For all those who sniff and scoff at California, this post is a must-read. Yeah, we're not "the heartland". Yeah, we can be kooky and nutty. But we lead the nation on some pretty damned important stuff. The rest of you want a clue? Watch what we do and then follow us.

Because Bush and his cadre of assholes certainly don't give a flying fuck if they leave a polluted sinkhole of a country behind them. For all our supposed craziness, I thank the gods I live here. At least we're sane about the stuff that counts.

Yes, Ca has done some small things to remediate the damage done by automobiles. Prior to 1950 nearly all of the air pollution originated at smokestacks. After that, tailpipes took over. We should hardly be patting ourselves on the back for putting a Band-Aid on a severed artery. Our poisoned air is directly related to the unlimited use of automobiles and the fact that we removed our light-rail systems half a century ago, which was immediately followed by the need to deal with our newfound smog. Our current young people (for me, that means folks under 50) are so car-addicted they can’t even conceive of doing a little shopping or running an errand without using a fossil-fool powered wheelchair. Is there any wonder that we have epidemic levels of heart disease and cancer and our teenagers are developing type II diabetes and smog-induced asthma? With something like six of the twelve worst air basins in the country, it hardly seems appropriate to toot our horns about our great environmental record.

Will we ever have the courage, foresight and sense to restrict fuel usage with individual quotas? How about rebuilding our former trolley lines (a large gasoline and utility tax would seem to be a fair way to pay for them)? Maybe we could even stop building so much car-centered transportation infrastructure and rebuild our roadways to safely accommodate pedestrians and cyclists. If history is any guide, we probably won’t take any substantial steps until the Central Valley is the Central Sea.