10 years ago, "these moron prognosticators," like myself, were warning that peak oil was coming. Why? Because discoveries had already been declining for 3 decades, and because, by the '90s, we had gained the ability to drill all the way down to the continental rise in the ocean basins of the world. That's the edge of the world, as far as sedimentary cover is concerned, which is where oil comes from. (Sorry, no, not the mantle.) So there were to be no great new discoveries reversing that old trend.

Why did no one listen? Oil was cheap by the late '90s. And for decades, oil prices had cycled: oil supplies tighten, prices rise, more fields become economical, exploration for new fields is stimulated, and in a few years, they start producing. And then there's an oil glut, and prices fall, starting a new cycle. That's what some people still expect.

But in the late '90s/early 2000s, several non-OPEC producers reached their peak production and started declining: Norway, Mexico, the UK, etc. Furthermore, it looks like the only OPEC nation that can increase production is Saudi Arabia, meaning the rest are probably at peak. So supply tightened. Throw in a couple of supply disruptions--thank Bush and his bloody Luxury War--and prices not only rise, they start becoming volatile, driving speculation in the futures markets. Further wars over oil-producing areas (cough-Iran-cough) will only make things worse.

Oil prices have risen since 2002. The new discoveries from increased exploration have not made up the difference in the midst of rising demand. Though speculation is certainly causing a great deal of noise in oil prices, it is not producing a six-year "spike." This is the alarm bell. Whatever we do from here, "more of the same" is simply not an option.

I know you've done yeoman duty against demonic possession, having performed exorcisms and all, but when are you going to finally do as the Bible commands and "not suffer a witch to live"? Come on, let's have some burnings at the stake!

And bring back stoning! It's in the Bible, innit?

Yesterday it was, "Waaahh, Nancy Pelosi said rude things about us!", today it's, "Gwen Ifill's gonna be biased because she's...umm...one of them!"

Really? You're going to start with this before the debate even starts? And acting like a forthcoming book is a big surprise? Kinda pathetic, doncha think?

And Michelle Malkin? "RACIST!" is not the first word that came to mind. (Admittedly, it was a close second.) The first word I thought of was "LOSERS!"

Color me one of those completely unimpressed with Noonan's tut-tutting. As a poster pointed out on the first page of comments, even Palin is distancing herself from, well, Palin:

In a candid interview with the reporters travelling on her plane, Palin said voters "get a bit irritated with just being inundated" by her campaign's "robocalls" linking Obama to the 1960s radical William Ayers.

Dude, who the @*%$ has been spewing some variation of "noun-verb-Bill Ayers" at every possible opportunity? Are you somehow disconnected from your own actions? Or is this all regrettable but necessary; are you just "following orders," as the saying goes?

Noonan, Palin, McCain, Rove, all the rest, look at the Republican base to whom you're turning up your noses; look at those ugly minds on display in the videos from the Palin rallies: this is your creation. These people's delusions were carefully birthed and nurtured by you and your peers, at great cost, for decades. Those people are your mirror image. If they become the great weight dragging the Republican Party to the bottom, don't expect me to throw you a life preserver.

Curious. Seems the rats are running towards the sinking ship...

I was thinking more of a collapsing star, about to shrink past the event horizon and become a black hole. It's either get out now or get dragged in and trapped forever!

There are three different pictures from this event at the Getty site (one of them is repeated twice). They show different perspectives, McCain expressions, expressions of the Chippendale rejects, etc.

Yahoo has other photos, credited to two additional photographers.

Then again, they faked the moon landings, didn't they? [/sarcasm]

As someone mentioned Charles Stuart above. I'd like to second that comparison.

On October 23rd (!!!) 1989, Stuart shot and killed his pregnant wife, while the (white) couple were in his car in Mission Hill, a largely-black Boston neighborhood. After shooting himself and giving the murder weapon to his brother (who turned out to be the weak link in the scheme), he then told police that "a black man" did the deed as part of a robbery.

Remember, this was just a few years after Boston had been wracked by racial conflict over busing, and that the BPD still didn't exactly have the greatest reputation for dealing fairly with black people. So Stuart wasn't just coming up with a convenient alibi, he was cynically using one he knew the police would, stupidly, take at face value.

There's no comparison between a false report and a murder and false report, of course. However, Todd was also playing to a gullibly racist, or borderline racist, audience, in a situation with potential for racial strife. Disturbed as she may be, I have no sympathy for her.

She's from College Station, Texas, right? It follows that she's an Aggie, who tend to be right-wing and, well, none too bright. So she could have claimed she was attacked by a group of angry Longhorns who held her down and tried to carve "BEVO" in her face (backwards, of course, backwards), but hey, she managed to kick them off before they finished the foul deed! Yee-haw, gig 'em Aggies*!

(*And no, I don't know what the hell that means.)