To zoegreenberg:

You're wrong, it is the double latte's. Years ago I decided (before I was married) to cut my living expenses the same percentage as any increase in income I got. I ended up living in a cold-water five floor walkup. But the rent was only $6 a month (equivalent ot $60 today). I saved so much money that I was able to buy an airplane ($100,000 in todays dollars) after couple of years. So by giving up the little things (I ate well, but inexpensively) I was able to have a really fun expensive toy. When the next (inevitable) depression hits over-saver will be very glad she oversaved. When I was very young many families had only one pair of shoes for all the kids, not per kid. I dimly remember going down to the trainyards to gather spilt coal for heating the house. So what does really giving "luxuries" up amount to? Most of the "necessary" luxuries that people enjoy today are BS.

Although I have liberal tendencies, I am at heart a conservativeor more precisely a libertarian. Bush is not a conservative, and definitely not a libertarian. He is essentially the tool of Big Oil. To a lesser extent he is also the tool of the Pharmaceutical Industry, and other assorted special interests. If we accept the responsiblity of government for the Katrina victims (a libertarian would say volunteers), then instead of setting up a huge government run program to help them, we would have given them money to do what they felt was best. Probably 80% would have spent it fairly wisely, and 20% would have spent it foolishly. What else is new? Conservatives and libertarians accept the fact that you will always have fools, and controlling behavior with government is at best a waste of time and at worst counter-productive. BTW, I used the term volunteers to remind us of the fact that all these "victims" were voters who kept incompetent local politicians in office. At the very least conservatives should tell the truth, at least better than liberals. Bush lies continuously. Since most of our military and diplomatic efforts are devoted to assuring Big Oil of continuous access to oil, it would be proper to have a national debate on how we pay for those efforts. Neither liberals nor conservatives are eager for such a discussion. The conservatives because oil imports (and profits) would go down if imported oil had to pay its true costs, and liberals because the auto worker unions would be offended by the loss of jobs making trucks and SUV's. Bush is pushing HSA's, not because they are a good idea, but because unions have huge slush funds available from their operation of many health insurance plans. Those slush funds make plenty of cash available for Democrats. But they are a good idea because now that I am 72, it is obvious that most peoples health problems are self-inflicted, and those of us who try to live healthy lives should not subsidize those who don't through pseudo-insurance. Subsidies should always be obvious and up-front. But of course both liberals and Bush pseudo-conservatives like to hide their interference in the economy. Any true conservative knows that Bush's NSA surveillance activities are for the purpose of digging up dirt on politicians and their supporters and using the dirt to control them. So what is a poor libertarian to do? Why, grit their teeth and vote Republican anyway. The Democrats need a few more years in the desert to reassess what they are for. If they learn to conscentrate on the interests of the middle class they may win elections someday. In the meantime as bad as Bush is, the Republicans still have a better understanding of that.

Yeah, that's what it's called. Compared to most living things, except for the monoculture crops that sustain us, the human race is seriously inbred. So mixing the races is a good thing. The Amerindians were so inbred from the population bottleneck of the Bering Strait that they were decimated by European diseases before the Europeans even knew it. A little genetic engineering might even be able to diversify our genetics. That would be real intelligent design, assuming we're intelligent. I'm sure it will be happening as high-income parents try to better the odds for their children by hybridizing tnem with various animal (and plant?) genes. A little chlorophyll in our skins could make eating optional. Too bad I'm too old to be around for that brave new world. I hope my grandchildren enjoy it.