Beyond Opinion

A week or two after I complete my series on the "Periodic Presidents", I see confirmation of my periodic theory. President Bush told people in Ohio something like "the economy is turning the corner." That's what Herbert Hoover said! He said something like "prosperity is around the corner". What a poor choice of campaign slogan. That shows two things. First of all, it blatantly says that Bush is in the same category as Hoover as being presidents is concerned. In fact, my Periodic Table has them both in Column 11, the Nero Presidents, along with James Buchanan, the President who saw this nation break in half before his very eyes. Secondly, it shows that Bush may lose the Short Term Economy Lichtman Key 5. The figures all show the economy is getting better, but apparently that's news to the common folk in Ohio. Ohio may be harder hit than some other states, but if this is the case throughout the nation, Bush may very well lose this key. If he loses one more key after that (for example, if things in Iraq and Afghanistan get worse), then Kerry will win. It also shows that the next President may very well be a Crisis President and hence one of the greatest Presidents in American history.

Tonight Sen. Kerry gave his acceptance speech of the Democratic nomination to be President of the United States. I felt like it was only slightly less charismatic than Edwards' speech last night. There were some highlights worth mentioning. He talked about the flag, and how he was going to make Americans feel good about it. He again emphasized that he will send young people to war only when we must, not when we merely can. The most interesting part was his addressing the religious issue. The Bush administration likes to say or imply that God is on its side. I hear this all over the place. God was on the Nazis' side; God was on Saddam Hussein's side, God was on America's and Britain's side and so forth. This is one of my main objections to most people talking about God and evil, is that God winds up on the side of every faction on Earth, and that evil is always what the other guys are doing. John F. Kerry turned this around in a manner similar to what John F. Kennedy did in the 1960s: he asked whether we were on God's side. What a switch! This takes the wind out of all these people above, including Bush. Are we on God's side? It still sounds overly mainline religious, but this goes a long way to removing one of the objections to bringing up such religion in the political arena. It gives Bush a question he needs to answer. Of course I believe that if there is a God, then he (it?) does not have sides, since sides is a human concept, and God is way beyond that. But he has gone a long way to combating the dangers of religion, and Christianity and Islam in particular.

So a really good speech, and it already has the polls soaring for him; I heard of something like plus 5 to 6 points. But what did I hear afterwards? I heard someone saying "Balloons! Balloons! we need more Balloons!", reminding me of the Hessian commander saying "Wir haben nur ein Canon. Wo sind die andere Canonen?" in a movie about Washington crossing the Delaware on TV a number of years back. This guy kept saying "We need more balloons! Where are the balloon?" Then I heard him say "Where the f--k are all the balloons?!" Did I hear that straight? The guy used the f word, and he used it inappropriately. He was clearly too stressed out to have sex. Well, folks, this is the Democrats' answer to George W. Bush's major league sshole and Cheney's recent explosion of f language. The media and the Republicans will have a field day over this one tomorrow morning. It may even eclipse Kerry's speech, this use of the f word. I hope not. Kerry gave a good speech, and though he needs to fill in more details in the upcoming campaign, it appears to be a good start to Kerry's post-Convention campaigning as he endeavors to send George Bush back to Texas.

Tonight I heard John Edwards' speech. He is upstaging John Kerry! So far, Kerry has spoken rather weakly, and he has not seem to have much of an agenda or platform. Apparently he is trying to satisfy a number of factions, but by doing this he loses votes. Not so John Edwards. He first told us what the problem is. We have two Americas, one for those who live comfortably, and one for those who live paycheck to paycheck. Unlike Kerry, he told us what to do about it! He would continue the Bush tax, and he would subsidize and start programs in a number of things, and then he told us how he would pay for it, by not cutting taxes for the wealthiest 2 percent. He came through with a clear program. Then he talked about the military, saying that they deserve better than they are getting, and he vowed to chase al Qaeda down. He would get international cooperation on the Iraq situation. Then he concluded with a slogan which may echo throughout the campaign: Hope is on the Way!

