1. The petroleum industry has known about Peak Oil since the mid-1950s when M. King Hubbert first predicted its occurrence. The industry has also known when it would happen, give or take a few years. My father, who made his career in the oil refining business, discussed Peak Oil at the family dinner table in the mid-1960s. The high prices and record profits for petroleum products are the industry's way of cashing in on the last big oil bonanza before the whole business goes bust.

2. Petroleum is not just about driving your car on the highway...it IS the highway, which is made of asphalt.

3. Probably 5 out of 6 people alive in the world today are here because of the bounty we have enjoyed due to using petroleum as a resource to plow, plant, fertilize, irrigated, cultivate, harvest, process, and distribute food. In the days when agriculture depended on real "horse power", a third of the acreage under cultivation was devoted to raising grain and fodder for the horses. When the oil bounty is exhausted, a substantial portion of the world's population will of necessity expire.

4. A crash program to convert to a low and post petroleum infrastructure is critical to the survival of the nation. Population reduction through attrition needs to be a social priority.

5. It's time for the human species to start planning its future in light of what science has revealed about deep time. We no longer live in a medieval world that is 6000 years old and will pass away through divine intervention in the next millennium. We know enough now about the Earth's life-sustaining mechanisms to work with them rather than against them.

Of the cancer of neocon corporate fascism in American politics. Guantanamo is the pilot program for a plan involving the indefinite detention of much larger groups of people. Halliburton was given a contract for over 300 million dollars a couple of years ago to build more detention centers. The modus operandi of the neocons is to maintain a surface appearance of legality, while secretly or semi-secretly pursuing their ends by criminal means. And these people are criminals, in both the ethical and legal senses of the word. Yet because they operate through government offices, using government resources, and are able to orchestrate their propaganda through mainstream media, the American people are lulled into either supporting them or giving them a pass.

So many violations of the Constitution and moral outrages have been perpetrated by the Bush Administration over the last seven years, with so little discomfort or protest from the public, that I despair sometimes of America ever being able to reclaim its reputation as a land of liberty and justice.

The superdelegate system was originated on behalf of the (un)Democratic Party's elite power holders, who value acquisition and retention of political power above all else. The will of the people as expressed in the primary elections is at least secondary to the installation of members of this elite into public office. The exercise of power is the main trip. (Yes, it does sound Orwellian!) The (un)Democratic Party could start to attract this apostate former member back into loyalty by junking the superdelegate outrage and trusting to the will of the people, as it did in its former days of glory.

And what an economic stimulus that would be! Think of it, the whole federal budget, not just 9% of it, being borrowed from China and Japan! Whoohoo, let the good times roll! Sounds like a plan! Since we're voyaging on the Titanic, so let's party hardy! And when crude hits $240 a barrel and gas is $8.00 a gallon a year from now, we can start sell off the country a state at a time to keep with the beat. Please, we a national priority list of disposable states. Maybe Senators Clinton and McCain could help develop one. The Canadians may be interested in buying North Dakota, which wouldn't be much of a loss, as American seem to moving out in droves anyway. Alaska could be sold back to the Russians at a substantial profit. Many in Vermont (or is it New Hampshire?) want to secede, so let'em...for a price. Mexico wants Arizona, the Spaniard may want Florida...but I say we keep the sun-belt states for last.

Sure, so far what we have seen is fairly typical of a business downturn: an upswing in unemployment and a downswing on return on capital investments. But this time, conditions ARE different. The lifeblood of the world's economy, petroleum, has reached its peak rate of extraction, and, while populations and demand increases, the supply will dwindle over the next few decades. The prognosis for the next five or six years is one of economic stagnation, beyond which all bets are off as we race down the steepest part of the petroleum supply downturn. Holding together an orderly society and minimizing suffering will be the greatest challenge.

Yes, I do blame Bush/Cheney for this, in part, because they have been fully aware of the problem since the late 1990's and kept abreast of Peak Oil developments in consultation with Republican Representative Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland, and have done nothing to mitigate it. For more information search Richard C. Duncan's Olduvai Theory.