David Brooks:

The United States has been an affluent nation since its founding. But the country was, by and large, not corrupted by wealth. For centuries, it remained industrious, ambitious and frugal.

Over the past 30 years, much of that has been shredded.

I don't agree with all of this but the main thrust of the argument is sound.

The Great Seduction by Debt

This highly recommended article is now freely available.

The dot-com crash of the early 2000s should have been followed by decades of soul-searching; instead, even before the old bubble had fully deflated, a new mania began to take hold on the foundation of our long-standing American faith that the wide expansion of home ownership can produce social harmony and national economic well-being. Spurred by the actions of the Federal Reserve, financed by exotic credit derivatives and debt securitiztion, an already massive real estate sales-and-marketing program expanded to include the desperate issuance of mortgages to the poor and feckless, compounding their troubles and ours.

That the Internet and housing hyperinflations transpired within a period of ten years, each creating trillions of dollars in fake wealth, is, I believe, only the beginning. There will and must be many more such booms, for without them the economy of the United States can no longer function. The bubble cycle has replaced the business cycle.

The Next Bubble, by Eric Janszen | Harper's, February 2008

The Vatican is preparing to publish a statement on the use of condoms by people who have Aids, a senior Roman Catholic official has said.

'Bout time... AIDS in Africa is a far more immediate emergency then the western culture war over sexual morality. The later cannot be resolved quickly, the former must be. Although, at this point it may be too little, too late.

Vatican 'may relax condom rules'

The Vatican newspaper has published an article saying "intelligent design" is not science and that teaching it alongside evolutionary theory in school classrooms only creates confusion.

Vatican paper article says 'intelligent design' not science

As the Gulf Coast reels from two catastrophic storms in a month, and the Carolinas and Florida deal with damage and debris from hurricanes this year and last, even some supporters of coastal development are starting to ask a previously unthinkable question: is it time to consider retreat from the coast?

The problem is that there are major earthquake risks in most of the rest of the US, but those things happen much less frequently. Ironically the safest areas in the country are probably the west-central quaridor (Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Montana, etc..) which are also the least populated.

Some Experts Say It's Time to Evacuate the Coast (for Good)

] The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) has
] announced its proposed policy to provide all dot-ca
] domain name holders with increased privacy safeguards,
] bringing it in line with recently-enacted Canadian
] privacy laws.

I applaud this. This is the right way to do this. Its interesting to note that it is required by federal legislation in Canada. In any event, could the person with the clue here please take a trip to L.A. and give it to ICANN? Please!?

CIRA Proposes New Standard for Domain Name Whois Privacy

] In a case that has spurred intense soul-searching in
] legal circles, a 25-year-old convicted drug dealer, who
] was arrested two years ago for selling small bags of
] marijuana to a police informant, was sentenced on Tuesday
] to 55 years in prison.

Is there no end to the idiocy!?

http://famm.org/
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-458es.html

Judge Questions Long Sentence in Drug Case

] Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, said the law would simply
] cut off a revenue stream for companies that are knowingly
] providing the tools to commit crimes.

Why is everyone screaming at Hatch? Hatch is a known IP industry tool. We should be screaming at Leahy. I'm so disappointed to see him backing something like this. He is usually computer literate. I used to think he was one of the few people in Congress whose positions I could trust. Unfortunately I'll have to view him with suspicion from now on. He has consorted with the devil.

Bill to Curb Online Piracy Is Challenged as Too Broad

]
] ASHINGTON, July 29 - The Pentagon office that proposed
] spying electronically on Americans to monitor potential
] terrorists has quickly abandoned an idea in which
] anonymous speculators would have bet on forecasting
] terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups in an online
] futures market.
]
] Senator John W. Warner, the Virginia Republican who heads
] the Senate Armed Services Committee, said today that he
] had conferred with the program's director at the
] Pentagon, ``and we mutually agreed that this thing should
] be stopped."

Someone must have read JB's paper...

Pentagon Abandons Plan for Futures Market on Terror

] Their legislation, introduced Wednesday, would punish an
] Internet user who shares even a single file without
] permission from a copyright holder with prison terms of
] up to five years and fines of up to $250,000.

Totally asinine.

House proposal targets file swappers | CNET News.com