He did commit a few errors, in my opinion. He said, "the third anniversary of September 11". Huhh? There have been thousands of September 11ths. Here are a few examples: 5 BC September 11, 1066 September 11, 1776 September 11, 1946 September 11, and 2003 September 11. You can't have an anniversary of a date; that's like eating your own teeth. He should have said "9/11" or "Planeattack", although the latter is not in general use. He concluded his speech using the word "God", thus alienating those that don't believe in a God. He emphasized the need to catch bin Laden and his crew; that's number 2. But he did not touch much on number 1, making sure that terrorists do not exist in the first place. That requires multinational cooperation and the development of a world culture that eschews religious fundamentalism. And most of all, he said the most serious problem that we face is terrorism. Wrong. Dead wrong. The most serious problem is resource depletion, especially that of oil. Further, he did not call for huge fuel taxes, which is what we need right now. That's excusable. If he had called for a $3/gallon tax on gasoline, he would have lost 10 million votes. I hope he and Kerry call for such a tax after Election Day, however.

But what struck me about the speech is that he said what the people wanted to hear, and he came up with clear-cut plans. He also energized the crowd with the slogan, "Hope is on the Way.", which I hope is powerful enough to elect Kerry. However, I think that Bush will win the election. The keys say so, and further, I think that Bush will win, run into serious trouble in his second term, resulting in the election of Edwards as President in 2008. This will put him in a position to become a Crisis President, one of the greatest in our history, as he shifts gears and takes dramatic action to get us across the Great Oil Shortage and into a completely different way of life, conserving energy and living in harmony with nature.

Today I heard that Delta has surveyed its frequent flyers to see how they would feel about charging to hear an American voice instead of one from India that they can't understand because of their accent, from articles such as this one. I don't see why Delta is conducting this survey. They should not do this. When someone calls a business for help, they expect to be able to communicate adequately with the person whom they talk with. All it takes is for a word to come across wrong, for example, Beale instead of bill, and misunderstandings occur. I feel a customer has every right to ask an agent to get another agent to talk with them if they can't understand what they are saying. This sounds like discrimination against Indians, and indeed one must be careful. Concentrate on the issue of being able to understand. Instead of asking for an American, a customer could simply ask for someone that they could understand better. But to charge people so that they can understand their agents is petty.

I hope that Delta does not go through with this. If they do, I will call for a boycott of Delta Airlines.

It's getting kind of busy these days. I have hardly time to blog. So I will give a few bloglets that I came up with recently.

A note on the Democratic Convention.  I listened to three good speakers tonight. Barack Obama emphasized the unity of all and a caring for the poor, sick, and minorities. Ron Reagan presented his case for stem cell research. Theresa Heinz Kerry, the Democratic Presidential candidate's wife, spoke in five different languages for what made America great - space probes, democratic process, and hope for millions of ex-slaves and immigrants. I did note that Clinton last night claimed credit for the boom of the 1990s, when really the dot-coming of society caused the boom, and the bust that followed. Barack Obama emphasized that this is one America, not a Blue America, or a Red one, or a Black one, and so forth. This calls to my mind the Sixth Unitarian Universalist Principle (World Community), but his constant referring to America came close to being suballegiance. But in general, we have been given a sequence of excellent speakers. This should bode well for them in the election in November.

My three principles for terrorists should apply to drinking and drunk drivers as well. Watch out when you drive to protect yourself from the actions of drunken drivers (#3 - defend ourselves). Set up sobriety check points and arrest these people and get them off the road (#2 - get rid of them). But #1, assuring that there are no drunken drivers in the first place, means changing our culture. Our society rewards drinking and drunkenness, and this has to stop. For example, if you are not supposed to drink and drive, then places for which most people would be expected to arrive there by car should not serve alcohol. Pubs and taverns should be downtown for town residents only.

How's the oil situation doing? This makes me a little skittish of retiring from my workplace. Bad times may be coming. Right now gasoline prices are down but crude oil is back up to a dollar a gallon ($42/barrel). Saudi Arabia promised an increase in production. If they can't do it, then it seems like the turning point of the Hubbert curve may have arrived. I hope not.

Misquote from a former dictator: "I am Saddam Hussein. I'm a bad guy. I'm a really bad guy. But me no uranium from Africa.  That must have been some other bad guy that made that story up. He must have pulled it out of his uranium." By the way, this guy is like Ozymandias. "I am Saddam Hussein, the Mother of all Presidents of Iraq!  Heed my works and despair!" Nothing else remains. Except court.

Good article on Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 . By the way, I am now calling the terrible events of 2001 September 11 9/11 now, in honor of Michael Moore's movie. To me now, either 9/11 or Planeattack is acceptable as a name for these events, but not September 11. That's a date. To me now, September 11 is a date two months from now.

