The future is FUN! The future is FAIR! You may have already WON! You may already BE THERE!

Quick! Ask me! What's my favorite thing?
No, what's my other favorite thing?
No no, I mean, what's my other other favorite thing?

PREDICTIONS OF THE NOT-TOO-DISTANT FUTURE!

Mike Mennonno points out the Boston Glob's super Sunday special this week: a gaze into the far-flung future of 2017. This is an extra-special treat, of course, because nothing gives this change-resistant curmudgeon more joy and schadenfreude than reading earnestly optimistic predictions, written in the second person, of the Life You Will Live In The Future. You'll wake up in the morning and hop on your shower conveyor belt! Then after a quick meal of rehydrated soyoatmeal while your wife calls the grocer on the videophone to order tonight's dinner, it's off to your flying car for a quick commute to your job of watching the supercomputer and pressing the "PRESS ME" button whenever it lights up! O bliss! O heaven! O sign me up!

Sure, the Globe's predictions aren't as super space-age as all that. Predictions made 10 years out are often a bit more conservative than the Flying Cars predictions made by those looking 25, 30 years ahead. Even so, some of the Globe's prognostications are indeed corporately optimistic to the point of the ol' AT&T "YOU WILL" commercials (ever conducted a business meeting... while suffering from food poisoning?) and some seem to be inevitabilities. Others, well, aren't they already here?

( Sherman, set the Wayback Machine forward this time... )

blanket bans, no questions asked!

The Good, The B& and The Ugly
( A Western Metaphor I Think )

ah reckon y'all want some kinda context too, eh.

A few theories.

1. Warriors for Innocence is a very elaborate lj-dramaesque prank team and instead of collecting lists of who has a crush on whom this time around, this particular group of people found a way to start dropping the banhammer by spearheading a crusade to stamp out pedophiles (who could argue against that?) armed with only righteous indignation and a good sense of irony.

2. Warriors for Innocence is an actual group on a crusade to stamp out pedophiles (who could argue against that?) and they've got some nasty shit on someone at Six Apart or someone on Six Apart's legal counsel, which is why LJ caved faster than a Mexico City sinkhole on this one.

3. This along with CBS buying last.fm is, I believe, the Fifth and a Half Sign of the End Times.

4. POST 9/11 WORLD

5. This is stupid, you're stupid, I'm stupid, they're stupid, don't you see? Your stupid minds! Stupid, stupid!

6. I don't know. This is just depressing dumb.