Humans May Have Limiting Effect on the Origin of (New) Species -- (New York Times -- May 23, 2006)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/23/science/23evol.html?ei=5090&en=3e85a7278996c9b3&ex=13060368
00&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1148821250-2xEErTAP1rZq7x8hLvu6cA
Humans can threaten species with extinction in many ways, including overfishing, pollution and deforestation. Now a pair of studies points to a new danger to the world's biodiversity: humans may be blocking new species from evolving.

A Zero Energy Home in Oklahoma -- (ZDNet -- May 15, 2006)
http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=239
According to Professional Builder, the first zero energy home costing less than $200,000 has been built in Oklahoma. This house produces as much energy as it consumes in a year and combines "renewable energy technologies with advanced energy-efficient construction." This environmentally friendly house is just a prototype and not available for sale.

Monkeys Use Sentences -- (National Geographic -- May 17, 2006)
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/monkey-sentence.html
Putty-nosed monkeys put two different alarm calls together to create urgent warnings, according to observations recently made of the West African primates. These monkey "sentences" appear to be evidence of what is widely considered to be a uniquely human ability: stringing words together to convey a message, or syntax.

Dolphins Have Their Own Names -- (BBC -- May 8, 2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/4750471.stm
Dolphins communicate like humans by calling each other by "name", scientists in Fife have found. The mammals are able to recognize themselves and other members of the same species as individuals with separate identities, using whistles. St Andrews University researchers studying in Florida discovered bottlenose dolphins used names rather than sound to identify each other.

POLITICAL ACTIVISTS AND THE INTERNET

War coverage and antiwar movements have changed dramatically in the
Information Age. Big media and big government are no longer the sole
purveyors of facts and analysis of events, thanks to an assortment of
Internet-enabled communications media.

The Internet can unite groups and individuals into global networks,
through which information (and disinformation) spreads
instantaneously, then mobilize them into action. Peace campaigns, for
instance, have seen a dramatic increase among a growing variety of
groups--pacifists, socialists, anarchists, feminists, religious
groups, and so on, says University of Leicester geographer Jenny
Pickerill.

The "information environment" of war and peace will only become more
complicated as new technologies put instant global communication in
the hands of more individuals and groups, says Pickerill, who is
leading a research team to study the impacts of information
technologies on activism.

SOURCE: University of Leicester, http://www.le.ac.uk/

Dedefensa.org: "Ours is also the first culture that aims to include rather than exclude. The films most despised by the intellectual elite--those that feature extreme violence and to-the-victors-the-spoils sex--are our most popular cultural weapon, bought or bootlegged nearly everywhere. American action films, often in dreadful copies, are available from the Upper Amazon to Mandalay. They are even more popular than our music, because they are easier to understand. The action films of a Stallone or Schwarzenegger or Chuck Norris rely on visual narratives that do not require dialog for a basic understanding. "

Dedefensa.org: "Our cultural empire has the addicted--men and women everywhere--clamoring for more. And they pay for the privilege of their disillusionment."

Dedefensa.org: "Contemporary American culture is the most powerful in history, and the most destructive of competitor cultures."

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "The devaluation of the dollar against the world's major commodities is being driven by the exceptional growth in the world's supply of dollars during the past two years. Growth in the world's supply of dollars has come from two primary sources: rising international oil prices and the very large and growing U.S. trade deficit.
"

KurzweilAI.net
Until we do the blatantly positive things such as eliminate widespread diseases, feed the starving, house the homeless, disenfranchise dictators, stop torture, stop inhumane treatment of less intelligent species, and other do-good things that are treated today like platitudes, we will not get rid of violently disaffected groups.

KurzweilAI.net
However, in this case the acceleration rate by its nature puts these technologies in a class of their own, because the evidence suggests they are running ahead of our capacities to contain or balance them. Moreover, the number of violently disaffected groups in our society who could use them is substantial.

KurzweilAI.net
Instead, as the discussions run increasingly in circles, they suggest that we as a species might be comparable to 'apes designing humans'.

The ape-like ancestors of Homo sapiens had no idea they were contributing DNA to a more intelligent species. Nor could they hope to comprehend it. Likewise, can we Homo sapiens expect to comprehend what we are contributing to a super-intelligent species that follows us?

