How will we know when we’ve passed “peak oil”? The price would continually rise and would never go back down again as demand and supply curves diverge indefinitely. Are we there yet?
“Telling the truth” [that we may have just entered an interminable oil price inflation period after which oil extraction/delivery/usage will no longer be feasible] would freak out Wall Street. So let’s blame it on something ‘temporary’ instead: a hurricane, an environmental regulation, a terrorist, a greedy executive; all of which do exist but whose removal would not reverse the longterm price trend.
Frankly I’m wondering how to extrapolate the length of time until the delivery trucks can’t afford to pull up to Safeway. And can I plant/stock enough beans and tomatoes in the meantime?

Posted by: gylangirl | Apr 26 2006 2:55 utc | 4

Ok, I am rarely, if ever put off, shocked, dumbfounded or distressed by the gang of criminals i.e. politicians of the 109th United States Congress; they (by they I mean both repub and dem) are by far the most indifferent, aloof, disconnected, elitist thugs who have ever governed I can remember in my lifetime. I was to young for tricky dick, to stoned for Reagan.
I have gotten upset beyond reason only five of six times this whole five years of Bush. Once a year. A few times that have scared me to the point of effecting my health; which Having said that, most times I just roll my eyes and often laugh at their antics, however, if what georgia10 has posted then I will be livid beyond imagination. And so angery that I may have to take a few days off away from the keys. She is reporting:

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said he wants to divide his panel’s inquiry into the Bush administration’s handling of Iraq-related intelligence into two parts, a move that would push off its most politically controversial elements to a later time. […]

I no longer blame the would be “leaders” hell, that’s what scorpions do. I blame the fucking sheep American. And it may be nearing time for me to expatriate myself the fuck outa this fascist repeat. America has truely lost it’s soul.
A commentor from another board I frequent put it this way, “My fear, which isn’t even a fear anymore, but rather a projection, is that there is a deep well of anatagonistic energy in the common American. This sweet fascist nectar is just now being tapped for the fresh stuff. These won’t be your grandfather’s anti-semites.”
Or Nazi’s.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 26 2006 5:24 utc | 6

I’ve been telling people for a very long time(25 years) that there was one thing that I never wanted to be able to say to them,”I told you so”.Like Uncle $cam I have thought that things in this country could make what happened in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia seem like boyish pranks!5 years ago a comment like this would have got laughter(I did post such comments and did get Shit),2 years ago I got a chuckle,today many are thinking that maybe we have gone too far and might not beable to return to(Sanity?).Our worst nightmares are maybe going to come true.I’m tired of pretending that things are going to be O.K. They’re probability going to get worse. The only thing that might keep me going is the thought that I might meet someone who supported this stuff so that I could tell them”I TOLD YOU SO”!

Posted by: R.L. | Apr 26 2006 6:00 utc | 8

Don’t worry the Dems would manage to field a candidate so odious, so much more jingoistic, and so mechanical that they would only win 13 electoral votes……

Posted by: Malooga | Apr 26 2006 11:50 utc | 10

You’all sound like farmboys yelling up from the bottom of the s–thole you’ve dug yourself into. Hey, you winos, you gotta dig your own ass out!
George and Dick are making money hand over fist, and Ben is printing money hand over fist, and Don and Candi are in a love-fest with the Bomb. They will continue to do this for three more years, during which the stock market will tank.
If’n you don’t get to digging, and quit your bellywallerin’, you’re all gonna be buried in s–t, or eating it, worse.
There is no way out, no expatriate bail-out, no high-return hedge. If you don’t kick some ass, you are going to watch all that you hold dear turn to s–t, you are going to watch the US$ auger in, and you are going to watch your own kids be priced out of the American Dream.
Then Freddie will declare you bankrupt, take away all your equity, and you can shovel s–t with the rest of the illegal migra proletariat, until McCain eliminates the minimum wage and invades Iran with his new crop of recruits.
– –
(From another time not too different from now, only names have been changed to show parity:)
“The war is on. The Enemy have already inflicted a series of defeats on the American troops, and the Republican government is now straining every nerve to avenge itself for these defeats.
Military districts are being mobilised one after another, and tens of thousands of soldiers are being hastily dispatched to the Middle East; desperate efforts are being made abroad to secure another loan, and contractors have been promised bonuses running to millions of dollars a day for accelerating the works required by the defense department.
The people’s every fibre is put to the greatest strain because the struggle that has been started is no trifling matter; it is a struggle against a 60-million-strong people who are splendidly armed, splendidly prepared for the war, and who are fighting for the conditions which they believe to be urgently necessary for free national development. This is going to be a struggle by a despotic and backward government against a people that is politically free and is rapidly progressing in culture.
What is at issue in the life-and-death struggle now being waged by the American workers and farmers against the Enemy? The issue is “Neo Iraq”, the issue is Iraq and Iran and Korea, and new lands seized by the Republican Government.
It had promised all the other powers to preserve the inviolability of Iraq, it had promised to return Iraq to its people not later than October, 2003, and it had failed to honour its promise. The Republican government had so run away with itself in its policy of military adventures and plunder of its neighbours that it found no strength to go back. In “Neo Iraq” it has built fortifications and ports, and has concentrated hundreds of thousands of troops.
But how do the American people benefit from these new lands whose acquisition has cost so much blood and sacrifice and is bound to cost even more? For the American worker and farmer the war holds out the prospect of fresh calamities, the loss of a host of human lives, the ruin of a mass of families, and more burdens and taxes.
The Republican army leadership hand in hand with the Republican government believe that the war holds out the promise of military glory. The multi-national merchant and the millionaire- industrialist think the war is necessary to secure new marketing outlets for their goods and new ports in an unrestricted development of American trade.
You can’t sell much at home to the starving farmer and the unemployed factory worker, you must look for marketing outlets in foreign lands! The riches of the Republican bureaucrats have been created by the impoverishment and the ruin of the American workers — and so now, in order to multiply these riches, the workers must shed their blood to give the Republican wealthy a free hand in conquering and enslaving the Middle East working man.
This criminal war, which holds in store immense calamities for the working people, has been engendered by the interests of the greedy rich, the interests of capital, which is prepared to sell and ruin its own country in its drive for profit. This hazardous gamble involving the blood and property of American citizens is the result of the policy of a despotic Republican government which tramples all human rights and keeps its people in servitude.
In response to the wild war-cries, in response to the “patriotic” flag-waving by the flunkeys of the money-bags and the lackeys of the police-whips, the class-conscious Democratic leaders must come forward and demand with tenfold energy: “Down with the Neo Autocracy!”, “Let a people’s constituent assembly be convened!”
The Republican government has plunged so deep into this reckless military gamble that it has at stake a great deal too much. Even in the event of success, the war against Iraq threatens total exhaustion of the people’s forces—with the results of the victory being absolutely negligible, for the other powers will prevent America from enjoying the fruits of victory.
In the event of defeat, the war will lead above all to the collapse of the entire government system based on popular ignorance and deprivation, on oppression and violence.
They who sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind!”
(Here’s a hint on who wrote it. Would you like cabbage soup with your turnips, comrade?)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1904/feb/03.htm

Posted by: Tellard Antipa | Apr 27 2006 5:19 utc | 12