Stocks to Sell!

In 2008 there are two industries that I would seriously recommend selling: Aluminium foil producers and green ink manufacturers. The reason being that, on the departure from office of George Bush (for certain) and presumably Tony Blair as well (although it would be quite funny to watch Gordon Brown's face if Tony manages to hang on that long), the heads of large numbers of weird Guardian-reading conspiracy theorists are going to explode, depriving the above industries of their most profitable customers.

Mark Steyn long ago diagnosed the Bush Derangement Disorder that affects leftists to a greater or lesser extent (I'm assuming that it finally proved fatal to A L Kennedy - haven't heard from her in a while anyway) but seriously, reading the comments section under any Comment is Free aerticle is like lifting a rock in the tropics. This piece is an absolute doosy as well, entitled as it is Saddam: a tribute. It's a predictably unpleasant piece - basically pulling the Castro line "but they had great healthcare" - but it's the comments that put the icing on the cake.

A few years ago, I don't think I would have assumed that the default left-wing position on dictators was that, provided they were anti-American they weren't just tolerable but actually a Good Thing. The problem with this internet malarkey is that it's not just the views of the sanitised left that filter through, but a glimpse is given of the core beliefs. The 'net seems to concentrate the belief systems for both right and left, partly through providing an echo chamber, partly through displaying unvarnished examples of what the other side is thinking. And from where I'm sitting (on the right, natch) the view is really not pretty.