In my defense, there was scotch involved in those posts. I guess I really do get maudlin after only a few ounces. (When I used to get drunk, I'd make Marvin the Robot look like Peewee Herman on speed.) I guess I kinda dragged this over to the LTS side of things.

Micah, I don't know if you realise how sensative the current state of the art is. You mentioned Y2K- I worked the great uncrisis as part of the state team for VT. One of my duties was examination of the degree of interconnectivity, which mostly ment reading stuff from the DoT and the like. Then I was asked to look for a historical paradigm, which leads to such wonderful things as the Black Death, panics and riots in the US and Europe over the past 150 years, the fall of major cities due to invasion, theories about why all the pre-Greek Agean cultures kinda went away at about he same time, ad nasaum. The parallels are there, the equation works in every case, you just have to know the variables.

It's a spiderweb- pluck one string, and it is felt every where, it ripples. No one has days and days of stocked supplies in the retail stream. Two or three, tops. That's assuming normal consumption levels, that's why the shelves go bare when there is a hurricane. What stocks there are are located in urban and suburban areas, they'll be seized by local or state government or by "committees of the concerned" within a few days. Given a week to ten days, without outside aid, and it will be looking very Mad Max for most of us.

But then again, I'm also the guy who has a small wager with someone that our next major conflict will be with Mexico over water. Even sober, I'm depressing. :P