I live in Idaho, which is in the midst of a huge influx of Californians fleeing that state. A year ago we thought of moving from SE Idaho to N Idaho. N Idaho was at the peak of a RE bubble. Speculators came in with piles of cash and bought dozens of houses at a time, and then rented them out at low cost. A number of builders refused to sell to speculators because it deflated the value of other houses in the area. The kinds of renters that took advantage of the low rentals were not your first class citizens. That bubble is now collapsing. Almost a third of the houses in Boise are not eligible for the homeowners tax exemption, which is only available to owner-occupiers. Speculators again are coming in and buying blocks of houses and renting them out. Those rental rates do not cover the real costs. In our town Califorians come in and buy a house to live in and one or two more for speculation. When you have sold a house in CA for $750,000 you can buy three better ones in Idaho for that much. If anything like this is happening throughout the US we are in for a very severe housing bust. The speculators will bail at the first whiff of a buyers market. The renters will not be able to continue to rent at what is effectively a subsidized rate, and they will not have the credit-worthiness to buy a house. Many houses have been built as second homes, which are generally in areas where there are no jobs. A stock market collapse will make many people a lot poorer, and they may have to dump their second home. Bushs tax reductions have mainly gone into consumptive spending for the well-to-do. I just hope the crash occurs before the November vote so the Republicans get their just deserts.

The huge bases that we are building in Iraq will enable us to dominate whatever government they finally install. The Texas oligarchs and their Saudi buddies will have the low cost/high profit oil they want, and the American taxpayer will have payed for it, both in blood and treasure. We will withdraw to the bases, allow the Iraqis to slaughter each other until they resolve their issues, and then we'll make a deal with the victors. Bush may be dumb, but his backers are very smart.

That quote from List really applies to the US domestic economy too. Those who have made it are busy kicking down the ladder of opportunity for everyone else. They are scared stiff that some bright ambitious, but poor or middle class person, might outcompete their incompetent offspring. Coonections, the "best" schools, etc, are not enough. They also want to protect their fortunes for all time. It won't work, but who wants to go through the trauma of revolution to correct the inequities?

Pork fat is half oleic acid, a monounsaturated fat that is the main constituent of olive oil. Most of the rest is saturated fat. Saturated fats were given a bad name 50 years ago when big ag was developing a market for hydrogenated corn and soybean oil. They convinced a couple of generations that hydrogenated oils were healthy, even though they were full of trans-fats. So eat all the meat you want, just stay away from the omega-6 fatty acids which will give you cancer, arthritis and heart disease. Liberals are always ready to suffer in the name of some hypothetical long range good, even if it's based on lies and phony research by big corporations. Suffering is what they enjoy the most anyway. I'm glad to read about hard-working people enjoying themselves any way they want.

Get smart on past climate change by reading some of the numerous books on the subject. Human beings have survived and adapted to all kinds of climates. Populations will go up and down; there will be mass migrations. Those with strength and wit, and a lot of luck, will thrive. Darwinian selection will change from its present rewarding of those who thrive in bureaucracies to those who know how to use the tools that nature and ingenuity provide. I only wish I was young enough to be around for the next fifty years. It might not be fun, but it will be interesting.

Too many technically ignorant, but liberally educated Americans have a knee jerk antipathy to nuclear power. A generation or so ago the biggest contributor to the anti-nuclear bunch was the Association of Independent Oil Dealers. Whenever lies are spewed, you can be sure that someones economic ox is being gored. The anit-nuke movement has a few technically astute individuals, who have genuine concerns regarding nuclear power. It's a lot easier to turn Pu into bombs than to enrich U to the levels needed for bombmaking. But that is not a reason to ban nuclear power. It is a reason to have strong security. I doubt if there are more than a very few of those who have strong opinions on global warming or nuclear power who have the faintest idea of how mathematical models are created. The anti-nuke global warming bunch are very similar to the creationists and intelligent design proponents. Lots of bullshit, but no real knowledge.