2016 Failed Predictions; The Plausible ICBM; Attack Without Returns; The Peaceful UN Chief; Ok, Maybe Russia Didn't Do It; CA Exodus; Enabling Promiscuity; The 12-Sided Pound; Bank Oversight; White-Collar AI; Self-Assembled Complexity; and Mars Igloos

End of the World

7 Dumb Predictions For 2016 That Didn't Happen forbes

We broke a lot of new ground in 2016, and whether you think that path is leading us off a cliff or onward to newfound glory, hopefully we can at least agree that it's finally over. Before we start looking forward to 2017 and making all sorts of ridiculous predictions that probably won't come true, let's look back at what some of the more outlandish prognosticating charlatans saw in their crystal balls for the year now ending.

Added as a reminder that Jesus said that the Father alone knows the hour it all ends (Mark 13:32) and that until His final judgement, things will continue on continuing on (Gen 8:22).

Marriage-less State; Minimum Bandwagon; Rupee Lost; Money Thumb; Lingering Israeli Support; and Underwater Archaeology

Society

A lawmaker's solution for marriage debate: Remove the state host.madison

His bill, filed ahead of the 2017 legislative session, would make Missouri the first state to recognize only domestic unions for both heterosexual and gay couples, treating legal partnerships equally and leaving marriages to be done by pastors and other religious leaders.

Other states including Alabama, Indiana and Michigan failed to pass similar bills to limit the government's role in marriage, and Oklahoma representatives passed a bill that didn't make it out of the Senate.

$10.50/hr; Missile Fired at China - Accidentally; Israel Charging for Terror; Qualitative Edge for a Price; NC Hangs onto (Most of) Original Law; Brainless Consciousness; July 4th - Jupiter; and Underwater Drones

Minimum Wage

Minimum wage goes up in City of LA, unincorporated areas of LA County asianjournal

The minimum wage in the City of Los Angeles and unincorporated areas of LA County is now $10.50 an hour. The city and county join the District of Columbia and 12 other cities, states and counties that boosted the hourly pay rates on Friday, July 1.

If they keep this up, soon I'll be making minimum wage :)

Killing HIV; Most Realistic Skin; Subsidized Assisted Suicide in CA; Tumbleweeds!; UN Censors Israel; Jobs AI Has Its 'I' on; Trust me Dave; Chainsaw Drone; Mars in 2030; Abortion Poles; Min Wage Tide Swells in CA; and Gideon Bible or Satanic Activity Book?

Medical

Cure for HIV possible within three years as scientists snip virus from cells  telegraph.co.uk

Although the experiments have so far only been carried out in a lab, researchers at Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, are confident that within three years they will be able to start trials on humans.

Promising lab-grown skin sprouts hair and grows glands bbc

This would be vastly superior to the culturing and grafting techniques that are currently available, which produce skin without many of the the biological components and functionality that we are used to.

Suicide

Californians Can Choose to Die – With the Help of Taxpayers usnews

“When you’re willing to legalize the intentional killing of patients in order to save Medi-Cal money, there’s something a little bit utilitarian about that,” he says. “We have a law that isn’t really designed for those we care for, but for those we don’t wish to care for anymore, that’s why Medi-Cal is paying for this.”

Subjected to Futility

New Invasive Tumble Weed Rapidly Expanding Across U.S. natureworldreport

The plant in question is actually a hybridization of two invasive species of tumbleweeds, creating a sort of “super” tumbleweed. Called “Salsola ryanii”, the species was first discovered in 2002 in two separate areas of California’s central valley. The species has since spread throughout much of the central valley and has even been found in San Francisco, in the coastal areas, and also in the Ventura area in the south.

See also New tumbleweed species rapidly expanding range

Israel

UN censors exhibit on Israel at NY headquarters, Israeli diplomat says jta.org

Three of the 13 panels in the exhibition “Israel Matters,” had to be deleted, the U.N. reportedly decided over the weekend. The censored panels deemed “inappropriate” are on the subjects of Zionism, Jerusalem and Arab-Israelis.

See also UN censors Israeli exhibition featuring Zionism and Jerusalem

AI

This infographic shows which jobs are most likely to become extinct due to robots businessinsider

While many of those robots will be used in the automotive and electronics sectors, there are many other roles that robots will be filling in the future. Surprisingly, according to global consultant McKinsey & Co, not all of these jobs are low-skill, low-wage jobs, either.

Can we trust robots to make moral decisions? qz

“The issues of morality in general are very vague,” says Ronald Arkin, professor and director of the mobile robot laboratory at Georgia Institute of Technology. “We still argue as human beings about the correct moral framework we should use, whether it’s a consequentialist utilitarian means-justify-the-ends approach, or a Kantian deontological rights-based approach.”

There are clearly some difficult moral choices, so my intention is not to marginalize those. However, not only does this article show mankind trying to inject a form of morality into its creation, but that by and large society has rejected the absolute morality of our Creator, and as a result only has a nebulous, arbituary, relative understanding of morality to start with.

Drones

Flying Nightmare: Drone Gets Armed With Chainsaw sputniknews

Basically a video "article"

Space

NASA's Bolden: Mars mission is 'closer than ever' cnbc

We think we're on the right trajectory to get humans to Mars in the 2030's," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told CNBC's "On the Money" in an interview this week.

Includes interview video

Abortion

Poles protest possibility of total ban on abortion philly

Thousands of Poles took part in street demonstrations on Sunday to protest a possible tightening of the country's abortion law, already one of the most restrictive in Europe.

Minimum Wage

California, New York enact $15 minimum wages foxnews

In Los Angeles, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill into law that will lift the statewide minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022.