I have saved the best for last. The Presidents who have served our country during its biggest crises are the best Presidents that we have had. All of the historians and pundits put these three Presidents over all the others in their ranking systems. Yet in many ways, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt were ordinary people or Presidents who happened to take office during a crisis. The crisis drove them to do great things for America and its people. They were as fallible as the other Presidents. George Washington supposedly lied about the cherry tree. Lincoln chose his generals poorly. Franklin Roosevelt had at least one extramarital affair. But we remember them for, and put them on our currency for, their handling of the crises, something that Strauss and Howe call Fourth Turning. When a crisis comes, the people follow their leader in helping them get out of it. There can be only one Fourth Turning president, unless something like death occurs, because people don't like to change horses midstream. This is why Franklin Roosevelt served four consecutive terms. Lincoln served only one term because the Civil War was brutal, but short. The American Revolution crisis created, the US Presidencyso there was no time for more than one President then.
 
George Washington is known as the father of our country. He led the troops during the Revolution, and after the states found the Articles of Confederation to be unsatisfactory, helped them write the Constitution and served as its first President.  The Revolution Crisis finally ended when George Washington exerted his new authority to quell the Whiskey Rebellion.
 
Abraham Lincoln inherited a nation split in half. He made sure with his actions that the Union which was formed four score and seven years previous would be preserved. He did stumble in a few places. His first general, McClellan, would just play with the Confederates, going up to them but not attacking. After this led to the Confederates charging into Pennsylvania, Lincoln did something about it, resulting in the bloody Battle of Gettysburg. He then proceeded to destroy the South, with Sherman's March to the Sea with its brutal actions to people along the way, and with the effort spent in Virginia trying to defeat Lee's army, although at times he did so poorly that his reelection was in doubt for a while.  He finally defeated the Confederates in 1865 April, the most cataclysmic month in American history. A week after the war ended, he was assassinated.
 
Franklin D. Roosevelt won election on a theme of doing something better for the nation, as he told us that we had nothing to fear but fear itself. He took bold new unheard-of steps to get America out of the Great Depression, including spending way in the hole to get people working again with regular paychecks. This Depression spread around the world, and this did not react well in Europe and Japan. Another world war occurred, and when the Japanese attacked at Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt immediately said we were at war, and that we were going to put an end to Japan's imperialism. And he did so with a war effort that eventually paid off in victory in both fronts, although it pulled the dreaded nuclear-weapon genie out of the bottle.
 
 
Our present President is a Nero President, in column 11. This means first of all that yet another crisis is imminent, and that the next president will be one of the greatest in our history, to be compared with Washington, Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt. He or she will be a Crisis President, a column 0 president. This president would start a new row in the periodic table, Row Number Four. So who is this going to be? It could be John Kerry, John Edwards, or Hillary Rodham Clinton. Or it could be a complete surprise. Or we could have a double Nero president; that would not be out of the question. My guess would be John Edwards, but we will have to see what history dishes out.

Nero was one of the most ruthless of Rome's dictators. By calling Column 11 the Nero Presidents, I am not referring to this property of Nero. Instead, I refer to his sitting idly by while a major crisis hit his empire. "Nero fiddled while Rome burned." The common characteristic of the Nero Presidents is that they would not deal with a crisis that was either imminent or had occurred. They just simply let things go the best they can, while the country fell apart. They fiddled while America burned. Our three Nero Presidents are James Buchanan, Herbert Hoover, and George W. Bush, our present President. When a Nero President is in the White House, a major crisis is coming within 5 years; in fact, the crisis could be imminent or it could have started already; such a crisis hit our nation during the administrations of Buchanan and Hoover.
 
James Buchanan was one candidate that the Democrats could agree upon in 1856. Their uniting behind Buchanan prevented Fremont from being elected, an event which could have led directly to civil war. The Dred Scott decision occurred during Buchanan's term. This polarized the two sides, causing Lincoln to say that a nation divided against itself cannot stand. Buchanan did nothing about it, and the split got so bad in 1860 that the Democrats split, causing Lincoln to win and southern states to secede. Seven of them had seceded during Buchanan's term, but he did nothing and at least held some semblance of peace to the end of his term, even though America was breaking in half.
 
