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, long-time 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 Catastrophies.

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's closed. Maybe you can explain that to me in a country. It rained for an hour and the subway is closed.

Maybe you can explain that to me in a moment.

...