Air-Powered Car In Two Years?

Imagine what the development of a car that ran on compressed air would mean to the price of oil. Consider the effect it would have on global warming. Think of what it would do to the U.S. trade deficit. Get your mind around how it would rearrange global power relationships away from places like the Middle East, Russia and Venezuela. Sound too good to be true? Maybe not.

I got a heads up recently from reader John Redden about a technological development, amazing not for its cutting-edge complexity but for its mundane simplicity. Instead of using an explosion to drive a piston, you could do it with a puff of compressed air. You can read about it here: http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/new_cars/4217016.html
http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/new_cars/4251491.html?series=19

A company in Luxembourg, MDI, has licensed Tata Motors of India to produce its CityCat model there. It is expected to retail for about $12,700, will have a top speed of 68 miles per hour and a range of 125 miles. It should cost about $2 to fill its tanks with 340 liters of air at 4350 psi. This model won't sell in the USA-it's actually glued together. But another may.

Zero Pollution Motors has secured the license from MDI for US production of a modified version, and could get under way in late 2009 or early 2010. Popular Mechanics describes it as, "a $17,800 75-hp equivalent, six seat modified version of MDI's CityCat that, thanks to an even more radical engine (apparently with a small bit of gas-powered assistance), is said to travel as far as 1000 miles at up to 96 mph" on about 8 gallons of gas.

No doubt we'll have to wait and see whether these innovations are overhyped or actually practical. But the bottom line is that with gas prices accelerating there is a tremendous incentive, including prospects for mega-profits, for the inventor or company that can solve these engineering problems. There is already the $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X-Prize for developing the first car that can get 100 mpg, but that pales in comparison to the billions in sales such a vehicle would generate.

John feels confident that human inventiveness, spurred on by the profit motive, will find the solutions we need. I tend to think he's right.

Sarah Palin: What McCain Is Thinking

Sarah who? What on earth was John McCain thinking? Is the elevation of the little-known Alaska governor a shrewd move or a big mistake? Actually, it's a little of both. And as always with a surprise, there's an element of, well, surprise. We won't really know until she's been out there awhile and we see how she does. Until then, here's a window into McCain's thinking, with the positives first.

McCain's immediate reason for choosing a big surprise as a running mate was to steal some buzz from Barack Obama. Practically everyone but Republican partisans has been raving about his magnificent acceptance speech in Denver last night before an audience of more than 38 million-even larger than the Opening Cermony in Beijing or the final of American Idol. The Palin (pronounced PAY-lin) announcement was such a stunner that it's captured a lot of the limelight. Obama had already gotten a convention "bump" in the early Gallup tracking poll to an 8-point lead, and this should do something to head off further Obama gains. In that sense, it was a good move.

A second purpose was to soldify the conservative base. Palin is conservative, as in VERY conservative on social issues. She believes abortion should be illegal, even in cases of rape, incest or to protect the life of the mother. She was pregnant with a Down's Syndrome baby and delivered the child. She is a Lifetime NRA member, an evangelical Christian and a self-described hunter and "hockey mom" of five. The Christian Coalition has already sent out a glowing endorsement. So, most of the people who were going to vote Republican anyway will have one more reason to do so. This is even though as governor she vetoed a measure that would have denied benefits to gay domestic partners. As a minor side benefit, that has made the Log Cabin Republicans, the largest gay group in the GOP, also very happy with the pick.

Another McCain purpose was to reinforce his "maverick" and "reformer" reputations. Palin spared no criticism of the corrupt Alaskan Republican power structure. She not only brought up the irregularities of former Governor and Senator Frank Murkowski, but also called to task another fellow Republican, Senator Ted Stevens, who is currently under indictment. In this year when postpartisanism is being thrown around a lot, that kind of independence will play well. Unfortunately, she herself is being investigated for allegedly using her influence as governor to get her former brother-in-law fired for vindictive reasons. One can only hope for the ticket's sake that the McCain people thoroughly vetted these charges and believe she will be quickly vindicated. If she isn't it would be a disaster.

Now we venture into the realm of the more dubious. Without doubt one of McCain's concerns on his 72nd birthday was to unveil a running mate much younger than himself. At 44, Palin certainly fills that bill. But her youth comes at a heavy potential cost. She is so green she does much to undermine McCain's claims of advantage on foreign policy and as commander in chief. She has been mayor of a town of 6,000, governor for less than two years of a state with a population no larger than a middling city and possesses no foreign policy resume. At all. When asked her views on Iraq, she answered that she hadn't thought about it much! It could have been an advantage that one of her sons is about to be deployed there, but then so is one of Joe Biden's.

Sarah Palin is clearly unready to direct the foreign policy and military strategy of the United States, especially at a time of war, and she would be serving under a president with some health problems who will soon be in his mid seventies. This not only takes much of McCain's "experience" argument away but also calls his judgment into serious question. The Obama campaign will make hay on this. I feel this part of McCain's reasoning is one big-time mistake, not only politically but also concerning the best interests of the country.

We come now to McCain's biggest reason for choosing Palin, the fact that she is a woman. This may have been his greatest miscalculation of all. As the Democratic Convention drew near the McCain campaign did everything it could to try to stoke resentment among Hillary Clinton's supporters. Then came her strong speech and husband Bill's, endorsing Obama. Any lingering disaffection appeared to evaporate as Sen. Clinton herself took the floor and moved Obama's nomination by acclamation. McCain was obviously still going after these women with today's announcement. In her remarks Governor Palin even made direct appeals to Hillary supporters, referring to her by name and cribbing her "glass ceilings" line.

But will Hillary Clinton Democratic women switch to a Republican conservative who is anti-choice? That seems hard to imagine. CNN commentator David Gergen reported on the air that the network's site was being inundated with an overwhelmingly negative influx of e-mails from women who considered the blatant play for their support by a woman who shares virtually none of Hillary's viewpoints "insulting." Time will tell, but this does not look good for McCain.

Finally, more than anything else McCain's decision revealed his gambler's nature and his assessment that his campaign is in trouble. He felt he needed a game changer to shake up the race. This is anything but a safe pick. It is very high risk, both for the election and for the country if he wins. He decided the experience mantra couldn't win in a change year and that the maverick appellation wasn't getting sufficient traction. He has now definitely underscored his maverick credentials. We'll see whether the American voter gives him points for being bold or punishes him for recklessness. I expect it to be more of the latter.

Obama's Acceptance Speech: Readers' Forum

Tonight Barack Obama accepted the nomination of the Democratic Party on the convention's closing night in a speech before 75,000 people at Denver's Invesco Field. He had many things to accomplish. He needed to introduce himself to the large number of Americans who are just now starting to pay attention to the election. He needed to appear presidential: tough but compassionate, idealistic yet practical. He needed to inspire the spirit with his vision and rhetorical gifts while at the same time reassuring the nation that his 29 specific policy solutions would help to cure its ills. Finally, he needed to tie John McCain to the unpopular policies of the current president and make a persuasive case that Senator McCain cannot be counted on to deliver the change both campaigns agree the country needs.

