I can't believe grown-ups are actually talking (writing) about a car, especially a car that will essentially run on coal. Has anyone here been paying attention to our current climate change situation? Here's a few tidbits: We have maybe two decades to reduce our emissions by 80-90%. Fail that and we all need to do more yoga so we can be flexible enough to kiss our collective asses good-bye. According to James Hansen, coal has got to go; we may survive the burning of all of the oil and natural gas (or not), but we cannot survive the continued burning of coal.

I know you are mostly Americans who are twenty pounds overweight with forty pounds too much fat and thus you don't understand that it is possible to live without using a car for your every transportation desire. However when you finally are ready to stop making excuses for why you must drive us all to wars and extinction I really hope it is not too late for us all.

May I suggest that, as a first step, those who are opposed to the environmental consequences of drilling for oil (devastated spill sites, CARcinogens in our air, climate change,...) STOP USING IT.

Sorry for yelling, but it just makes no sense for the millions of Americans who claim to be environmentally inclined to keep voting with their purchases for what appears to be certain catastrophe. If no one buys liquid fuels, then these issues go away.

Additionally, what was the Dem. leadership supposed to do when almost all of their own constituents use oil products daily. If you want a drilling ban, show it with your actions.

To paraphrase the President who dug us out of the last hole that twelve years of Republicans created, "We have nothing to fear but succumbing to the fear-mongerers."

If Wall Street and the Masters of the Universe crumble, then maybe its next incarnation will involve more regulation and fewer passive investors. Bring it on.

If we were in some sort of post-racism world, Obama would be equally considered a(n):

educated man

white man with an African father

black man with a white mother

So far, he is described only as a black man. I guess that one drop of black blood thing is still part of our collective makeup.

Of course, with the Republican penchant for electronic and other election shenanigans, it will be difficult to tell how much of the election results are due to the Bradley effect and how much are due to not allowing people to vote or not counting their votes.

My old memory may be faulty and I'm too lazy to look it up, but didn't Ireland have a law preventing pregnant women from leaving the country? Too many were heading to Britain to get abortions. Of course, they don't have a (gutted) Bill of Rights, but then again, neither do we.

Wow, how could a bright populist like the great Defaz buy into this scam. He is usually willing to fight the good fight. However, he is still right in not supporting the bailout. Perhaps the only way humanity survives this century is with an American-led collapse of consumerism/corporatism.

Tourniquets are applied to stop the bleeding at the cost of the limb with the spurting artery. Which limb of the economy are we preparing to amputate? I, for one, would like to see the portion of the manufacturing sector that is killing us cut off.

Yes, that means automobile makers. We are running out of time to prevent runaway climate change; three of the "tipping points" have either been reached or are in imminent danger of being reached. Those would be decreased rates of CO2 absorption by the oceans, the melting of the Arctic sea ice, and the release of methane hydrates from the Arctic floor. What good is a healthy 401K and low inheritance tax if I condemn my offspring to a dead planet? There really are more important things than the "health" of the corporate sector.

I'm sorry Pablo, but two of your native plant selections are great for bumblebees but either suck or are toxic to European honeybees.

Red clover has the nectar too deep for a honeybee to access; bumblebees have no problem with it. White clover, while not a pretty as its red cousin, is a far better source of nourishment for honeybees.

Foxglove is just plain toxic to honeybees; unfortunately, they don't know it and will get nectar from it when better sources are unavailable. Once again, bumblebees seem to have no problem with foxglove.

Of course, all bees are important pollinators and there is nothing wrong with nurturing bees other than honeybees. As far as I know, no one has seriously looked into the overall health of North American native bees, although they seem to be doing much better than their commercial cousins.

Wow! There are actually people who still own a T.V? I haven't met one in years.

then why did the Community College in Asheville close down for a week due to a gasoline shortage while the local Wal-Mart stayed open? I have trouble reconciling those community priorities with an enlightened society.