Why would anybody want to steal ivy? To plant it in their yard? Don't they realize that stuff will spread and choke out everything else in the garden? Don't they realize that once you plant ivy you can't ever, ever, ever get rid of it (short of bombing the whole area with Roundup - and I bet English ivy drinks…

I just went to Staples and bought a stand for it. Now it's no longer on my desk hogging up all my work space.

I have a Troy-Bilt with a Honda engine. Same deal. You have one wrap-around lever to enable the engine, and another to engage the front wheels. Yeah, I really should wear work gloves when I mow that 35 degree grade in front of my house that I can't get to with my riding mower.

I stand corrected. I don't know why I thought there was a four-banger in there.

In 1960? Granted that there was no EPA to publish official numbers for MPG, and the manufacturers took shameless liberties with their own numbers, but you ought to have gotten at least low twenties with the little four-banger Mr. McNamara put in there.

?????

Get a master's degree. You'll do better. My alma mater doesn't require a computer science BS, but you'll have to spend a semester or so taking "bridge" courses to get you up to speed. So that would be about two years, full time. Do the math yourself on part-time.

AND do all of that while still providing people with the motivation to keep it all going. The motivation is the key. And even if I can see how that might happen, I'm not completely convinced that people could be convinced to behave as if they were members of a billions-strong family unit. That's a pretty tall…

That is, unless you wanted to learn the restaurant business from the bottom up. I can't think of a better trial-by-fire. Or maybe something happened and you're not physically able to do what you used to so. Or maybe you just love people. Anyway, if you have enough help, and aren't running around all the time, I'm…

Imagine if you didn't really need a job because there was no money. So you didn't bother to get one. You're 20. What do you do with the remaining ninety or so years of your life (assuming life expectancy has advanced that far in the Star Trek universe)? Sit on your ass and do nothing, like some 24th century Peter…

Nobody forget, the major driver behind the development of electronic computing was the Second World War. I believe the guy in charge of it at our end was one Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was not employed by the private sector at the time. Generals Eisenhower, MacArthur, Patton, etc. - all federal employees. So much…

1975 Opel Kadett. I was stationed in Stuttgart, Germany at the time. I only needed to pass one inspection, run the car for a year, then drive it to the junkyard. It was full of rust holes from one end to the other. Most of those got Bondo-ed over, but the driver's side door was through. Some friends and I spend a…

Caring about money is not a binary proposition, putz.

I'm old enough to remember when a Plymouth Valiant was a housewife go get groceries and pick up the kids car.

Or the engines seized up. That's what happened to a friend of mine's Rabbit back in the days. I had to go pick him and his family up in my piece of shit Dodge Omni where it broke down, and he had no idea why it would just all of a sudden not turn over at all. The mechanic told him why later.

They have no allegiance to any country anymore, and a few of them have actually made it official. And good riddance.

I asked for an example, and you give me someone who became a philanthropist in the twilight of his life. Half-credit. Did he really give a damn about his fellow man, or did he simply enjoy seeing his name chiseled in stone on public libraries and such? Nobody knows.

You probably don't recall the era when the Defense Department was the world's sole consumer of computers, back in the era when they filled whole rooms and required power sufficient to light a small city.

About 3.78l/U.S. gallon. And you're right.

Clarify? OK. I want you to prove my rant wrong, since you're such a believer in faith-based economics.