cold oil

In some traditions, putting a drop of oil into a basin of water is a prelude to prophecy; the seer would sit in semi darkness and watch the rainbow-patterns of oil on water. It'd provide a focus for their concentration and they'd see visions in their basin.

These days I'm pretty sure they'd use Canola oil. Much cheaper.

The gas situation in the States today strikes me as more than just mildly humorous. If you go hunting on Yahoo for "gas prices," you'll find hundreds of sites dedicated only to current listings of those costs for specific areas. There are even nationwide sites where you can compare gas here to gas there... It's like we never considered gasoline was a finite resource? I mean, hello? In March, 1998 Scientific American wrote that, at the rate of usage in 1998, we would run out of oil in 200 years. That was six years ago. The rate of oil usage, especially in America, has gone up a LOT since then. It will continue to go up. That number's probably been shortened by a few decades.

Now we're all rather shocked because oil's gone up past two bucks a gallon. By rights it should have been past that point years ago. I suspect government subsidization (paid for by your taxes) has kept gas prices down; now the government's new habit of cutting taxes forces some of that money to come out of your pocket. But that isn't the point. The point is, the prices aren't going to go down.

Not gonna happen. Ever. It will continue to get more and more expensive. It can't not. It is limited. Nobody can make more. So please
cease the surprise
and open your eyes
the oil's being drained
your wallet's being maimed
and the government's taking no pains
to find an alternative
before we end up having to walk whereever we want to gooooooo
and dont forget bikes need oil too
to be made
and repaired
so... ooops! (Sorry for the musical interlude, I'm having that kind of day.)