Together with New York, it marks the most ambitious moves yet to close the national divide between rich and poor. Experts say other states may follow, given Congress' reluctance to act despite entreaties from President Barack Obama.

See also $15 minimum wage coming to New York, Calif.

Santanism

Satanic book provided in Colorado schools coloradoan

Atheists provided pamphlets on topics like sex in the Bible, problems with the Ten Commandments and a Satanic activity book to middle and high school students in a rural Colorado district Friday, the result of a fight between Delta County schools and critics over whether it should continue to let everyone from Little League organizers to the Gideons distribute literature in schools.

Other...

World’s Longest Bridge is 102.4 Miles Long industrytap

Satellite has Gone Black-Hole; Robo-Dogs; Underwater Education; 30,000x Faster; Secret Ethics; BDS; Israel Warns Citizens in Turkey; Radar in the Sea; NK Sends Sam-Propaganda; CA Min Wage; Church of England is More Building than Church; and Immortality

Space

Japan loses track of $273 mn black hole satellite businessinsider

The ultra-high-tech "Hitomi" -- or eye -- satellite was supposed to be busy communicating from orbit by now, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said, but no one can say exactly where it is.

Tech

Robo-dogs to the rescue phys.org

Scientists in Japan have developed a system using information technology to augment and enhance the capabilities of canine search and rescue (SAR) teams. Outfitted with special suits, these cyber-enhanced SAR dogs can transmit information about disaster sites and victims to their handlers and rescue workers.

'Robo-Dog' makes it sound so sci-fi. Actually, more like 'well-equipped rescue dog'. Includes a video (nausea warning!)

Students to follow robotics industry beneath the waves washingtontimes

The competition is representative of the growing presence of robotics in industrial applications and for scientific research.

AI

IBM unveils concept for new chip that can speed up AI training by a whopping 30,000x hardwarezone

Researchers at IBM have released a paper featuring a new concept they invented for a chip called a Resistive Processing Unit (RPU). This RPU is supposedly a huge boon to current efforts to train deep neural networks – it is capable of accelerating the training by up to 30,000x compared to conventional CPUs.

The biggest mystery in AI right now is the ethics board that Google set up after buying DeepMind businessinsider

Google's artificial intelligence (AI) ethics board, established when Google acquired London AI startup DeepMind in 2014, remains one of the biggest mysteries in tech, with both Google and DeepMind refusing to reveal who sits on it.

Israel

Boycotts will disappear when Israel advances peace, EU envoy says timesofisrael

“The most effective antidote against the BDS movement is to solve the Palestinian issue. If there were no Palestinian issue, there would be no BDS movement,” Ambassador Lars Faaborg-Andersen said at a conference in Jerusalem.

To summarize the article - BDS is Israel's fault. See also: BDS is the modern form of anti-Semitism and also Analysis: Addressing BDS and its existential threat to Israel

Israel Warns Citizens To Leave Turkey ‘As Soon As Possible’ jewishbusinessnews

Israel has called on its citizens on Monday urging its citizens to leave Turkey “as soon as possible.” The Israeli government’s Counter Terrorism Bureau has raised its travel warning from Level 2 (basic concrete threat) to Level 3 (high threat).

Military

Tensions are mounting between Russia, China, and Japan in the Pacific businessinsider

Japan on Monday switched on a radar station in the East China Sea, giving it a permanent intelligence gathering post close to Taiwan and a group of islands disputed by Japan and China, drawing an angry response from Beijing.

North Korea threatens nuclear strike on DC in video thehill

The four-minute video titled “Last Chance” uses computer animation to depict a ballistic missile hitting Washington, followed by a nuclear explosion.

Business

Deal reached to boost California's minimum wage to $15 latimes

Lawmakers and labor unions have struck a tentative deal to raise the statewide minimum wage to $10.50 an hour next year and then gradually to $15, averting a costly political campaign this fall and possibly putting California at the forefront of a national movement.

Apostasy

Rejoice! Why that circus in the aisle could bring new life to your church theguardian

We Britons are famously obsessive about our heritage. Our attachment to stately homes, castles and cathedrals sometimes verges on the fanatical. And yet almost half of all the Grade I listed buildings in England are in the hands of a single organisation – the Church of England, which is mildly bemused as to what it should do with them. It has 15,700 buildings in all, compared with, say, Tesco’s 3,376 UK stores.

This article is just a rambling discussion on what the Church of England plans to do with some of their buildings, but the fact that the buildings are seen as somehow inherently spiritual is what makes this interesting. There is also an odd, off-handed comment about some people actually believing churches aren't the buildings followed by completely misrepresenting what Christians believe on that subject:

It is not a new argument, of course. Christians believe Jesus tore down a temple and rebuilt it again in three days.

Immortality

The Coming Reality of Age Reversal industrytap

Call it what you will: age manipulation, age shifting, senescence reversal, enhanced regeneration, youth inducement, rejuvenation, resurrection, or longevity medicine. By whatever name, scientists are beginning to talk about semi-immortals and even immortals. These concepts have been part of science fiction for decades and part of the human imagination from the beginning, but never part of the discourse of respected scientists. Living longer, much longer, is no longer the fantasy talk of late-night snake oil salesman.

Also see Inventor Ray Kurzweil believes we’ll be able to extend our lives ‘indefinitely’

Other...

Crew Blames Google Maps for Demolishing the Wrong House fortune

N.J. lawmaker wants fines for ‘distracted walking’ washingtonpost

The island prison off the coast of Florida you didn’t know existed holykaw