The nuclear nightmare looms over us still with threats from ever ready missiles, reactor leaks & nuclear waste. Still, choking clouds of coal dust have dropped far more uranium onto us than all the bomb tests, accidents and spills combined. We'll probably lean on our fission crutch for some time while our species works out the secrets of fusion. The irony is we already have a sustained fusion reaction providing us all the power we'll ever need. If only it were easier to meter sunlight...

The peace sign (☮) originally stood for Nuclear Disarmament, but now it's just another logo to adorn kids sneakers to give them an illusion of social conscience. We're out of the ABM treaty by presidential fiat and the Doomsday Clock shows 5 minutes to go. I hope you all remember to practice your duck and cover drills.

I've visited Bhutan, the most striking memory were kids from the mountains watching Indian tv broadcasts of soap operas and commercials. I completely understand why the king would want to ban television, but you can't jam the airwaves and the sets are cheap and already there.

At Bangkok airport we saw Bhutanese returning home with gigantic plasma displays on their luggage carts. I hope they're able to hold onto the best parts of their culture as the country is thrust into the modern world.

shiny toy guns

Yeah, I think the world will end with a whimper, then a bang.

Astronomer: whimper
Asteroid: BANG!

Having a collective undersea lair would help us weather the inevitable storm. I bet I'm not the first person to have this idea. I wonder how far along the secret colonization of the ocean floor has progressed.

Any speculations?

I used to think that humanities best chance of long term survival is to spread across multiple planets and moons. That's probably still true, but our best bet for short term survival is to colonize the ocean.

A self sufficient undersea colony could survive the destruction of the atmosphere brought on by a large meteor strike.