KurzweilAI.net
In the 21st century, despite tremendous progress, we still do amazingly stupid things. We prepare poorly for known threats including hurricanes and tsunamis. We go to war over outdated energy sources such as oil, and some of us increasingly overfeed ourselves while hundreds of millions of people ironically starve. We often value conspicuous consumption over saving impoverished human lives, as low income victims of AIDS or malaria know too well.

KurzweilAI.net
When technologically superior Europeans arrived in North and South America, the indigenous populations didn't have much time to contemplate such implications because in a just few years, most who came in contact with Europeans were dead from disease. Many who died never laid eyes on a European, as death spread so quickly ahead of the conquerors through unknowing victims.

Europeans at first had no idea that their own immunity to disease would give them such an advantage, but when they realized it, they did everything to use it as a weapon. They did the same with technologies that they consciously invented and knew were superior.

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "In Russia, this new generation wins international computer and IT competitions and takes one of the leading roles in the new high-tech economy. In China, according to a recent story in U.S. News and World Report, hundreds of millions of 'Chuppies' -- Chinese young urban professionals -- are having a huge effect on global consumption and trade practices. In India, this young, English-speaking population has forged one of the most powerful high-tech economies in the world. In the United States, this new generation has helped build the Internet and today's high-tech industry, while living with the prevalence of democratic, capitalist, market-oriented ideals over command-economies and closed political regimes."

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "The younger generation has much in common with other youth around the world now in their early 20s. In North America, Western and Eastern Europe, in China, India and other countries of Southeast Asia, this new generation has begun to mature in the age of the Internet, wider access and familiarity with high-technology exemplified by computer and personal electronics, the spread of democratic principles and values, general familiarity with the market economy and its global presence and greater educational choices."

Technology's Future: A Look at the Dark Side - New York Times: "It is already documented in animal research that some man-made nanoparticles can move easily into the brain and deep into the lungs. 'But we don't know how to find these things in the body or how to measure them in the air,' said John M. Balbus, a nanotechnology expert at Environmental Defense, an advocacy group that has argued that investment in safety research should be more than doubled and restrictions be imposed on the use of some nanoproducts. 'There's a lot of basic gaps in information.'"

Technology's Future: A Look at the Dark Side - New York Times: "Nanotechnology is often described as dealing in dimensions tens of thousands of times smaller than the width of a single hair. But what really matters is that by operating at the nanoscale, researchers can create new materials and extract novel behaviors from familiar ones because they are working with small numbers of molecules, the building blocks of all biology and chemistry.

After watching how alarmed activists stopped the nuclear industry in its tracks and slowed the introduction of biotechnology, many nanotechnology advocates propose engaging the public and investing heavily in toxicology research."

Technology's Future: A Look at the Dark Side - New York Times: "Still, with resource consumption and environmental destruction rising at unsustainable rates, plenty of people view the future with alarm. That spotlights technologies like nuclear power, genetic engineering and nanotechnology, which are often cited as crucial to heading off economic and environmental disaster.

The catch is that any technology powerful enough to improve life radically is also capable of abuse and prone to serious, unanticipated side effects. It's a great time to be a Hollywood screenwriter, but rough on policy makers and business strategists. Mix new technologies with the wide variations in how organizations and individuals behave, and you often have 'a recipe for explosion,' said Edward Tenner, author of 'Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences.'"

Foreign Affairs - A Bitter Prize - Tom Segev: "Since 1967, more and more Israelis have come to understand the risks of occupation, which is why most Israelis supported the dramatic event that Gorenberg uses to close his book: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's August 2005 pullout from Gaza. But Gorenberg, noncommittal to the end, carefully avoids judging the wisdom of Sharon's move. 'It may be recorded as the act that revived peace efforts,' he writes, 'or as the intermezzo before a new battle over the torn land.'"

Foreign Affairs - A Bitter Prize - Tom Segev: "Although the Zionist movement had long advocated settlement, it had always done so with one major caveat: capturing more territory would mean serious demographic dangers. Accordingly, the movement had adopted a basic strategy known as 'maximum land, minimum Arabs,' and most of its thinkers had favored maintaining a solid Jewish majority in Jewish-controlled land over ruling vast areas populated by Arabs."

