"The western world is in the midst of a catastrophe of demographics caused by insufficient breeding."

Population growth, and its corollary consumption growth, will probably end civilization as we know it within 100 years. Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_Gas:_The_End_of_the_Age_of_Oil

It seems to me that the only sane response is to look for new/alternative sources of energy and, at the same time, re-engineer society to that it doesn't rely on growth for its stability.

Of course the human race will survive the end of civilization. But that is not very interesting.

One comment I heard in a news article is "people don't have handles." If a cop touches somebody he or she may injure them (or get injured). I'm not a cop but I am quite sure that when a cop arrests somebody, the ideal is that the arrested puts out their hands for the cuffs, stands quietly while being Mirandized, and then walks of their own accord to the squad car. Anything departing from this script is a problem.

Notice that there is still lots of room for non-violent protest and civil disobedience inside of that script. If you and 1,000 others get peacefully arrested at the same time then the cops are going to have to think deeply about what they are doing and for who...

Yes and no. I read comments from a retired police officer saying "People don't have handles." He went on to say if you pick somebody up there is a greater chance of injury than using pepper spray.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander. You got a reference for those figures?

The prize is that you die of old age first.

I'd guess typesetting costs per page and admin overhead. Coordination of author, editor, referee, typesetter is not free.

This is basically correct - in mathematics (my field) referees and academic editors work for free. However, the journals do provide services: coordination, typesetting, and archiving come to mind. How much these services are worth is another story. The fact that high quality, low cost journals can spring into existence (eg Geometry and Topology) suggests that journals are overpriced.

"Dust"? Paper, as a means of communication, is more stable than any digital formats. I can read books published in the 1980's. I can't read any of those 5 1/4 inch floppies (or the 3 1/2 inch ones, or the zip drives...). Digital formats must be maintained regularly -- paper can be left on a shelf. Nicholson Baker's book "Double Fold" gives a detailed analysis of this "books turning into dust" meme, as introduced by Patricia Battin, an administrator deeply in favor of microfilm and digitization.

First, I want to point out that line dancing and merge sort are clearly made for each other. Second, I just realized that bubble sort with n processors is linear time, right? It might also make for a more interesting dance, seeing all adjacent pairs do the little move at the same time... Or would that be too busy?

More like 10 out of 120 total members. Check out http://www.knesset.gov.il/mk/eng/mkindex_current_eng.asp

If the spammers create an AI that fully replicates human intelligence then hopefully the first thing the AI will do is turn their spammy creators over to the police.

Do you have strong examples you can point to?

I don't see Pollen as a Luddite but more as a person urging caution about the most modern of food choices, say corn syrup and twinkies. Anyway, I found him to be an interesting, accessible, writer.