@priapism: Something's not right. Washington DC has almost three times as many LED's as NY, yet only uses 42Kwh/day of electricity???

@ZFK: We have a tradition of getting it the day before Thanksgiving. Here in upstate NY, it's usually not too snowy yet and the kids are home from school anyway. Besides, it gives me an excuse to take an extra day off.

@Arggh! there goes a...snake a snake!: In a Democracy, secrets should not exist between a government and it's people. That's a perfect world, however, and will never exist. That being said, I think that Wikileaks is performing the same service that our media used to do back in the days of real reporting. Think Edward…

Now if only I could get a decent Android phone on the Friends and Family plan, I'd be all set, but noooo, they want us to wait a year I think before the EVO is available to us.... Oh well.

@boe_d001: I suggest you look in a dictionary for the terms Socialism, Communism, and Fascism because you obviously don't know the difference between those words, and yes, just because they all end in "ism" doesn't mean they are the same thing.

@Phantom_Photon: It's sad to think that some cave dwelling bastard half a world away could rise to one of the most influential people in the world because he got 19 guys to do his bidding. Our government had a choice 9 years ago: use technology and stealth to take out the guys who hit us, which would have been a…

In my mind, two things have to happen - 1: people need to be educated as to what the long-term effect is for the purchase they make. 2: Companies need to be held accountable for the externalization of costs that they push onto the tax payer and municipalities. Companies currently are not held accountable and can…

@Aklost: I'll meet your Planned Obselescence and raise you one. According to the repair service store I've taken various cameras too, the sensors on all modern digital cameras have the same flaw built into them so they break down after about two or three years - Planned Obselescence of course so the consumer is…

There's also a way to donate to the cause as well. Nick Kristof wrote an excellent article in the NYT about these rats as well as offering a way to help out. [www.nytimes.com]

@keerock: League of Common Sense - so you mean you are a crunchy liberal.... :)

@Non-Engineer: It's not what the majority of Americans want since the truth of the war came out. Sure it was supported when all we knew were the lies that were spouted forth, but not since the truth has slowly come out. BTW - how does anyone justify the cost of the war anyway - not just in human life, as so well put…

@Curves: It's interesting to think about the reversal of fortunes. If we were the ones 'liberated' by a country that fucked up as bad as we did in the post-fighting period where all the museums, energy plants, essential infrastructure was decimated because we didn't want to protect it (well, except for the Ministry…

Hey - what a coincidence - my dog just pulled the netflix envelope out of the mailbox yesterday and tore it apart. At least it wasn't a good DVD, and it was on the way back. I guess it could have been worse - it was only 15 bucks to replace it. Yet one more argument for streaming.

@CaptainJack: Sorry your company was so bad – the only reason that I don’t mind working at the company that I’m at is they truly are working for the members, and trying to keep costs as minimal as possible (in IT alone, we've shaved 1.5 million dollars off our operating costs this year alone through efficiencies). I…

@CaptainJack: Interestingly enough, I work for a not-for-profit Health Insurance company and we just had a seminar on what the new mandates mean for our company. Believe it or not, most of the mandates are business friendly and will help our company. As a not-for-profit, our overhead is only around 9 or 10 percent…

@CaptainJack: That's a good point about requiring everyone to have insurance. I see both sides on this one, as on the one side, get your damn hands off my personal freedom, and on the other hand, it's a little like car insurance - if you're going to have a car, you need to have insurance - for yourself, as well as…

@SGTalon: Here’s the rub – it’s easy to say it didn’t work because the unemployment numbers are so high, but there are many economists that say it would be much higher without the stimulus. In fact, many of those economists say we would have had a full blown depression if the stimulus hadn’t been enacted.

@SGTalon: And those billions of dollars that have been given to Afghanistan that went straight into the coffers of the Taliban? How about the billions that went to Pakistan that was funneled to the Taliban? What about the 10 billion dollars that disappeared from Iraq? Where'd that go?

@SGTalon: Trillion dollar stimulous? Where do you get that number? Yes, the original proposal was for a million dollars, but it fell far short of that in the end. TARP? Much of that was paid back by the banks - with interest, so that worked out OK. And the stimulous certainly created jobs - that's just silly to…

@CaptainJack: Some of the mandates were truly required though. Requiring insurance companies to not deny coverage due to pre-existing conditions just makes sense. What's the point of insurance if you pay into it for many years and the insurance company kicks you off its' policy as soon as you get sick? Seems to me…