While I realize you were not serious; I was curious what the real numbers were among Congresspersons. I expected 99 Lawyers and a paralegal. ;-)

There are a lot of lawyers to be sure, but fewer than I expected.

For the record, there are 435 Representatives and 100 Senators in Congress.

From Wikipedia:

The Congressional Research Service notes that the vast majority of Members (95 percent) had an academic degree:

168 Representatives and 57 Senators have a law degree. Of these, five (Representative and two Senators) also hold a Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree.

83 Representatives and 16 Senators earned a master's degree -- often a Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) - as their highest educational degree

27 Representatives and one Senator (Mark Begich) have no educational degree beyond a high school diploma.

23 Representatives (but no Senators) have a Ph.D

17 Representatives and three Senators have a medical degree (this number includes one Senator with a veterinary medicine degree and one Representative with a dental degree).

Five Representatives (but no Senators) have an associate's degree as their highest degree. One House Member has a licensed practical nurse (L.P.N.) degree

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_111th_United_States_Congress

Yup. Including coal: http://coalcares.com/cleanenergy.html

> But for some reason it's his job that would be classified as "blue collar" and "low-skill". I have to disagree with that. Blue-collar, yes. But tool and die makers are extremely skilled individuals. I worked in a machine shop back in the 1980s and the tool makers were well-respected and at the top of the pecking order in the shop (which was fairly large.) They were the blue-collar equivalent I guess of sys admins, bordering on BOFH status. They were catered to, and the other less-skilled machinists kowtowed to them. They were also the highest-paid in the shop.

I think this is good advice. If I can add on: I've found Lenovo laptops to be sturdy, no-nonsense machines. My experiences in dealing with Dell on more than one occasion has soured me on ever buying another Dell. Good luck!

Heh, nice, you are of course correct; here's a reference by the way for the curious: http://history.howstuffworks.com/european-history/top-5-marie-antoinette-scandals1.htm

My town composts them. My tax dollars at work, I'm happy to say.

Where's my mod points? Spot-on observations.

I believe it also included a lot of intelligent design controversy. See here and here for example. From the NY Times article: "After facing months of protest, conservative members of the Texas Board of Education were expected Thursday night to vote to teach schoolchildren a version of American history that emphasizes the roles of capitalist enterprise, the military, Christianity and modern Republican political figures. "

Amen, brother!

> But... I don't see that in the future with Mr. Jobs at the head of Apple.

No, me neither. Wozniak, maybe. Jobs, no. But you make an excellent point, thank you.

> Where would we be if you had to use a restricted format to read normal web pages? Oh, absolutely; I agree. I'm not a video expert; I was told the quality of the Ogg Theora video paled in comparison to H.264, which is why I mentioned that comparison. I feel like "Open/Free vs Proprietary" sometimes means "Pretty Good vs Very Good." And sometimes "Pretty Good" isn't good enough.

I RTFA, and I think it's the most well-thought-out criticism of Jobs' anti-Flash editorial I've seen so far The author maintains "the way out of the Adobe vs. Apple cage match is straightforward, and exists already: free software operating systems like GNU/Linux with free software Web browsers, supporting free media formats like Ogg Theora" and later concludes, "So, the correct decision in the dispute between Apple and Adobe is "none of the above." The past we need to leave behind is not just Flash, it's Apple's proprietary software as well." I agree with that in principle. I guess where I get stuck is, I do like OS/X. I like it a lot better than Linux. I'm not involved in cutting video but I work with someone who is, and they tell me they like H.264 a lot better than Ogg Theora. So...am I part of the problem? Is the Free Software movement not up to the task of competing with proprietary software? I feel like the trade-off I'm currently making with OS/X is acceptable -- for now. I don't see myself buying an iPhone (or iPad) anytime soon, but neither do I see myself getting rid of my iMac.

While I also agree with the GP poster, I'm not sure that downloading decreases value. It might actually increase value from increased mind share of the downloaded item. I might be more likely to go to a concert of a group whose music I've downloaded, for example. At least, I'll be more inclined to discuss the group with my friends, or purchase a future album.