■"A Black-Gold Rush in Alberta: With Price of Crude Staying High, Tapping Into Canadian Oil Sands Look Increasingly Profitable," by Tamsin Carlisle, Wall Street Journal, 15 September 2005, p. C1.

Alberta's looking like the new King Kong of the global oil industry. Recently, when the Department of Energy calculated all the non-conventional sources (like shale, sands), Canada jumped to number 2 in the world, after Saudi Arabia. But when DoE published its annual world projection report, such rankings were relegated to a special shaded box in the text in a sort of "on the other hand" way.

Katrina, on top of the sustain oil price pressure generated by rising demand in Asia, makes it clear someone will make plenty of money in the "vast oil sands of this western Canadian province."

How much? 174 billion barrels. And that alone jumps Canada to second behind the House of Saud and controller of the world's future oil supplies. Eighty billion in projects are planned or underway. This train is officially leaving the station: "the wave of development engulfing the forest oil-sands region has gathered so much momentum that some say it is unstoppable."

End of oil?

Hmm. Not just yet.

And shame on Esquire for that weak, misleading article on "The end of oil" in its just-out October issue (paging Dr. Yergin!), though bid kudos for any photos of Keira Knightley-especially the cover shot (What would Mr. Darcy say?). Me, I can't wait for the latest version of "Pride and Prejudice," since it's from the same people who brought us "Love Actually," which is one of my all-time favorite movies (I admit it, I'm a sucker for British babes).

Whoops! Lost my serious train of thought: Bad Esquire! Bad!