So what do you think? I'd like to invite you to post your evaluation of how well Obama did. Style, substance, tone, issues--whatever struck your fancy, let's have a look at what you thought. I'm looking forward to your impressions.

Steve

Mile High Expectations

The Democrats have done a good job of lowering expectations at their convention up to now. That's an old political game that makes "OK" seem good and "good" seem excellent by comparison. Rumors and low rumblings of disaffection were rife as festivities got under way.

Would Hillary endorse Obama strongly enough to move her partisans, or would she damn him with faint praise? Would Bill be on the same page with his wife or would he seem petulant and resentful at the man who upset her expected run to the nomination? Would Joe Biden be able to curb his tendency toward long-windedness? Could he hold the delegates' interest? Would he attack McCain? Could he do so effectively? That doubt was sown about all these questions gave their affirmative answers greater impact than would otherwise have been the case.

But there is one speaker whose expectations cannot be lowered. When Barack Obama takes the stage at Invesco Field before 75,000 rapturous supporters the expectations will likely be greater than for any convention acceptance speech ever given. Everyone is aware of his ability to move an audience. That his opponents spend so much effort ridiculing it is testament to its power. He will be expected to blow the gates open, carry everyone away, transport them to another dimension and create utter frenzy. Anything less will be deemed failure.

Expectations will be high indeed. If they are met, the moment may well be chronicled in the future as the night when a new force and a new movement became irresistible. If not, it could enter folklore as its own new catch phrase, as the fizzle heard 'round the world. Obama will stand face to face with the American people and with his shot at destiny. Never again in this campaign will he have half an hour of uninterrupted time to lay it all on the line before an audience as large as he will have Thursday night. Counting television, it could be 100 million people.

And he will have to not only meet impossibly high expectations but exceed them to pull it off. It doesn't get any better than this. This ought to be fun to watch.

Hillary Unites Convention

Hillary Clinton stepped up to the podium at the Democratic Convention tonight with a singular mission: to unify a party bruised by the long, tough, close primary battle. After she finished, it was difficult to imagine how she could possibly have done a better job making the case for her supporters to get behind Barack Obama. Her speech was not just a home run, it may have been a grand slam.

Clinton set the tone early. When she announced right off the bat she was a "proud supporter of Barack Obama," her husband the ex-president leaped to his feet and applauded from the gallery. She continued, "It is time to take back our country. And whether you voted for me or Barack the time is now to unite as a single party for a single purpose. Barack Obama must be our president."

Hillary went on to ask, "Were you in it just for me? Or were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?" She went through a litany of issues, from health care to crony corporatism to ending the war, drawing a parallel between her causes and Obama's, casting John McCain as a continuation of George W. Bush and anathema to everything Hillary herself and anyone who supported her believes in.

The New York Senator's remarks had a decidedly feminist cast. She didn't give an inch on her qualifications and made frequent references to glass ceilings, Harriet Tubman and the women's rights pioneers of the past-all code for reaching out to women. She then connected her candidacy to Obama's through the issues they share, coming close to handing him the Clinton mantle by declaring, "We Democrats know how to do this. As I recall we did this before under President Clinton!" She then implored the arena and the national audience, "We need to elect Barack Obama for many reasons-this is no time to sit on the sidelines!"

The address was peppered with enough memorable lines and digs at McCain to get a rise out of the Democratic partisans. One example was, "No way, no how, no McCain. Barack Obama is my candidate." Another was, "It makes perfect sense that George Bush and John McCain will be together next week in the Twin Cities, because these days it's awfully hard to tell them apart."

Watching a speech like this, expansive yet with a personal subtext, full of content yet not wonkish, I was once again reminded what a formidable political personage Hillary Clinton is. Her ringing tones and successive points stood in sharp contrast to the parade of other Democratic notables who, though governors, senators and other people of substance, generally paled by comparison. Most of them served up yawners. She was riveting.

After tonight's performance I would imagine that Hillary's female followers who are persuadable will come over. A survey before the vote had Clinton primary voters at 70% for Obama, 20% for McCain and 10% undecided. These numbers should move further Obama's way. While Clinton mentioned a good many lunch bucket issues, the effect on her male working class supporters from this speech will probably be less than on women. I'd expect Obama to gain some, but we won't see a wholesale shift just from this. Joe Biden will be called upon to pry that open tomorrow but it will truly be up to Obama himself to close the deal on Thursday.

As for Hillary Clinton, after this she has set herself up in good shape. Tonight's performance did Barack Obama a lot of good and improved his chances for winning the election. After this, if he loses, she cannot be blamed, and she will have a reservoir of goodwill from the Obama faithful to start with should she have ambitions for 2012. If he wins, her convention performance and the hard campaigning she has been doing and will continue to do on his behalf will enhance her status in the party even more. Even 2016 is not too late for her. That year Hillary Clinton will be three years younger than John McCain is now.

Repeating the Nightmare

I got an email today from a friend who wrote she was becoming "disillusioned" with Barack Obama because he has shifted to more moderate positions on some of the issues. She is thinking of voting for Ralph Nader. Here is my response to her.

Dear Friend,

Sorry to hear that. Obama has to win the election. He has to appeal to a majority to do that. The majority isn't as liberal as you are.

If you want to vote for Nader go ahead. Some Progressive people in 2000 thought Al Gore was too conservative for them. So instead they voted for a guy with zero chance. They voted for Nader.

If they had voted for Gore he would be president today. But no, he wasn't perfect enough for them, even though he wound up winning the Nobel Peace Prize. If Gore had been elected there would have been no Iraq War. The USA would be leading the world on climate change and alternative energy. There would be no Patriot Act, secret prisons, torture of suspects, throwing away of the Fourth Amendment. We would probably be on our way to health care for all.

But no. Instead of voting for Gore, they took their votes away from him and voted for Nader. By not voting Democratic they made sure George W. Bush would win. I hope they're happy with themselves. They helped bring about a needless war, tens of thousands of deaths, the diminution of Constitutional rights, another 4 trillion dollars in national debt, two more right wing authoritarians on the Supreme Court, the formation of an American mercenary army, eight more years of inaction on the climate crisis as sea levels rise and species die......the list goes on and on and on.

So, you vote for whomever you want. I know what I'll be doing. I'll be enthusiastically supporting Barack Obama and casting my ballot for him. The alternative to Obama is not Ralph Nader, it's John McCain. If enough people do what you're thinking of doing that's what we will get. Are you up for a new war in Iran? Maybe one with Russia? Vote against Barack Obama and that's what you'll be supporting.

Steve

Six Republican Myths

The Republican Party has won 7 of the last 10 presidential elections due to a consistent message which has crafted a winning reputation in the public mind. But that message is more mythology than reality, slick packaging with shoddy merchandise inside. Here are six of the most prominent of these myths.

Myth #1: Republicans are for small government. This is demonstrably false. The federal government grew substantially under Reagan, the elder Bush and the current Bush. Republicans are for smaller government only when it pertains to things they don't like. For instance they have time and again fought to cut Social Security, health care, public schools, environmental and worker protection, veterans benefits, and programs in general that help everyday people. They consistently expand government for things they do like. This includes such things as prisons, the military, corporate welfare, immigration enforcement, private schooling, religious organizations, spying on citizens and attempts to control people's sexual behavior and choices.