Herbert Hoover was elected in one of the biggest prosperities in our nation's history. However, the financial system could not stand. The stock market crashed in 1929, leading to the Great Depression. Hoover's way of dealing with this was to say that prosperity was around the corner; that a few more months of correction would result in the nation coming back again. But it didn't. Banks failed, people lost their fortunes, and it became clear to people that Hoover did not understand the crisis that the nation had gotten into. He followed the old rules of the past, and a fresh approach was needed, so he lost the 1932 election to Franklin Roosevelt.
 
George W. Bush is our present President, so we don't have his complete term to study. But nevertheless Bush has shown some Nero qualities. For example, when the towers fell on 9/11, Bush continued to read "The Pet Goat" to children, a scene brought vividly to the movie screen by Michael Moore in Fahrenheit 9/11. It seems that he may be misunderstanding the crisis of the future, which will probably be the running out of cheap oil. Instead of cooperating with other nations on how to deal with the possible oil crisis, he has instead tried to control the remaining oil with his actions. It remains to see what happens in the rest of his term(s).
 
Now this suggests that a crisis may be coming up, and the details of this crisis are expressed well in sites that deal with oil depletion and in the Fourth Turning site. And that in turn leads to our final sequence of presidents, which I discuss next: The Crisis Presidents.

There's something about these Presidents. Franklin Pierce was attractive to the ladies. Warren G. Harding let his people do what they want, and they got into peccadilloes and scandals all over the place.  And then there's Bill Clinton with that intern, leading to some dispute over what the definition of "is" is.
 
Nevertheless, it is hard for me to place a word on these. I first called them Sexy Presidents, and there was certainly sex involved with Clinton. But it is only sexy looks with Pierce, and although there may have been a bordello in Washington, there was much more to Harding than just sexual things. I thought of "sleaze", and am thinking of the individual who gets his way with people by dealing with them and giving them what they want. Both Harding and Clinton were good at this, and it is a primary reason why both became Presidents. I shall call them Popular Presidents because of this column's way with people.
 
So how could Presidents get away with these things? Because people are off doing their own thing, and they let civic structures, including the Presidency, fall apart. These are typical Third Turning presidents, especially late Third Turning, where things may be headed towards a turning point. In fact, when a Popular President is in the White House, a crisis is 5-10 years away.
 
Franklin Pierce differs somewhat from the others. He was a handsome president, which caused Harry Truman to write, "He's got the best picture in the White House, Franklin Pierce, but being President involves a little bit more than just winning a beauty contest, and he wsa another one that was a complete fizzle." I don't agree with him. Pierce did make some accomplishments, such as the Kansas-Nebraska act (but he let the battles of Bleeding Kansas proceed), and the Gadsden Purchase, which completed the present familiar outline of the 48 contiguous states. He was a limited-government person, and this led to the country continuing to split along North-South lines, and is not regarded highly by historians.
 
Warren G. Harding got his way into the White House through his popularity as a Senator. Like Pierce, he was attractive. He sought to run a smooth operation by hiring his friends and cronies into his staff. This soon led to influence peddling and other sorts of unethical behavior, and Harding would host poker games in the White House. He did accomplish a few things, such as ending World War I and speaking out for the black people in the rural South. However, some of his friends got into huge scandals, such as Teapot Dome, and a number of the officials in his government wound up in prison or worse. He died in office, probably of food poisoning but the nature of the death was somewhat mysterious.
 
Bill Clinton, to me, looked like the best candidate that the Democrats had going in 1992; he spoke well and he had some good plans. But right from the beginning he was bedeviled with rumors about his extramarital involvements. This did not seem to hurt his run for the White House, which was surprising since the same sort of thing derailed Gary Hart in 1987. While President he accomplished many minor accomplishments and faced down the Republicans in the shutdown crisis of 1995. He also attacked Iraq after that country would not allow inspectors to function fully. But he was (Linda?) tripped up by a dalliance in the Oval Office with Monica Lewinsky; not only that, but he lied about it to investigators, leading to his impeachment but not his removal.
 
Next: The Nero Presidents, getting right up to the crisis. 
  
 

This column is hard to label. This clearly is an interlude series, similar to the Regressive or the Gap Presidents. I chose "laid-back" because it seems that these three Presidents, Milliard Fillmore, Calvin Coolidge, and George H. W. Bush, led the country in a low-key way. These Presidents are in stark contrast to Column 10, the Popular Presidents, when all sorts of things started to happen. In fact, sometimes the laid-back President follows the Popular president, and sometimes preceded him. These Presidents presided over a Third Turning, when people are busy doing their thing while important problems don't get solved. When a Laid-Back President is in office, a major crisis is 5-10 years away. These Presidents could have faced the crisis head-on but it was hard, and more comfortable to let things go by.

