It's always interesting to see how others use their machines.

Alex is always after me to use this.

Nifty!

I'm not incensed. I'm unsurprised, and confident that this level of hate dies out in two generations.

"Instead of throwing cash at the company, why not offer to back up the warranty with a federal guarantee for every car sold during GM’s Chapter 11 reorganization? New cars are extremely reliable and the true cost of the warranty is probably close to $500 (source). GM is currently delivering 170,000 cars per month. If GM imploded and nobody purchased any of its brands or the purchasers would not honor the old warranties, the Feds would be on the hook for something like $85 million for every month that GM was being reorganized. If the Chapter 11 reorganization lasted for 9 months, we’re talking about less than $1 billion of exposure or 1/50th of the cost of what Congress is currently contemplating." Seems reasonable to me—would keep people buying GM cars.

"Far many more individuals have served in uniform that have never fired a round in anger than have. You pass more people every day that wore their uniforms proudly and never visited a combat zone than have." Like my dad. Like Will.

"I fear that the university is trying to capitalize on who Wyatt's are. I know that the athletic director went so far as to ask one of the fellow photograpers at the game to shoot pictures of them. For what purpose has yet to reveal itself." Will is right. I was complicit. I feel awful.

"A virally-generated national day of protest across America is taking shape to protest the attack on the core civil rights of a small minority in California. It's a protest to demand equal treatment under the law for gay couples. It's a radical demand for a traditional institution and also a protest against those who seek to impose religious restrictions on civil law. It is a defense of both religious freedom and the freedom of those whom many (but not all) religions condemn." If I weren't going out of town, I'd go today. I find what happened in California to be unconscionable.

"Not so long ago, corporate giants with names like PanAm, ITT and Montgomery Ward roamed the earth. They faded and were replaced by new companies with names like Microsoft, Southwest Airlines and Target. The U.S. became famous for this pattern of decay and new growth. Over time, American government built a bigger safety net so workers could survive the vicissitudes of this creative destruction — with unemployment insurance and soon, one hopes, health care security. But the government has generally not interfered in the dynamic process itself, which is the source of the country’s prosperity."

"The United States government has direct ownership of almost 650 million acres of land (2.63 million square kilometers) – nearly 30% of its total territory. These federal lands are used as military bases or testing grounds, nature parks and reserves and indian reservations, or are leased to the private sector for commercial exploitation (e.g. forestry, mining, agriculture). They are managed by different administrations, such as the Bureau of Land Management, the US Forest Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the US Department of Defense, the US Army Corps of Engineers, the US Bureau of Reclamation or the Tennessee Valley Authority." Wouldn't have figured Alabama to be eighth-lowest.

"But there's a pretty simple solution as well. The US government should order a complete replacement for its vehicle fleet to be delivered over the next four years. The new vehicles must be either plugin electric hybrid, pure electric, or possibly natural gas. Obviously retooling both at the manufacturers and suppliers is required to deliver this order so the government should be willing to prepay a significant part of it as it does for new weapons systems. That gets money into the system fast and creates/saves jobs almost immediately. It lets the suppliers retool as well as the final assemblers." Exactly. It's where government spending HAS VALUE.