Myth #2: Republicans are prudent fiscal managers. The record shows precisely the opposite. Republican Administrations have been the most fiscally irresponsible in American history. The deficit Reagan inherited from Carter's last year was $59 billion. He increased it to $200 billion. The first Bush increased it to $300 billion. After the Democrat Clinton achieved a $230 billion surplus, the second Bush turned that back around to $480 billion in red ink. This happens because Republicans do not feel they need to collect taxes to pay for all the expensive initiatvies they undertake. Instead, they borrow. Over 70% of the entire $10 trillion in national debt amassed since the inception of the country was compiled in just the last three Republican administrations.

Myth #3: Republicans are better on national security. After Iraq, this contention would be laughable were it not for the thousands killed uselessly in an unnecessary war. The national security of the United States was not furthered when only a half- hearted effort was mounted to eliminate the enemies who attacked us on 9-11. The national security of the United States was not furthered when America broke its longstanding tradition, initiated a war and exhausted its army fighting against a nation that posed no threat. Ignoring sound military advice, the Republican president and his congressional majorities then persisted in following a failing strategy for four years before finally changing. The 9-11 Commission's recommendations on terrorism were not followed or funded until Democrats took control of Congress in 2007.

Nor was the nation's security enhanced by denigrating allies and treating them with contempt, thus losing their support. Arousing the world against us through unilateralism does not make us safer. Resorting to posturing and saber-rattling rather than opening negotiations with rival states only ensures their continued enmity. Engaging in torture against suspected enemies does little but multiply those enemies and increase their determination against us. Hiring a horde of private contractors at 7 times the pay of our soldiers damages morale, wastes our defense dollars and leaves our actual armed forces less prepared. Refusing to encourage alternative energy to break our dependence on some of the most odious, unstable, and in some cases, even hostile nations is another way Republican policies have made us less secure. In a host of ways, the basic defense posture of this party makes us less safe, not more.

Myth #4: Republicans are better for business. Republicans have proven better only for big business, whose profits are up 85%, and for millionaires and billionaires, whose ranks have quadrupled. For small business and the rest of the economy, their policies have been failing since 1980. The typical standard of living has not improved in over 30 years other than the 1990s during a Democratic Administration. The stock market gained 8,000 points that decade, but has been flat for the past eight years. The wealthiest 5% of Americans have the greatest proportion of the national wealth since the verge of the Great Depression, when figures were first kept.

Myth 5: Republicans believe in free enterprise. Basing policy on handing out no-bid, unaccountable, cost-plus contracts to favored corporations is not free enterprise. Devising energy, water, highway and commercial policy based on secret meetings with industry representatives, and allowing lobbyists to write preferential regulatory and tax legislation in exchange for hiring party staffers and making campaign contributions is hardly free enterprise. These practices are instead among the defining characteristics of fascism.

Myth #6: Republicans stand for freedom. Not lately, they don't. By suspending habeas corpus, the basis of legal freedoms in Western Civilization for 800 years, refusing to testify before congress, initiating unwarranted surveillance of citizens in violation of the Fourth Amendment and the FISA law, similarly violating the ban on torture and turning suspects over to nations to torture for us, refusing to provide documents for congressional investigations and stifling scientific reports that disagree with their preconceived ideologies, the current Republican Administration and its loyal supporters in congress have shown the greatest contempt for the real freedoms enshrined in the Constitution. This short list is but the tip of the iceberg, as anyone who has kept informed well knows.

If you can be spied on without probable cause, arrested without charges, held without trial and tortured until you confess, how free are you? The fact that such practices exist in the United States of America and are tolerated for one day throws into stark relief the tenuous nature of liberties and the ease with which a government that appeals to fear can take them away.

It's Joe Biden

Barack Obama did what he usually does; he made the smart decision in tapping Delaware Senator Joe Biden to be his vice presidential running mate. Biden will not only help Obama's chances for election, he will be a help in governing if the ticket wins. And Biden's addition makes that more likely.

An acknowledged expert on foreign affairs with long service on the Foreign Relations Committee, Biden knows the issues and most of the world's movers and shakers from first hand experience. His acumen there and on related defense matters enables him to go toe to toe with John McCain-particularly since McCain's principal claim seems to be that even the Bush administration hasn't been belligerent enough to suit him.

With the Bushites themselves acknowledging the failure of the neoconservative approach by talking to Iran and North Korea and negotiating withdrawal dates from Iraq, the sharp-tongued Biden will mince no words in revealing McCain's reliance on warmongering and saber-rattling to an electorate desperately weary of Iraq and concerned about the prospect of new military adventures in Iran. The policy of bluster, threaten or invade is not only expensive but stupid. If I know Biden he will be able to get that message across in a memorable way.

Biden is rarely at a loss for words and isn't afraid to throw a punch. He ought to fill the role of countering Republican charges and launching counterstrikes with effectiveness. Since that is the path the McCain campaign has chosen to travel, Obama had little choice but to choose a running mate who could fight on that terrain.

Biden, born in Scranton and residing in northern Delaware, is often referred to as "Pennsylvania's third senator." He ought to help Obama nail down the Keystone State and should help with New Jersey as well. He comes from genuine working class roots and retains good rapport with blue-collar voters, another group of concern to Obama. He went through the tragic death of his first wife and has ridden the train home from Washington every night. He reportedly knows all the conductors and engineers by name. He's fully supportive of Obama's pro-average-American positions on health care, eduction, energy and taxes. He may thus help garner some of the primary voters who went for Hillary Clinton.

Lastly, Biden is a 65-year-old white man. Being realistic about American politics, that is exactly the profile a youngish, half-black nominee ought to be running with. An older, experienced "regular Joe" ought to allay part of the unease some whites feel about the candidacy of an exciting fellow of "exotic" background. Biden's 30 years in the Senate and the relationships he has built up in Congress and the federal agencies could prove an invaluable asset to moving Obama's agenda forward.

Obama has made the smartest overall choice available to him, considering both the needs of the campaign and those of the Administration to follow, should he take the oath on January 20, 2009. The next week of joint appearances and at the Democratic convention will tell how well the choice plays throughout the nation. This needs to work, since then it will be the Republicans' turn at their convention the following week. We are about to enter the home stretch, and Obama has positioned himself as well as he can. Biden is an excellent pick.

Hillary to the Rescue?

As we waited for Barack Obama's running mate selection, an illuminating NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll was released yesterday. It points out some of the reasons for the tightening race and suggests what Obama needs to do to hold on in the weeks ahead.

In line with most recent surveys it has Obama ahead, but by a shrinking margin. The Democrat is preferred by 3%, 45-42. The NBC/WSJ poll of a month ago had Obama up by 6. One interesting item is the fairly large undecided bloc of 13%. We'll return to that later.

The most striking demographic of Obama's campaign is his appeal to younger voters. Among the 18-34 age group he is the overwhelming pick, 55-38. Among all voters 35 and over John McCain led by a point, 43-42. Obama's challenge will be getting these younger voters to the polls. McCain's will be to increase his standing among the older groups.

