George, a bit gloomy, but spot on! You only have to look at the packaging on "goods" to realise that we are on the road to ruin. What is wrong with brown paper bags for fruit / veg like it used to be?

And DrPhred, I am not blaming the American people per se, heaven knows we have our own presidential ne'er do wrong in power in this country too, hanging off Bush's coat tails. But a sizeable portion of them put the Bush clan back in power, that is how "democracy" works, and we have to abide by that