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if competitive gaming ever hopes to become even slightly as respected as other sporting competitions, they will need to enact drug testing, just as they do in golf, cycling, baseball and every other sport. Having certain competitors be on a different playing field because of chemical alterations is just turns people off the sport. it no longer comes down simply to skill, but rather who has the most positive reaction to the chemicals taken.

There's a Walgreens in Reno that is entirely above Interstate 80. At least a few people are using that land commercially. Where I live, nearly all the interstate medians are paved, usually with a divider. That seems prohibitive towards subterranean infrastructure, based solely on cost.

I know the northeast (and CA, FL) loves concrete Jersey barriers in the middle, but that's not everywhere - especially in the non-coastal states that will likely form the bulk of the transmission paths. Many have that steel cable thing which is very small and you could easily lay a trench next to it (Example: much of I-40 in NC). Many interstates even have nothing in the median, just the median itself is v-shaped (Example: I-77 in SC). Elsewhere, there's trees in the median (example: I-26 in SC, I-85 in VA).

More on median steel cable barriers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_barrier
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-19-highway-cables_x.htm

If you're gonna destroy the existing median in order to install electric/fiber/gas/whatever please add some rails on top...

Putting anything in the median other than a crash barrier is a bad idea because.. wait for it.. people crash into the median. Unless you're going to design whatever it is to take an 18-wheeler ramming it at 85 mph, I wouldn't put it there.

Transmission cables don't have this problem because they're underground. In fact, some telco and internet cables follow rail lines and interstates.

Ok, so:
(a) no proof that he gets paid anything by the Alliance for Climate Protection.
(b) You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the point of carbon credits
  - the fact that polluters are members of a carbon credit exchange (CCX) is EXACTLY the point.
(c) On the Zinc mine you linked to a guest opinion piece that was originally in - you guessed it - a ditto blog.
You didn't link to the actual article, probably because the worst you could find in there are statements like these:
"The operation has a record of vigilance in not operating to harm the environment, and we certainly hope that the renewed operation will maintain this record,"
"Gore sent a letter asking the company to work with Earthworks, a national environmental group, to make sure the operation doesn't damage the environment."
"the terms of the 30-year lease provided the Gores "no legal recourse" even if they had wanted to cancel it."
--Environmentalist Gore allowed zinc mine

So, for a third time, a couple of minutes with google and the application of critical thinking takes the wind out of your sails.
I think the pattern is pretty well established by now.

This clearly establishes that he co-founded GIM. This includes a list of just some of the "environmentally friendly" members of CCX, which GIM owns about 10% of. This highlights just one area of concern, Amtrak, who had to settle with the government over violations of the Clean Water Act. This highlights the fact that Gore makes monthly royalty profits from the Zinc mine on his property, which has come under attack because of the environmental damage that occurs when mining Zinc. Need I go on? If you dig deep enough, you'll find that Al Gore isn't as green as you might think.

They'll just probably roll one of these up to the hospital parking lot and volunteer somebody from the passers by if they don't have one already processed.

ANd when you CatcH AnyoNE out of LIne, DeLIVER them the UlTiMatE PUNishMENT:

Put them in (on a gurney outside of) the MoCuMo (MObile exeCU MObile)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-06-14-death-van_x.htm

Sorry, my cat brushed the keyboard as I was hitting submit. The actual link is:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/industry/2007-03-08-apple-marketing_N.htm

European aircraft design is elegant...

    http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2006-06-13-a-380-usat_x.htm

Whereas American aircraft design is clunky and not timeless:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/25/opinion/25mon3.html?th&emc=th

Explain to me how broadcasting light onto a building "defaces it" Or maybe you are talking about the sticky lights WHICH COME OFF. Seriously this isn't your gang tagger here.

And in this instance, as in many instances of public space reclamation, the people have in fact lost their right to public space. Perhaps you should read up about the loss of common land . Or about the hundreds of thousands of people who were displaced to build the Olympic grounds.

BTW, I'm pretty sure I understand the meaning definition of coward. However, I don't think I ever explicitly said anything about my character, e.g. I didn't mention my concepts of my own self-worth. Whatever you may have garned you must have infered. And since we already have an example of your stellar deduction skills , I'm sure we can make an educated guess about how good you are at inference.

