Last year, Evergreen Solar of Massachusetts looked to be on the forefront of an energy revolution, in which domestically manufactured solar panels would bring new power options to domestic consumers.

Instead, the company became another in a long line of manufacturing defeats, when company officials announced that despite receiving $58 million in federal subsidies, they were laying off 800 workers and outsourcing their manufacturing to China. There, even bigger subsides have driven the cost of solar panels so low that Evergreen can’t compete. Similar policies are slowing the development of American wind turbine and battery industries, which would be the cornerstones of an alternative energy economy here.

It has been called “the most sophisticated cyberweapon ever created,” and new reports coming out about the Stuxnet virus say that although it didn’t stop Iran’s efforts to build a nuclear weapon, it may have set back progress by several years, buying valuable time to halt the program without using military force.

Even more interesting, the virus is now said to have been a joint production of both U.S. and Israeli security agencies. The United States reportedly contributed knowledge of the vulnerabilities of the Siemens computers used by Iran, and Israel tested the virus on the centrifuges it uses to enrich uranium to produce its own substantial nuclear arsenal.

Whether these reports are confirmed or not, there seems little question that the virus has given Iran’s nuclear production program fits. According to descriptions of its effects, the virus not only caused nearly a thousand Iranian centrifuges to self-destruct, it sent false messages of normal operations to controllers so they wouldn’t interfere until the virus had done the maximum amout of damage.

President Obama said what needed to be said Wednesday night at a service for the slain and injured of the Tucson, Ariz., shooting rampage.

“At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized — at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do — it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”