The Bad News: Economy Shrinkage, Robot Overlords and Man-eating Mice!

Economy Suffers Continued Shrinkage! Apparently, there are "piggy bank half-full" economists, and "piggy bank half-empty" economists. Clearly, it's a safer bet to listen to the bean-counters who favor negativity — the US economy shrunk more than expected in the first quarter by 6.1%. Who wants some more boot leather soup? [usatoday.com]

Meet Our Future Robot Master! Tech giant IBM seems actually proud about it's recent advancement in artificial intelligence — "Watson," a computing system designed to beat humans at the quiz game "Jeopardy." Great job, nerds. First it's "beat the humans at game." Then it's "download self into battle tank." And finally, it's "beat the humans… into goo." I've seen the documentaries. [pcmag.com]

Torture Thy Neighbor! A recent survey suggests that the more religious you are, the more likely you are to condone torture. Has this country gone down some kind of evil rabbit hole? I repeat: those people most likely to follow a religion about brotherly love and forgiveness can rationalize brotherly sadism and waterboarding. [cnn.com]

Mice Get Munchies, Make Meal Of Man! Oh, jeez. Will somebody fire somebody? Some really old war vet in an old folk's home was attacked and chewed on by multiple mice, because the institution can't arrive at a way to curtail the infestation of vermin. Horrible. Total bad news. [abc.com]