Foreign Affairs - A Bitter Prize - Tom Segev: "Still, Gorenberg is right to emphasize Labor's significant role. The truth is that all Israeli governments encouraged the settlements, as did most Israelis. After all, in every post-1967 election, Israelis were offered a selection of anti-settlement parties, but they never voted them into office. "

Foreign Affairs - A Bitter Prize - Tom Segev: "Understanding the settlers, in fact, does not require a generational thesis. Many of them were religious and were driven by messianic nationalism. Indeed, as Gorenberg explains, the triumph of 1967 had the effect of turning messianism into a mainstream belief among some religious Israelis, particularly young ones. "

Foreign Affairs - A Bitter Prize - Tom Segev: "The idea of settling these lands came from deep within Zionism. The notion of shiva (return) is firmly rooted in Jewish and Zionist tradition. According to the Zionist vision, the state of Israel was born when the Jews returned from exile to the land of their biblical forebears, and many Israelis felt they had an unchallengeable right to the land -- all of it. The settlement ethos had been the cornerstone of Zionism ever since the first pioneers came to live in the area."

Foreign Affairs - A Bitter Prize - Tom Segev: "Victory, in fact, seems to have driven the entire country into a frenzy. Many Israelis acted as though they had been miraculously rescued from annihilation and had reached the age of redemption; they interpreted winning as a sign from God. The army's own chief rabbi, Shlomo Goren, demanded that the mosques on the Temple Mount be blown up; David Ben-Gurion (Israel's first prime minister) wanted the Old City's walls destroyed; and Prime Minister Levi Eshkol seriously considered transferring hundreds of thousands of Palestinians out of the territories and to Iraq."

Foreign Affairs - A Bitter Prize - Tom Segev: "Many Israelis, however, had never stopped dreaming of a Greater Israel. Some justified their desire for more territory on strategic grounds; others were motivated more by national and religious sentiments. Although they remained outside the mainstream, both camps exerted considerable moral and political influence during Israel's first 20 years."

Foreign Affairs - A Bitter Prize - Tom Segev: "Settling the land had always been at the core of the Zionist experience, but by 1967, when the Six-Day War began, many Israelis had lost their confidence in the old Zionist dream. Israel's smashing battlefield success in the war reversed this trend, galvanizing many Israelis into taking up the Zionist mantle once again and making a fresh beginning in the newly captured land."

America's Geopolitical Nightmare and Eurasian Strategic Energy Arrangements: "As the reality of US foreign policy is obscured by the endless rhetoric of ‘defending democracy’ and the like, it is useful to recall that US foreign policy since the collapse of the Soviet Union has been open and explicit. It is to prevent at any cost the congealing of a potential combination of nations that might challenge US dominance. This is the US policy as elaborated in Bush’s June 2002 West Point speech.

There the President outlined a radical departure in explicit US foreign policy in two vital areas: A policy of preventive war, should the US be threatened by terrorists or by rogue states engaged in the production of weapons of mass destruction. Second, the right of self-defense authorized the USA to launch pre-emptive attacks against potential aggressors, cutting them off before they are able to launch strikes against the US."

Kenya Times Newspaper: "He further noted. “We are moving towards the Easternization of the world. The global axis of influence has shifted from the West to East”. John Naisbitt is one of the leading western gurus on global trends."

WikiDAutrans | CompteRendus2006 / Interview d'Alvin Toffler par Tom Johnson: "Thousands of new scientists will be educated each year and most will not be either European or American."

WikiDAutrans | CompteRendus2006 / Interview d'Alvin Toffler par Tom Johnson: "People of the world say that the election of the US president is really the election of the world president. Some people ask, “Why can’t the world vote?” and the world would most likely vote for a different person than US citizens."

WikiDAutrans | CompteRendus2006 / Interview d'Alvin Toffler par Tom Johnson: "We haven’t begun to see the main impacts of the Internet. The Internet is still in its primitive phase. It will impact social, political, and cultural aspects of society. Think about political implications for society. We saw in the last US presidential election the use of the Internet to raise huge sums of money for campaigning. This shocked the political establishment. One can imagine the implications of Internet communication and the increasing flexibility and reach. It is happening already and will continue to affect additional countries. China is an example, a country that is not accustomed to having their citizens talk to each other. We are going to bombard people in other countries with our thoughts."

