Pull Up To The Pump And Bend Over

I got a text message from my mom (who I already knew was okay) in Alabama today: "Survived katrina worst hurricane i've been thru house is okay." The mayor of New Orleans is now saying that the death toll in that city might number in the thousands. It's apparently going to be months before some people can return home. I have to wonder what the public health implications of all this will be, not just for New Orleans but for the whole Gulf Coast and the nation.

Not to minimize the loss of lives and livelihoods, but here's another unfortunate effect from this hurricane: Experts are now predicting that we'll be seeing $4.00 a gallon gas before long. Oil is a very finite resource for which the supply lines are tenuous at best (and please, don't give me that ANWAR nonsense because it's not a solution--at best it just puts the problem off for a few years). Can we all once and for all agree that we are way too over-dependent on this fossil fuel? If we can finally agree on that we might be able to start thinking of ways to break this addiction. Then we wouldn't all be hostage to the capriciousness of nature, nor would we have to send our children off to die in millennia-old conflicts on the other side of the world.