Is the planet running out of gas? If it is, what should the Bush administration do about it?

It looks like humanity is at least a generation away from peak oil production. Unfortunately, there could be another “oil crisis” any day now.

One day, the oil age will end. As with all resources, there is ultimately a finite supply of oil. So it is not yet clear how the world will power itself for the bulk of the coming century. But we have at least another three decades to find alternatives to petroleum. “Trusting markets is the only way we can assure energy abundance in the future,” notes the University of Houston’s Economides. “It’s also the only way that we will ever transition to something other than oil and gas.”

Reason: Peak Oil Panic: Is the planet running out of gas? If it is, what should the Bush administration do about it? by Ronald Bailey

A Harper's cartoon by Mr. Fish.

Yellow Ribbon

"To endure in the 21st century," Joffe concludes, "this hegemon must soften the hard edge of its power with the world's consent. Otherwise the 'cittie upon a hill' will be a high, but lonely place." Or as Jesus says in the Gospel of Mark, "If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all."

Such sentiments are beautiful, moving, and even true to a degree. But they leave tough questions unanswered.

Foreign Affairs - Through Our Friends' Eyes -- Defending and Advising the Hyperpower - Walter Russell Mead

The software giant's plan to build datacenters the size of 10 Costcos, complete with electrical substations, signals a major shift in the industry's fundamental economics.

FAST FORWARD: Microsoft's cash versus Google - May. 5, 2006

With the Web booming again, Morgan's star analyst is riding high -- but her history illustrates a truth about investing: Over the long haul, everyone ends up looking average.

FORTUNE: Street Life: Mary Meeker 2.0 - May. 3, 2006

Starring as the ultimate pinup in The Notorious Bettie Page, Gretchen Mol sheds her clothes, her inhibitions, and her flash-in-the-pan image

THE NAKED TRUTH ABOUT GRETCHEN MOL: GQ Features on men.style.com

The divine dark comedy of The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu | LA Weekly

Despite much recent controversy about the theory of evolution, major changes in our understanding of evolution over the past twenty years have gone virtually unnoticed.

Evolving Evolution | The New York Review of Books

Bush's CIA chief abruptly resigns under a shadow of alleged ties to a corrupt congressman and leaves a spy agency in chaos.

Porter Goss' spooky demise

Thanks to our super-secret source for telling us about this ABC feed that got posted, with a camera trained on the President Bush during Colbert's video skit during last week's White House correspondents' dinner.

The president is not amused