Californians are generally thought to be health conscious, and the development of markets for local and organic food has been going on long enough that awareness of the issue is high. I agree, however, that certification will be important.

Remember, investing is always a question about relative rather than absolute strengths and weaknesses. The argument in favor of the US is that at least we know what's wrong with the US economy, and we shouldn't lose sight of what we don't know about the rest of the world.

There are 30 teams so 100-1 isn't that bad. I wouldn't be surprised if they end the season above .500.

Thanks for posting the video. I took my kids to the park on opening night, and I think it's going to be great.

Yep. Prices and markets are marvelously effective mechanisms for coordinating economic decisions. If the US were to tax gasoline to the same extent that the Europeans do (or more, as you point out), you can bet that we would become more fuel efficient. Natural resource economists refer to this as internalizing environmental externalities. The real question is why don't we do it, and that has to do with politics. There are other mechanisms - incentives, R&D;subsidies, public procurement initiatives, etc. - but these are all less efficient than prices. The advantage of taxes is that we get to keep the revenue here in the US rather than ship it overseas.

This seems a little extreme. The previous post said 10 dollar/gallon gas would do it. You disagree. In your opinion, how high would gas have to go before you would reconsider your position?

Depends upon the cost of gasoline in the future. Think about it like an option on the future cost of gas. You pay a little extra now for the option to pay relatively less later. If the cost rises a lot, the impact on you is buffered by your better gas mileage. If gas doesn't go up, your option wasn't "in the money," but your overall operating costs were only slightly higher than if you hadn't gone for the hybrid. Does that make sense?