Yesterday I complained about the gas shortage that's hitting parts of the southeast, including the western Carolinas, really hard.  The Colonial Pipeline which provides the area with fuel has been operating at severely reduced capacity, because the refineries which feed it were shut down by the double-whammy of Gustav and Ike, and have been taking a looooooong time to get restarted.  The result has been gas stations with no gas and lines which, according to a German colleague of mine, are reminiscent of Soviet East Germany.

Today a major emergency shipment came into the region from refineries in the Atlantic, but since most people were running almost on empty this has still resulted in long lines.  I finally ventured out today and got myself into a reasonably short gas line -- only 20 cars ahead of me -- and managed to fill up.  I took a couple of cellphone pictures to give a feel for the fun...

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I've been a little distracted from blogging for the past week by the gas crisis that has settled slowly but inexorably over the region.  Parts of the southeast have been in the midst of a massive gas shortage since Hurricane Ike shut down the refineries which supply it more than a week ago.  Only a trickle of fuel is entering the region now, and it is being rationed amongst various stations.  A station which gets gas gets half-mile-long lines along with it, and a new supply can sell out within hours.  A report from Charlotte, NC on the situation can be read here.  The frightening thing is that nobody seems to know for sure when things will return to at least a semblance of normalcy: a day?  two days?  a week?

Fortunately, I only teach one day a week, so I've been working from home most days to conserve gas.  I also drive a hybrid Civic (purchased with some foresight on my part in 2004), and am able to get farther on a tank than most people.  Even that, though, is running low.  If this crisis continues for a few more days, I think cities in the region are going to start looking a bit like ghost towns.

I'm a little baffled by the fact that a smaller version of this event happened in 2005, when Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast.  One would think that officials would have seen the possibility of an even more severe disruption and taken steps to diversify the gas supply.

A few days ago, it was noted that Roger Ebert had posted an article titled, "Creationism: Your questions answered".  The article gives a straight-faced accounting of creationist beliefs, which was somewhat shocking to many fans who were familiar with Ebert's long agnosticism and support of evolution.  The curious article was noted in many places, including Pharyngula, sparked an intense debate: was Ebert writing satire?  had his website been hacked?  was he losing his mind?

Ebert himself has answered the question in a blog post: it was a satirical piece.  One of the clues, which I hadn't quite understood when I read it, was the retitling of his Adaptation review with, "Evolution is God's intelligent design."  The post was a demonstration of Poe's law in action.

What was the point?  If I understand Ebert correctly, it was a test/demonstration of the too-ready credulity of people these days.  I'm not sure it was quite the right test: people of all ages, even scientists, have been known to start believing crazy and weird things without much provocation.