Speaking of Charles Krauthammer, the ubiquitous Washington Post columnist has a far-out piece today that’s worth a read.  It argues, disconcertingly, that all intelligent life in the universe, save us, may have annihilated itself.  The reason?  Reason itself.

The neo-conservative Pulitzer Prize winner surmises:

…This silent universe is conveying not a flattering lesson about our uniqueness but a tragic story about our destiny. It is telling us that intelligence may be the most cursed faculty in the entire universe — an endowment not just ultimately fatal but, on the scale of cosmic time, nearly instantly so.

This is not mere theory. Look around. On the very day that astronomers rejoiced at the discovery of the two Earth-size planets, the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity urged two leading scientific journals not to publish details of lab experiments that had created a lethal and highly transmittable form of bird flu virus, lest that fateful knowledge fall into the wrong hands.

Wrong hands, human hands. This is not just the age of holy terror but also the threshold of an age of hyper-proliferation. Nuclear weapons in the hands of half-mad tyrants (North Korea) and radical apocalypticists (Iran) are only the beginning. Lethal biologic agents may soon find their way into the hands of those for whom genocidal pandemics loosed upon infidels are the royal road to redemption.

Mr. Krauthammer’s cosmic column is a welcome break from the mundane jockeying stories about the Iowa GOP caucuses, even if it implies our imminent demise. Anything is better than another day of poll watching.