Although bipolar appears to run in families, it might not be due to genetic inheritance. It could be the culturally transmitted tendency to eat a lousy diet. Without the proper nutrients the brain will not develop properly or operate properly. I'm 72 and have a bipolar wife, who I love dearly. We are also proponents of lots of omega-3. All the research we have seen indicates that it is a critical necessity for proper brain function. A little mania is good in highly creative people. If it is focused it really helps in getting things done. If it is unfocused it is highly destructive. Omega-3 appears to help in staying focused. The key information here is that the brain is one third dry weight DHA, an omega-3 fatty acid. Being a fathead is good.

As for medication: The medical profession has been corrupted by the drug industry. Psychiatrists are just as prone to prescribe the newest and most expensive medications as any other doctor. The insidious thing about corruption is that the corrupt don't believe they are corrupt. The doctor believes the drug industry propaganda, so he prescribes with a clear conscience. No one should take any medication without thoroughly researching it themselves. A psychiatrist prescribed zyprexa for my wife despite the fact that her old medication worked fine. He claimed that the side effects of the old medication were dangerous despite the fact that she had taken it for 30 years with no problem. We researched and compared both drugs. Zyprexa is incredibly dangerous. My wife dumped him immediately. Doctors are technicians, like car mechanics and plumbers, who have specialized knowledge. If that knowledge is useful, they are good technicians. If not, find one who is.

Whose world? Over what period of time are we talking? What is the author high on? The world is pretty much indestructible, but not the world we think we like. Climate change has been going on since the world began. The methane metabolizing organisms sure didn't like it when the atmosphere turned oxidizing. Every 60 miilion years or so the earths surface is renewed by plate tectonics. I assume the author is talking about the exact here and now. A carbon tax is too late and too little to save the world that we live in, somewhat comfortably for some of us. A lot of luck and a modicum of sense will save some of us from the catastrophe that might befall civilization if the Gulf Stream fails, or whatever result of global warming you are partial to. Siberia and the Yukon might turn into the corn belt. Who the hell knows? The present political entities might fail, and new ones develop. The Little Ice Age caused a lot of political upheaval. The warm period that preceded it exploded the population of Scandinavia, much to the annoyance of the Celts and others. Solar cells and hybrid cars might be a good idea, but they won't sustain a reasonable approximation of the present situation. Flexibility and adaptability will save some of us from the future, not misguided attempts to preserve some approximation of the status quo. May your children live in interesting times might be a curse, but don't our children always live in interesting times?

Every analysis I have ever seen shows mass transit as using more energy per passenger mile than reasonably efficient private cars (not SUV's and their ilk). One of the problems of mass transit is that it has to run 24 hours a day, empty of full. If it is not always available people will have to have private cars for the off times, which they will then use for all trips because of the huge capital investment they made. You really need to follow the technolgy development going on. Computer controlled private cars will travel at high speed bumper to bumper. That both hugely increases the road capacity and more than doubles the gas mileage, because of the great reduction in wind drag. KenF and his ilk love socialistic solutions that enforce a kind of dull conformity on all of us. I am retired on a middle range five figure income and I live in a 2800 sq ft house on an acre of land, and I love it. I can sit in my yard and listen to the birds and not hear a peep from my neighbors, without benefit of a single fence between lots. Within an hour of my house I can be XC skiing in thousands of acres with only a dozen or so people within a mile of me, and I can be sailing my little boat on huge lakes where there might be three of four boats in sight. Not every place in the US is an overcrowded metropolis full of vast crowds of regimented people. Of course we have to put up with real winter, power outages, and the other (slight) discomforts of rural living. I've lived in NYC, Boston, and Los Angeles. That is s future I will be happy to have no part of.

My wife spent a year as a flight attendant (stewardess then) after getting her bachelors degree. I met her the following year while she was at Harvard Graduate School. She was beautiful, smart, and lively. What more can a man ask for. She also knows how to fly an airplane. I gave her flying lessons for her birthday after we were married. Too many people lock themselves into career tracks with no deviation, and end up doing some dumb boring job, that might pay well. Be a flight attendant for a while, or forever. You never know.