One downside of economic globalization is the loss of control of local economies and resources. As transportation energy becomes more expensive, the advantage of massive global movement of goods will become less feasible or profitable.

The slogan "Buy Locally" may sound simplistic and naive but the effect can have profound implications. The difficulty in doing this is the long-term degradation of local resources and their ability to meet local needs. Add to this the American consumer expectations of continued artificially low prices (artificial because of low energy and transportation costs) and the slope to regain production of goods rises steeply.

Anyone in the US who has attempted to seek out geographically local goods finds it more and more difficult to do so.

Hmm. I thought I had something profound to say about localization vs. globalization but I think I was just in love with playing the words against each other. I thought it was very clever wordplay but I doubt it's very original. So it goes.

Oh, but I did discover a precious little Firefox addon/extension to translate to 1337-speak. Here is a sample: |)0 y0u |1v3 8y (0d3? (4n y0u h4(k 17? It's a funny little thing.