He made the mistake of catching the wrong bus to the olympics.

Until 1996 they both had an equal chance.

Battery fire. Yeah, they burn pretty good also. So, while Apple and Dell are busy fighting off efforts to force a recall, you takes your chances. With greater time and money spent trying to protect market interests, it's going to happen. Come to think of it, a working laptop could be set up as a pretty good weapon. I think I'm going to take a boat, or the train

The broadcasts have commercials because the cable subscription fees go to the cable company. Broadcasters only get money if they are a Pay-per view service or a separate subscription (usually movie channels like HBO).

Surely you realize that the cable operators also pay the programming services for the rights to carry their programs? For the most popular channels like ESPN, these fees are quite substantial. Disney reported recently that carriage fees and ESPN ad revenues were "the company's single largest profit driver" in the second quarter of 2008. In fact, Disney has been leveraging ESPN's popularity to force cable operators to carry all its cable networks if they want to carry ESPN.

Yang Yilin, a medal contender in the all-around and uneven bars, was born Aug. 26, 1993, according to the 2004, 2005 and 2006 registration lists previously posted on the website of the General Administration of Sport of China. That would make Yang only 15 later this month. Gymnasts have to be 16 during the Olympic year to be eligible for the games.

In the 2007 registration list, however, Yang's birthday is listed as Aug. 26, 1992, making her eligible to compete.

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/beijing/gymnastics/2008-08-03-china-ages_N.htm

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2008-05-14-3651640224_x.htm

Ok, according to this source they say that not all the older ones held up but the newer buildings certainly fared worse than expected.

DUJIANGYAN, China -- Modern apartment buildings and schools crumbled, smoothly paved highways buckled and bridges collapsed -- their flimsy construction no match for the awesome forces of nature.

As the death toll soars from the powerful earthquake that ravaged central China's Sichuan province, the scale of the devastation is raising questions about the quality of China's recent construction boom.

"This building is just a piece of junk," one newly homeless resident of Dujiangyan yelled Wednesday, her body quivering with rage. Her family salvaged clothing and mementos from their wrecked apartment, built when their older home was razed 10 years ago.

"The government tricked us. It told us this building was well constructed. But look at the homes all around us, they're still standing," said the woman, who would give only her surname, Chen.

It works out. The guy taking the order will be located so far away that you wouldn't be able to get your food anyway.

And as we well know, the terrorists would never think of driving.

Threat averted! It's Miller Time, people!

*cough*

Are Chinese gymnasts too young for Olympics?

guilty. not of this particular list but of countless others

Rather than call you an inconsiderate ass like the others here, I'd point to you as an example of how IT doesn't take human nature into account when setting up systems. In this case, Yahoo was naive to think that they could depend on (L)user input to create a decent anti-spam system. AOL does the same stupid thing, BTW - even to the point where Florida's hurricane alerts were being flagged as spam.

You do realize that their profit isn't all from gas and Diesel fuels right? They have wells that produce oil sold on the open market, they own stations or station lands and building and lease them out to private operators, produce and sell natural gas and home heating oil plus a number of chemicals.

In fact, Fivecentnickel did a break down of were the money goes in a gallon of gas. As it turns out, refining and profit is of gas is only about 10% of the price per gallon. This isn't off from other estimates either. And it isn't excessive compared to other industries. Microsoft kept 27.3 cents of every $1 in revenue in its most recent quarter; General Electric, 11.4 cents and McDonald's, 12.3 cents. In fact, Exxon is below the 11-cent average of Standard & Poor's 500 companies, says analyst Howard Silverblatt.

So lets look at this, 10% per gallon. That is 40 cents on $4.00 gas. But wait, 40 percent or more of that goes to income taxes. So in reality, of the 40 cents, they keep around 23 ti 24 cents per gallon. Of course federal highway and state taxes average around 13% depending on the price and location but lets not focus on that. So If Exxon (the countries largest oil company) decided to cut their profits in half to save the consumer, that would only effect gas prices by 5% or 20 cents on a $4.00 per gallon gasoline. Does $3.80 compared to $4.00 a gallon seem like gouging?

