You think it will all be carried by the nice shiny Amazon vans that you see in major cities? I live in a rural area, actually on the top of a mountain in a national forest. The only time I see an Amazon delivery van is when I drive to El Paso or another sizable city. Here, it's all sent out and delivered by local contractors. So I'm standing in my kitchen and see a strangers car pull into my driveway and left thinking 'whodafuk is that?' and then they drive away and I have to go on a package hunt because they never place it at my front door.

And then there's all the stories of these private contractor's cars being infested with bed bugs or roaches. No thanks!

But they don't cancel the bill that requires them to fully-fund their retirement plan. That's the thing that's killing the USPS. No one does that, especially no other government agency.

I was a network admin at a police department back in the '90s. I had three fake passwords taped to the bottom of my keyboard, they didn't do anything. Sadly, no one ever remarked on them.

Eliminating gender/color discrimination. Women get treated so badly in medical situations, even by women doctors, as do people of color, being accused of drug-seeking and such.

There's also the problem of doctors not being as widely educated as a computer can be: case in point my wife. My wife has constant shortness of breath problems. Oncologist: you have cancer, get over it (she does, but that's not the problem). Lung doctor: you have asthma, use your inhaler (it doesn't help. Cardiologist: lose weight (she can't exercise because of it). Finally sees an aerospace doctor: You don't have enough carbon dioxide in your system, it's a treatable condition. And she's doing better.

Doctors can't know everything, you'd hope they could do better though.

Pretty soon you're talking real money.

I haven't bought an American Big Three car in over 40 years, but my two Isuzus, my Subaru, and my Toyota have all been made here. I'd love the opportunity to buy a Chinese car: not saying that I would buy one, but I'd like to look one over. I don't know that they'll do better than my Subaru in the snow.

Amen!

New car dealerships aren't remotely small business owners! Those are huge, and very profitable chains. One such chain is largely owned by Berkshire-Hathaway. Maybe your used car lots are small business owners, I doubt they were consulted on this particular issue.

I used to work IT as a civilian at a police department, and whenever I had to go out to the training academy I always spent time at the armory (for fun and to blow off time before going back to my office). One day I go in and there's a couple of boxes of donuts on one of the work tables, and the sergeant tells me to help myself. I ask him why the donuts and he explains that if someone ever uses the word clip when they're supposed to use magazines, people are supposed to shout out "DONUTS!", and that person has to bring in donuts the next day.

The IT office that I worked in I was the only civvie with three officers, current and retired. We were talking about guns one day and Bruce mentioned a clip. Me and Bob (detective) immediately shouted out "DONUTS!" and Bruce looked confused while we laughed. We then explained, and he was a good sport and brought in donuts the next day.

Even without the warhead, it'd leave a heckuva mark.

I stopped buying Big Three cars in the '80s. My 11 y/o Subaru hit 180,000 over the weekend, the 10 y/o Toyota Matrix that I traded it in for had over 170k. Both are/were very low maintenance vehicles.

I started reading an article yesterday (inc.com) about how BYD changed their battery development after a fatal fire killed three. I was very impressed. I've been reading about their cars for probably over a year now, and am quite interested. The Big Three have pretty much abandoned the EV market, especially since a certain person destroyed incentives and building out a nationwide charging network, so let the Chinese in (assuming they can make safety standards) and let's see what happens!

It would help if Hollywood made good movies or the distributors brought in good ones from other countries. But it wouldn't help my local idiot chain, they show garbage.

Normally when I go to Phoenix, I LOVE to take in a movie at Harkins or AMC. I've been there four times in the last five months: ZERO movies seen. I despair, and am about to start ripping my 700+ movies to Jellyfin.

The original series of Yes, Minister was a masterclass of saying what you don't mean.

I sold expensive copper cables to people who wanted them. And I told them that AC power zip lines would work pretty much just as well, and that's what I use for my audio system. But hey, whatever brings you joy.