And So Here We Are, At a Nexus

I participated in a survey online a week ago, and one of the questions was, "How would you feel if __________ is elected?"

Options of course were Kerry or Bush. The radio-buttoned list included terms like "hopeful" and "depressed" and "angry" and "joyful."

To be perfectly frank, I will be severely depressed if Bush manages to score the big one on November 2.

At the same time, I will be trying my best to be optimistic if Kerry wins. Recent statements made by him and by Edwards give me great pause, especially in regards to their attitude towards Israel. How can any thinking, feeling human being witness the massacre of the Palestinians (children! for God's sake, children!) without feeling something seriously wrong is going on there? And then the dynamic Democratic duo's hostile statements towards Iran?

On another note, I have recently been reading about Peak Oil. That term means the time in the life of an oil field (or even, more generally, in the life of the world's -finite- oil supply) when the ability to get oil out of the ground has reached its peak. In short, good times have stopped rolling. And nobody is talking about what this really means for the US, or the world's, economy. Nothing happens without oil. No transportation, electricity, manufacturing, no nothing. What happens when a commodity grows rare? Prices escalate. Mother earth only has so much black milk in her breast, and we've milked her for too long. We are about to be batted away from the everflowing crude, sent out on our own.

Dunno 'bout you, but I'm really glad I learned in my 20's and 30's about how to garden, raise beef cattle and chicken, grind wheat and run a greenhouse. I feel very sorry for everyone living in a city about now.

Oh, one more thing. The "Green Zone" in Baghdad has apparently been hit twice today by suicide bombers. Somehow they smuggled explosives in and two backpack-toting men blew themselves up in nearby public shopping areas, killing a few and wounding some more. Some idiot official in Iraq's capital city made an asinine statement to the effect, "These cowards! We will make them pay!" Duh. It is cowardice to carry a bomb and blow away one's own life for something they believe in? Duh. How will you hunt them down when they are already dead, man?