Factory paint hasn't been 'pure shit' since at least the 1980s. I've lived in Pennsylvania my whole life, and even with this state's bizarre addiction to road salt very, very few cars made within the last 15-20 years need paint unless they're involved in a collision.

Too bad you can't selectively meta-moderate. I'd like to congratulate the person who modded this "informative".

That would, of course, be a perpetual motion machine. You can get at most the amount of energy back from combusting hydrogen as you used to electrolyze it, leaving no net energy to power the vehicle.

Please tell me this post is a joke and I missed the punchline.

What does under $50 AU have to do with $150 (assumed to be American), especially considering the generally higher costs of computer hardware down under? Your comment provided no information, and was at best moot and at worst idiotic.

Swine flu kills you by making your immune system overreact. If you're immuno-comprimised, you may be fine. If you're 18-40 and healthy, be careful! Incidentally, the same was true of the Spanish influenza.

My slight concern is entirely self-interested.

It is a tremendous tool for finding apartments. Given that you're not likely to rent a place sight unseen, ratings and ripoffs are sort of moot. Sure, there's a lot of irrelevant postings and junk postings, but that's true with any form of classified ad.

I think I've done that, and I don't have it. Then again, I don't post a whole lot. Maybe you have to do it more often.

In my opinion, Agnosticism makes the most sense. I think what exists outside the bounds of our physical universe, and before (and after?) 'time', is unknown and unknowable. God, Zues, the Matrix, or a spontaneous generation, it's all the same to me. The Christian story is full of contradictions with the evidences of our origin which surround us, but that certainly doesn't rule out in my mind the existence of some sort of creator. I sincerely doubt it gives a shit who I am or am not having sex with in any more than an ant farm sort of way. Obviously, we are, rather than are not, but God only moves that question to "where did God come from?".

Admittedly, a big part of the problem with driving in New Jersey is road design. There are old highways with entrance and exit ramps that are too short and too sharp all over the place, and there are too many places where the entrance and exit merge lanes cross on high traffic roads. Traffic circles can't handle the volume they're often fed. The loose change tolls every county on the GS Parkway belong in the feudal age.

But Jersey drivers do have some problems - I can't count the number of times I've had to slam on the brakes from highway speed because people suddenly stopped to rubberneck a speeding ticket on the other side of a four lane highway. There are way too many people weaving in their lanes on cell phones. I've been rear ended three times in the last two years while stopping at red lights by people who either weren't looking (2) or overestimated their brakes on a downhill in the rain (1), and I most certainly do not stop short or stop at yellow lights. The floor it to a red light syndrome is common, too. There's probably some personal bias on my part because I keep getting hit, and maybe the overall volume just makes it seem worse than it is.

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The per mile death rate is lower, in general, in more urban states than more rural ones. My guess is that with everyone stuck together in traffic, most of the accidents happen with a relatively low closing speed so less people are killed. It's certainly not because New Jersey drivers spend more time paying attention to what's going on around them, at least in my experience.

It's not exactly the same point but it's certainly true that vehicle death totals are down significantly on a per mile basis over the last 40 years, at least in the US. So while there may be a false sense of security brought about by ABS, air bags, and traction control, it doesn't overcome the actual advances in safety.