I think liberals miss-interpret conservative resistance to government regulation with the adoption of smart ideas. As a conservative I like to make smart choices, not be forced by government regulation. That's why most stand against "green" and "global warming" because when the government gets involved it's usually about control and manipulation of people and not science.

Should be rated troll...oh wait, this is Slashdot tribalism so of course your comments are insightful because you "rightfully" used "conservative" in a negative way. In trying to prove your point you just joined your own "fuck themselves" tribe.

Um...but the battery technology requires resources from outside the US. When that finite resource gets strained it'll be "warlords and dictators" all over again.

You're kidding right? The power company is going to buy that with or without your surcharge - most likely due to federal and state mandates. All you're doing is giving them extra money.

Name one source of "non-polluting renewable energy". It doesn't exist.

So if you're an average US tax payer I'm sure you're happy to know some 1%er schmuck is using your tax dollars to off set the cost of a car you can't afford. Pretty nice of the US tax payer to help enrich Mr. Musk and his "investors".

My last trip to the airport the pilot and crew were allowed just in front of me. There was only one open lane and it was for the body scanner. When the crew showed up they opened the old magnetic line so I tried to join right behind them (btw, the body scanner line was completely open with no one waiting). The TSA agent said "you can go over to the other line". I said no I don't want to go through the body scanner. He said why not and I simply said I don't want to. He asked again why not. I said well if it was safe why isn't the crew going through it (I got a couple funny smiles back from the crew). He said why are you asking so many questions and then added if I go through I'd get an extra pat down. At that point I just kept following the crew through and he didn't stop me. I did get just my legs checked by another TSA agent - no big deal.

The other thing I've noticed is if you travel with young children they take you out of line and directly to the magnetic scanner. Not just your child and one parent but your entire family. For me it was four adult family members along with my 4yr old - no extra pat down needed.

in summary - the body scanners cannot be completely safe and they know it.

It's interesting that neither you or anyone else want's to take up the debate about using tax dollars to prop up a commercial enterprise. Does Tesla exist because of or in spite of tax dollars. Keep in mind Elon has more than one enterprise befitting from tax dollars. Did Better Place fail because it's home country didn't prop it up well enough? Is any of this a good use of tax dollars - especially when most tax payers do not benefit and the business owners are enormously enriched?

So, are you advocating the end of the pollution credit system and the tax payer funded purchase program? Apparently, based on your logic, neither are needed in order for Tesla to exist and be profitable.

Ford did not take stimulus money.

What's fair about federal tax dollars being used to both prop up the company and provide cash to people to buy the product? Do they have a demand problem without the tax incentives? Why didn't the $500 million federal loan go into production to meet the demand. I call BS on the demand claim. If the demand is that high then they wouldn't need federal loans and tax incentives.

Tesla's not turning a profit due to focusing on an electric car. According to this WSJ story http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324659404578499460139237952.html it's due to selling pollution credits to other car makers. Add to that the tax credits offered by State and Federal income tax, a large loan from the US federal government and federal grants - well we're not talking about a business model that stands on just selling a better electric car idea.

um...never heard of Kobo until now. #2, yeah right.

I bet when all the kids were super-excited about programming on the i386 with its "OMG VIRTUAL MEMORY!!!" the older guys who had worked on mainframes just rolled their eyes. :)

You talking about the same old grey beards that gasped when the kids opened the cover on a server and added their own memory, network adaptors, backplanes, disk drives, etc without having to call IBM out to do it?

Please elaborate...