• New Scientist magazine on 13 Things that Do Not Make Sense.  This is a fascinating article compiling a list of thirteen apparent anomalies in our understanding of physics, chemistry, and cosmology.  The author does a good job, I think, of reporting the anomalies without much editorializing, and certainly with no fanciful forays into non-scientific speculation.  The most important thing to take away from this article, I think, is the fact that even though science has come a very long way in the past century, there’s still a lot that we just don’t understand.

• Pure Energy Systems News on Milestones and Trends in Renewable Energy — 2005 and 2006.  Again, fairly interesting stuff to consider.  We’ve got a ways to go before any of the renewable energy systems proposed form a truly viable alternative to the systems we have in place now (if only because fossil fuel energy production systems are so deeply entrenched in our economy), but there are certainly some very promising ideas out there.

One thing I found really interesting was the fact that cold fusion is mentioned in each article.  Despite the dubious results from Fleischmann and Pons sixteen years ago and the the near unanimous declaration that cold fusion was just “bad science” and probably impossible according to the laws of physics, there appears to be some serious academic interest in it again: enough so that MIT allowed a cold fusion colloquium to take place in its buildings.  I don’t know enough about the physics involved to declare myself whether cold fusion is or is not possible, but the idea and its implications are certainly exciting.

On another note, I have decided that this year I’m going to reduce my political commentary to an absolute minimum.  I’m not usually one for new year’s resolutions, but this one’s been coming for awile anyway.  What finally clinched it for me were Monty Python and the Marx Brothers.

Last year, my wife gave to me a DVD collection of the entire Monty Python’s Flying Circus television series.  I was watching some of the discs recently, and saw a sketch dating from 1971 about a group of little old ladies in London who had taken upon themselves the task of enforcing morality in Britain.  This they did by running around the streets and beating up with their purses anyone who was, in their view, immoral.  The “culture wars” which, some insist, are taking place in our society today, are really nothing new.  They’ve been going on since forever, and they’re not unique to American society.  I don’t see it changing anytime soon.  It’s not worth commenting on, therefore, and not worth getting myself upset about.  Sure, I think it’s tragic that conservative groups have managed to gather enough signatures to make a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in Massachusetts.  And I find any group going on about “traditional family values” frankly ludicrous, worthy of mockery by Monty Python.  And I find it appalling that Pat Robertson and his “700 Club” are broadcast on the Family Channel (if anyone demonstrates the paucity of Christian charity in what passes for Christianity in popular culture these days, it is this man).  But these guys have been around forever.  They won’t go away.  The trick, then, is to not listen to them, and to not let them infect your own reasoning abilities.  I can’t afford to let them upset me.  That’s giving in.

The Marx Brothers are responsible for my increased cynicism regarding politics.  For Christmas this year, my parents gave me a collection of Marx Brothers movies, and last week I watched that timeless classic, Duck Soup.  It may be different, stylistically, from the comedy that we’re used to in our modern culture: instead of the ultra-paced bam-bam-bam comedy that we’re used to these days, Duck Soup was largely just Groucho Marx standing around making wisecracks at unwitting victims.  Brilliant wisecracks, filled with double entendre and other layers of meaning, of course, but the delivery is different.  You can’t help loving Groucho.

But anyway.  Duck Soup is essentially political satire, striking at the political leaders and forces that act arbitrarily, without reason or considered thought.  The message of that film is as timeless today as it was in 1933, if not more so.  The temptation to draw a comparison between George W. Bush and Rufus T. Firefly is almost overwhelming; however, that would mean I’d be comparing Groucho Marx to Bush — who has neither the wit, the intelligence, nor the panache that Marx had.

Ultimately, what it all boils down to is, as the great sage (whoever it was) once said, “At times like these it helps to remember that there have always been times like these”.  The same arbitrary and reactionary forces that were mocked by the Marx Brothers in 1933 and by Monty Python in 1971 are still with us today in 2006.  I wondered the other night whether there have been any honest and beneficial political innovations in the past two hundred years at all?

Looking at all this in context, though, I feel like there is actually good cause to be optimistic about our society’s future.  We’ve certainly become more tolerant of the cultural and religious diversity in our society over the past century, and despite the (somewhat successful) reactionary efforts of the so-called right, I don’t see this trend reversing itself.

But I digress.  the main thing I was trying to get across is that I’m planning on cutting back on my political rants, because I’m going to try to cut back on how upset I get about what happens in politics and our culture.  The reactionary and arbitrary forces that drive much of politics have been there forever and will be there forever.  So I’m planning to focus my news reading on the signs and forces that are moving our society forward, instead of holding us back.

It might work.  I dunno.  I guess the real test will be in November 2006, won’t it?