The problem is that we only have about 5 major oil companies operating in the US with only 4 of them operating in any given state at a time. This problem is compounded by not being able to develop oil fields in the US because of environmental concerns and not being able to open refineries because of the same problems. This means that with all of the smaller oil companies, the major ones just do enormous volume in sales which is why they make so much. In 2007, the US consumed 142 billion gallons of gas (about 390 million gallons per day).

So if we look at this 142 billion gallon figure, we can do a number of things. Lets multiply it by $4.00 per gallon of gas, thats $568,000,000,000 or 568 billion dollars in sales. Now of the 10% holds true, that is 56.8 billion in profit across the US. Lets divide that into quarters to compare it against profits for Exxon. It comes to around 14.2 billion dollar profit per quarter in the US gas market alone. Now assuming that usage hasn't went down in the US in more then a negligible amount, with Exxon's $11.7 billion profit posted this quarter and forgetting that it makes money in places other then Gasoline sales (about 65 billion gallons of diesel and heating oil in 2007 nation wide )plus natural gas supplies and all, 11.7 billion profit in a quarter at $4.00 a gallon is only about 79% of the market.

Now we know that Exxon doesn't control 79% of the US market. So were did all the extra come from? Well, it isn't a calculation error (even though I rounded some numbers) and it isn't a number error, the 8k sec filing shows us that the US market is a very small portion of Exxon's sales compared to world wide participation. It refined 2,584,000 barrels of liquid product (or 2,584 kbd in case I got my abbreviations wrong) in the second quart in the US where it refined 4,191,000 barrels elsewhere in the world for a total of 6,775,000 (6,775 kbd). And forgetting about all the other areas for profit, Roughly 38% of their profit would be derived from within the US. So if we take 38% of the 11.

The majority of US mobile phone customers are on CDMA, while only TMobile and AT&T are GSM

Only? That is a huge piece of the market. There are only two major carriers on CDMA as well, and their combined market share is not exactly dominant. These are the numbers from about a year ago which don't even take into account the iPhone effect:

AT&T: 27.1%
Verizon: 26.3%
Sprint Nextel: 23.6%
T-Mobile: 11.1%
Others: 11.9%

Here is exactly that. Banks (Bank of America), uploaded, via FTP, customer data to Acxiom, which got stolen and used by spammers. Could have been worse, this guy seems to have thrown away everything he didn't need to send spam. The original investigation was a different gent who accessed customer info while a contract employee at Acxiom.

Attempts were made to make it a legal requirement to notify the public after such a breach, I don't know the status of those laws.

It's the money many press/media outlets have already invested in getting over there and positioning their people to get the best coverage. NBC Sports would continue Olympic coverage even if Chinese soldiers were making a public show of bludgeoning dissidents to death in the street.

It's one thing to broadcast it... it's another thing entirely if no one watches.

I won't be watching, but then NBC (and the other useless US networks) already know I don't watch their programming from reviewing the channel history right off my cable converter box.

Supporting events in China is a no-brainer to fail miserably, especially given the Nielson ratings from Italy in 2006, and declining numbers since 1984.

This years Olympic trial numbers from NYT
2006 numbers from Italy.
Here's an article which details exactly how much money was spent by NBC in Athens (2004), for less than 20% ROI.
An article from 2000 (Summer) shows the olympics averaged 13.3 and Sunday Night Football (in the SUMMER!) got a 10.3.

I think this puts your theories to rest.

How about this: "Gore isn't quite as green as he's led the world to believe"? Between Present Bush and Al Gore guess who's home is more energy efficient... Bush's home. While Gore's home is a gluttony for energy Bush's home is pretty efficient. Bush's home was built to use geothermal energy for heating, though this link says Gore installed such a system in his home. Some get on Bush because he's an oilman however Gore's family has also invested in oil, specifically they invested in Oxy, Occidental Petroleum, and Oxy has threatened a number of native Indian tribes ancestral lands.

Falcon

There's been some great suggestions already.

I have a treadmill as I find running is the best aerobic workout for my body. I got mine off craigslist for $200 and it works really well for me especially during the winter months. This nut job took it a step further and integrated it into his workspace: http://lifehacker.com/software/contest/coolest-workspace-contest--the-treadputer-171537.php and this guy thinks he can make a business out of it: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-06-07-office-fit_x.htm

Weights are just as important as running. You burn more calories just by having more muscle. Don't worry about how big they look just get them toned and stronger and they will burn calories while you're standing in line at the Taqueria.

