Manipulation of supply through the SPR and refinery product will have to come to an end. Once the economy ticks up in the next two months leading to mid-term elections, the yahoos who had been ready to vote their gas tanks and toss the bums (Repugnicans) out will have a change of heart and put the weasels securely in charge for another thrilling two years. Once that happens, back to the Iran problem. Look out for falling nukes! Look out for the Cantarell collapse. Look out for a China that no longer needs the US to ensure its economy. The US will drift into a curious position much like that of the USSR when we successfully bankrupted them. The US will be the next victim of that tactic. Meanwhile, the elites will put their money in safe havens and move away from what is fast becoming just another third world country. Secure in their hideouts, the conservative elites will watch as Joe Sixpack and Susie WalMart scrabble ever harder to make ends meet. The elites will chortle in glee at the irony of these common folk protesting abortion, stem cell research, gays, and them dang liberals. (They hate them edumuhcated liberals you know, always telling us 'Merkins to use our vote to get healthcare, good wages, free edumuhcation, and clean air, water and all that other commie bullshit). As the repugnicans clink their brandy snifters together and tell us once again that it is our own fault the US is in default, ruined, poisoned, and sick, and certainly not their fault, the rest of the world will finally get a chance to taste of the American dream. Too bad it will poison them as well.

Then comes the rising seas, the encroaching deserts, the famine. We bunch up at the poles, what few are left, and we pray that we can survive, for another day, or two.

By then a few will realize that arguing about when or how fast it would run out had been absurd, and that what was important was the certain knowledge that it will and that we had only one choice and one chance -- to change, to rationally reduce population growth, or face the limits to growth having squandered the very thing that could have saved us.

Oh, well.

Thanks.

That is all the time I've been allotted.

At this point the cornucopians and techno-lovers will give a lecture on why up is down and left is right if we use BRAND X !!!!! TECHNOLOGEE .

Again, thanks for your time.

Goodnight. Don't forget to turn out the lights on your way out.