Good News Day

Scott Adams, the man behind Dilbert, recently wrote a Good News Day post. Although I get Dilbert delivered to my inbox daily, I don't follow Adams' blog, so I didn't know about this until it was highlighted at Carpe Diem. Adams lists 17 reasons to be optimistic, and although I don't agree that all of his reasons are necessarily good and/or true (Social Security, for example), it's still an awesome list, and I'm really happy to see it. There are also lots more awesome reasons to be optimistic in the comments. Some highlights:

Energy: Amazingly, some say the United States is well on its way to being energy self-sufficient, thanks in part to huge new oil fields in North Dakota and hundreds of other developments in conservation and green energy. One good example is a recent discovery that the United States has far more geothermal potential than anyone predicted.

Cars: Gas mileage is better, safety is better every year, and GPS navigation is simply awesome.

Terrorists: Bin Laden is dead and so are dozens of his commanders. Al Qaeda has probably never been weaker.

Kids: I read somewhere that the IQ of kids has increased so much that we have to continuously adjust what qualifies as the "average" score of 100. An average kid in 2011 is a relative genius compared to an average kid a few decades ago.

Communication: We're all lucky to be alive in the age of the Internet.