disagree that land shortages will be an issue in dealing with changing farming practices to deal with higher fertilizer prices in the long run. As the price of fertilizer goes up because of oil scarcity our transportation systems will also become more expensive. Eventually, changes in land use will reflect the best uses and you will probably have plenty of grazing land if it is needed. Commercial development/people and farms and grazing will occupy space accordingly.

I think I can shorten that a bit: After enough people die of starvation, there will be plenty of land available for agriculture to feed the rest.

400 years ago

You were lucky if 20% of your births made it age 30.

This will probably be the case again in the not-too-distant future, thanks to our obsession with relentless growth.

Four weeks ago, I contacted my representative's office (he's a Republican) to ask if they could identify *ANY* tangible benefits that have resulted from 7+ years of Mr. Bush's policies. They didn't have any answers handy, and they said they would get back to me. I left my phone# and my mailing address. I still haven't received any response.

I really hope this works out. We could use some good news for a change.

However, we're also going to have to do something about having farms and their customers so far apart. All that transportation and refrigeration wastes energy, too.

Funny how Obama didn't think it was a "gimmick" when it could serve him in the Illinois senate. This is just disingenuous tripe. He sure was willing to "posture" back then. Three times worth.

Yes, but he seems to have learned that this kind of trick is counterproductive, and he's refusing to repeat the mistake again.

How many examples can you cite of Bush learning that something doesn't work?

For $186 billion, the U.S. could have hired 3.72 million people for a year and paid them each $50,000.

OK, so I'm only counting the actual pay to the employees and neglecting the employer's overhead costs, but I'm also ignoring the taxes the government would be able to collect from the employed people.

Obama is hoping voters are smart. Hillary is hoping voters are stupid.

I won't try to guess which of them is right, but whichever way it plays out America will get what it deserves.

Likewise the apocalyptics here who suggest that everything would be paradise if we simply unwound the clock a thousand years and waited for 95% of the humans to starve, aren't suggesting that for the sake technological efficacy. They're suggesting it because they are apocalyptic extremists.

Perhaps you misunderstand.

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but when I talk about impending disaster I'm just saying what I think will happen. I don't think it would be paradise. I think it would be hell. I don't want it to happen, but I don't see much effort to prevent it from happening.

The Republicans seem to be firmly committed to the idea that we can fix all of our problems by continuing to do the same things that created the problems. I don't think this will work.

And Hillary KNOWS she cannot get it passed. Why would the GOP do anything to help Democrats right now? And even if they were, why would they strike out at their big oil pals? And how would such a tax ever NOT be vetoed?

Yes, but it sounds good if you assume the voters are too stupid to figure this out.

According to the Department of Energy worldwide oil production has been essentially flat for the last three years ('05 -'07: 73.8, 73.5, 73.2 million barrels per day respectively), while worldwide consumption has gone from 83.6 to 85.5 Mb/day over the same period.

This suggests that we've been using about 10 million bbl/day more than we've produced for at least the past three years. How is this possible?

Has there been enough already-extracted oil sitting in tanks to make up the difference? If so, what happens when that runs out?

In 2000, one Turkish New Lira was worth $0.623

In 2007, one Turkish New Lira was worth $1.431

U.S. median income has hardly changed over this period of time. I don't know how Turkish median income is doing, but even if it stood still like U.S. median income, the median Turk's income more than doubled compared to the median U.S. income.

No wonder they can afford stuff and we can't.

But I'll be damned if I can figure out where the percentage was for Hillary in backing this.

McCain's idea looks like a gift to the people, but can easily be criticized as being a disguised gift to the oil companies because they'll just jack up the price to compensate for the tax reduction and pocket the money themselves.

Hillary tries to look clever by one-upping McCain with an idea that we're supposed to believe fixes the flaw in McCain's proposal by imposing a tax on the oil companies.

In fact, Hillary's plan at best does nothing: Instead of the tax being explicitly stated as being added to the pump price, it gets built into the price of the fuel and the oil companies later pay it to the government. The only benefit to anyone is the P.R. value to Hillary of appearing to give a price cut AND hitting the evil oil companies with a new tax.

I was surpise ... McCain's audience was whooping and hollering ...

That was no audience, that was the message.

What McCain said was just a load of nonsense. The real objective was to create the impression that lots of people approve of McCain's plan. The "audience" was probably the most carefully scripted part of the whole thing.