Drift Deck Joker Bruce Sterling, originally uploaded by JulianBleecker.

Is beginning on The Well:

“I always knew the “War on Terror” bubble would go. It’s gone. Nobody
misses it. It got no burial. I knes was gonna be replaced by another
development that seemed much more burningly urgent than terror Terror
TERROR, but I had a hard time figuring out what vast, abject fright
that might be.

Now I know. Welcome to 2009!

What I now currently wonder is: what kind of OTHER development makes
us stop maundering about liquidity issues? You know what’s truly weird
about any financial crisis? WE MADE IT UP. Currency, money, finance,
they’re all social inventions. When the sun comes up in the morning
it’s shining on the same physical landscape, all the atoms are in
place. It’s not merciless enemies would blow themselves up in order to
bleed on our shoes… oh wait. They are. Well, it’s not like the
icecaps are melting.

Oh wait. The icecaps ARE melting. Okay, maybe I’ll start over next
post.”

Happy new year…