Milliard Fillmore succeeded Zachary Taylor when Taylor died in office. Taylor is not in the table because he did not serve long enough. A lot of things happened in his administration, most of them concerning slavery. The Fugitive Slave act was passed, resulting in the Underground Railroad, as large numbers of runaway slaves followed the Drinking Gourd. The compromise of 1850 was reached, which gave a piece of the pie to both pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin. It was clear that the nation was splitting along pro and anti slavery lines, and Fillmore could have done something about it, even at the risk of civil war. Civil war happened anyway ten years later.

Calvin Coolidge became President when Popular President Harding died. He presided in one of the most boomingly prosperous periods of our history, the Roaring Twenties. The horse was put to pasture as large numbers of people were able to buy automobiles. The stock market kept on going up and up and up with no end in sight, and people risked their fortunes buying on margin to get more and more of the money. He was definitely low-key as he kept a lot of thoughts to himself, and even went into depression once or twice. He kept the economy roaring by cutting taxes several times. Hence he was not addressing the main problem, which was that the entire economic system was fragile and one cataclysmic event could send everything into a tailspin. But he got out of the Presidency before that could happen.

George H. W. Bush followed Reagan, after one of the worst stock market crashes in our history, the one of 1987. The economy had been going full steam, encouraged by Reagan's tax cuts and by the development of computers. He kept things going as they were, and a let down occurred, a recession that eventually cost him reelection. In the meantime he did send 200,000 troops to Kuwait to stop Iraq's Saddam Hussein's takeover of that country in Persian Gulf War I, after carefully building up a multinational coalition. But not even 90% post-war prosperity could prevent the downturn of the economy and the downfall of his Presidency.

Next: The Popular Presidents, who engaged in some rather unusual pursuits.

With Column 8 of the Periodic Table, we head now into the Third Turning, a feel-good time which also features the decay to some extent of societal institutions. The three Presidents in this column, James Knox Polk, Woodrow Wilson, and Ronald Reagan, are the Archetypal Presidents of a Third Turning, and in general they presented ideas or feelings that helped the individual feel good about himself or society; for this reason, all three were popular with the people, and they also are regarded as some of our better Presidents, except maybe Reagan because of scandals. The decay of society is a negative feature of this time, however, and in fact when an Idealistic President is in the White House, a major crisis for this country is coming in 10-20 years.

James Knox Polk made early Americans feel good because he supported the concept of Manifest Destiny at the time, in which America felt destined to go from Atlantic to Pacific and there is enough resources and land for everyone. Texas became a state during his administration, triggering a one-sided war with Mexico which resulted in even more territory being added to America. Polk negotiated with the British over Oregon and settled for 49 degrees, even though his campaign slogan was "54d 40" or fight!" He took the South's side more often than not, but he tried to walk the increasingly tight rope between North and South.

Woodrow Wilson was a college professor by trade. He became President because of a Republican split between Taft and Theodore Roosevelt. Confronted with a major world war, he strived to keep us out of it. When America was offended enough so that it wanted to go to war, Wilson did what was necessary to send the men over there, win the war, and bring them home. He strove afterwards to achieve a world without war safe for democracy, with ideas such as a League of Nations. However, America voted not to join the league, and Wilson's advice was ignored. It was nice to think about, but it would not work in that world, which was destined to explode twenty years later.

Ronald Reagan opened up his Presidency with the slogan, "Are you better off now than four years ago?" He made Americans feel better off by cutting taxes and by saying this was the Morning of America. Of course it was late afternoon instead, but at least he had people feeling good about the country, and they responded with a huge prosperity that lasted in some form until the dot-com bust of 2000. He recently died, and his burial was in an appropriate place and time, in the West at sunset.

Next are the "Laid-back" Presidents, an interlude to the later Turning.

Incidentally, someone else got the same idea as I had… a periodic table of the presidents. This one seems to be more humorous, and there does not seem to be much rhyme or reason to this table. It is interesting that some of the Presidential elements fall in the right place - Franklin Roosevelt (Fr) is in the same place as Francium (Fr) is in the real chemical table. The author of this table has us going off into a rare-earth series - how symbolic. Many resources, including oil, are indeed becoming rare on earth.

