So, it turns out that Republicans won't be bribing us with $100 bucks each to "ease public anger over soaring gasoline prices" after all.Which is a relief. Because even though I would like $100 bucks, that's my tax money anyway and I think there are better things it could be spent on.

I sort of hate paying for gas, because I know the money is going to horrid gigantic corporations that routinely do things I find immoral, and burning the product is causing all sorts of environmental devastation. And I buy it anyway, and that makes me a hypocrite. And so I sometimes think, in spite of the chaos that will result, we should just run out of oil already and get it over with and start living in that Road Warrior world. (Although, in a world where gas is supposed to be scarce, they spend an awful lot of time driving cars in that movie... oh, well, it's still cool.)

The anger makes me wonder, though, weren't these people alive during the "gas crisis" of the 70s? I know I was, and I'm not that old. The 70s were kind of a warning shot. We could've learned something from it.

Instead we elected a president, Ronald Reagan, who promised us that "this nation has been portrayed for too long a time to the people as being energy-poor when it is energy-rich." See, that whole energy thing wasn't really a problem! It was just, you know, bad propaganda! Now get out there and spend the next twenty years buying cars that become steadily uglier and more gigantic!

Did we think that cheap gas was some kind of holy birthright? That it's in the Constitution? Life, liberty and the pursuit of cheap gas?

Americans are sick, I tell you.

White, middle-aged Americans - even those who are rich - are far less healthy than their peers in England, according to stunning new research.

Americans had higher rates of diabetes, heart disease, strokes, lung disease and cancer - findings that held true no matter what income or education level.
Those dismal results are despite the fact that U.S. health care spending is double what England spends on each of its citizens.

The researchers crunched numbers to create a hypothetical statistical world in which the English had American lifestyle risk factors, including being as fat as Americans. In that model, Americans were still sicker.

The upper crust in both countries was healthier than middle-class and low-income people in the same country. But richer Americans' health status resembled the health of the low-income English.

Are you autistic? Wired Magazine has a fun test to let you know. Apparently I'm not, so... good for me. It doesn't explain why I'm still such a geek.

Microsoft attempts to take over the world, part 1,546,315

Microsoft Corp.'s online unit has reached an agreement to provide underlying technology for Amazon.com Inc.'s A9.com and Alexa search services, filling a role previously held by Google, the Redmond company's rival.

Web and news-related queries made from A9.com, Alexa and a search box on the Amazon.com home page now bring back results "powered by Windows Live Search," the new name for Microsoft's MSN Search service. Windows Live Search also is selected by default on A9.com, a site that lets users query multiple search services.

Wait a minute, Google is Microsoft's rival? I thought that was Apple... or maybe Linux...

Oh, I get it. Any company other than Microsoft that does anything for computers is Microsoft's rival.

Speaking of Macs, it is being treated as a big deal that they are becoming more vulnerable to viruses. Which seems like a no-brainer to me -- the reason that Macs seemed invulnerable for so long was mostly because they were such a niche market machine that nobody bothered with viruses. Yes, the operating system is inherently more secure than Windows. More secure doesn't mean perfectly secure.

Songs at Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes Music Store will remain 99 cents per download after the company extended its distribution deals with major recording labels.

The recording industry and Apple had been at odds over Apple's insistence to keep its flat rate with some labels wanting variable pricing, including higher prices for new releases.

Reading this, I can't help thinking that record industry executives are kid of idiotic. They complain about pirating -- people sharing digital copies of music without paying for them. Then Apple develops iTunes, and last year digital music sales were $1.1 billion. So, because of that, the industry wants to provide fresh incentives to piracy by raising prices. Yeah, you guys are marketing geniuses, no wonder your entire industry is in a slump.

What? Stephen Harper doesn't eat babies?

I'm shocked. I thought all conservatives ate babies Well, he's Canadian, maybe it's only American conservatives who eat babies.

Interview with Joe Klein, author of Politics Lost: How American Democracy Was Trivialized By People Who Think You're Stupid. Highlights of the interview:

"That's when the permanent campaign is born. And from that day to this, consultants have been in the driver's seat to the point where, in the Bush administration, which I call the final squalid perfection of the permanent campaign, they had a consultant up until last week in charge of policy: Karl Rove."

"There is a whole generation of young Americans who think that political discourse is Eleanor Clift yelling at Pat Buchanan. That's dangerous. I don't want our political discourse to be seen as a debate between Rush Limbaugh and Michael Moore."

"The greatest thing that we've lost during the time that I've been covering politics is that sense of community and common good. Ronald Reagan said that government isn't part of the solution but part of the problem, and that became the central philosophy of the Republican Party. It's a direct line from him saying that in the late '70s to Hurricane Katrina. If you think government is part of the problem, you can't govern well when there's a crisis."

More legal troubles for that druggie Rush Limbaugh. Which is funny, because he's such a venom-spewing hypocrite on the subject. But more importantly it shows the hypocrisy of our system: poor druggies go to jail, rich druggies go to rehab.

"What this says to me is that too many whites are getting away with drug use, too many whites are getting away with drug sales, too many whites are getting away with trafficking in this stuff. The answer to this disparity is not to start letting people out of jail because we're not putting others in jail who are breaking the law. The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them and send them up the river, too."

-- Rush Limbaugh. October 5, 1995 show transcript.

It's annoying, the way they keep calling spiffed-up open-air malls "lifestyle centers". But it is a good example of pop culture on the march. Because at one time, all the shopping malls were outdoors. So the trend was to enclose them so that they were climate-controlled. Then people got -- I don't know, bored or something -- and the new trend was toward open-air malls. Eventually the trend will be toward enclosed malls again. But in the meantime, many malls will die.