As you would expect, Obama has advantages on economic issues and McCain on security-related ones. Both tickets will frequently talk past each other, with Obama firing away on the economy and McCain responding on terrorism. The wild card is George W. Bush. A great danger sign for McCain and opportunity for Obama is the finding that 77% of voters think McCain is likely to follow the unpopular president's policies "closely." If Obama can sear that impression into the voters' minds he will have a heavy advantage. If McCain can distance himself from his support of Bush policies and turn the conversation to defense matters he will be in good shape.

Now back to that 13% bloc of undecided. A full half of them, 6 1/2% of the total electorate, are Democratic supporters of Hillary Clinton who are as of yet witholding their support from Barack Obama. If they were to come off the fence in his favor, all he would have to do would be to hold the current support he has to ensure a 51.5% majority of the vote. How Sen. Clinton handles her delegates at the convention and how she speaks to them on the gathering's second night will prove crucial to the young Illinoisan's prospects on November 4. In an irony of ironies, his fate may be in her hands.

Vice President: McCain's Musings

John McCain is expected to announce his choice for Vice President Friday the 29th, the day after the Democratic Convention ends with Barack Obama's much-anticipated open-air acceptance speech before 76,000 partisans at Denver's football stadium. McCain's timing is intended to grab the media attention away from his rival and provide a buildup for him and the Republican Convention the following week.

Speculation about McCain's choice centers on three considered his most likely picks. These are former Massachusetts Governor and primary rival Mitt Romney, former Pennsylvania Governor and Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. Long shots include former Ohio Congressman and Bush Budget Director Rob Portman, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and Senator Joe Lieberman.

Romney has the private business expertise and executive political experience McCain lacks. In an anti-Washington year, none of this experience is associated with D. C. He is 61 but seems younger. He has deep personal financial resources and access to much more in the world of finance. His Mormon roots could help McCain in Nevada and perhaps a bit in Colorado. But of course his faith could also work against the ticket among evangelicals who mistrust the Latter Day Saints creed. Then too, McCain is said not to personally like Romney very much. For a man who values the comfortable relationships of old friends these drawbacks will probably prove too much.

Ridge has some important pluses, including his ties to Pennsylvania, a state Obama must win. He connects with working class voters and his service as Homeland Security Director fits well into McCain's security theme. He is also a good friend and confidante of McCain's. The main problem he presents for the ticket is that he is pro-choice. While this position is shared by the majority of the electorate, it is practically a disqualification among the Republican base. The chance that his nomination might be greeted with horror by some within the party and cause a public split is likely enough to dissuade his selection.

That leaves Pawlenty as McCain's most probable choice. The Minnesota governor, at 47, brings some youth to a ticket headed by the oldest candidate ever to run for a first term. He has the executive experience away from Washington McCain is looking for, and plays well to working class types, once saying the Republican Party needs to appeal "to Sam's Club, not just the country club." Pawlenty is a persuasive speaker. He will be the host governor of the convention, though it might be a stretch to think he could sway the state into the GOP column in November. He won re-election to his job by only 1% in 2006. Still, his fiscal management of the state has garnered respect, and without the negatives of the other two major contenders I consider him the most likely choice for the second spot on the ticket.

Vice President: Obama's Options

There is little doubt both candidates have settled on their vice presidential choices by now. Intentional leaks by both camps hint at their respective timing strategies. It seems Obama will announce his choice Wednesday or Thursday, to build advance excitement entering the Democratic Convention which starts next Monday the 25th. Obama and his number two will probably then make some joint appearances leading up to the convention. For his part, McCain is looking to announce his choice Friday the 29th, the day after the Democratic convention ends. This is intended to grab the spotlight away from the Democrats immediately after they have been on center stage the four days of their convention.

The frontrunners for Obama are widely reputed to be Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia, Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana and Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware. Hillary Clinton could be a dark horse pick.

On the Democratic side, Kaine has the advantage of doubling down on Obama's message of youth and change. He was chosen by the party to give the response to President Bush's State of the Union Address. He could also help Obama win the normally Republican state of Virginia and its 13 electoral votes. That would be big on election night. Surveys show the race there is neck and neck. On the downside, Kaine is relatively inexperienced, like Obama. He is still in his first term as Virginia's governor. He also has little foreign policy experience, an area where Obama may need some help.

Bayh has a lot of experience as a longtime Senator and former governor of usually solidly Republican Indiana. He comes from a family that's been politically prominent in Indiana for a long time. Bayh is smart and knowledgeable but not known as much of a scintillating speaker. He could help steady the ticket and might help deliver Indiana's 11 electoral votes. The Hoosier State is another one where polls show the two principals running neck and neck.

Biden has over 30 years of experience in the Senate and is widely regarded as an expert on defense and foreign relations. These are precisely the areas where Obama could use the most help against McCain. He is a Catholic and has working class appeal. Biden is also famously garrulous and would have no trouble doing the sharp-tongued hatchet work of responding to the crescendo of Republican attacks now descending on Obama. As a senior white man he could also reassure voters uneasy about Obama's race and inexperience. His main disadvantages are that his state is already reliably Democratic and sometimes his verbal shots from the hip get him into trouble. Even so, his total package makes him, in my opinion, the most likely partner to join Obama on the Demcoratic ticket.

Hillary Clinton might still have an outside shot to join Obama on the podium in Denver. She would draw senior women back to Obama in droves and would help with Hispanics too. She is combative and would blister McCain and his running mate with regularity and without remorse. She is encyclopedic on policy, including defense, and is, ironically, the most "macho" major Democrat in the country. On the downside, her presence on the ticket could mobilize the Republican base and Clinton-haters in general to turn out in large numbers in opposition. I do believe that, electorally, her joining the ticket would be a plus for Obama and would provide a clear path to victory in November. However, governing with her (and her husband the former president), in the wings could turn out to be a nightmare for Obama. For that reason I feel he will probably go with Biden.

I'll look at the Republican field tomorrow.

The Evangelical Factor

Yesterday Rev. Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Baptist megachurch in conservative Orange County, California, and author of bestseller "The Purpose Driven Life" hosted candidates Barack Obama and John McCain in successive question and answer sessions. 2,000 of the church's 22,000 members were present in the audience as Warren sought the candidates' views of religious, moral, ethical, and related political topics.

The format was welcoming, neither candidate made a major slip and the audience was good to both participants. As interesting as the exercise was as a debate dry-run, I do not feel it will substantively affect the race. Both contenders accomplished the things they needed to for the audiences they wanted to reach.

Obama wanted to reassure religious moderates that he is not a radical, that he can be trusted. He wanted to reassure Christians that he is a Christian. And he wanted to reassure liberals that he shares their principles. I feel he succeeded on all three counts. Obama made no bones about his own Christian beliefs. He made it clear that his political views come from the standard liberal Christian sources, such as the Sermon on the Mount and such passages as he quoted from Matthew, "Whatsoever you do to the least of these my brothers, you do unto me."

Obama gets credit as a Democrat for even appearing before such a group. White evangelical Protestants support McCain 64-28 according to polls. The audience seemed to give him some credit for that too, applauding several times. It has been quite a while, perhaps since Jimmy Carter in 1976, that the Democrats had a nominee who felt altogether comfortable talking about religion. Where he voiced positions that disagreed with the majority of the denomination's views, as on abortion, he tried to find common ground in reducing the practice.

