What is wheat and alfalfa doing, being grown in Eastern Oregon? Yeah, I know- it must be a century-old tradition. Too bad about the salmon, steelhead, etc. -- cabdriver

The wheat's okay as it's dry land farming. The alfalfa is more problematic needing a fair amount of irrigation.

Water's not a problem right now in Western Washington as nearly every river is above, at or approaching flood stage. Can anyone spare a dory? Glad we live on a hill.

. . . is that just after crossing the Columbia at Vantage, where most of the agriculture made possible by the Columbia Basin Reclamation Project begins, is seeing crops being water with overhead sprinklers in the heat of the day. Add to that the hundreds of miles of open irrigation canal in the system, and over the course of the summer you have millions of acre feet of water wasted by evaporation and wind drift. Very frustrating.

Al must be really hard up. What a joke.

Yes. He's got about as close as a U.S. president gets to a mandate with the added "benefit" of being faced with crises, and he's not being bold enough.

He's got a chance to rebuild the U.S. financial system, and it looks like he's not going to take it. He's been presented with the opportunity to remake the American automobile industry (the American companies anyway), and he and Congress punted on that one as well. He has a chance to change our transportation and energy use, and it seems that's going to more move forward with baby steps, too.

Now is not the time for half-measures.

The troll master must have been tipped to this story as his racist, half-wit minions were on this one out of the gate. Seems more of the same shit from the last eight year is just fine for them.

No new tax cuts! In fact, we need to return all income tax brackets to where they were in 2000.

Good way to start out the day, even if Genghis and Kublai Khan are perhaps lamenting what has happened to their once great people after some 40 years under the yoke of Chinese communism.

Tax cuts do nothing to stimulate an economy unless it is reducing income and corporate tax rates from the kind of levels seen in the U.K. up through the 1970s.

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it See: Japan 1990-2000 -- robntruder

The U.S. is nothing like Japan politically or economically. The comparison is meaningless.

Exactly. And why is the transportation part of the stimulus package about 75% bridges and highways (many being new projects) and only about 25% for mass transit? "Green economy"? Hardly.

I love and hate Honda. We own two. Both compared to similar Toyota's are noisy inside, but otherwise have about the same performance, reliability and high re-sale value.

Honda came to market first with a hybrid some five years ago (longer?), but has really not made any significant progress across their product line. On top of that, all the vehicles in their Acura line are overweight gas guzzlers that require premium fuel.

Honda is a good company, but I see it and Toyota (Nissan hasn't made any progress at all) getting lapped very soon unless they equip their lines with something other than the underpowered hybrid engines they have now. Hybrids are a good idea whose time passed about fifteen years ago, and because none currently available will run more than 20mph on their electric motors (who travels anywhere except out of their driveway below 25mph?) all they are at this point are really expensive environmental window dressing.

Perhaps not the response you were expecting, but with the Tesla company in LA able to produce battery powdered sports car as fast as any Porsche and our government, the Big Three, and the Big Three in Japan apparently ignoring their technology, I have little hope for improving our motoring future, regardless of how attractive the advertising.

What we need to do is get rid of the DEA, quit wasting money on "interdiction" in Third World countries, and spend the money at home for drug treatment programs and poverty eradication. Supply then takes takes care of itself.