Birds not only want to use our valuable land, they're also hopelessly unable to pay for it. [...] I worried for their safety in the for-profit future now plotted by the conservatives in Washington. In this future, a small percentage of people will win the big prize--the Lincoln Navigator, the mansion with a two-story atrium and a five-acre lawn, the second home in Laguna Beach--and everyone else will be offered electronic simulacra of luxuries to wish for. The obvious difficult for crossbills in this future is that crossbills don't want the Navigator. They don't want the atrium or the amenities of Laguna. [...] the ownership "society" isn't going to help them. Their standard of living won't be improvable by global free trade. Not even the pathetic state lottery will be an option for them then.