Obama's positions were often "nuanced." He examined issues from multiple perspectives that did not always come to sharp yes or no conclusions. He often showed evidence of his thinking them through in front of us rather than offering quick, unreflective or pat answers. These are the kinds of responses that appeal to liberals, who see complexities and ambiguities and mistrust "knee-jerk" reactions. They are also the kind that vex conservatives, who crave certainty and decisiveness. Obama's goal was to score points with people of faith among independents and in the Democratic coalition, and avoid throwing red meat to conservative religious fundamentalists in such a way as to incite them and raise their turnout. He largely accomplished these aims.

McCain's objective was to remove any lingering estrangement between himself and the religious right. He wanted to get them fully on board his train, and he largely succeeded too. His views were in line with theirs on the issues, including abortion, stem cells and the federal courts. What is more, they were expressed in the type of short, decisive answers that religious conservatives like to hear, because they indicate the respondent fully accepts the orthodoxy without having to think about it. Especially after the kind of president we now have, that approach scares liberals, but that was not the portion of the public McCain was trying to please. There is no doubt that though the audience was respectful and supportive of Obama, their hearts were with McCain.

But did this session mobilize conservative Protestants to flock to the polls in support of John McCain in November? I doubt it. Though I am sure more are comfortable with him, there is as yet little evidence of the kind of fervor that George W. Bush was able to whip up in 2004. I have no doubt we shall soon see what other avenues the McCain campaign has in mind to improve that over the next 10 weeks.

As a final observation, it was a relief to see such a civil interchange during both sessions. Perhaps if the candidates always behaved as though they were in church this campaign would assume a much more elevated, constructive and intellectually honest tone than it has sometimes assumed up to now.

"The Limits of Power"

My wife happened to be flipping channels during a commercial break in the Olympics last night when she came across an amazing interview on the program Bill Moyers Journal. Moyers' guest was so startlingly on the mark that we did not return to the Games until the hour-long program ended.

Andrew J. Bacevich, a West Point graduate, retired army colonel and current professor of History and International Relations at Boston University, discussed with Moyers his recent book, "The Limits of Power." It contains a number of observations to which Americans ought to pay some attention. High on the list is the enthronement of a "consumption society." Bacevich explains how it is related to debt, a declining standard of sustainable living, the increasing militarization of American foreign policy and the "imperial presidency." It was one of the most thoughtful and comprehensively concise descriptions of the problems that afflict the republic that I've ever heard.

Bacevich told how the United States started going from being a "production country to a consumption country" as far back as the late 1960s. Then came the Arab oil embargo of 1973. As Bacevich stated, "I think historians a hundred years from now will puzzle over how it could be that the United States of America, the most powerful nation in the world, as far back as the 1970s came to recognize that dependence on foreign oil was a problem, posed a threat, compromised our freedom of action. How every president from Richard Nixon down...declared, 'We're going to fix this problem.' (And then) none of them did."

This "consumption society" sense of material entitlement means that Americans expect "this continuing flow of cheap consumer goods. We want to be able to pump gas into our cars regardless of how big they happen to be. And we want to be able to do these things whether or not the books are balanced at the end of the month or the end of the fiscal year." We have a balance of payment deficit of $800 billion a year just on oil. Rather than ask the American people to sacrifice, conserve, or otherwise act rationally to support real solutions to the problem, government has instead proffered the easy line of painless prosperity increasingly financed by debt and sustained to a greater and greater extent by a militarily interventionist foreign policy. Bacevich summarizes, "The likelihood that our children, our grandchildren, the next generation will enjoy the opportunities we've had is very slight because we're squandering our power. We are squandering our wealth."

And to support this growing reliance on military solutions to keep the resources flowing, Congress has ceded a larger share of its authority to the executive: an "imperial presidency" which is allowed to ignore the Constitution and commit the nation to dubious interventions. "One of the ways we avoid confronting our refusal to balance the books is to rely increasingly on the projection of American military power around the world to try to maintain this dysfunctional system or set of arrangements that have evolved over the last 30 or 40 years."

But the debts will eventually fall due, as the mortgage and energy crises and the devaluation of the dollar make clear. As Bacevich pointed out, "the Congress no longer is able to articulate a vision of what is the common good. The Congress exists primarily to ensure the reelection of members of Congress," while the President makes all the important decisions himself, he might have added. The people's representatives have left themselves nearly powerless to act.

Afraid to ask the people for anything but their votes, afraid to tell them the truth, and content to leave the hard choices in the hands of one man, we have instead turned to an "imperial presidency that has made our democracy a false one. We're going through the motions of a democratic political system. But the fabric of democracy, I think, has worn very thin." Without an honest effort to get control of our energy and debt situations and rein in the runaway executive, Bacevich leaves the convincing impression that a painful day of reckoning will come, leaving an America few of us will recognize-or look forward to living in.

A Reason to Believe

Back in 1964, 76% of Americans surveyed said they trusted their government. The figure these days is 26%. Once upon a time most Americans felt sure their children would be better off than they were. Today only 34% think so. An average of 62% of Americans voted in the three presidential elections of 1952, 1956 and 1960. An average of 52% have done so in the last three. Why does there seem to be so much pessimism, cynicism and apathy? Are Americans turning into a nation of whiners?

No, I'd contend they are reacting rationally to the facts on the ground. Americans are gloomy because they have reason to be. They are pessimistic because their living standards and sense of security have been slipping for 35 years. They are cynical because their leaders have repeatedly lied to them and fed them a steady diet of unfulfilled promises. They are growing apathetic because no one seems able to rectify the problems that assail them. This has been building for a long time.

That's why there is such excitement about Barack Obama and a longing for change. It's not confidence. If there was a great deal of confidence in him he would be leading by a huge margin. There is, instead, hope. It is hope born of a growing sense that the conventional isn't working, that something novel and unconventional must be tried. When business as usual produces failure as usual it is rational to want to change course. The choice for many this year is truly hope against fear, the hope that Obama can break the nation out of its rut versus the fear that he might not be ready or capable.

Few seriously believe that John McCain represents the kind of transformational change that will get the world back on our side, balance the budget, bring back industrial jobs, save people's homes, make sure they have health insurance or inspire a renaissance in educational achievement. But he is an old hand with a great deal of congressional experience. He is the defensive choice. He may not make things much better, but at least he may not make them much worse.

Given Obama's lack of a long record, there is less certainty about how he would operate. But his upsides include a correct assessment of what the problems are, a fresh approach to attacking them, and perhaps an ability to spark younger Americans to make the kind of effort their resolution will require. We overcame the Great Depression, won World War II, put men on the moon and led the computer revolution because we believed we could. Because we did, the American people supported committing the resources and made the efforts and sacrifices necessary to succeed. And because they did succeed, confidence in their ability to handle any challenge and in their goverment to properly marshall them soared. Success bred success.