Amazon.com: Revolutionary Wealth: Books: Alvin Toffler,Heidi Toffler: "The final third of the book is an absorbing discussion of how knowledge can eliminate extreme poverty, which the authors believe is more important than closing the gap between rich and poor. They emphasize that both India and China are leap-frogging the industrial era, with India focusing on connectivity to reduce poverty as well as urbanization, while China is focusing on setting standards that will allow it to 'own' future information technology architectures. Africa and Latin America are being lost to Chinese immigrants, language, trade, and aid. "

Amazon.com: Revolutionary Wealth: Books: Alvin Toffler,Heidi Toffler: "Having explored the emergence of the new economy, they then return to their opening discussion of time, and point out that America's infrastructure and institutions are imploding. Our energy, transportation, health, and educational infrastructures are 50 years out of date and cannot be converted or upgraded fast enough. So we have two Americas, an old industrial era poor America, and a new knowledge age rich America. They articulate a battle raging between decay and revolutionary birth, noting that micro-cash and the Internet are empowering social entrepreneurs who use the Internet to mobilize both volunteers and contributions. "

Amazon.com: Revolutionary Wealth: Books: Alvin Toffler,Heidi Toffler: "The book moves on to discuss what the Tofflers call the 'outside brain' or the sum aggregate of knowledge that is available for individual exploitation. By one account, this consists of 12,000 petabytes. "

Amazon.com: Revolutionary Wealth: Books: Alvin Toffler,Heidi Toffler: "This entire book is an Information Operations reference. They discuss global battles to manage our minds in multiple domains--religious, cultural, economic, moral. We need to pay more attention to what filters the target audience uses to determine the truth, and what filters the hostile groups are using to try to shape the local perception of truth to fit their wishes. "

Amazon.com: Revolutionary Wealth: Books: Alvin Toffler,Heidi Toffler: "The TIME section of the book has some very interesting insights including the fact that anything that requires time, like filling in a form, or that adds time to a process through regulation, is in fact a TIME TAX that is more costly than an old money tax. "

Amazon.com: Revolutionary Wealth: Books: Alvin Toffler,Heidi Toffler: "Their first key focus is on TIME and its relation to space, knowledge, and effectiveness as translated into wealth. Innovative businesses are going 100 mph; civil collective groups at 90 mph; the US family at 60 mph, labor unions at 30 mph, government bureaucracies at 25 mph, education at 10 mph, non-governmental organizations including the United Nations at 5 mph, US politics and the participation process at 3 mph, and law enforcement and the law it enforces at 1 mph. This is really quite a helpful informed judgment as to the relative unfitness of all but two of the groups. "

Amazon.com: Revolutionary Wealth: Books: Alvin Toffler,Heidi Toffler: "Toffler's 1970 book Future Shock was a warning shot across the bow, predicting how our adjustment to the rapid acceleration of technological change in the new 'super-industrial society' would cause disorientation and dysfunction in the general population. Although facets of the mass disintegration Toffler predicted have come to pass, much of society has come to embrace technology in ways Toffler couldn't have imagined 36 years ago. In the interim, Toffler has continued his futurist prognostications, most notably with The Third Wave (1984) and Power Shift (1991). With his wife Heidi, Toffler continues his series of scholarly commentary on social and economic change with a look at the revolutionary ways that wealth will be created in the future. The Tofflers' main theme is prosumerism, a trend whereby the division between the creator and consumer of goods and services blurs. "

'Revolutionary Wealth,' by Alvin Toffler and Heidi Toffler - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times: "Even activities like agriculture have gone high-tech, through biotechnology and increasingly sophisticated use of global-positioning satellites to customize irrigation and fertilization down to the individual acre. Knowledge-based wealth, they argue, is revolutionary not just because it gets more output from fewer inputs. Unlike such physical resources as oil, knowledge can be shared by an infinite number of people, and its value and benefits are generally increased by wider circulation."

