I also get paranoid about the (over)use of antibacterial agents in soaps and the like, on the theory that we're producing superbacteria that will one day rise and kill us all.

Yes, this. Also doctors over-prescribing antibiotics, and people not finishing out their courses. And all the anti-biotics that end up in our diets. Which means delightful new friends like drug resistant Staph infections and TB.

I also think Big Business needs to decide/figure it it can exploit the masses as well with alternatives as they can with petro based energy sources.

Good point. One problem is that Big Solar and Big Windpower don't really exist yet, and Big Oil (or a lot of Big Oil, anyway) still has some incentive to maintain the status quo, and does have some significant influence in our government....

I think the problem is that we have the ablity to make the transaction from oil to smooth or rough. and With the current way we tend to think - it looks realy rough. There isn' a lot of recognition that oil is a finite source. ( when doesn't really matter) And it isn't just fuel - we use a lot of petrolum based products - such as plastics - that are part of our every day life. Current technologies for solar/wind/ even clean coal could be made less expensive over time - with money put into to it. 200$ a barrel might happen - but we can prevent it from being a major deal.

I delight in reading articles about people who drive their cars on corn oil.

Biodiesel is a big thing here in Illinois (what with all the corn/soy farmers), so I wouldn't be surprised if this expands across the midwest, and not just to governmental vehicles, but to retrofitted personal cars, as well.

I'm toying with the idea of getting a pay-as-you-go phone/plan from T-Mobile. Anyone have any experience they want to share, or an alternate recommendation that I could get up and running by Thursday morning?

Oh. My.

Focus on the pretty. The NOLA stuff is making my throat tight (which isn't me bitching -- I understand that the sharing is very therapeutic), so I'm skimming and thinking of other things.

The EU has a target of 12% of energy from renewable sources by 2010, but it's not going to happen. 2015 looks like a better estimate. Which is something. And where Europe leads, other nations avert their eyes and pretend they can't hear.

Thanks, y'all. Stepping away from the scary book.

That's gonna be the interesting part. I mean, if we get individual solar/wind/snarkonium generators to create electricity for our houses and use that to charge up our electric cars (or create the hydrogen for our H2 powered cars) where will Big Power (oil/coal/nukes) get their cut?

From making the parts that go into solar generators. If oil becomes too expensive to sell, they'll evolve or perish. Their interest is in making money, and they'll go where demand goes. No one's complaining about how Big Typewriter nearly pushed IBM out of existence. Because Selectrics turned into PCs.

And where Europe leads, other nations avert their eyes and pretend they can't hear.

Perhaps the U.S. will get a little more forward thinking when/if the government is run by a bunch of big oil people.