(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

The good news:
I most definitely never will get prostate cancer.

The bad news:
North Korea shoots across the DMZ, getting uppity as the anniversary of the “end” of the Korean War nears and well-respected experts on the issue say Bush and friends have totally fudged the situation.

The ugly news:
Extremely moving pre-deployment interview with a U.S. Marine who loved his country, loved the Constitution and loved peace – so much so that he coordinated anti-war rallies behind the scenes – who recently died in Iraq.

“Consequently our age is one of frustration, anxiety, agitation and addiction to ‘dope.’ Somehow we must grab what we can while we can, and drown out the realization that the whole thing is futile and meaningless. This ‘dope’ we call our high standard of living, a violent and complex stimulation of the senses, which makes them progressively less sensitive and thus in need of yet more violent stimulation. We crave distraction – a panorama of sights, sounds, thrills and titillations into which as much as possible must be crowded in the shortest possible time.

“To keep up with this ‘standard’ most of us are willing to put up with lives that consist largely in doing jobs that are a bore, earning the means to seek relief from that tedium by intervals of hectic and expensive pleasure. These intervals are supposed to be the real living, the real purpose served by the necessary evil of work.”

… Alan Watts

Talk about total information awareness …

Reports AP: The Pentagon is developing an urban surveillance system that would use computers and thousands of cameras to track, record and analyze the movement of every vehicle in a foreign city.

It’s being touted as “Combat Zones That See,” a really neat-O way to keep track of bad people in dangerous foreign cities and protect U.S. troops doing duty in said cities. John Pike from GlobalSecurity hits the nail on the head with this quote:

“Once DARPA demonstrates that it can be done,” Pike said, “a number of companies would likely develop their own version in hope of getting contracts from local police, nuclear plant security, shopping centers, even people looking for deadbeat dads.”

In the long-ago words of Nu Shooz … “I-I-I can’t wait!”