The Presidents in column 7 of the Periodic Table are the Regressive Presidents. I call them that because they seem to be overshadowed by immediate past Presidents, and because they seem to regress to an earlier time. They come near the end of a Second Turning and are a sign that society is getting tired of the tumult and that people want to just get on with their lives. They are John Tyler, William Howard Taft, and Gerald Ford, and note that they sometimes come before a Supportive President and sometimes after.

John Tyler became President when William Henry Harrison (who is not one of the Periodic Presidents) died after serving only one month. He was steadfast in his views and therefore made political enemies, helping to defeat him in 1844. He was from the South and had definitely pro-Southern and pro-slavery views. John Adams accused him of being from the Jeffersonian Virginia school. He lived for a time after his Presidency, which did include some foreign achievements, and eventually wound up in the Confederate House of Representatives.

William Howard Taft was somewhat of a letdown after the courageous bellicoseness of Theodore Roosevelt. After Roosevelt's two terms, Taft ran for President at Roosevelt's urging and easily defeated William Jennings Bryan. Congress passed an unpopular law, Taft signed it and so the public blamed him for it. Hence his presidency did not seem to do much, and it ended when Theodore turned against him in 1912 and ran on a third party ticket, ensuring Woodrow Wilson's election.

Gerald Ford was our nation's only non-elected President, unless you include the present one. He picked up where Nixon left off and carried us back to the early Nixon period, featuring opening up relations with other nations and maintaining the economy, which was bad, the best he could.

The next set of presidents, in column 8, will be the Idealistic Presidents, known for their optimism and their making people feel good about achieving something for themselves.

The next category in my Periodic Presidents is the Supportive Presidents, in column (or row) 6. It's been a while since I have blogged about the Periodic Presidents, and part of this is that it is hard to write about Second Turning presidents - they are hard to classify. The Presidents nearest to the Fourth Turnings are the easiest to classify.

Nevertheless, the supportive presidents, namely Martin Van Buren, William McKinley, and Jimmy Carter, are a letdown from the Presidents that preceded them; Jackson, Cleveland, T. Roosevelt, and Nixon are hard acts to follow. Nevertheless, they supported and carried on the innovations of the preceding Expansive presidents, and kept our nation's ball rolling during a tumultuous time, namely a Second Turning. Further, there is an irregularity, maybe caused by the only Presidential resignation in our history. Normally, Supportive presidents follow Expansive ones, then are followed by Regressive ones, but the reverse occurred in the late 20th Century: Carter followed Ford. Some more details on the Supportive Presidents follow:

Martin Van Buren was one of the few Vice Presidents in our country to become President (George H. W. Bush was another one). He was different from Jackson all right. Davy Crockett once said, "Van Buren is as opposite to General Jackson as dung is from diamond." As is the case with Supportive presidents in general, Van Buren faced a poor economy caused by the Panic of 1837, and he could not do much about it except to allow the Treasury to operate outside private banks. He did settle a couple of nasty disputes with Canada, and he managed to hold the peace between pro and anti-slavery groups.

William McKinley was a product of the Ohio political machine run by Mark Hanna. He won reelection in a race similar to 2004's race, and somewhat reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz. He did not campaign all over the place; he stayed in Ohio and issued edicts, sort of like what the Wizard did. He did not have too bad an economy to deal with, but he did get into a couple of foreign skirmishes, most notably the Spanish-American war, the war in which Spain lost the last remnants of its New World empire. He annexed Hawaii, although that was painful for some Hawaiians. He made America known in the world, causing him to get reelected; unfortunately, a malcontent of Polish origin shot him in Buffalo in 1901 and he died shortly afterward.

Jimmy Carter continued some of the policies of the Nixon administration, most notably, his opening up to the world. This president came close to doing the impossible during his administration, namely getting an Arab country (Egypt) and Israel to agree to a peace treaty that has been maintained to the present day. However, he could not do much about a bad economy caused by oil shocks and his attempt to do something about the Iranian hostage crisis led to the failed rescue attempt. This and an economy of high unemployment and high inflation caused him to lose reelection in 1980, ushering in the Third Turning with an Idealistic president, Ronald Reagan. Jimmy Carter got his real fame after the Presidency by his continuing social work in many countries across the globe, helping him earn the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002; he is the only President ever to receive that prestigious prize.

Next row: Row 7, the Regressive Presidents, who seemed to fill in a gap between the Second and the Third Turning.

