We do not inherit the Earth from our parents: we borrow it from our children.
--Saint Exupery

Nukes.
They scare me.
Well, they scare anyone sensible...or at least they should.
The skyrocketing price of oil has not affected us overmuch as of yet. Our Toyota Echo, at today's prices, costs less than $35.00 to fill from fumes. I saw this coming, you see.
Oh, but it will affect us. It will affect us all. If I'm right, you're going to see grocery prices next year that will turn your hair white. Because nearly everything is shipped by truck...and trucks use gas.
Why is oil going up so fast?
Oh, a whole variety of reasons--it seems they can manufacture reasons to line their pockets faster than they can manufacture oil itself. But this time, at least one of the excuses is a full-fledged reason...and a frightening one.
Iran has decided to restart their nuclear program. If anyone objects too loudly to that fait accompli, well, they'll just shut off their oil.

Our oil addiction: it scares me. Almost as much as nukes do. Combine the two in any way and you have a recipe for a nightmare.

Now, I'd love to call Iran's bluff: advise them to cease and desist, and warn them of the following consequences if they don't: they would receive forty-eight hours notice to evacuate their nuclear facilities and surrender any fissionable material, after which point a bomb would be dropped.
Unfortunately, we're still in the oil hammerlock and we need every spare drop the world, including Iran, can supply. In fact, we may need more than that: we may have reached what's called Hubbert's Peak.
Dr. M. King Hubbert (1903-1989) predicted, along about 1956, that American oil production would peak in the early 1970s. People laughed at him until his prediction came true.
He also predicted that world oil production would peak in 1995. He was off by at least a decade, due to technological advances that allowed extraction of oil it had once been impossible to see, let alone reach. Barring a deus clambering out of some unforeseen machina, though, Hubbert's Peak is surely drawing very near. And once we reach it, all bets--except that of rapid and explosive world change--are off.
I'd like to think--and I'm nearly cynical enough to believe--that the oil companies have our salvation buried in some vault someplace and are simply milking every last penny they can out of 'black gold'. I would not-so-respectfully suggest that if there's a cat in the bag, now would be about the time to let it out. It will take time to perfect whatever's going to replace oil.
In the meantime, George W. Bush has said that 'nothing is off the table' as far as dealing with Iran's intransigence. Please, God, let this be resolved peacefully and quickly, because if, heaven forbid, America attempts to engage Iran while still embroiled in Iraq, it will very quickly find itself fighting a Hydra. If they thought terrorists rallied to Iraq, they ain't seen nothin' yet.

In the 1950s, it was widely believed that World War III, involving at the very least a limited nuclear exchange, was five or at most ten years off. It was a given: people developed a fatalistic attitude about it. The 1960s brought an evolution in mass culture which people look back on now with amusement...but which probably played a large part in postponing Armageddon.
Mission accomplished, we grooved through the '70s and indulged ourselves in the '80s. The '90s saw a return to nihilism, most notably expressed through popular music. We've now come full circle.
The younger generation courts death in a myriad of ways with full foreknowledge and a wink in its eye. The nuclear boogeyman has shambled back into his closet, occasionally pushing the door open a crack but mostly staying hidden. He's been replaced by a whole slew of boogeymen, most of them products of our own ruinous behaviour.

It would benefit us all to recognize these boogeymen, and take responsibility for them.

If we continue along this path we are making for ourselves, we shall soon find its end...and I don't think we'll like the view from the top of that particular cliff.