Long Game

Venezuela is not at that break point, but the red line is clearly in sight. Isolated protests across the country have broken out over the blackouts and could spread as the situation deteriorates. Meanwhile, political challengers to Chavez, such as Lara state Gov. Henri Falcon, appear to be sensing an opportunity and are positioning themselves for a potential break from within the regime. The stakes are high in this electricity crisis, and without a clear short-term resolution in sight, the proven resilience of the Chavez government will undergo a serious test in the coming weeks.

Israel: The Tuesday meeting scheduled to take place in Washington between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will occur when American-Israeli relations are at one of the lowest points they have been in years, perhaps decades.

Russia: One country that has been delighted to read about the United States’ problems with China and Iran is Russia. It has seized the opportunity to operate in its near abroad and continue upon its mission of resurging into the former Soviet periphery.

Possibly seeking to exploit the growing rift between the United States and Israel are the Palestinians, Iranians and Hezbollah.

China: The recent tensions between the United States and China could possibly flare into a full-blown trade war in the coming months.

Now, a study in this week’s PNAS reinforces that even those geoengineering schemes that have a history of scientific testing can still have surprising consequences.

If some consensus is reached by the individuals at Asilomar, then the early spring of 2010 may be seen in hindsight as the time when, for better or worse, humanity decided to truly embrace or reject the Anthropocene—and all its chilling, sublime implications. Amid the inevitable theatrics next week, both sides would do well to pause and remember that.

So far, the possibility of allowing U.S. personnel to actually operate on the ground in Mexico has been completely out of the question. Mexican politicians and civilians alike reject the idea as a direct violation of Mexico’s sovereignty, and the Mexican government has refused to budge from this position. Nevertheless, embedding U.S. intelligence analysts and operatives in the Juarez intelligence center suggests there may be some room to maneuver on this issue.

Turkey has alienated its longstanding ally Azerbaijan due to its ongoing talks over normalizing ties with Armenia.

Before Turkey can successfully woo Azerbaijan, however, it will have to deal with Russia.

Azerbaijan is likely to continue using the Shah Deniz project to balance its two main suitors despite Turkey’s best efforts to tie the knot.

Something is clearly happening with Hamas as well.

Orthodox Objectivism is one of the most purest ideologies on the current scene. Yet this very purity condemns Objectivism to obscurity and political impotence.

Because of this ideological purity, Objectivists have no effective political will and therefore no sense of responsibility. They can advocate any measure, make any claim, without ever worrying about empirical refutation. Empirical testing, when possible, is always the best way to check the truth of any idea, political or otherwise. When such testing is not possible, the human fancy can reach any conclusion it pleases, without fear of contradiction or embarrassment. This is one reason why fringe political groups with no power often believe the strangest things: they never have to worry about reality refuting their whacky ideas, because those ideas will never be tested.

Glenn Beck’s show, despite its apocalyptic trappings, is as touchy-feely a show as there is. Nobody on cable news cries as much, emotes as extravagantly, or leans as heavily on the vocabulary of personal betterment. In fact, it’s hard to imagine another talk-show host more in need of a resident mental-health professional.

It's such an icky boomer-like exercise, obsessing over your own demise," a pal told Shafer back in 2005, when he surveyed some of his younger friends about the potential signs of a coming cultural rebellion. True. And boomer self-satisfaction is such that we will probably have to pry the mic stand out of Mick Jagger's sinewy, scarf-draped hands before passing it to a younger generation.

Mr. Rushdie started using a computer only when the Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa drove him underground. “My writing has got tighter and more concise because I no longer have to perform the mechanical act of re-typing endlessly,” he explained during an interview while in hiding. “And all the time that was taken up by that mechanical act is freed to think.”

At the Emory exhibition, visitors can log onto a computer and see the screen that Mr. Rushdie saw, search his file folders as he did, and find out what applications he used. (Mac Stickies were a favorite.) They can call up an early draft of Mr. Rushdie’s 1999 novel, “The Ground Beneath Her Feet,” and edit a sentence or post an editorial comment.

To the Emory team, simulating the author’s electronic universe is equivalent to making a reproduction of the desk, chair, fountain pen and paper that, say, Charles Dickens used, and then allowing visitors to sit and scribble notes on a copy of an early version of “Bleak House.”

The heart of the lab is the Forensic Recovery of Evidence Device, nicknamed FRED, which enables archivists to dig out data, bit by bit, from current and antiquated floppies, CDs, DVDs, hard drives, computer tapes and flash memories, while protecting the files from corruption.

OpenHydro, a large underwater turbine resembling a jet engine and bolted to the sea floor, is built by Cantick Head Tidal and will harness the firth's fierce tides at a 200MW site south of Orkney.

The devices deployed will include the Pelamis "sea snake", which uses the undulations of the sea surface to generate power, and the SeaGen tidal machine, which looks like an underwater wind turbine. In total, the machines will be able to produce up to 1.2GW of "green" energy, more than Dungeness B nuclear station in Kent.

The narrow sea channel has some of the most powerful currents and tidal surges in the world, with speeds up to 16 knots or 19mph recorded. The area also experiences some of the biggest waves in the UK.