Yes, yes, yes. Please restore our failed fiscal system. If for no other reason, do it because Target’s holiday sales were broken out 85% Canadian, 15% American in Bellingham. My freeways are clogged and it’s not safe to walk across the street.

Seriously though, how on earth can we protect our interests at home while spending TRILLIONS on a war overseas. I supported the Iraq war, to restore stability in the Middle East, and to remove an evil man from power. I was wrong, it’s taking way too long, and it’s over. Iraq is now FUBAR and it’s our fault. Well guess what, it can’t be fixed. Retreat. Come home, lick our wounds, and rebuild America.

He’s absolutely right, the poor will only always be poor, no matter how hard they try to save, if their dollars are worth less and less every year.

I am going to register to vote this time, because there’s finally a candidate who I care about.

We’re selling Kari’s car so we’re ready to move to Houston. Of course, I made an online flyer for it.

Mitsubishi Mirage ES (2001, Rio Red Pearl) For Sale in Bellingham, WA

On news today that Opera is suing Microsoft over Antitrust allegations, I am inspired to point out another weird IEness what breaks the internet: Weird GIF implementation.

If you’re using IE 6 right now, visit help.piersystem.com and look at the light bulb graphic in the Tip of the Week box. Look all choppy? Now fire up Firefox if you can and take a look. The difference is astounding.

Why does IE 6 show the lightbulb all choppy while FF makes it look smooth and pretty? Does this have something to do with CoreImage?

GM is a big, dirty American company. They build big ugly cars and they seem to be so out of touch with their consumers it’s almost a joke. Anyone who has driven a Cobalt or an Impala knows what I’m talking about. If you don’t get it, for kicks and giggles test drive a Cobalt, then test drive a Mitsubishi Lancer; heck, drive a 6 year old Lancer like mine, then drive an ‘08 Cobalt. It’s shocking how bad the Cobalt is.

We’re running out of oil, and we’re desperate to get it from anyone we can. We are so dependent on oil, that we spend BILLIONS (with a B) on a war to secure the Middle East. This is while oil is less than $100 a barrel, but what happens when it’s twice that? Who will we be willing to attack when oil is $200 a barrel, Canada anybody?

How long do cars last these days? 10 years? 20 years? This means every new car sold today needs Oil for 20 years. GM quitely stood up and announced that they’re changing that. Sure Ford and Chrysler are doing their part by building total rubbish cars that will only run for 5 years, but GM is going one step further: FlexFuel.

The beauty of flexible fuel isn’t that you can pump starving 3rd world people’s food (corn) into your tank while gas is $3.50 a gallon, it’s that when Gas is $15 a gallon, we can pursue Methane, Propane, etc as alternative energy sources, and all those GM cars will be ready for it. GM’s also building the Volt, a performance oriented plug-in hybrid, and there’s a possibility the Volt will run on flex fuel. That means we can run on electric methane, electric propane, electric gasoline power, whatever suits your fancy.

So why is GM the only one doing this? The answer is simple: There is absolutely no infrastructure for alternative fuel stations, and automakers are stalling until one exists. Honda won’t build their fuel-cell vehicle if there are no filling stations for it. No automaker will build a methane-only, garbage-only, blood-of-poor-children only car until there is reasonable demand for it, and an infrastructure to support it.

Why do Honda and BMW advertise their Hydrogen-powered cars if they have no intention of building them? The same reason the Civic and Prius hybrids get the same mileage as a 1996 Toyota Corolla: Distraction. The American public has moved beyond ignorance regarding our oil dependence, and they want answers. Unfortunately we’re turning to the automakers and big auto doesn’t want to tell the public that it’s a political problem (I have no idea why they wouldn’t). Likewise, the federal government is denying that the Iraq war was ultimately for middle eastern stability, aka oil, and refusing to either a) legislate alt fuel programs or b) fund alt energy sources. The federal government and big auto are leaving it to big oil to fund all the research and get us out of this problem. Is big oil up to the challenge? Time will tell, but they seem to have a conflict of interest since $200 barrels of oil generated a whole heck of a lot of profits.

What’s our solution, America? Flex Fuel cars, and flex fuel conversions. It can cost thousands to convert your current car to flexible fuel, but the long term payoff can be huge. Hats off to you, GM. You can also help by getting the word out there, tell the government you don’t want to use oil, you only do because it’s the only affordable option. Tell them to divert the $476 billion dollars (at the time of this writing) into alternative energy infrastructure and research.