You can't have it both ways. You can't wave your magic wand, let prices float to whatever they will be and then declare that is a defacto policy on its own. When prices are high in the US the excess goes back to a corporation. It won't lead to more people buying $22,000 Smart Cars not as long as the break even point, financially for them is 3 or 4 years from the purchase date. This is the #1 problem with the cost of ownership for hybrids. It's not a viable alternative for people who are already strapped by the price of fuel. The break even point is too far out in the future. Even the Honda Civic NGV which runs off the natural gas in your house isn't going to be more than an interesting upper middle class experiment until the price of ownership comes way down. If gas were $8.80/gal then there would be all sorts of viable alternatives. One would think that many people would simply not be able to afford driving at all and as if by magic a bus pulls up in front of their house to take them to work. At the least the economic problems associated with moving up the price scale to that point are frightful.

No it's more likely that people would do what they typically do with their own money by making their allocation decisions on what they can afford now not 3 years from now. And therefore people would tend to follow the model I described. Smaller cheaper lighter. Maybe it's more emissions maybe it's not. Modern small 4 stroke engines don't actually pollute that much. Even Chinese built 50cc-250cc Scooters can pass California's emission standards FWIW. I know because I have 2 of them.

For that choice Texas Congressional seat, Dan. Time is money.

Is not the schedule, by and large the printed schedule is sort of workable at least through major cities, more or less. The problem with Amtrak is that on any given day it's even less reliable and predictable than flying. It could be 3 hours, it could be 9. It might not be running at all. The Accela train from DC was touted as a 115mph supertrain that would whisk you between Union station and Grand Central station. Except of course for the years it was restricted by rail failures to 45mph or discontinued completely, or it hit a cow or a garbage truck or it was raining too hard or any of the other 3 million reasons that Amtrak is like Charon's slow boat to hell.

Political speech writers all eventually wind up on TV screaming their fat useless heads off about all the words the other current and past speech writers spout. You could probably electrify Scranton PA with the hot air and bullshit wafting off Chris Mathews and his BFF Pat Buchanan. In America today words are meaningless.

Well this IS America where only animals have human rights, you know.

For both you and the cat. Because that's like you know, a codependent's dream relationship. Wear goggles though.

Windows really is just an interface. A UI that was apparently developed with very little customer input in mind. Smashing on the iPod because it's just an interface seems fairly silly. It's a pretty good interface one that most people who use it like and find rather intuitive and functional. Oh well to each their own I guess. If I had a bone to pick with them it's that the case is sealed and it's not waterproof. Seems to me if the case is sealed then it should be at risk from the slightest water damage, as the iPod is. And if it's not sealed then I can replace the battery myself instead of paying Apple $67 dollars to replace the entire unit under the battery replacement program. By comparison the Zune was designed as a clunky Windows handheld device which offers up features few people ever expressed an interest in having. Like some kind of non-blue tooth ability to share a track with 'up to 3' other people. As long as they have the right DRM.

The iPhone has an MSRP of what $600? Ok well so do a half dozen PDA phones from Sprint. The 'price' is meaningless when coupled to phone companies who always mark everything down. I have a Moto-Q that cost me $80. The list price is what? $449? Anyone who has a mulimedia phone with blue tooth, an iPod and bluetooth headphones will instantly see the appeal of an iPhone by being able to drop one device in the round robin among mp3's phone calls and wireless headphones. And in the phone market with the average customer replacing their phone every 18 months you don't even have to worry that much about replacing the battery any more. You'll get a new phone before that.

To describe how to blowtorch someone or gouge out their eye. I think I can pretty much figure that out on my own. Maybe these 'manuals' are the same complete nonsense that purported 'nuclear bomb plans' were when they were magically discovered very early on in the war. Turns out they were yellow pad doodlings from someone who had copied available lay science material from the web.

That they will eventually get it built before the WTC's replacement tower which is now scheduled for 8 years after the sun becomes a shrunken black coal.

Barbecued cat is out of the question.