shostak, and actor Dan Aykroyd (who pushed UFOs.)

The format - four smart. sure-of-themselves egotists, being interviewed by a fifth - made for some very short but avi… Read full post »

Alert!  There's a 60% chance I will be on LARRY KING LIVE (CNN) Friday at 9 ET (6 PT) in a rushed-together debate about “aliens” with Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute and the actor Dan Aykroyd....

 ...all in response to a flurry of interest that’s been stirred by Stephe… Read full post »

Okay, phew.  So it is done. Journalists call the Health Care Bill "epochal and transforming"... even though it merely (and gradually) tweaks what remains by far the most capitalistic and least "socialist" system in the industrial world.  Despite armageddon rhetoric, watch how quickly (I giv… Read full post »

 I'll offer my own, typically off-angle, view of the Health Care Bill and its implications for America's ongoing civil war, soon.  Till then, I just want to jot down a quick thought on another matter -- the current European economic crisis, precipitated by near bankruptcy of the nation of… Read full post »

Someday, Earth civilization will send emissaries to Mars. Over the long run, the task of exploration cannot be left only to robots. If we are ever to know Mars from a human perspective we must have eyes on the ground, feet in the soil. People offer unbeatable advantages of intelligence and… Read full post »

We appear to be at a cusp point, where the Western World chooses between two paths.  

One is the trail of stupidity, leading to a cliff.  Almost 100 years ago, in The Decline of the West, Ozwald Spengler transfixed the public with his certain-sounding explanations for why Europo-American soc… Read full post »