Idaho only elects Republicans. It is the most Republican state in the US. Whoever wins the Republican primary will be elected. Out of state money is the primary source of campaign funds for candidates. So our Congressmen essentially vote for the benefit of the out-of-state interests. Any Republican who would be willing to go against the out-of-state interests will not win the primary, since he will be painted as a RINO or communist.

I don't see how the $50 system will change anything, unless the money could be used for primaries early on. We should probably limit campaign contributions to those who live in the candidates state.

If curvy means kind of fat, then these curvy women will almost inevitably be diabetic by middle age. Since type 2 diabetes is 1/3 of the costs for Medicare, anything that promotes "curviness" is not in the public or personal interest. We went to a dinner theater a few nights ago. Most of the attendees were in late middle age or older. The fatter they were, and they were all fat, the more desserts they took from the buffet. The somewhat firm fat on a 20-30 year old might not look too bad, but by middle age it is truly disgusting. On the other hand we also took a lot hikes in the mountains here on Kauai. It was wonderful to see men and women of all ages hiking on steep and rough mountain trails. There were no fatties among them. They were all back at the dessert table gorging themselves.

If a suitable successor to Bush is not elected, will his patrons in Big Oil and the Military-Industrial Complex allow him/her to get sworn in? Or will they have the Bush bunch manufacture a crisis that requires martial law and "temporary" suspension of the election to maintain their control.

Soft drinks in Mexico (and probably most other countries) use real cane sugar as a sweetener. Beet sugar is OK, too. Since the aluminum can and the contents cost only about $0.02 to produce, there is a big gross margin on a can of coke. All those high priced executives that run the place cost a lot, but they will be the last to lose their jobs.

The first love of Mormons is money. A bishop or stake president who owns a business will get all the local Mormons to buy from him. They also don't believe in the rule of law, at least for Mormons. They do all they can to cover up white collar and sex crimes, and take care of them "in the church". Individually they are OK, but as a group they are scary. As the old joke goes, never take only one Mormon fishing with you, he'll drink all your beer. All Mormon boys must become Eagle Scouts. That's pretty scary, too. Picture Romney as an Eagle Scout. Since all male Mormons are fluent in at least one foreign language, they are major factors in the CIA and the State Department. How many non-Mormons can speak Kyrgyzstan? Since we live in an area that is more Mormon than Salt Lake, we are sort of a persecuted minority, but not too persecuted. The area is full of divorced Mormon women in their late 20's, some of them quite attractive. But they have five or so kids, so it's pretty rough on them. They are pretty much like any other religion, corrupt and venal, so I would have no problem voting for Romney. Roe should be overturned, those who live in fundamentalist states can vote with their feet. If it is overturned the "conservative" politicians will have to find another issue to get the redneck vote. After all Rednecks should be natural Democrats. At least the poor ones.

I just finished reading "Climate Change in Prehistory, the End of the Reign of Chaos", by W.J. Burroughs. The last 10,000 years, known as the Holocene, have had the most stable climate conditions in the last 100,000 years. There is no time before that when agriculture would have been possible, because of the chaotic climate, even during interglacial periods warmer that they are now. The reasons for this are not very well understood. There are somewhat cyclic phenomena that have to do with the orbit of the earth, precession of the axial tilt, etc. The present stable (?) climate is an anomaly. Increased CO2 and global warming might be bad for us humans, at least for the life style we have grown to like. On the other hand the present global warming may be temporarily putting off the inevitable next ice age. It is inevitable, and it will not be caused by us humans. However, we might just be able to take some control of the climate, despite what nature wants to do. After all, if ice sheets start to get bigger we can spray them with dark dust and melt them.

Anyway, the good times will end, no matter what we do. If our extensive reliance on agriculture ends catastrophically, which it almost certainly will, the human race will undergo a great die back to maybe a few hundred million. The real problem is to maintain our technologies, since we will have used up all the fossil fuels, and we will need nukes, wind. solar and whatever to keep going. That means high technology, even with a greatly diminished population. Our present population is unsustainable, since the benign conditions that sustain it will end no matter what we do.