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Thanks to weather that’s more or less perfect year-round, not to mention the best looking waiters in the world, Southern California is a place where many people want to live. Probably too many. Even with the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage industry and foreclosures on the rise, LA and San Diego County still have some of the highest median home prices in the United States, including $1 million Hollywood bungalows that would command a solid $175,000 anywhere else. Despite the onerous specter of earthquakes, mudslides, and, as we were reminded last week, wildfires, many citizens of the world dream of settling in sunny California.

Thousands of those folks lost their homes in the recent fires. Billions of dollars in damage was done. And the unhealthy ramifications of so much particle pollution in the air, rivaling the amount that we spew into the atmosphere with our snazzy trucks every day, won’t be known for years. Residents of the hardest hit areas described the scene as “hellish” and “an inferno,” recalling imagery found in Dante and the Bible. The flames, largely uncontrollable, consumed almost everything in their path, including the dreams and aspirations of good folks who, understandably, feel victimized by forces…