I Stand in Awe

Of this great post by Brian at Peeve Farm. It concerns the American character as it will be reflected by the results of this election (Brian contemplates what happens if we all choose the Blue Pill). Brian has a way of tying together a bunch of disparate threads that I become aware of in my web surfing, but don't rise to the level of posting for me as separate items. His piece contains links to some noteworthy facts (perhaps you didn't know that Arafat and Castro have endorsed Kerry, and that Jimmy Carter thinks the Revolutionary War was unnecessary?)

I won't excerpt, you should go read it!

In another post, Brian comments on how the air in the Bay Area has gotten clearer over the years (especially the South Bay). He's right, it has. When I first lived down here in the late 80's (Los Gatos, as south as you can get, up against the Santa Cruz Mountains and hence in the smoggiest part of the Bay Area), we were in the middle of drought years, and the less advanced cars back then didn't burn as clean. In the middle of summer, when we'd get a non smoggy day, I used to joke "Wow, you can see the sky today!" I used to keep a journal in which I'd bitterly complain about breathing smog. Visibility would get as low as a few miles, and you couldn't see that Silican Valley is surrounded by mountains. It is absolutely not like that any more.