Potpourri VI

More reading for today.

Some interesting assorted sites about technology:

• Ars Technica
• The Technology Liberation Front
• The Electronic Frontier Foundation
• A Green Anarchist (and neo-Luddite) site
• iRobot
• And if you didn't read the Kurzweil interview, "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us" is seriously worth reading...it's a hardheaded look at the risks of genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics.

A couple of links from my buddy Down Yonder, Scott:

• A cultural think tank from New Zealand, the Maxim Institute.
• Access to Energy, a "pro-science, pro-technology, pro-free enterprise monthly newsletter."

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On a completely different note, a couple weeks ago I was talking to a couple ladies I know, and they were telling me about their bowling team. They are not the best bowlers in the world (I can relate). In fact, they laughingly admitted to losing to one guy in a wheelchair and another who is legally blind. I laughed, they laughed, and we moved on to the next topic.

Fast forward two weeks, and now the President of the United States is comparing his bowling skills to kids in the Special Olympics. Now, if he'd actually bowled one of those kids and lost, I'd probably laugh, as I laughed with my friends. It's called self-deprecating humor, and I use it myself. However, if I'm in a public forum, with millions of people watching, I'd probably find some other way of introducing levity. And if I'm President of these United States, I'd arrange to be doubly careful, not because I wouldn't think the remark funny, but because I'd have some awareness that others around me would not. Unfortunately, the teleprompter wasn't on, and Obama made the gaffe.

Instantly and predictably, the Sensitivity, Political Correctness, and Anti-Humor Police were out in force. They demanded he make an apology. In the face of the War on Humor, Obama duly provided his apology. Issue over. Time to lighten up and drop it. We've got global economic problems and serious security issues facing us, and people are freaking out over the president making a stupid remark on a TALK SHOW? And by the way, what's he DOING on the show, anyway? Doesn't he have something better to do?

Anybody ever wonder what happened to gravitas?