Then came one disillusionment after another. The assassination of beloved leaders. The long and divisive Vietnam War. Watergate. Oil embargoes. Plant closings. Budget deficits. Crime. Drugs. The bursting of the tech bubble. Terrorism. Iraq. Global warming. Erosion of the Constitution. Hyperpartisanship and a new raft of scandals. The middle and working class falling farther and farther behind. The American people have become pretty cynical, but they want to believe again. This November we shall see if they can bring themselves to dare to do so.

EPA: No Scientists Need Apply

There are a number of ways an Administration can act to cement its legacy in history. One is to set the nation on a course toward a herculean goal, like going to the moon. Another is to expand the blessings of liberty, as in freeing the slaves or extending the vote to women. Yet another is to improve the lives of millions of citizens, such as with introducing Social Security or Medicare.

The Bush Administration is moving in a different direction, trying to make sure that in enforcing the Endangered Species Act the Environmental Protection Agency need listen to no pesky scientific facts when it makes its rulings. As the Associated Press reports, "The draft rules would bar federal agencies from assessing the emissions from projects that contribute to global warming and its effects on species and habitats." The EPA, in other words, would be prohibited from compiling data about air pollution. This follows last month's announcement that the EPA had "decided it did not want to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act."

Under current law, experts at the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Maritime Fisheries Service must be consulted "whether a project is likely to jeopardize any endangered species or damage habitat, even if no harm seems likely." Under the new guidelines developed by attorneys at Commerce and Interior without scientific review, the Agency head will declare whether habitat damage is likely before any scientific review takes place. If he or she says no, then no assessment will be made. If the verdict is yes, then scientific review must be completed in sixty days or the project will automatically be approved. Needless to say, very few reputable scientific studies can be completed in that length of time. And that, of course, is the point and the purpose.

These administrative rules can go into effect without congressional approval after a thirty-day public comment period. The next president could reverse them, though, or congress could take matters into its own hands and write new regulations. That, however, is a moot point if an Administration such as this one next occupies the White House and decides that laws mandating what the EPA exists for or that the Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act or other consumer and health protections are simply things it wants to ignore. There apparently is little consequence to refusing to follow laws when your address is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Instead the Orwellian house of mirrors goes on. We have an environmental agency that opposes protecting the environment. We consider scientific matters upon which scientists cannot be consulted. Up is redefined as down, and down up. Elections do have consequences, and their impacts can last a long time. The contributions of Washington, Lincoln and the Roosevelts continue to shape our lives even today. How will the actions and decisions of President Bush affect our lives in the future? How will we be remembered if we allow them to stand?

End Game in Iraq

Wars are often launched with stirring appeals to patriotism and national unity. They are begun with the hope of writing wrongs or eliminating threats. They are time and again seen as a quick and decisive means of resolving a frustrating problem. That they so often fail to fulfill any of these expectations seems to cause little reflection among those who favor recourse to violent force. It has been said that belief in the quick and decisive war is one of humanity's most persistent and tragic illusions.

These lessons were underscored again this week as we take stock of the latest comments by the Iraqi Foreign Minister and digest their meaning for the American adventure in the Land of the Two Rivers.

As if to place additional emphasis on remarks made by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki last month, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari made clear that negotiations with the United States could only reach agreement if "definitely there has to be a very clear timeline" for American withdrawal. This again contradicts President Bush's hope for a "general time horizon" or an "aspirational" vague time frame. Zebari further commented that the two sides were "very close" to finishing an agreement to replace the U.N. mandate that expires at the end of this year.

According to "two senior Iraqi officials" U.S. forces would withdraw from Iraq's cities by June 30, 2009. All combat troops would be out of the country by October, 2010. Remaining support personnel would leave by the end of 2013. The Iraqi government made clear that specific dates are necessary for any agreement to secure passage in the country's Parliament.

In terms of the expectations generated in the run up to the war, there are some rather blatant inaccuracies. Congress and the American people were assured a real military threat existed. None did. The conflict would last "weeks, not months." If the timeline Zebari spoke of is accurate, we are a little past the halfway point after 5 1/2 years of involvement. The expense would be no more than $20 billion. The official costs on the books have already surpassed $700 billion, and are perhaps double that when indirect costs are included. And we are only halfway through. We are no safer against our real enemies. They continue to train and plot from sanctuaries several hundred miles away.

Though this administration has been more self-deluded and pigheaded than most, these are endemic risks when one goes to war, an inherently risky and unpredictable pursuit. Expectations are rarely borne out. Your opponent generally proves far more resilient than you thought. You usually find you have made a number of incorrect assessments about his resources, capabilities, culture and will. When you are trying to kill people they develop a remarkable capacity to find your weaknesses. Things never proceed as quickly or cheaply as you plan. And the tyrant we deposed would probably have died from natural causes by the year 2013 anyway.

One can hope that this latest example will make America's leaders much more cautious about beating the drums of war from now on and America's people far more skeptical about marching to them. Sadly, that was a lesson also hoped for after the nation's dismal experience in Southeast Asia. In what may be an ironic positive, the architects of the war have at last succeeded in uniting the American people, the majority of whom believe now that the war was a mistake and the sooner we are finished with it the better. It would be good to suppose the lesson will stick this time, but if past is prologue the odds seem less than favorable.

Mock-O-Mania

This is what candidate John McCain is reduced to. The one-time proponent of honor, straight talk and sticking to the issues, the candidate who was mercilessly and unjustifiably smeared in 2000, has himself hired Steve Schmidt and his shop of Rove acolytes. He has turned to the dark side.

Most of the McCain campaign of late consists of attacks on Barack Obama. The attacks are hardly issues-based, but instead focus on schoolyard-level mocking sessions designed to transform Obama's strengths into objects of derision by association. The McCain campaign seems determined to test one of H.L. Mencken's maxims: "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."

In what may come to be known as the Envy Campaign, Obama is mocked for being too eloquent, as though it has been a comfort these past eight years to have as leader of the free world a man who can scarcely utter a complete sentence or formulate a coherent thought. He is mocked for drawing large crowds, as though it is preferable to have as a leader a man like McCain, who has trouble finding enough people to fill a high school gym who want to hear what he has to say.

Obama is derided for getting along well with world leaders, as though international enmity is preferable, and for his ability to move citizens of foreign countries, as though America would not be better off with a little more respect, friendship and restored credibility in the world.

He is lampooned for being too inspiring, apparently too much like Lincoln, Kennedy, Reagan and Roosevelt for a discerning citizen's taste. His supporters are too enthusiastic and numerous, and he guilty of following the public's wishes too closely, as though that is not the essence of democracy itself.

Obama and his campaign are derided as being too tech-savvy, apparently making the point that a president who is ignorant of how to send an e-mail or "do a Google" is just what this country needs in the twenty-first century.

Obama gets sneered at for being a media darling, now that McCain, who used to be so popular with the fourth estate that he referred to the press as "my base," is no longer that darling himself. Obama is even mocked for promoting energy conservation, as though wastefulness is a virtue.

In what is becoming a festival of pique, envy and ridicule, a veritable glorification of the stupid and shallow over serious examination of national challenges, McCain has cast his die and the polls are narrowing.

