Echoing what Sned Farling said at the top of the thread, Maddow's intelligence and humor, a willingness and ability to educate herself on a multitude of subjects and then share that education with others is what makes Maddow attractive, at least to me. These are qualities that attracted me to my wife of 12 years (and counting), so I'm not surprised that I have found her an engaging and interesting personality pretty much from the moment she started on Air America. She reminds me a lot of women in college (gay and straight) who may not have been "hot" in the physical sense but still managed to be sexy.

And when you add to that Maddow's love of comic books and her politics, well, I was pretty much a goner. Count me in as yet another the army of straight men who find Rachel Maddow very attractive indeed.

At a recent visit to the Studebaker Museum in South Bend, IN, I was struck by a rather simple display--a list, on foam board, of auto manufacturers based in Indiana: Studebaker, Willys, and Stutz were probably the biggies; there were smaller companies like Auburn, Cord and Duesenberg as well. That was outside of Detroit. Then there were companies like Nash and Hudson--who merged with Willys and formed American Motors, which survived into the '80s.

My point is, maybe it's time to encourage the development of a diverse array of smaller auto companies so that, once again, no one of them is "too big to fail." Newer companies like Tesla and Phoenix Motorcars are already producing freeway-capable electrics; a guy in Colorado wants to revive Studebaker and some of its famous models, like the Lark and the Hawk, as hybrid cars. If we're going to bail out GM and Chrysler--and in the current climate we probably have to--then I want the government to do what it can to promote and nurture new American car companies that can be successors to the Detroit Three when they inevitably fade into the sunset.

My inlaws, and much of my wife's extended family, live in or near Elkhart. We make it up there 2-3 a year to visit. People I have been hearing talking have been mad for a while now, and they're hurting.

I would advise Elkhartans to start phoning, emailing and doing whatever they need to do to pressure Evan Bayh not to enable extremist Republican colleagues in the Senate with phony bipartisanship, and to get Dick Lugar (a fairly sane Republican last I checked) to get on board. Prove to your elected representatives that they have more to fear from you than the dittoheads that make up a minority of the conservative movement.

Unfortunately, many people living there watch Fox News. But many of them have lost, or face losing, good paying manufacturing jobs because no one's buying RV's right now, and that's Elkhart's bread and butter. So I do think people will be open to his message. And if that means fielding questions about having a beer with Sean Hannity, that's part of this kind of event in a place like Elkhart.

But the main part of the woman's question, about tax problems, is legit, as the president said. Geithner paid his, and the flap about Hilda Solis's husbands tax liens (also paid) is about anti-labor conservatives seizing on a lame excuse to block her nomination. I hope President Obama found a way to mention the latter.

Oh, and the sunsets in Indiana are beautiful. Especially when there are thunderheads on the far horizon. And despite the political conservatism of most of the state, there are worse places to grow old in.

Our ex vice-president jumped a whale shark with his comments to Politico. Olbermann can get over-wrought, I grant you, but I didn't see a lot of other media outlets calling Cheney out on his uncalled-for, malicious comments.

I'll remind Mr. Koppelman that the term "jumping the shark" means "major, laughable departure from reality," commemorating a moment on Happy Days when Fonzie jumps a shark while water skiing--something not possible unless the lake in question is Lake Nicaragua. So I ask you, Alex: who was jumping shark here--Cheney, for claiming that only his policies can prevent terrorist attacks on American soil and Obama better continue them? Or Olbermann, for calling BS?

From a design standpoint, my least favorite airport has to be Cincinnati-Covington. I utterly hate having to take a bus between terminals; once you are in the "C" terminal that serves regional flights all gates sit in a common area, making it crowded and the gate announcements confusing and hard to hear.

And my favorite? I think its my hometown airport, Austin-Bergstrom International. It's a nice, new terminal--built on the site of an old Air Force base. Best thing about it, though, is that most of the shops and restaurants are local. Instead of McDonald's you can sample local institutions like Mangia Pizza, Amy's Ice Cream, The Salt Lick. You can get magazines and books at BookPeople, rather than Hudson's. ABIA has what most airports in the US are missing--local flavor.

Infrastructure improvements are something President Obama has said he wants to do. He should add earmarks for repairs and improvements for the states whose grids got shredded by the recent ice storm.

If Mitch McConnell then wants to filibuster, he can explain to his own constituents why it's taking so long to get electricity back in the middle of January.

The Walking, Talking Suet Mound (that would be Limbaugh) is a leader by default. Honestly, who else have the Republicans got? Boehner? McConnell? Mike Duncan? And if Republican voters are willing to support the public emasculation of one of their Congressman who dared speak the truth, they deserve what they get.

I'm just as happy to let them let that idiot drive them off a cliff.