THE ULTIMATE RACE

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The Sahara desert and Carlos Zambrano's arm are filled with roughly the same amount of life at this point.

WHICH WILL END THE WORLD FIRST: GLOBAL WARMING OR PEAK OIL?

We thought it might be fun to run the two doomsday scenarios head to head, based on a mostly random reading of current events. What can we say? We like competition.

THIS WEEK: CURSE OF THE BILLY GOAT?

This week's kooky parallels in the oil markets and baseball bring up an ancient question: When is a slump just a slump, and when is it a total collapse?! When do you calmly say, hey, it happens, and when do you ZOMG completely panic?!!!

If you're Peak Oil, you figure you've got geology on your side. They're not making any more oil, and they are making more automobiles. Soon India will be popping out cars the way it mass produces beauty queens. Eventually, even if your price has fallen $40 in two months, it'll go back up. Because it always does. And because American hero T. Boone Pickens says so. Go 'Pokes!

Besides, the Oilers, led by the Russian Bears' Bad Vlad Putin, have already set loose 18 weeks of gut-crunching, man-eating terror in society: People are driving less, and the stock market's tanking! Can ox carts and clamshell currency be far behind? Hell no!

Okay, so why does Peak Oil keep losing in the standings?

Some attribute the lack of a PO lead during much of the summer to the Donaghy factor, which, if you ask us, is just the same sort of unfair, sexist media carping that's victimized Mooseface Killa! And we demand that it stop! She, and we at the Ultimate Race, are great Americans—even if we do occasionally daydream about how cool it would be if our respective communities were annexed by Canada.

Anyways, the answer to why Peak Oil loses? Consistency. Yes, the Oilers have spectacular weeks, like when they almost hit $150 a barrel, and they look great on paper, like when hurricanes threaten to wipe out gulf oil refineries.

But the Ultimate Race doesn't like teams that look good getting off the bus. We demand results, and since rebounding from a slump in the spring, the Heat does enough things—a drought, a surge in Chinese industrial pollution and, this week, more awesome ice-shelf disintegration—to stay on top.

That's why the Heat's tough to beat, and now has a 15-12-2 lead!

WHAT IT MEANS TO YOU, THE FAN:
Oh, right. The Cubs.

Don't believe what they're saying about Zambrano. Anybody who thinks he'll be at full strength for the playoffs is like a Global Warming denier. He's toast. So are they. It's a collapse.

MOVING THE GOALPOSTS:
If you think Global Warming and Peak Oil are beatable, then we've got some land to show you in the Sahara. Seriously! Check out this plan to greenify and sustainify one of the world's most forbidding regions, with, as Ali G calls it, techmology.

PREVIOUSLY IN THE ULTIMATE RACE

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