I can think of a lot of factors. One easy example is if the attack was sponsored by say Iran, oil prices would shoot up on war speculation. That would cause a major input into the price of corn to go through the roof.

There could be a major pipeline accident but are people really that concerned that there could be one that threatens the entire Ogallala Aquifer? The problem I have with the Pipeline is the lie that its going to cause gas prices to be cheaper. The gas prices in the midwest are lower because they can't move all the oil to the world market easily. If that pipeline gets build that oil is going on the world market and gas prices won't change a dime on the east or west coast and go up in the midwest. The funny thing is it leaves on a ship from a US port it cannot go directly to another US port unless its registered as an American ship (not too many of those) so a ton of the output will be going overseas.

One of the predictions of man made climate change is that Europe will get colder because the Gulf Stream will weaken: http://www.bbc.co.uk/climate/impact/gulf_stream.shtml I think it's clear we have some man made climate change going on here however I don't believe its possible to pin any specific weather event on it. How much is man made is up for debate and I really don't have any confidence that we have the individual or political will to make significant changes until and unless undeniable writing is on the wall that there is NO other course of action. People cling to what they want to believe if it fits there world view, especially if its in their short term economic interest. I guess getting older has made me a cynic :(

I actaully think its going to be some sort of technical innovation that leads the economy out of the blahs. Something like the late 90's with the internet or a century ago with the automobile etc...

This is probably a stupid question but what the hell. Why is it so hard for the DNS server doing the request to look back at the source ip of the malicious server and see that its not the one it should be getting the reply back from and just ignore it?