A Mighty Wind Hits the Gab Fest.

This is the Slate Daily podcast for Friday, August 10th.

I'm June Thomas.

The Gabfest's A team, that's the August team, gathered in New York to discuss summer catastrophes,

the volatile financial markets, and the Democrats take on the war on terror.

And to introduce the conversation, here's me. Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest.

I'm June Thomas, and I'm here today with the A team, that is to say, the August team.

Slate editor, Jacob Weisberg. Thank you, June.

The listeners have spoken.

They want the regulars back.

But like Dick Cheney, I don't really care what anybody else thinks.

It's August, we're here.

And also our special guest today, Daniel Gross,

longtime Slate Moneybox columnist of late Newsweek columnist,

author of the book, Pop. What's the subtitle of your book? Why, Bubbles are great for the economy. We're having a test of that thesis now, aren't we? It's clearly the B team here today, but I think we should think of ourselves as the subprime team. Excellent. Or Alt A, maybe. Let's begin. Topic 1. Summer Catastrophes. Yesterday, I couldn't get to work. I had to stay at home, which is always a terrible imposition for me, because there was three inches of rain and the subway is closed. The New York Subways, the biggest city in our country, it rained for an hour and the subway is closed.

Maybe you can explain that to me in a moment.

We've had the bridge in Minnesota collapsing.

We've had the mine disaster in Utah, which I have to think would not begin.

Any coverage if it wasn't August.

What's happening to our country? Can I just step in here one second, this weather in Brooklyn thing?

As the guy in charge in the Slate New York Bureau, where most of the staff works in Brooklyn,

it takes, I would say, a heavy mist for people to start sending these email messages about how they better work from home today.

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