And the rest of your post too, of course. I was looking for media coverage of that Eco-Biz lovefest, but yours was the most entertaining (and literate) take I've seen. Despite a few highlights, I too found the Times section insipid in places and disheartening on the whole.

It did, however, make serviceable toilet paper. Who said carbon offsets have to be painless? Ouch.

Hear, hear. Again no letters to display? The shame of it.

You're quite right, though. Plainly we're presently entering a state of affairs that will in the not distant future require not just a single scapegoat, but many, and deep of pocket too. Exxon is the leading corporate candidate for the honor, and it will have company; and surely, in Exxon and others' cases, their scorn will be well-earned, and their liability manifest. We live in gentler times still, and the clamor against them is yet but muted. It will louden. The future, as so rarely, is crystal clear on this point.

As someone who has voted for both Angelides and Westly, and liked the former a lot last I checked, the news of them you bear is perplexing. What are they doing still holding Exxon stock at this late point in the game, damn them? That is, of course, the first thought.

The second thought, of course, is: Nice that they were in a position to write this particular letter, with all the clout of big-state government investors. Better, of course, that they send this message to Exxon leaders while they occupy a prominent position among the investors in this eminent company, send it loud and several ways, before they divest themselves and their trustors, the people of California, of any ownership in so nefarious (we use the term rarely, we assure you) an entity.

Third thought, of course: They will, of course, divest their investors' portfolios of it sooner or later, won't they? When it's most pragmatic? I mean, I'm waiting for what the explanation's going to be.

Fourth and perhaps last: I share your pipe dream, the real idea here, though it is surely a bittersweet smoke. A price will have to be paid for the damage already and yet to be done by the willful folly, the selfish deceit, of certain actors. This debt will surely come due; that is the sweet part. But only when the cost has become viscerally clear to all in terms of blood and treasure. That is the bitter part.

A final point. One of these days, I'm certain, I'm going to find something you write with which I firmly, even violently, disagree (if, finally, on rather a minor point). I shall be ready for it when it comes; oh, how I limber my fingers awaiting that day.

As I do, though, I'll content myself with singing your praises once again. Get you head back in Borges space for a moment to hear the following: Your post, too, its eloquent ringing of the bell, and even the humble ones that comment upon it, and perhaps even those therupon commenting, and so on, shall all one day be read into the record -- if not the legal, then at least the journalistic-academic historical record -- of the difficult times to come. Yours and the others seem likely to be recognized as having been sane voices, prophetic even in a sense, in a time of deep and fascinating folly.

Perhaps we will live to say we told them so. Cold comfort, indeed.

It's such a shame. I'll never hear him the same way again. I had my doubts already, over a couple of rather shallow pieces I read, but he's done some good and truly important work; he's made a difference in keeping the country informed during some of our darkest times.

It's such a shame, then, to see his inner loony (or inner extremely lazy, at least) get the better of him on this issue. This story -- the peak oil thing -- has the kind of staying power that will make Election 2000 seem awfully, well, dated as time goes by. He'll live to rue those words, I have no doubt.