Well! The guy who directed Independence Day thinks it's gonna fall off the coast first. This Guardian article suggests the more likely possibility: that they're going to go bankrupt. Guest starring Michael Pollan not eating food!

Paul Harris asks in his headline: Will California become America's first failed state? I'm still not sure, but I do know that there are paragraphs of Harris' article that are (A) convincing and (B) incredibly depressing. Especially the parts about Riverside. If you know anything about Riverside, California, you're probably already familiar with stuff like this:

In one city near Riverside, a squatter's camp of newly homeless labourers sleeping in their vehicles has grown up in a supermarket car park – the local government has provided toilets and a mobile shower. In the Los Angeles suburb of Pacoima, one in nine homeowners are now in default on their mortgage, and the local priest, the Rev John Lasseigne, has garnered national headlines – swapping saving souls to saving houses, by negotiating directly with banks on behalf of his parishioners.

Yeah, so, California: depressingly fucked. If only it were falling off the coast, right? Meantime, there's one bright spot in the article: Michael Pollan getting freaky. This is what you get when you eat your vegetables:

Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and now an adopted Californian, remembers arriving here from his native New England. "In New England you would have to know people for 10 years before they let you in their home," he says. "Here, when I took my son to his first play date, the mother invited me to a hot tub."

Yeah, that'll be sad if California's doomed. We shouldn't let that happen. Here's a nice song. It's ridiculous but wonderful, much like its subject material: