Not all the bad news has to do with imbalances in our economic system, though these are obviously significant.

More serious is the continued growth in world human population and increasing demands for energy at a time when our ability to extract fossil fuels seems to have reached a maximum Since late 2005 extraction rates have plateaued at about 85,000,000 barrels per day. This figure has resisted any upward movement, even when former President G.W. Bush went to the Saudis begging for more. We can most likely expect a rapid decline in extraction rates in the not-to-distant future. Even if we were able to make use of unlimited amounts of fossil fuels, the impact of this on the Earth's climate would be devastating, not to mention the pollution that is part-and-parcel of industrial civilization.

Fossil fuel energy is essential to support a population well beyond the Earth's long-term carrying capacity. The energy from gasoline and diesel fuel is used to plant, fertilize, cultivate, irrigate, harvest, process, package, and distribute our food.

Supplies of needed fresh water for agriculture, industry, and domestic use are reaching their limits in many parts of the world. The mining water from non-renewing aquifers has been used to support farming in many areas, but these will obviously not be perpetually productive. And as the water must be pumped from greater and greater depths, more and more energy is needed to raise it to the surface.

So now we have a planet with a rapidly increasing human population that is demanding more from the environment at a time when the resources that were used to support the growth of that population are dwindling. On top of that, there seems to be little consciousness that unlimited population growth is the root of practically all our woes and that none of our problems are ultimately solvable without reducing the human population radically. Limiting ones family size is, under the circumstances, an ethical imperative.

We've used our post-industrial knowledge to overbuild an unstable support system based on pre-industrial values, specifically the measure of success based on perpetual growth and exploitation. Without widespread recognition of this folly and a commitment to change destructive behaviors, most of us are pretty well doomed.

What's needed is a statistical analysis of morbidity, mortality (or longevity) and cost, including the cost of American families going bankrupt due to uncovered medical expenses and loss of income due to breadwinner mortality. The bean counters and wonks in the Federal Government could easily deliver such an objective analysis. We all know what the results would be. Americans are paying far too much for far too little and suffering pain, death, and bankruptcy to a greater extent than people in just about any civilized country.

President Obama needs to show some real leadership here. The country could easily be mobilized to get behind universal coverage. Unless, of course, our President is just another lackey of the corporate globalist elite...

I was a member/donor to KQED (PBS in San Francisco) until they gave Nancy Pelosi some significant air-time during the last campaign without requiring her to debate her challengers, most significantly, Cindy Sheehan. Now I refuse to send them any money as long as Ms. Pelosi represents San Francisco or until they start giving equal air time to the opposition during campaigns.

Also, I will not donate as long as they have these crappy infomercials during pledge drives. Hey, it must work for them or they wouldn't be doing it! I just switch to a different channel. If enough people turned them off while they were yammering away and refused to send them a nickel, they would dump the hucksters and get some real programming back.

Mention The Omega Man, fine, but Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend, of a random few survivors of an apocalyptic catastrophe eking out a bare subsistence amid the ruins of civilization, upon which it is based, is, in turn, the acknowledged derivative of Cal Berkeley English professor George R. Stewart's 1949 novel Earth Abides.

I was a dedicated subscriber to and reader of Newsweek from the era of the Watergate hearings (1973) to the invasion of Iraq (2003). As the years went by I began to be increasingly cognizant of bias toward the viewpoint of Washington insiders, the Wall Street power brokers, and the political and economic elites who shuffle back and forth between the federal bureaucracy and corporate boardrooms. The piece done on the great job W. was doing as "war president" was just too servile, setting a new low in lackey journalism.

To make a longer story short, I let my subscription expire and can testify to having lived a more alert and rewarding existence by not having to view the world through the hazed and distorted window Newsweek opens to the world.

I'm glad I did not waste my vote on this lackey of corporate globalism in 2008. Almost every day he gives me another reason to find and support someone who is truly committed to human rights, liberty, and justice as matters of principle rather than expedients. I hope a sufficient number of Americans can refuse to be suckered by the emotional media smokescreen about "the first black president" and the blather about hope and change and find a candidate with a record of consistent advocacy of open, ethical, and responsible government that truly deserves our respect and support.