Drove by the apartment building where I spent my formative adult years. These were the cheapest apartments in Mountain View 30 years ago at $140 a month for a roach-infested studio. They're still the cheapest apartments in Mountain View, but cost about ten times more now. It was where the white trash lived. It went through a facelift five years ago when it was filled to the brim with budding Java programmers - but the 'For Rent' signs are back again. It still looks the same except for the new color on the exterior and the new color on the interior - the white trash are gone now.

East Palo Alto has recorded 12 or 13 murders this year. During the dot-com years the EPA murder rate dropped dramatically as everybody had lots of money and didn't need to resort to crime. A couple of years back I mentioned that it appeared as if ten years of time had vanished when the dot-com bubble popped. I'm thinking now that it's looking more like twenty five. 1980 all over again. We're about to lose another five or ten years and relive the 70's again. Spiraling inflation, gas shortages, war protests, and all the other wonderful memories. You can keep the disco...

And continuing from yesterday - N'oleens mayor Nagin is quoted "I don't know whether it's the governor's problem, or it's the president's problem, but somebody needs to get ... on a plane and sit down, the two of them, and figure this out right now. They thinking small, man, and this is a major, major deal. Get off your asses and let's do something."

Mr. Mayor... hate to be the bearer of bad news, man, but it's your problem, man. Get off your ass and do something, man...