From the article:

The protective qualities of the underbody shields are substantial, but their effect on the overall structure of the vehicle is minimal. In total, the shields only have a 0.1 percent impact on range and donâ(TM)t affect ride or handling. Wind tunnel testing shows no discernible change in drag or lift on the car.

"The Texas legislature adjourned in June, and it will not reconvene until 2015." Buwah?!

This is always something that has really bugged me. Why exactly is it someone's right to borrow money and then not pay it back? If you borrowed it, you should have to pay it back. It doesn't make any sense to allow people out from under their debts that they made the conscious decision to borrow. If you don't understand the total costs, how the lending and repayment processes work, or if you don't have any solid plans for living with that debt, you shouldn't be borrowing it. Period. I don't care if it's a mortgage, a car loan, a school loan, or even your neighbor's tools. Your borrowing choices and the repayments from those choices should always be your own responsibility.

Use Discover.

Happens in Chicago all the time. One correction though is that it's not once every 5 seconds. It's a nearly constant stream much of the time. If you try to leave the correct distance in front of you, you will spend more time on the brakes than anything else.

Also, the concern at red lights is not generally that I'm too close to the car in front of me, it's that the car behind me is too close. I can, to at least a small extent, control the distance in front, but I can't do a damn thing about the distance in back.

True, true. My mistake. The article was about politics though, so that seemed the most relevant at the time.

This message brought to you by the hometown newspaper for what is usually considered one of the more politically corrupt cities in the country.

Is this supposed to surprise anyone? And, more importantly, does anyone out there actually believe that the US isn't doing the same thing toward [insert long list of nations here]? I, for one, certainly believe they are.

Is anyone outside of the teenage girl crowd even paying attention to Facebook announcements anymore? I'm legitimately asking. I have a Facebook account that I log into maybe once or twice a year. And most of the circles I spend time in don't really use it much anymore either. Am I the only one that sees Facebook announcements and just shrugs with indifference?

After the Patriot Act, you need a physical address for most things now. For instance, you can't legally open a bank account or apply for a credit card with just a PO box. You can add a PO box as a mailing address, but that won't be sufficient by itself anymore. I'm not sure if this extends to a drivers license, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me.

Caterpillar has one too. http://www.caterpillar.com/cda/layout?m=389975&x=7&ids=3367101

How does one go about convincing a municipality to do this though? We've seen stories here about some high speed networks being built, but what is that first step that convinces a city council to say "Yup, we need that"?

I'm not an engineer, nor do I play one on TV, so I'm curious - how does an ultra sonic senor have a blind spot?

That's a good question. I upgraded by Galaxy Nexus to one of the CM9 nightlies. The video recorder uses a different codec than what it had used. Of course, you don't realize this until you send your mother a video of the baby doing something cute and she suddenly can't play it in Windows Media Player.

This isn't always an option. For example, this school in Chicago bans packed lunches because kids could bring something healthy. Who's to say more principals won't latch on to this line of thinking? http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-school-lunch-restrictions-041120110410,0,4567867.story