Olympic Inspiration for Peace

The world has again witnessed two weeks of extraordinary beauty and talent by young athletes gathered from throughout the world. The athletes met in Beijing for the XXIXth Olympic Games of modern times and competed on a global stage. They inspired me and I believe they must have inspired billions of human beings in every part of the world by the amazing feats of speed, strength, agility and teamwork of which we humans are capable.

Warning to Obama on the New Cold War

Barack Obama and the Democrats are heading towards trouble in November because of a new cold war with the Russians triggered largely by a top John McCain adviser and the same neoconservative clique who fabricated evidence to lobby for the Iraq war.

This is not a conspiracy theory but a conspiracy fact, stated as boldly as possible before it is too late.

Land and Freedom

For the past 60 days or so, since about the end of June, the people of Kashmir have been free. Free in the most profound sense. They have shrugged off the terror of living their lives in the gun-sights of half a million heavily armed soldiers, in the most densely militarised zone in the world.

Predator and Prey

Bad bear!

Within the false outrage coursing through much of mainstream politics and the media, there is a grudging reverence for the brutality of the latest world crisis, if evinced only in the satisfaction that America has found its next enemy. Cold War sentiments stir in their hibernation, the McCain campaign has a bete noir to rail at more ferocious than Paris Hilton, and God's in his heaven once again.

San Francisco to Vote on Iraq War Funding

On November 4, San Franciscans will vote on the strongest anti-Iraq War measure yet to appear before the voters of a major American city. Proposition U, placed on the ballot by five of the city's Board of Supervisors, declares it city policy that "its elected representatives in the United States Senate and House of Representatives should vote against any further funding for the deployment of United States Armed Forces in Iraq, with the exception of funds specifically earmarked to provide for their safe and orderly withdrawal."

Apocalypse Later

Being a futurologist means never having to say you're sorry. Our predictions always come true eventually -- or, if they don't, well, how quickly people forget. Look at Newsweek's George Will. He predicted that the Berlin Wall would endure, and in an article published on the very day in 1989 that the Germans were tearing it down. That should have been enough to revoke his futurology license and demote him to sports writing. But no, almost three decades later he's still peering into his crystal ball.

Never apologize, never look back: that's our motto.