I learned to fly in 1961. Whenever I flew commercial I would talk to the pilots and occasionally rode in the jump seat, and I was only a private pilot with 100 hours. On a Mohawk once the air conditioning failed and the pilot warned us to keep our seat belts on and opened the rear door, while flying. I think it was a Martin 404. While flying home from Europe with my wife I went up front to talk to the pilots. Before we took off one of the stewardesses came up about a missing passenger. My poor wife couldn't find me and reported me missing. Sounds a lot like Africa today.

There are only about 250,000 people in the US who can fly planes. Out of 300,000,000 that is a pretty small fraternity. Thank God Locutus is not one of them.

The US hit peak oil in 1973 or thereabouts. Iran hit peak oil in the last couple of years. The Saudis might have hit peak oil, but they lie about everything. Iraq is a long way from peak oil, so we have the war. The Russians might be a long way from peak oil, but they lie a lot, too. That $100 a barrel figure in two years is optimistic. I really like the idea of $5-10 gasoline, and the sooner the better. "What doesn't kill you makes your stronger".

Chingis khan was the biggest "earner" of his day. So 8% of all the men on the Eurasian continent are descended directly from him (i.e., have his Y chromosome). The men who have the most descendants are the winners. That testosterone is there for a purpose, winning the game of life. Intelligence and high testosterone make men successful and able to have lots of descendants, who will inherit his abilities and proclivities. Womens survival and procreation strategies are totally different. If a profession becomes dominated by women, the competent men will bail because it would be a waste of time to remain in a field that will become low-paid. Women look for males who will leave good genes for their sons, who will spread those genes to as many women as possible. That is why men need to be successful, and women don't have as great a need. Feminists can desperately hope for some socialist nirvana, where some sort of "rules" will "even" the playing field. It ain't in human biology ladies, so forget it. But it's fun to see high testosterone women, like Nancy and Hilary, who can slug it out with the most driven men.

I hate to say it, but the best thing for the US (other than a few Texas Oil Oligarchs) is to lose big time in the Mid-East. Then, our only course would be conservation and alternative energy, since the Oligarchs would have lost their domination of politics. The Persians have been dealing with invaders, like us, for thousands of years. They maintained their Persian culture, even after defeats by Greeks, Mongols and others. The US does not have the staying power to achieve its goals in the Mid-East, and that's probably a good thing. Bush represents the Oligarchs, and his over-reaching is due to their hubris and ignorance.

First, the US has plenty of fossil fuels that might apparently cost more to make into usable liquid fuel than stealing oil from the Mid-East. However, the cost of stealing oil vastly exceeds the cost of converting coal and oil shale into liquid fuel, but that cost is spread to the average American (in blood and treasure) and not charged to the Oil Oligarchs of Texas.

Second, nuclear power is waiting in the wings, but fossil fuel interests have done their best to prevent its use.

Third, making our own liquid fuel will create large numbers of well-paid jobs in American companies.

A small group of "Americans" benefits from having a powerful president, but the rest of us suffer. Countries become dictatorships when a tightly knit elite group sees a benefit in a controllable king, dictator, or president. Big Oil with help from Detroit and auto workers unions is that elite group, but Big Oil is the central focus and organizer. If we are driven out of the Mid-East most of us will benefit, but there will be a few years of turmoil while we adapt. Almost no Mid-East oil comes to the US.

Both can be made into liquid fuel. The technology has been around a long time, and was used by South Africa and Germany. But, you get only get 4X the energy out that you put in to make it. A decent oil field puts out 20X the energy in. Of course most oil fields are not decent any more. Iraq probably has some of the last oil fields that have really low production costs. I suspect that ethanol from corn yields about 10% more energy out than required to produce it. Biodiesel is probably a little better.

If oil production has not peaked, it is mighty close to it. We'll have $10 gas by 2010. The present obesity problem will solve itself with all the walking we will be doing.

Sounds like what George Bush intended for the US, but we got smart and thwarted him with a Democratic Congress.

We may have forgotten, but the Iranians probably well remember that in 1953 Exxon-Mobil (then known as Humble Oil I think) assassinated the recently elected Prime Minister, Mohamed Mossedegh. The CIA then rushed in that psychopathic playboy to be the Shah. Of course Mossedegh was about to make nice with the Russians, like Saddam was doing when we invaded Iraq. Our foreign policy is controlled from Houston just like 1953. We need to dissociate ourselves from the Middle East and Central Asia and start using our indigenous resources. We would not then need a huge (expensive) military. The only beneficiaries of our present system are the military-industrial complex and Big Oil. Bush's only loyalty is to those two.