Kerry has selected his running mate, Edwards, making the team a pair of Johns. This has given a boost for Kerry. Now Kerry leads in the NBC poll, 49-41-4%(for Nader). Further, according to Rasmussen Reports, Kerry leads Bush by 5 points in Florida. It seems that Kerry is on a roll. Will his lead increase? I think so. It could go up to 10 points. The Democratic convention is at the end of this month. What will be the Kerry lead after that? 20 points? I think so. Kerry will have an enormous lead. But in November, it still looks like Bush.

The reason why can be found in the 13 Lichtman keys. This is a system of true/false statements ("keys") that predict the winner of a Presidential race. If five of the keys or less are false, the incumbent party wins; if six or more are false ("fallen", "toppled", "down") then the challenging party wins. Right now these keys definitely stand: Key 1, Mandate (from 2002 elections); Key 2, Challenge to Nomination (Bush has clinched the Republican nomination); Key 3, Incumbency (Bush is actually the President); Key 4, Third Party (Nader will hurt Democrats instead); Key 8, Social Unrest (unless massive riots occur in US streets or something); and Key 13, Challenger Charisma (no, Edwards does not count. He isn't running for President. Kerry is definitely not charismatic).

Bush has definitely lost Key 6, Long Term Economy (due to the dot-com bust), Key 7 (policy change - no, the Department of Homeland Security is not a policy change. Bush really has not done much domestically), Key 10, Foreign or military failure (because of 9/11), and Key 12 (he is not charismatic). But that is only four keys.

This leaves Keys 5 (short term economy), 9 (scandal), and 11 (foreign or military success). This means that for Kerry to win, two of these three will have to fall. Earlier I thought that Key 9, Scandal, would fall, because of the Abu Ghraib prisoner scandal. But it seems to have fizzled, even though it exceeds in enormity Clinton's indiscretions and Watergate. The economy seems to be getting better, but the stock market has moved sideways this year. The jobs figures are improving. Things in Iraq are still unsettled, but it looks like Key 11 will hold, especially since he succeeded in overthrowing the Taliban in Afghanistan. These keys could worsen and fall, but right now all three seem to be standing, although wobbly, for the incumbent, George Bush.

That is why I think that Bush will win, polls notwithstanding. I expect that Kerry's 20 point lead will erode somewhat, and then the Republican convention will wipe it out and put Bush in the lead by about 8 points. Bush will start losing that lead but will hang on to enough of it to win. That is, unless some of these keys do fall. But for Kerry to translate today's 8 point lead into residency in the White House, these keys will have to fall soon.

I think I may have it figured now. I found another message from Prof. Deffeyes on the oil situation. His main point was that, if there was a shortage of refineries, then that should have meant that not only should gasoline prices go higher, but that crude oil should go LOWER. He explained it in terms of not getting a bonus of some type if an oil possessor can't find a refinery, but I think of it that if I hold some crude oil, and can't get it refined into gasoline or something else useful, then it is worthless. I can't put crude oil in my tank. I had thought of this too, and I wondered about the situation and concluded that there were shortages both of crude and of refineries.

He is still sticking by his date when this thing is supposed to happen as 2005 November 24. Whether he means the peak or D, the point at which demand exceeds supply, is unclear. But I see it this way. We had catastrophically increasing gasoline prices this spring. The Saudis were pressed to increase their production, as everyone else is pumping as much as they can. They had 6 million barrels of spare capacity last year, but only 2.5 million this year. So they said that they would increase production. And indeed, that is what they have done. So gasoline prices are now going down. Incidentally, if there were really a refinery shortage, shouldn't there still be a shortage? The Saudis didn't do anything about that. So shouldn't the price of gasoline still be high?

This shows the increase this spring was due mainly to a possible shortage of crude oil, as refineries were at 95%, not 100%, capacity. Growth is still continuing at 2% in the demand for oil, or maybe even 3 or 4%, because China and India now want some of the good life. So I think this will happen. Gasoline prices will drift slowly downwards and maybe hit $1.40 or $1.50 this winter, with crude at about $32. Then the inexorable climb will begin again in the spring of 2005, and this time the Saudis will be at or very close to capacity, and so will not be able to pump any more. Demand will be continuing to rise, but everyone will be pumping and pumping and pumping as hard and as fast as they can. That's when the crisis will strike. It seems that Deffeyes' date is correct.

