As I read today's newspaper, several news articles seemed to fit together like the opening scenes in a screenplay about a dystopian society. Amidst the anguish of the shootings at Virginia Tech and the Dow reaching a record high, most of these headlines do not need much comment or explanation.

Vatican panel condemns limbo to eternal dustbin: An advisory study, approved by the pope, concludes that unbaptized babies may go to heaven after all. The editor obviously had some fun with the first portion of that headline. What progress! How pathetic! I could not even read the article it seemed so silly and out of touch.

Toxic slag pile adjacent to wetlands is stabilized. I lived near this aluminum and magnesium smelting plant while it was operational 20 years ago. It was already obvious what a mess they had made during the previous 20 years and yet it continued for another 20 years. How could it take so long to stop them? They finally declared bankruptcy as the owners tried to secretly shift money to another company in the southern part of the country.

Alleged saboteur of power grid gained access despite warning. This is the stuff of science fiction. The general public is unaware of how delicate the electrical grid is. Although he crashed computers used to communicate with the power market by pushing an emergency shut-off switch, blackouts and disruptions were avoided since it did not happen during hours of peak demand such as a summer afternoon. "Twenty computer technicians worked for seven hours to restore the system." (Emphasis mine.)

Blackberry maker says software caused blackout. This was not sabotage, just "a minor software upgrade." "Grumbles were heard at the highest levels of business and government, including the White House and the Canadian Parliament." "The failed upgrade apparently set off a domino effect of glitches, which the company referred to as "a compounding series of interaction errors between the system's operational database and cache."" Although we joke about 'Crackberry' Addiction, look at how far reaching the use of this technology is and the impact when it fails.

Google's data-storing features fuels privacy fears. This voluntary Web History service debut came "as privacy advocates continued to raise alarms about the prospect of Google combining its collection of information on individuals with that of DoubleClick, Inc. ...which distributes Web ads and tracks where the majority of people go on the Internet." Google previously purchased Blogspot and so hosts this blog. You are being watched right now.

Is that enough to set the scene? This is not how I see the world or the future. Also newspapers always report the bad news since it is more interesting. I just found it to be a fascinating confluence.