For their part, the Democrats grow more worried by the day. They fear Mencken may yet be proved right. It wouldn't be the first time. Just ask John McCain.

China Rising

I hope you were able to look in on the Olympic Opening Ceremony from Beijing last night. What the world witnessed was the coming out party for the next global superpower.

The presentation was a tour de force combining modern technology with ancient philosophy, cooperative effort with individual initiative, beauty with bulk, the sentimental with the inspiring and discipline with creativity. In short, it was a tribute to the yin and the yang, the age-old Chinese search for harmony in the reconciliation and melding of opposites. And it was all done on such a massive scale as to leave no doubt that China is the Leviathan of the world.

China is home to one-fifth of all humanity. It has a GDP now ranked third and on track to be first by 2030. Its population stands at 1.3 billion persons. It still has a larger number of citizens in abject poverty than live in the entire United States, but now also has a larger middle class than does the United States. Its burgeoning metropolitan centers boast infrastructure and amenities that make most American cities embarrassingly decrepit by comparison.

It graduates four times as many engineers a year as do the universities of the United States, and its children outperform ours in comparative tests. They are competitive, have a sense of themselves on the upswing of history and are hungry for more.

Think of China as being where the USA was in 1890. They are at the point of rapid industrialization, where increasing prosperity and opportunity coexist with growing pollution and overcrowding. But they enjoy the benefit of the lessons of our and the other industrialized nations' successes and shortcomings. Last night's program remained mindful of the spiritual and human elements of progress throughout, something Americans often seem to have trouble doing.

China is intrinsically neither our friend nor our enemy. They are a great nation embarked on an exciting path of development that promises great benefits for their people and society. If our society proves unable to inspire its people to a similar dedication, particularly with regards to an ethic of achievement in education, and a commitment to the development and maintenance of a modern infrastructure in all its aspects, we shall surely be easily pushed aside in the next few decades.

Such is the course of the rise and decline of peoples and nations.

31st Anniversary

My wife and I celebrate our 31st wedding anniversary today. As the years go by I feel more and more that Joan is the best thing that ever happened to me.

I fell hard for her at the age of 21 in the summer of 1976. She was more reserved about me at first, but somehow the magic of love infected her too. We were married on August 6, 1977 in the big Catholic Church of St. John Vianney in Hacienda Heights, California.

There is no substitute in life for having one person who is always in your corner, no matter what, as we are for each other. I believe that complete intimacy with another is one of the primal and spiritual motivations common to humankind. When I say intimacy I mean of course not only physical but emotional, aesthetic and intellectual as well.

It is just plain fun to share humor together, go on trips, see movies, talk about books, friends, the kids, neighbors, current events, feelings--you name it, without having to be on guard playing the dating game. We made a compact early on that the marriage would last, that whatever problems came up we would work through and solve. That foundation has served us well.

As much as we enjoy each other's company, we've also found we have a lot of independent interests. Joan conducts a handbell group. I attend political meetings. She likes movies with lots of dancing in them. I was an avid golfer for many years. It has been a very good practice to give each other space to pursue these other interests. I think a couple needs time apart as well as time together.

But we also make time to enjoy some of each other's interests together, too. We have season tickets to the symphony, for instance. That's a special interest of hers. Sometimes I like the music and sometimes not, but I go because it is something she enjoys so much. She does the same for me in attending a few baseball games. You can't have it all your own way in a marriage without poisoning the well. In fact, I find that listening and helping meet her needs makes me feel better too.

Tolerance is very important, too. I put up with some habits of hers that I find mildly irksome. I know she puts up with more from me. Is something really important enough to make an issue of? If we reserve those instances to a very few we are both happy to try to remedy the annoying behaviors. It pays off in trust and mutual respect, and we want to make the other happy. It's best not to look at it as a contest over who gets their way. That's a prescription for real trouble.

It saddens me to think of all the broken marriages, the families split up, the frequent ill feelings engendered, the dreams disappointed. I feel very grateful for what we have and wish the same for everyone. There is nothing in my life that has made me feel so fulfilled and complete, and I feel that if we all truly loved and felt loved a great many of society's problems would simply melt away.

If I could give any advice it would be to follow the golden rule in your marriage or other close relationship. It could turn out to be the best and most rewarding thing you ever do.

Curbing Waste, Fraud and Abuse

Writing in the August 6 Wall Street Journal, Senator Hillary Clinton begins by mentioning a building in the Cayman Islands that serves as the official headquarters for 18,000 corporations, "half of which have U.S. ties." They set up fictional shop there to avoid U.S. taxes. One of these is Halliburton subsidiary KBR, which "has used offshore tax havens to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal taxes. To no one's surprise, instead of cracking down on KBR, the Bush administration has rewarded the company in April of this year with a 10-year, $150 billion contract in Iraq."

The crony system of favored companies getting no-bid contracts, receiving bonuses whether or not work is done and skipping out on their taxes became the normal order of business under the Tom DeLay Congress and the Bush White House. Clinton and other Democrats have proposed a new Truman Commission to root out such abuses. It has been blocked so far by the President and his Republican allies who would rather not see embarrassing facts come out in an election year. But if Obama wins, expect a good deal of real economizing to take place.

Clinton's proposals include five principal points. The first would "ban the federal government from contracting with companies that hide profits offshore." The second would require vetting companies' records and making sure they "complete the work they are hired to do." Imagine that. The third would end the awarding of "bonuses" for work not yet performed, as has been common in Iraq. The fourth would restore competitive bidding and transparency to the contracting system. Finally, the fifth would reverse the "ideological privatization of critical government functions."

The corruption allowed to flourish under the Bush presidency is at a level unseen since the disgraces of the Harding administration back in the early 1920s. It is just one of many reasons the nation badly needs a change. These reforms, which amount to little more than simple honesty and basic accountability, would save the American people about $200 billion a year without reducing the level of services one iota. It is reassuring to see that even having lost her presidential bid, Sen. Clinton and othr like-minded leaders are on the job with a view to rolling back the rot that has infected the system these past eight years.

Swing Vote

I went to the movie "Swing Vote" tonight. In it, Kevin Costner plays a buffoonish New Mexico ne'er-do-well who, as fate would have it, gets to cast the deciding vote to determine a U.S. presidential election.

The film makes some valid points. The most telling is the extent to which the candidates and major parties will pander to get their points across. This certainly isn't news to people who are following the current campaign and watching some of the trivial and tiresomely irrational verbiage flying about. It's just that when, as in "Swing Vote," it's all directed to one person instead of the nation as a whole it puts it into pretty stark relief. It speaks to a "win at any cost" mentality that immeasurably demeans the democratic process.

The other salient point is a sharp barb directed at the American people themselves for not demanding better. Costner's character stands for the many who do not vote, do not care, and/or do not stay informed enough to do the process justice or make intelligent choices. Egged on by his 11-year old daughter, the man eventually does take the responsibilities of citizenship seriously. He rather sums up his former attitude by declaring, "To the extent that America has an enemy, I guess it's me."

The film, comes through with some portrayals of dysfunction in families and individuals that can make the viewer reflect on some of our deeper ills, but leavens these with frequent humor. "Swing Vote" is not a great film but it is an appropriate one for an election year. If you have a free evening and like to muse about society and how politics are conducted by all means give it a look.