Gasoline prices will continue to rise until it measurably decreases demand, wherever that may be. If people feel they can drive where they want at $4/gallon that means that gasoline will rise to $5/gallon or higher. This will happen mainly in the latter half of 2005, in the half that Deffeyes predicts his peak in. Then a number of things may happen.

The rising prices will cause stagflation, and may later even cause an economic collapse and the Great Devaluation that Strauss and Howe have been predicting. People will start to conserve like mad. Carpools will spring up all over the place, housing prices will plummet, especially in areas far from the necessities of life, demand for hybrid vehicles will soar, and SUVs will pile up like garbage in car dealerships.

Also, the high price of crude and gasoline will make oil wildcatting much more lucrative. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve will be opened up. The next President will drill the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, especially if he is George W. Bush. Renewable energy sources will be a hot item of research, and fuel cells may start to get into the market. Solar panels will spring up like desert flowers in the American Southwest. And the oil production from the tar sands of Canada will probably throttle up to full. This may provide us with a reprieve, but if so, it will only last a few years.

The crisis will clearly strike whoever is elected this fall. If it is Bush, he will become one of the most unpopular presidents in history, and a Democrat will defeat him in 2008; this Democrat will be a Crisis President and may go down in history as one of our best presidents. If it is Kerry, he will be hit by the crisis, and the result could be the election of a Republican in 2008. This Republican will then be a Greatest President, being a Crisis President. Given this, conservatives and Republicans may want to vote for Kerry, and liberals and Democrats for Bush.

What will the end result be? Hopefully one of these alternate fuels, especially a renewable fuel, will catch on and transform the landscape. This won't be easy; there will be many upheavals as these new methods crash crank up to meet the demands of the era. The fact that we will be in a Fourth Turning will help; Fourth Turnings are the time when major civic changes can take place. I hope that these fuels can take their place; otherwise what may be next will be one of the grisly nightmare scenarios of Life after the Oil Crash or Dieoff.

I have now seen Fahrenheit 9/11 and have talked about it with others. These others have called it anything from "one of the most wonderful films I have ever seen" to "garbage". So what do I think?

Every time I talk about or read about Fahrenheit 9/11 I learn something new. To me the most poignant memories I have of the movie are those of the Flint, Michigan woman who lost her son in Iraq and an Iraqi woman who lost much of her family in an American attack. It's a tale of two cities, Flint and Baghdad. The woman of Flint and the woman of Baghdad stand like pillars highlighting the film like columns on some Greek building. Both sobbed a lot about their loved ones and asked for recognition, while the Iraqi one went farther and invoked God to destroy those (the US) who destroyed her family.

Much of the movie has this powerful message. The planes of 9/11 (or Planeattack, as I usually call it) smash on a blank screen. Bush reads "The Pet Goat" (that's what it should be, not "My Pet Goat") to a group of grade schoolers while towers fall down, an image which invokes to my imagination the Roman emperor Nero. Mr. Moore with these messages is telling us that we may have made a few mistakes on the road to 9/11 and to Iraq.

Michael Moore also brings out the wolfishness of the constant warnings for terrorist attacks. He should have gone farther and mentioned the case of the concourse that was closed and a plane flight that was turned back because of scissors in the ladies' room, and also acknowledged that to some extent terrorist attacks have been prevented. We have not had a major attack since 9/11.

He also brings out suspicious circumstances relating the relationship between the Bush family and rich Saudi families, including the bin Ladens. I heard in the movie that special flights were arranged for Saudis to leave the country before the ban on commercial air travel was lifted, but I may have misheard, as some said that they left after the lifting of the ban, according to Moore. This is one area of the movie that will be hotly contested.

In general, the film brings across a message that needs to be heard. He should have kept the message a strong one by keeping snide remarks about Bush and other officials out. These include the portrayal of his being a clown or idiot of some sort, and the presentation of some of his malapropisms, such as the one at the end of the film. Also the performance of stunts, such as asking congressmen if they would like to have their sons join the military and go to Iraq. If I were such a congressman being asked, I would have said that I would like to have my children go to Iraq, and that I would not like to have my children go to Iraq, present sound reasons for both claims and let him figure it out. And I expect silly tunes from an ice cream truck, not a recitation of the Patriot Act, but his point that many congressmen have not read the act is well taken.

I feel the movie has an important message, but that it should be polished a bit. I give it two and a half stars (on a scale of 1 to 4). I still would like to see it again when it comes out in DVD.