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I know this is somewhat off-topic, but I was a big supporter of the whole micro-finance thing at one time myself. Sounds like a great idea and all, right? But then I saw former micro-financier Hugh Sinclair's BookTv segment and read his book and it opened my eyes to how much of this micro-finance fad has become a feeding ground for scammers, con men, and other vultures in the countries they're ostensibly supposed to be helping--and how much corruption there is in many of these "charitable" non-profits and financiers that sell the idea of micro-finance to well-meaning supporters.

Again, I know it's not directly related to the hack. But every time micro-finance comes up, I like to point out this info--since the vast majority of people still think of the subject in very naive and rosy terms, oblivious to the deep corruption that has become so pervasive in its execution.

And there you've hit upon the main problem with Kurzweil's campaign - he goes around screaming about how this is absolutely destined to happen, with a lot of argument about why, and how great it will be, and all that. But if he's right, who cares? We'll be there, too, and fantasizing about it for 30 years beforehand won't make a shred of difference if it's as inevitable as he claims.

Well, it's useful (and profitable) to know what's going to happen in the future. Kurzweil for instance brought to market a reader for the blind (knfbreader.com) before anyone even started working on one. He predicted that the hardware for such a device would be available in 4 years and that it would also take about 4 years to write the software. So, his company was writing the software for 4 years in the faith that the hardware would be available when they were done. It was. Other companies just got started working on the software when he already had a finished shipping product . C-SPAN's BookTV did an in-depth (3 hours) interview with him recently where he talks about this: http://www.booktv.org/ram/feature/1106/arc_btv110506_4.ram

If you consider that a bitch-slapping, you should watch the debate on the Iraq war between Christopher Hitchens and Galloway. Hitchens not only bitchslapped Galloway, he completely took him apart. All Galloway could respond with were ad hominem personal attacks having nothing to do with the substance of Hitchens' statements.. It was the most one-sided bitchslapping I've ever seen.

FYI if anybody's interested, go here for the Franken-O'Reilly bookTV bit.

Also, it's not usually scientific, but there's educational, and sometimes interesting, video at C-SPAN / BookTV, but their archive doesn't go back very far.

I saw part of this three-hour interview on c-span. Clancy said (SURPRISE!) that he actually gets his story ideas from the news. So, the answer is no. ;)