• According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in the United States the tax burden is 25.6% of G.D.P. This ranks 17th among developed countries. The global average for the group is 36%.

• Competing outlooks on the price of oil:
  • In one corner:
    

    “We don’t think industry fundamentals support oil prices near $60 (a barrel), let alone $90, but with excessive speculation and lack of government scrutiny, prices could go even higher, before they crash, eventually, in our view,” said Fadel Gheit, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co., in a research note.

  • In the other:
    

  I’m betting we see a lot more $100+ oil than $60 oil. But what do I know; I’m not a high-paid “analyst.”
  UPDATE: I just heard a guest on CNBC say that gasoline prices are about to catch up with oil prices. He said the price per gallon could jump $0.20 in the next week or so and soon climb as much as $1. If you think the political mood is pretty bad out there now, wait till this happens.

• Senator Sam Brownback is expected to drop out of the presidential race today. I never figured out why Brownback didn’t get more traction among the religious right, since he’s clearly played to that constituency in his senate career. I guess he wasn’t “sexy” enough (in the political sense).
• Speaking of political oddities, I’ve repeatedly heard leading GOP talking pointers (Rove, Limbaugh, et al.) assert that Iraq was not the central issue in the 2006 election, and that it won’t be in 2008. I find this very hard to reconcile with all the rhetoric we’ve heard from the same people about how this same fight is “World War III,” “World War IV,” the fight for our survival, and so on. If this war is the most important challenge our nation is facing, why isn’t it the most important political issue?

Interesting comment:

Ken Deffeyes, geologist and a professor of geosciences, emeritus at Princeton University, discussed the rapid depletion of crude oil. The global discovery of conventional crude oil peaked in 1964 and production peaked in 2005, according to Deffeyes.
. . .
The rapid loss of Arctic ice has led nations to lay claims to possible energy reserves under the thinning polar ice cap. Deffeyes said more than 100 deep-sea holes have been drilled elsewhere and no oil has been found. A set of special conditions are all required to produce oil and natural gas reserves and most of the planet never had all of them. There may be no significant reserves beneath the Arctic ocean.

With all the news reports of countries making competing claims in the Arctic, I just assumed that there are known oil fields beneath the ice. Apparently that’s not the case.

UPDATE: The N.Y. Times has an article on the U.S. Coast Guard is ramping up its operations in the Arctic Ocean due to the increased shipping in the region.

I was bumping around the Internet and came across stuff on bicycle lanes. Apparently, in some parts of the world they have a strip of the road designated specifically for cyclists to use. [I had to look it up because such a modern marvel doesn’t exist around here.]
StreetFilms has a video which advocates taking this concept one step further by constructing physically-separated bike lanes:

Many cyclists are opposed to bike lanes because: (1) they can be dangerous at intersections, and (2) they condition motorists to think bicycles should be kept off the main road. (Tom Revay offers several arguments against physically-separated bicycle lanes here).
I don’t have much first-hand experience with bike lanes. My sense is that they have their place along certain types of roads–e.g., where traffic doesn’t tend to make abrupt turns. A physically-separated bike lane is a more inviting version for casual riders who have a low tolerance for riding with traffic. That’s a good thing; the more people cycling, the better.
Unfortunately, in some cities, such as Knoxville, the road designs are such that it seems impractical to set aside even standard bike lanes–much less separated ones. Perhaps over time cycle-friendly accommodations will be incorporated in the road system, but it’s not something that will happen overnight. And it’s going take awareness efforts like this video to get the ball (or wheel) rolling.

I was curious about how this year’s drought compared to previous dry spells. So I emailed Mr. Brian Boyd at NOAA, who kindly provided the following information:
Top Ten Driest Years in Knoxville
Inches of Precipitation
(1) 24.68 2007 (through Oct.12)
(2) 32.48 12/31/1986
(3) 33.67 12/31/1930
(4) 34.30 12/31/1988
(5) 34.66 12/31/1987
(6) 35.16 12/31/1925
(7) 35.75 12/31/1941
(8) 35.76 12/31/1968
(9) 36.00 12/31/1952
(10) 36.40 12/31/1985
So how does 2007 project to rank on this list? Mr. Boyd pointed out that typically we could expect to receive the following precipitation amounts during the remainder of the year:
October 1.65″
November 3.98″
December 4.45″
Under this normal scenario, we’d finish the year with 34.76″, making it the fifth driest year on record.
Obviously, this hasn’t been a normal year. With weather models pointing to a warmer and drier than normal winter, I suspect this year will finish as one of the five driest ones on record.
We’ll see.

Brian Kim offers an article entitled “Top 5 Things Every Extrovert Should Know About Introverts.”
By nature I’m an introvert and I think this is a good read. I was particularly struck by this point:

If you really want to engage an introvert in conversation, skip the small talk. Introverts tend to love deep conversations on subjects that interest them. They love to debate, go past the superficial and poke around the depths in people’s minds to see what’s really going on in there. Most, if not all introverts tend to regard small talk as a waste of time, unless it’s with someone new they just met.
. . .
Extroverts thrive on small talk.
Introverts abhor it.

This is generally true for me, though I hadn’t consciously linked it to being an introvert. The fact is that I’m sometimes reluctant to engage in the “how’s it going”-, “how about this weather”-type conversations because they seem so painfully obvious that I feel silly starting them unless I think they will quickly lead elsewhere. I know that’s not the mindset of a good conversationalist, but it’s my inclination.
In a broader sense, I suppose this characteristic is a reason I am deemed “shy” in some social situations. If I don’t feel I have something compelling to add to a discussion, I may not add anything–which may lead me to be branded as “quiet.” As Kim notes, this is a really more of social preference rather than an indicator of what I think about the people at the gathering.