It boggle's my mind how it is possible for folks to get so worked up over a non-threat (terrorism) and then completely ignore real, immediate threats (climate change and peak oil) which will impose severe consequences in the near future.

Nearly everyone accepts the terrorist threat as serious, and horrible controversy ensues over how best to procede, whether or not civil liberties need to be curtailed, whether or not we can torture, etc.

Meanwhile, vast segments of the population don't believe in climate change, and have never heard of peak oil.

Sometimes I pray I'm in a nightmare, not the real world, and that at any moment I'll wake up to a rational world.

There are good reasons why we shouldn't measure farms with the same yardstick we use for other businesses, but how do we do that in a culture where the economy has become the default measure of value? Weekly grosses of movies are printed in more newspapers than movie reviews are. When any disaster befalls the country, from September 11 to Hurricane Katrina, we look to the Dow Jones to gauge the nation's trauma."

Thanks for this, mac. We really have become sick in the head.

I'd just add that the rest of the economy should be judged by the same yardstick as farms. Nothing can grow continually without eventually hitting a limit of some kind. And the world economy is pressing up against a number of limits right now. We need to to take immediate steps away from growth and towards sustainability.

Oh Yeah? Take a look at this lump on my neck. My wife wrote "Titleist" on it last night while I slept. Got me really tee'd off.

I stand corrected.

As competition for access to increasingly scarce resources becomes more acute, old conflicts will take on a sharper edge and new conflicts will erupt around the world. This is just one more example. I'm disheartened, but not surprised.

Israel is going to get her ass kicked.

I'm not so sure about this. Israel, besides having overwhelming conventional military superiority compared with its neighbors, also has nukes. It's pretty hard to kick their ass.

I'm continually amazed when Israeli supporters often say things like "Israel faces an existential threat." All one can do it shake one's head in disbelief.

Hi Omooex,

I agree with your post. It seems like a strange kind of stalemate is taking shape. The Palestinians and Israel's arab neighbors are in no position to challenge Israel as an offensive threat, but the Israeli's seem less and less able to impose their will on their nearby enemies despite their overwhelming military superiority, partly due to the Israeli reluctance to take casualties and partly due to the defiance and spirited resistance any military action engenders.

The Lebanese incursion of 2 years ago seems largely considered a defeat for Israel. Israel can't stop the rocket attacks coming from Gaza.

We have Bibi taking over in Israel, Hezbollah entrenched in southern Lebanon, and Hamas in control of Gaza. The whole situation seems to be hardening, and a negotiated settlement is very hard to envision.

I wonder if that word means what people think it means. I thought "stalemate" implies (or infers, I'm not picky) an equality of force and resource and both sides. That is not the case.

I don't believe there is an equality of resources or force on each side - merely that neither side can unilaterally impose, by force or through other means, it's will on the other. If that's not a stalemate, then call it something else if that makes you feel better.

And the construction "the Palestinians and Israel's neighbors" reeks of Hasbara. Are the Palestinians allied with Israel's "neighbors"?

No. It can be tough to get things just right in a short post. But I would say that Hezbollah is an enemy of Israel, and that Israel is unable to impose its will upon Hezbollah militarily. Similarly, Hamas is an enemy of Israel, and Israel is unable to impose its will on Hamas.

Israel does not posses the means to wipe out almost every person in the Occupied Territories, and destroy all infrastructure in a few hours? A couple of days at most?

Of coures Israel has this capability. But unless they kill everyone, which so far they have been unwilling to do, they can't prevent Hamas from launching rockets into southern Israel. Same goes for Hezbollah.

And please, please don't sully yourself by telling us what Israel would never do. Or even what they wouldn't do.

It is to laugh.

Where did this hostility come from?

Oh, I don't know. Maybe the sentence just above your little squeal? About what Israel hasn't done?

I didn't realize that stating a simple fact (to date, Israel hasn't killed all Palestinians) was equivalent to a "squeal".

You might want to go to the ER and make sure your gland isn't putting undue pressure on your brain.

There's our ridiculous idea that we won't get any oil if we don't prop up King Saud.

It is not ridiculous. Oil is a very effective weapon to wield against the West generally, and the US in particular. The US doesn't want to be in any way vulnerable to a cessation of oil exports from the Middle East. That means having arab governements which, if not necessarily friendly, at least are committed to keeping the oil flowing.