Lots, actually. Last year saw the first-ever deployment of fearless and bloodless armed robots on the ground in Iraq (three of them), and iRobot, one of the U.S. military's main suppliers of robots, just shipped the Army its 2,000th PackBot, a recon robot. The Pentagon has made a commitment of $2 billion over the next five years, so Iraqi insurgents should expect to see even more of them. Next up: A.I. that can think for itself (but hopefully won't turn on its masters)
\nWhatever Happened To… The Axis of Evil?
![]()
We took care of one point pretty handily (for now). While it's hard to say what will happen once our troops leave Iraq, that county's current incarnation has no place on the Axis. Meanwhile, after many heartfelt promises by Kim Jong Il to abandon North Korea's nuclear program, the Bush administration lifted trade sanctions on the country, and, in October, North Korea was removed from the terror watch list. So, while there is no official "Axis of Evil" list to speak of, we can assume North Korea wouldn't be on it anymore if there were, since the media took both of these actions as signs that Kim and his cronies had turned over a new, non-evil leaf. That leaves Iran-still incredibly, aggressively unfriendly, and potentially up to a lot of no good-which leaves us with a small, solitary Dot of Evil.
![]()
Remember back in the early 1990s when everyone was freaking out about the rain forests? So much so, in fact, that activists were chaining themselves to trees and Ben & Jerry's launched an ice cream to raise awareness? Guess what? It's still a problem. And according to a recent study by the World Wildlife Federation, we may be just 15 years away from the point of no return. An area the size of a football field is lost to deforestation every 10 seconds, and when that happens, the destroyed rain forests belch massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, setting off a domino effect of global warming, disrupted ocean currents, and drought. Logging, urbanization, hunting, and tourism have also contributed to the extinction of thousands of animal species a year. Time for a new ice-cream flavor.
![]()
NOW WHATFor an interactive guide to making your own home rainforest-friendly, visit archive.greenpeace.org/foresthouseMORE INFOrainforestalliance.orgPHOTO Flickr user andresfib loyaltyshopping_cartlocal_librarydelete![]()
Keep ReadingShow less
