WWZ (the book) is a great piece of story telling, but it is tragically stupid and requires one hell of a suspension of disbelief. A group of AC-130s ends Yonkers. I would also imagine 5 fully armed rednecks in an F-150 can kill an amazing number of zombies. I get that these things are fascinating models for disease, but a plague would be a whole lot worse.

They are doing a rather large push to use the language in everyday things and movies is one of those things. If the next generation learns it at a young age it will be preserved. Language is an important part of any culture, one of the most basic building blocks to understand what is important.

note: to those wondering about modern terms - the language isn't dead and new terms are created. This is sometimes done by adding words together (the Dakota word for automobile is long and painful) or adding a suffix / prefix (well, computer for an English example).

I should point out that part of that map is not very truthful. It counts money going to Native American reservations, maintenance of Federal land, and military bases and missile silos as returned state funding. This is deceptive and tips the balance in states with a low population. I also believe they seem to be failing to note the "Minerals Management Service royalty".

If you get in, you can make some cash and Apple pays on-time.

oh, I see, the Mayan calender is really the due dates on some reports to the galactic overlords - great 2012 will be fun.

I get the feeling your comment is more "Insightful" then "Funny".

You must be in management :)

"The corn used for fuel was grown specifically for fuel, on fields that had been put-aside (pay to not grow type)."

I would love to see your source on this statement, because I believe it to be false.

Also, there is plenty of diesel being run in the winter in places like ND, you just use the winter formulation and don't use pure bio-diesel. It does take more battery to start then a regular gas engine. On the other hand, hydrogen has serious problems with cold weather (Honda's engineers pointed this out on one of the weekly news programs).

Here is the part I never got. Ok, two people both subscribe to the monthly service. They meet and pass songs back an fourth. Why in the heck did Microsoft / Record Companies limit the number of plays? What is the purpose? If it is tracking, then count the new songs at sync. It just seems like a really stupid way of doing things that misses the possibilities and actually saves Microsoft money on the download.

Well, it did last 10 years with ~267,000 miles. It wasn't a great car, but it did ok. I learned to hate the dealership enough that I wouldn't buy another car from them, and the four recalls were a little much. Some of the recalls where kinda scary (brake recall - damn anti-locks sounded like a jackhammer).

I gave it to my uncle who is a good mechanic, so he will probably fix it up and give it to someone to drive another 100,000.

I am saying most people in the area most likely to be affected will deal with the roof ok, I would be more worried about the other effects of the ash.

The basic problem is that a lot of people will take a hard hit at that inspection and it will a financial disaster. Oregon is trying to complicate one of the easiest taxes most people pay with a scheme that will be most painful to the low-income person.

Look at it this way, suppose no employer took withholding taxes and on April 15, you had to come up with the whole amount. The likely outcome is most people will not have saved enough during the year and cannot make the huge payment. It is much easier for everyone concerned to pay in incremental chunks.

As a side note, the states that I have lived in (ND, SD, MN) have never had a vehicle inspection on a yearly basis. I would guess that is limited to the coasts.

Also, the thought that all these people with lower income that would have the biggest problem with a yearly payment should take mass transit, assumes a community has mass transit. This is generally not true of rural areas.

The other problem with this whole thing is to assume that my small car causes the same wear and tear on the roads as an SUV and should pay the same per-mile tax. The reason a per-gallon gas tax works is that the SUV will be paying more taxes due to worse fuel economy. Making me pay the same as a SUV owner is a joke,

Wouldn't it be a great feature if you could ask the moderator wtf? Even if it was anonymous, it would be a great insight into how some of this stuff happens. Then again, it might just be like starring into the abyss Cthulhu-style.

one man's trolling is another man's insight

"Denver would only get about a foot" - heck - Denver probably got more snow than that this week in one snow storm. I would be more worried about lung / equipment problems than the roof collapsing.