The Fourth Energy Revolution

Over the past two hundred years the advanced world has been able to stay in business thanks to inventing technologies to successively utilize three different energy sources. We are now in need of a fourth such energy revolution with no guarantee we will achieve it. We're not sure how much time we have left nor what the new source will be. Great stakes ride on the outcome.

Up until a little over 200 years ago technology remained much the same as it had been since ancient times. Human and animal muscle power did most of the work. Wood provided most of the fuel for fires. Wind pushed ships across the sea and drove some mills. That was about it.

Then came the water power revolution. By locating near streams of running water, factories could use the force of the flow to turn wheels. This kinetic motion, transmitted through gears to intricate machinery, made possible the rise of the first textile mills, the foundation of the industrial revolution. But to expand the revolution, a mobile power source was needed, one that need not be tied to the presence of a suitable water course and that could be set up anywhere.

The steam engine was the solution. But to feed the burgeoning proliferation of these engines the primeval forests of Europe and America had to be consumed at an alarming pace. Wood was running out. A new energy source had to be found to continue with the new industrially-based society. This led to the second energy revolution based on coal.

Coal powered the steel mills, ships and locomotives of the late nineteenth century and the electrical generating plants of the twentieth. Little of the era's material progress would have been possible without it. It had problems, though. It was ungainly for small engines and caused awful pollution in industrial cities. The third energy revolution was therefore based on petroleum, or "rock oil." The internal combustion engine based on a liquid fuel made possible the automobile, the airplane, the trucking industry and long-distance shipping.

We are now in need of a fourth energy revolution. Oil is a finite resource. We may already have reached "peak oil," the point at which production will level off and begin to decline because new finds will no longer be able to replace the oil being pumped out of the ground. And we are seeing that the massive tonnage of carbon being pumped into the atmosphere is negatively impacting the earth's climate and its ability to sustain the web of life itself.

We will have to move on from oil soon enough. But to what? Nuclear power produces no carbon footprint, but uranium is a finite resource too, and in its enriched state remains devastatingly toxic for hundreds of thousand of years. Wind is free but low-yield; it takes hundreds of thousands of large turbines to produce much power. The same is true with solar, and the price of silicon for solar panels has begun booming. Natural gas remains a finite fossil fuel largely produced overseas. Ethanol is another rather inefficient source that may take as much energy to cultivate as it provides, while the massive acreage devoted to it subtracts from food production. Cellulosic ethanol would be much more efficient, but we haven't perfected how to produce it. Geothermal power is excellent but not available in very many places. Technical problems still abound with tidal. The fusion reactor remains science fiction.

It is clear that enormous strides in conservation are urgently needed. There will have to be a transition to some combination of sources like the ones mentioned above. But it's a real conundrum. The longer we wait for decisive breakthroughs the better the results may be. Or perhaps that will only leave us less time to implement them. Maybe the great breakthroughs won't come in time, or maybe not at all. It could be that we ought to be proceeding with crash programs on several of these ideas at once, or maybe one is superior to the rest and we should be moving full speed ahead on it.

Meanwhile, as we ponder these difficulties and lurch hesitantly and halfheartedly forward, the cost of fossil energy continues to rise. The clock ticks, and while we can hear the ticking we maddeningly are not permitted to see the face of the clock itself. It could be 9 P.M. or it could be 10 minutes to midnight. We need the fourth energy revolution. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Global Warming Hits Bangladesh

The impoverished nation of Bangladesh offers us a case study of the effects and prospects in store for us as a result of global warming. This agricultural nation, sandwiched between India and Burma (Myanmar) on the Indian Ocean's Bay of Bengal, is seriously threatened by the more powerful storms caused by warming oceans and by the rising sea level produced by the melting of polar ice, especially in Greenland and the Antarctic Peninsula.

Bangladesh has the seventh largest population in the world, 150 million people, all crammed into a country the size of the state of Iowa. The U.N. expects that population to grow 25% to 200 million by 2015. The people are 90% Muslim and 10% Hindu. The Muslims have generally followed a benign mystical form of Islam in the Sufi tradition, infused with many local Hindu elements. But as population, environmental and consequently economic pressures have risen, the more austere Wahabbi Islam of Saudi Arabia has found a growing popularity. Demand for burkas is going up.

Geographically, the nation is a delta region formed by three great rivers, the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna, and a hundred smaller ones that form a maze of channels and bayous at an elevation of a scant 2 to 6 feet above sea level. Rice paddies produce the staple crop. The average income is $520 per year, primarily from rice farming.

From May to November come the torrential rainstorms of the seasonal monsoons. In normal years at least 1/3 of the country floods, in some years as much as 2/3. Thousand die annually in the rising waters. Vast mangrove forests, the largest in the world, cover 2300 square miles and protect the coast from storm surges. But this ecosystem is under serious threat.

The sea level is rising by about 3 millimeters a year as a result of global warming. Under the best case estimates, the ocean will rise only about 12 inches in the next few decades. A moderate estimate is 30 inches. A worst case could be as high as 38 inches. If the best case materializes "only" 12-15% of Bangladesh's land area will disappear under the waves and 9 million environmental refugees will be created.

The ocean's rise is already manifesting itself in seawater encroachment. It is getting increasingly hard to find drinkable water along the coast. Saline incursions at high tide are damaging the productivity of the rice paddies to the point where yields per acre have fallen to one-half of those harvested in China. Desperate rice farmers, unable to make a living from their paddies, are destroying the mangrove forests and replacing them with shrimp farms. In a vicious circle, as the mangrove barrier is degraded the salt inflow from the Bay of Bengal increases and more salinity proceeds inland at high tide, ruining more farmland.

As America found out from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, once the delta bayou vegetation is stripped from a coastal area, it is far more vulnerable to the storm surges that accompany cyclonic storms. And these storms increasingly pack larger punches gained from the energy of the warmer ocean waters that spawn and sustain them. Cyclone Sidr, a typhoon that struck in 2007, featured 135 mile-an-hour winds and killed 4,000 Bangladeshis.

As the effects of sea level rise and more extreme weather increase, millions of desperate people lose the ability to provide for themselves from the land and seek their fortunes elsewhere. The capital of Dacca has become an ungovernable, teeming slum of an estimated 12 million people. So many emaciated refugees flee the country that neighboring India is in the process of building and manning a 2500-mile border fence to keep Bangladeshis out. Another two million virtual debt slaves have paid an average $2,000 fee to labor contractors to ship them to wealthy Persian Gulf states, where they perform the hard manual labor that maintains the Saudi and Emerati upper class in luxury.

In a final irony, with Bangladesh increasingly unable to fund an infrastructure, educational opportunities are more and more being provided by Saudi wealth in the form of madrassas, religious schools that focus almost completely on memorizing the Koran and interpreting it according to the tenets of the radical fundamentalist Wahabbi sect. A 2007 video produced by Osama bin Laden and distributed in the region mentions as one of its "findings" the idea that the West is intentionally fomenting global warming as a means of obliterating the people of Bangladesh-who should therefore ally themselves with him in order to strike back.