who have volunteered for their sickness. That includes all type 2 diabetics, who are consuming a larger proportion of health care dollars than any other disease. If I could trust the medical profession I might be in favor of a "one size fits all" medical system. The medical system knows a fair amount about treating acute medical problems, but less than nothing about prevention. By less than nothing, I mean it is dangerous to place yourself in the hands of the medical profession for any chronic "disease". They will prescribe treatments that are both expensive and designed to make sure that you use as much "care" as you (or your patron)can afford.

How will a "universal" health insurance program deal with this? I suppose all doctors could be on salary, and the insurer put all meds out to the lowest bidder.

The bottom line for me is that I, and others like me, want to control my own health. As a consequence we spend very little money on institutionalized health care. However by taxing me in the guise of "insurance" you would be robbing me of the money I would use for my own ways of maintaining health. I am neither "healthy" nor rich, having an income of less than $60k a year and having a very leaky aortic valve. But I decided a long time ago that I would never take a prescription drug or have a surgical procedure unless it was the only way (by my judgment) to save my life.

If you want a "universal" system, figure out a way to leave me and my friends out.

The average Salon reader is probably a major source of CO2. If you fly at all you are a major polluter. Do you heat your house or use air conditioning? You are a major polluter. The only thing that will reduce our "carbon footprint" is increased energy cost. This will happen quite fast in the next few years, due to the increased competition for a diminishing resource. The typical liberal will do the most bellyaching and demands for the Congress to "do something", because "my elderly parents can't live without heat or air conditioning", or some other equivalent bologna.

I like the idea of the Earth returning to its high CO2 past when the only ice on Earth was in the Antarctic. Too bad it's only temporary, since the orbital cycle-precession scenario is in its ice age period, and our CO2 increase will only last until the last drop of oil and coal is burnt, which is only a couple of hundred years away. As I have pointed out before, that is not a problem since modern man evolved during the last ice age and we are well adapted for hunting mammoths in a cold climate. Obesity and type 2 diabetes will no longer exist, so it ain't all bad.

Another bad joke. If the tendency to have children is genetic, and the only people who have children are the over-breeders (is there such a thing?) all the genes for children-hating will be rapidly bred out and the problem will be worse. Most of the people I know who decided not to have children did it for ridiculous reasons, like being able to spend more time and money on their worthless selves. Pathetic. They probably have a higher carbon footprint then those with children. Not that it matters.

It is inevitable that the "Big 3" will go out of business as they are now constituted. They cannot compete with the Koreans let alone the coming wave of Chinese cars. They would have a fighting chance if they could chuck their health care and retiree costs, but the Feds want no part of that. As other letters have pointed out the real problem is that the world demand for oil will exceed the supply, except that the market will clear by very rapid price increases. Government price setting (through taxes) is not the way to reduce demand, since the chief competition for car driving is mass transit and the airlines. Mass transit is not more fuel efficient than a typical sedan in seat miles per gallon (or Btu). It merely transfers the Btu source from petroleum to coal, with its much greater greenhouse effect. A lone businessman driving a few hundred miles to a client does not burn more fuel than he would by flying or taking a train. However, he does endure the interface time and money costs that he avoids by driving.

Personally, I'm going to enjoy my declining years by flying a light plane to where I want to go. Go to http://www.czechsportplanes.com/ and look at the WT-9. 165 MPH at 5 gallons per hour which is equivalent to almost 50 road miles per gallon using auto fuel. I will watch the rest of you suckers creeping along the highway at some gas saving low speed. I paid big bucks to become an IFR pilot with 1600 hours, now I will enjoy it.