My dad bought a 2001 Prius. Everyone told him the batteries would die with in 8 years. Nope, 2013 and it runs like the day he bought it.

The TDI will consume two time the energy to transit A to B then a Volt. That is why electric cars have an MPGe rating. For $1.60 worth of electricity, I can travel ~44 miles. This depends on temperature as it ranges from 38 to 50 miles per charge. How far can a TDI go on $1.60 worth of diesel? Does this clear if up for you?

In my case, 100% solar at home and at work. But, if I didn't, it would cost $1.60 to drive 40 miles. Gas is getting close to $1.60 a gallon, but then the car would have to get 40 mpg.

I'm glad I don't have your paycheck.

I drive a Volt. You've probably seen the back side of it if you drive around San Diego. Yep, it's very zippy in the 0 to 50 mph range. It is pretty rare that the engine drives the wheels. I have had it for 2 1/2 years and have 50k miles on it. The finish, interior and performance are the same as the day I bought it. GM did an outstanding job on this vehicle. The maintenance costs are extremely low. I've changed the oil twice and not because the car was telling me to. I just got uncomfortable not changing the oil. The brake pads are at 99%. They rarely get used. After driving around, you can touch the brake pads and they will still be cold. The engine in the Volt is really more like a generator. Nothing too complicated about that. The only problem this car has is the ignorant who put forth a worthless opinion that others then parrot as fact. I'd buy another Volt in a heart beat. Oh wait, I did, for my wife. It drives as well as mine does.

I'd love to let them have the run of things for a while, except they insist on flying planes into our buildings and beheading children. No, I think the only option is to go in and kill every last one of them, like the vermin infestation that they are.

When I was a kid, early 1970's our government was making plans to cover the ice caps with soot to help alleviate the coming ice age. We are after all, at the end of an inter-glacial warming period. Unfortunately, carbon dioxide constitutes 0.04% of our atmosphere. IF there is a CO2 warming link, we'd have to get the CO2 up to 4% of the atmosphere to stave off the next ice age.

google "Next Ice Age". Man typically does better in a warm climate than a cold climate. Women look better in bikinis than parkas. Choose wisely.

Wildfires have been with us for a long time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Some of the largest occurred in the 1800's when we didn't have the means to fight them. But politicians today want more money so they claim the fires are getting worse. Funny, I remember a few California wildfires in the 70s that were much worse than the San Diego fires we just had. Santa Ana winds are just something that Southern California locals have been dealing with for a VERY long time. The problem for San Diego is the arsonists. Three of them were just arrested. Another problem is aging transformers. We have had a number of the explode here recently and they typically start fires. The secondary transformer across for my mother's house is seriously rusted and it's only a matter of time. California's biggest threats is state insolvency and our power infrastructure. Sacramento would rather spend it on the booty train, impose fire fees and raise taxes.

Except that it isn't a few hundred $ a month. I went online to discover what it would cost me to replace my current employer's plan with an "equivalent" Covered CA plan, The cost was almost $19k a year or $1500 a month. My company sends a yearly statement regarding the value of my benefits. They priced it at $18k. The year before, it was 11k. BTW, my very large company had been conducting clandestine layoffs at the highest levels. I'm pretty sure they can thank Obamacare for that gift.

The incompetent lawyers hire the additional incompetent lawyers. It was hell just getting our lawyers to understand that ftping source over the network through open source routers and servers did not make the transmitted code open source. The name LGPL needs to be changed so that the letters "GPL" does not appear in the acronym. Our lawyers screech, "GPL! GPL!" "Uh no, it's LGPL" "But it's GPL!" Our lawyers are fine with the BSD license so maybe we can call it the LBSD license. :-)

Our lawyers, quashing innovation one bad decision at a time.

Some of the best hackers work for governments. This may be an attempt to destroy digital currency so that people are forced to contend with the historical money makers.