NEW YORK – A Goldman Sachs analyst on Tuesday predicted that oil prices could reach $150 to $200 a barrel over the next 6 months to two years, but said that how far prices could climb still “remains a major uncertainty.”

“We believe the current energy crisis may be coming to a head, as the lack of adequate supply growth is becoming apparent,” analyst Arjun N. Murti wrote in a client note.

Meh.

Good thing I wasn’t planning to, say, drive 1000 miles in late summer or something. Actually, I do very little driving these days, and I am always shocked when I fill up my pickup monthlyish, because I’ve typically forgotten how much gas costs in the meantime.

Now some think that we are made good by nature, others by habituation, others by teaching. Nature’s part evidently does not depend on us, but as a result of some divine causes is present in those who are truly fortunate; while argument and teaching, we may suspect, are not powerful with all men, but the soul of the student must first have been cultivated by means of habits for noble joy and noble hatred, like earth which is to nourish the seed. For he who lives as passion directs will not hear argument that dissuades him, nor understand it if he does; and how can we persuade one in such a state to change his ways? And in general passion seems to yield not to argument but to force. The character, then, must somehow be there already with a kinship to virtue, loving what is noble and hating what is base.

But it is difficult to get from youth up a right training for virtue if one has not been brought up under right laws; for to live temperately and hardily is not pleasant to most people, especially when they are young. For this reason their nurture and occupations should be fixed by law; for they will not be painful when they have become customary. But it is surely not enough that when they are young they should get the right nurture and attention; since they must, even when they are grown up, practise and be habituated to them, we shall need laws for this as well, and generally speaking to cover the whole of life; for most people obey necessity rather than argument, and punishments rather than the sense of what is noble.

This is why some think that legislators ought to stimulate men to virtue and urge them forward by the motive of the noble, on the assumption that those who have been well advanced by the formation of habits will attend to such influences; and that punishments and penalties should be imposed on those who disobey and are of inferior nature, while the incurably bad should be completely banished. A good man (they think), since he lives with his mind fixed on what is noble, will submit to argument, while a bad man, whose desire is for pleasure, is corrected by pain like a beast of burden. This is, too, why they say the pains inflicted should be those that are most opposed to the pleasures such men love.

I’m going to leave you to infer what I mean by this if it isn’t just people who talk about Aristotle on their blog are mental.

Hank Olson – From early on, Hank Olson cracks jokes and insults the other competitors. He believes he has an edge over the other walkers, having been told by the Major to “Give ‘em hell.” However, Olson tires very early in the game, becoming a “hollow shell.” Despite his exhaustion, he continues to walk, seemingly oblivious to the world. Garraty compares Olson’s demeanor to that of the Flying Dutchman as he is manned even when “the entire crew is dead.” Stebbins refers to Olson as a demonstration of the power of the mind to control the body, because though mentally succumbed to fatigue, Olson can still walk. His fellow walkers can only watch in pity and foreboding. Surprisingly, Olson outlasts the majority of the walkers, finally admitting to Garraty that he “does not want to die.” A haggard mess, he at last attempts to climb the halftrack, and is shot several times by the soldiers. To the shock and awe of his fellow walkers, he continues to stand and walk. Eventually, his intestines begin to spill out of his stomach “like sausage” and he dies after lifting his hands to the sky and shouting “I DID IT WRONG!”

From the wikipedia article about The Long Walk by Stephen King: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Walk

“You’re doing it wrong” is a long-running injoke.