What do gold bulls and peak oil proponents have in common? Both have been considered part of the lunatic fringe for quite awhile now. Perhaps that is starting to change.

Matt Simmons is profiled in Fortune Magazine this month, the Sept 29 issue. The story is well written. It paints Simmons in a favorable light, when its author could have just as easily made him out to look like a kook.

If any of you have ever been interviewed for an article, then you know how easy it is for a writer with an agenda to twist anything you say to fit that agenda.

This guy seemed very objective, which was good. It means two things. Number One: He was friendly to Simmon's ideas, but more importantly is Number Two: Fortune Magazine is friendly to Simmon's ideas. Fortune is about as mainstream business media as you can get and still stay somewhat intelligent, so it's a good sign that this article appeared.

For those of you who subscribe to Fortune, you might remember the Rainwater Prophecy article from 2005 in which Richard Rainwater was profiled. That article definitely had a different feel. The sentiment definitely was deferent towards Rainwater in light of his self-made billionaire status, but still the incredulity that anything really bad could happen to the unstoppable U.S. economy remained. Of course that was almost three years ago, and psychologically we were much more invincible then.

Very interesting that Simmons is shown to be not so much a prophet of doom as just a smart, friendly guy who has made a very, very interesting discovery, a reluctant prophet, more like Moses, rather than Nostrdamus.

Pick up a copy. There are some clever people at Fortune Magazine. I wonder if Hank Paulson even realizes that his image on the front cover looks almost exactly like the Big Brother image from the 1984 Apple Macintosh Super Bowl Commercial. Take a look for yourself. Compare the two pictures. Look up the cover of the most recent Fortune Magazine and the 1984 Big Brother Image from the Macintosh commercial. I'd paste them on here if I could figure it out, but I lack the know-how. Bull