I had a B3 Passat in that green, with VR6 and 5 speed, and suddenly I'm all weepy and nostalgic. Yes, for God's sake, bring it back.

Thanks for sharing. I didn't think of ways subsistence farmers could supplement their income. This puts a different spin on it.

Is it just me, or does the Duke look really, really hammered?

If you were holding guns this could've been a scene from the coolest heist movie ever.

Paul Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb" deserves a shout-out. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Popul…)

In fifty years Africa will be the center of low-wage manufacturing, like China is now. China and India will be more or less middle-class and have smaller populations than currently. (Disclaimer: I can't actually predict the future)

I think you got it right: growing high-value crops is a way out of poverty. Subsistence agriculture is the pits.

If we raised cattle the way our ancestors did, we'd be better off. Cattle eat grass; humans don't. It's the practice of fattening them up on corn in feedlots that wastes potential human food.

The famines were supposed to start in the 1970s, so we're actually doing pretty well. So far.

But "false consciousness" infects science, too. A good example is the various scientific experiments to "prove" racism detailed in Stephen Gould's "The Mismeasure of Man." Your mind is a prison, but you can't see the bars.

The railroad and canal interests supported these laws. There was also a Luddite aspect - rural folks didn't like the noise/pollution/horse-scaring aspect, just as they opposed later "horseless carriages." But it's interesting to think what might've been. A network of paved roads would likely have happened sooner;…

I don't know. They existed in both Britain and the US; Britain had a nascent steam carriage business (Google it) which the Red Flag laws killed.

They didn't amortize the development cost.

Blame "red flag" laws which effectively banned them just when they were getting practical. These laws effectively interrupted auto development for 40-50 years.

Originally developed for WWI, but arrived too late.

I've read an awful lot of Roman history (some of it in the original Latin) and they don't come across as "racist" in the modern sense. They had a different version of "barbarian," which, ironically, included Germanic peoples.

I haven't seen the movie. Does it show Noah cursing Ham, post flood?

I think it's fairer to say the director thought he could take a "pass" on racial questions by using an all-white cast. Considering the awful use the "curse of Ham" has been put to, I can see why he'd want to.

There is no "rewritten, Christian version" of Noah. The Old Testament part of the King James Bible is mostly from the Masoretic text. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masoretic…

You're so wrong you're not even wrong.