Consider Coors for the Next Round

Editor's Note: Jon D. Markman writes a weekly column for CNBC on MSN Money that is republished here on TheStreet.com.

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Learning my trade as a newsman in Southern California in the 1980s, I covered so many brush fires that I'm still trying to get the smell of smoked chaparral out of my clothes. The blazes that swept out of the wilderness to attack developments in Pasadena, Malibu and Laguna Beach all had one amazing constant: They rarely burned down a whole block. One or two houses were always left standing, virtually undamaged, as if protected by a divine hand to lead the recovery. ...