brainfood looking back

Russia was the winner of the War for Oil, so they've
learned how to turn off the gas taps and wax all petrocratic.
Unfortunately they're run by a tiny Czarist-style
clique of spooky Rasputin radioactive poison fanatics,
so when their shadow crosses the global landscape
everybody crosses their fingers and shies away.
Luckily, a surprising number of guys they managed
to poison, ambush and shoot were Chechen warlords,
so their personal Islamic crisis is on the back burner.

*Castro got sick, but Chavez is the new Castro and
he's got megatons of oil. Chavez could do whatever he wants,
but he's not very bright and he likes the look of his
own face in the mirror better than any sight in the world.
History will likely judge that Castro and even Bolivar
get much the same assessment.

-- Bruce Sterling on 2006 and 2007

Read the comments. The comments are great... Sterling is a visionary and a great fucking writer e.g.

"It's gonna take a tremendous amount of money to fix a soiled planetary atmosphere. There's never been a state-sponsored project that size. Not even close. It makes the Hoover Dam look like a cork."

Dave wants me to write tech; Bek doesn't. Who should I listen to?