'Revolutionary Wealth,' by Alvin Toffler and Heidi Toffler - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times: "The Tofflers, whose penchant for neologisms remains unabated, spend much time discussing the booming 'prosumer economy' (which involves unpaid work that nevertheless greatly increases quality of life; for example, cooking a lavish meal for friends or much of open-source computer coding) and fretting over 'obsoledge' (obsolete knowledge). Terrorism, global warming and potential pandemics have done little to dampen their old optimism. 'The long-term reality is that we, as a species, have been getting better' at producing wealth, they say. 'If we hadn't, the planet would not now be able to support nearly 6.5 billion of us. We wouldn't live as long as we do. And, for better or worse, we wouldn't have more overweight people than undernourished people on earth — as we do.' Life expectancy at birth in the world, they note, including the 'poor world,' increased 42 percent over the past 50 years."

'Revolutionary Wealth,' by Alvin Toffler and Heidi Toffler - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times: "Now the Tofflers are again back from the near future. Their new book, 'Revolutionary Wealth,' builds on the framework of their previous writings, so there's a lot of talk about clashes among First Wave (agrarian), Second Wave (industrialized) and Third Wave (postindustrial, or 'knowledge-based') societies. They argue convincingly that we are on the verge of a post-scarcity world that will slash poverty and 'unlock countless opportunities and new life trajectories,' at least if we avoid the rapidly escalating risks to such progress."

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "In similar situations in modern history, economic interdependence has not always been sufficient to prevent violent conflict, in which clashing interests are inflamed by nationalist sentiment.

The danger of hegemony is that when it weakens, suppressed interests are left to confront one another and achieve a balance of power on their own, often through a painful and sometimes violent process. That is not to say that a Northeast Asian war is imminent, but only that the seeds for one have been sown and that there are signs that they are germinating."

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "The escalation of the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute reveals the erosion of U.S. influence in Northeast Asia. Washington's basic policy in the region is to collaborate with South Korea and Japan to balance China's rising power and to roll back or at least contain North Korea's nuclear ambitions. Faced with deepening tensions between its two allies, both of those aims are in jeopardy."

KurzweilAI.net
Whether the maturing of nanotechnology will impact the continuing struggle of religious authority is unclear. The potential is there, certainly, as the manipulation of matter at the molecular level comes perilously close to “playing God,” especially where it might affect what it means to be human. Artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and cybernetic enhancements pose imminent challenges to the religious understandings of “human,” and nanotechnology bids to play a major role within each of those technologies. Public discourse in areas where the definitions of “life” are most contended are fueled as much by symbolism and metaphor as by science; misapprehensions and misunderstandings about nanotechnology may well be fuel for new battlefronts in what has been dubbed “the culture wars.”

KurzweilAI.net
The struggle for primacy between the Catholic Church and secular governments began soon after Christianity was adopted as the official religion of the Roman Empire. It continued through the Investiture Controversy of the Middle Ages, and was the decisive factor in the success of the Reformation. However, the waning of the dominance of religion was a process begun centuries earlier by resistance (“heresy”) within the Church itself, beginning with the Great Schism of the Eastern Orthodox traditions. The purification movements that created monastic orders within the Church presaged the later coming of the Reformation, which relocated purifying reform outside the Church and ended the sole authority of Rome to arbitrate Christian salvation. The secular challenges arising from the Enlightenment remain at play in the contemporary questions of Church and State, Science and Belief, and authority to define human relations. Increasing secularity jousts with the rise of fundamentalism and of sects, undermining traditional “mainstream” churches.

KurzweilAI.net
Like electricity or computers before it, nanotechnology will bring greatly improved efficiency and productivity in many areas of human endeavor. In its mature form, known as molecular manufacturing, it will have significant impact on almost all industries and all parts of society. Personal nanofactories may offer better built, longer lasting, cleaner, safer, and smarter products for the home, for communications, for medicine, for transportation, for agriculture, and for industry in general.

However, as a general-purpose technology, molecular manufacturing will be dual-use, meaning that in addition to its civilian applications, it will have military uses as well—making far more powerful weapons and tools of surveillance. Thus, it represents not only wonderful benefits for humanity, but also grave risks.

