Paul Krugman offers us the data on global climate, rather than the random cherry-picking of temperatures technique favored by the denialists:

Now you don’t really need that trendline (which he tells us is a third-degree polynomial) to see what’s happening here. On the one hand, the temperature is subject to a lot of fluctuations. On the other hand, temperatures are rising over time. And we have very solid scientific evidence to suggest that the increasing presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is to blame. And unless we shift policies, every year not only will there be more CO2 in the atmosphere, but we’ll continue adding CO2 at an increasing rate, making the climate curve steeper and steeper.

(cc photo by NCin DC)

Dina ElBoghdady takes a look for the Washington Post at the anguish of people trying to sell their $1 million + homes in the DC area:

When Natalie deWolf and her husband listed their District home for about $1.2 million in April, they were competing with roughly 25 similarly priced houses in their Chevy Chase neighborhood. [...] While entry-level homes are getting snapped up by bargain hunters across the Washington region, pricey ones are languishing. This excess supply is a setback for some pockets of this area where single-family homes listed for $1 million or more make up a sizable chunk of the offerings — about 85 percent in Cleveland Park, 73 percent in Great Falls and 55 percent in Potomac, according to research firm Delta Associates.

To me this is mostly a reminder that though the broader financial fallout from the home price collapse has certainly been a bad thing—just look at the unemployment rate—sky-high home prices are not a good in-and-of-themselves. The DC area, and many of America’s other largest metro areas, has for years been in a state where it’s extremely difficult for middle class families to afford to live in reasonable locations. Neighborhoods where a majority of the homes cost over $1 million are part and parcel of that situation. But while people who paid top-dollar for their homes certainly don’t want to lose money, at the end of the day more affordable housing is almost certainly a good thing.