Interesting Times

Remember Peak Oil? The International Atomic Energy Agency says it's coming in 2030, which means we're supposed to be totally cool with it, but most informed observers don't believe them -- they think it's much more imminent. This guy says it happened last year, but we haven't noticed because the Great Recession has temporarily crushed demand. That doesn't just mean you'll have to buy an electric car. Unless people start thinking very hard about doing something very big very quickly, it means a whole lot of people are going to starve. Come to think of it, peak oil or no, we are going to have a major problem with food production starting very soon, because we have already passed Peak Phosphorus.

Unfortunately, declining global oil production isn't going to stop global warming, which isn't just about having a nice beach day in December. We'd have to spend more than $2 trillion to fix our aging and crumbling bridges, highways, water and sewer works, we have the highest unemployment since the Great Depression and it's just getting worse, and I hope you weren't counting on your pension.

But what the heck, this is a great time to spend $30 billion more a year and get a few tens of thousands of people killed in order to impose a corrupt, oppressive government on some illiterate, impoverished farmers in the remotest corner of the earth, just because, that's all.

But I'll bet you can guess what the screaming, banner headline across the top of the CNN web site is all about. It seems a guy who is highly skilled at hitting a little ball with a stick and making it go where he wants it to was boinking somebody other than his wife. I can't possibly think of anything more important than that, can you?