Earth Policy Institute Book Bytes - The Coming Decline of Oil: "The eight pre-peak countries are dominated by the world’s leading oil producers, Saudi Arabia and Russia, producing roughly 11 million and 9 million barrels of oil a day in the fall of 2005. Other countries with substantial potential for increasing production are Canada, largely because of its tar sands, and Kazakhstan, which is still developing its oil resources. The other four pre-peak countries are Algeria, Angola, China, and Mexico. "

Earth Policy Institute Book Bytes - The Coming Decline of Oil: "Oil has shaped our twenty-first century civilization, affecting every facet of the economy from the mechanization of agriculture to jet air travel. When production turns downward, it will be a seismic economic event, creating a world unlike any we have known during our lifetimes. Indeed, when historians write about this period in history, they may well distinguish between before peak oil (BPO) and after peak oil (APO)."

NOVA | World in the Balance | Links & Books | PBS: "On the companion Web site to Allen Hammond's book Which World?, visitors can explore three possible scenarios for the future. Will fundamental social and political change create a more peaceful, equitable, and environmentally sound world? Or are humans destined to live in a 'Fortress World' of wars and unrest?"

Bush’s WarIn Iraq, since the war started in 2003, about 30,000 Iraqis have been killed, according to President Bush; estimates in 2004 by independent medical researchers are that at least 100,000 Iraqis may have died in the violence and they say the number could be “much higher.” Over 2,300 American soldiers have been killed. The war has cost the United States over $250 billion. The harsh realities of war have slowly started to affect ordinary Americans. At the end of 2003, almost 60% of Americans said the war was worth the cost. Polls now show that nearly 60% think the war was not worth fighting. When the war started about 70% of Americans said the United States was “certain” to win in Iraq; and another 25% said they thought victory was likely. Now 40% believe the United States is likely or certain to lose. Over half now believe the United States should withdraw its troops. All that President Bush can say is, “We will not lose our nerve.”

Foreign Policy: Cut and Run? You Bet.: "Withdrawal will encourage the terrorists. True, but that is the price we are doomed to pay. Our continued occupation of Iraq also encourages the killers—precisely because our invasion made Iraq safe for them. Our occupation also left the surviving Baathists with one choice: Surrender, or ally with al Qaeda. They chose the latter. Staying the course will not change this fact. Pulling out will most likely result in Sunni groups’ turning against al Qaeda and its sympathizers, driving them out of Iraq entirely."

Running on Empty? How Economic Freedom Affects Oil Supplies - Economic Letter, April 2006 - FRB Dallas: "A large part of the world's oil reserves are outside the easy reach of free markets, with their incentives and disciplines. Oil prices are rising—not because the world is running out of oil but because the bulk of reserves are in countries where market incentives cannot work fully or in the hands of monopolists who may be exercising their power by restraining investment.

Because of the mismatch between reserves and economic systems, today's oil prices are higher than they would be in a world of free markets. Tomorrow's oil prices are likely to be higher, too, because producers, divorced from market incentives or with an incentive to restrain production, are likely to underinvest in new capacity."

Running on Empty? How Economic Freedom Affects Oil Supplies - Economic Letter, April 2006 - FRB Dallas: "Just three of the 30 countries that control nearly all of the world's oil wealth score highly enough to be among the nations that Heritage categorizes as free—the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada (Table 2). These countries rely on private companies to run their energy industries, but they have only 16 percent of world reserves, almost 90 percent of it in Canada. The United States passed its production peak in the 1970s, and the United Kingdom may have done so recently. Neither is likely to add much to conventional world oil supplies."

Running on Empty? How Economic Freedom Affects Oil Supplies - Economic Letter, April 2006 - FRB Dallas: "Keeping the global economy chugging—including the Chinas and Indias—requires about 85 million barrels a day. At current rates of use, 2.8 trillion barrels should last 90 years. Most likely, oil use will continue to rise, but conventional resources and tar sands should still be sufficient for 60 to 70 years. Other unconventional oil resources, such as shale oil, will greatly extend the time horizon at which we run out of oil."

Running on Empty? How Economic Freedom Affects Oil Supplies - Economic Letter, April 2006 - FRB Dallas: "Oil prices have marched upward in recent years, ending nearly two decades of relatively cheap energy. The weekly benchmark price for a barrel of West Texas Intermediate rose from $32.20 at the end of 2003 to $42.56 at the end of 2004 and to $59.49 at the end of 2005 (Chart 1). In April 2006, oil reached an all-time high of more than $75 a barrel, measured in current dollars.[1]"