A lot of people saw this coming 30 years ago - it is just that most of them had other interests to attend to.

'The future is now' was a wonderful expression from George Allen during his coaching stint for the Washington Redskins - he cared about winning, and was willing to sacrifice future trades for immediate results.

But the expression is even more relevant for what America forgot - the future of 1976 is pretty much today, 2006 - a highly unstable Middle East, with American soldiers being used to secure oil supplies, and an American society which took essentially no concrete actions in terms of efficiency/conservation or changing how it lived.

And ExxonMobil making a cool $40 billion in profits, with a Secretary of State that had an oil tanker named after her, with a failed oil man as President, and a Vice President paid deferred compensation for his service to an oil services company.

Quite honestly, most people in 1976 would not have found 2006 all that much a parody really - they pretty much believed then that giant oil companies owned the political system. As for environmental degradation - no surprise there either, by the way.

The real mystery is why it continued so long in North America until people finally saw what the American Dream would mean for them, personally, and not merely their children or grandchildren.

Personally, I find it fitting the baby boom will get to live in the nest it so thoroughly fouled, instead of enjoying the party without cleaning up.

How is that Arctic ice melting going, by the way? The one that wasn't scheduled until sometime around 2040? And how is the schedule looking for oil deliveries from Saudi Arabia, which will be ramping up to 12 mbpd any day now, after the oil market is no longer so flooded.

The future is now. Have fun.