Riding bicycles is fun and if you're less than 5 miles to your office it may be feasible unless you live in Bangkok.

Calisthenic exercises are easy to do in private and you get the benefit of aerobic and anaerobic at the same time.

Softball is a good excuse to get outside and meet some overweight middle aged guys from the community. Just don't drink all the calories back on after the game.

For me running and weights are the best combination to remain fit but any of the other things that you can do for fun will help out and let you keep eating whatever you want.

I think shareholders with long-term sights certainly should be concerned.

It's fairly well known that companies with their original founder perform better.

Firms, investors tend to prosper with founders at the helm

Founders of a company have a personal stake in the company doing well. In a very real sense, the success of the company is tied to the founder's legacy. Founders have a greater long-term vision as opposed to someone new making short-term changes (e.g. cutting costs by cutting R&D staff) before cashing out.

Who's going to be Apple's messianic genius if he dies? Those aren't easy shoes to fill.

Uh, they want labels on all violent video games which the ESRB has alrady been doing since 1994.

ESRB

And they want parental controls on consoles, which the big 3 already have in their latest systems.

How to update parental controls

Good job New York! Maybe next they can pass legislation to require seat belts in all cars.

Don't forget Illinois which also had a complete cluster of a deregulation attempt. Ohio isn't even at the point of flipping the switch (it looks like we never will due to the experiences elsewhere) but the utilities got an almost 40% hike for the last decade or so in "transition charges"

Andrew Stanton explained the use of live action in this USA Today article. For some things like Hello, Dolly there was no real alternative than using the real footage from the film.

Why is there not so strong a push to get more male ... primary school teachers?

Actually, there is

No, the rule that changed was that to get the write-off your vehicle has to way MORE than 6000 pounds. Way to encourage fuel efficiency, Congress!

http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2002-12-18-suv-tax-break_x.htm

Actually the Bush administtation DID give a tax break on large vehicles to make them more affordable than their actual impact on the world:

"Congress recently passed a tax bill, as proposed in President Bush's economic stimulus plan, that offers a $100,000 tax credit for business owners who purchase any vehicle weighing 6,000 pounds or more when fully loaded.

When Wizinsky's accountant told him about the credit last year, the amount was much less, at $75,000, but it was enough to encourage Wizinsky to trade in his Mercury Marquis for the Excursion.

"It sounded too good to be true," said Wizinsky, a health care consultant in Novi, Mich. "But it was true. So I bought the SUV. For a small company like mine it's a significant credit."

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Hybrid/story?id=97505

http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/int/hummer

http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2002-12-18-suv-tax-break_x.htm

I wouldn't think so. Like I said in another post, I used to work for a company that did outbound campaigns. I had to keep the list up-to-date and also purge the dialing lists of those numbers on the National DNC List. I don't remember the exact number of the fine, but it was pretty large and on a per call basis. Based on this article the per-call fine is $10,000. You'd better be making a HUGE margin on each sale to make up those costs.

Seriously...The Feds squashed Texas for trying to do the same damn thing. This, whether you believe or not, is the real reason it should not be taught in public schools. There's a chain of schools called "Catholic" for a reason - You want your kids to have a decreased affinity for seeking out why the universe works because they simply believe that it does? There's the school chain for you. The general public (and more importantly, the state) is barred from permitting this kind of non-sense.

Now leave the rest of us who have more important work to do alone.

oh and before you try to drone on and on about the ice caps melting it turns out that might be crap too.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/science/cold-science/2002-01-18-wais-thicker.htm

however I am sure your nobel prize wielding moron can somehow rationalize that all of this ice forming is a result of the warmth created by buffalo farts or some such rot.....

He is a politician not a scientist. Moron seems to fit him very nicely keep swallowing.....

Indeed. Video games seem to have taken the place of tabletop roleplaying games as THE NEXT BIG EVIL THAT WILL TURN OUR KIDS INTO PSYCHOPATHS AND AWAY FROM JESUS!!!! It's the same sort of cranks with the same kinds of junk science, badly interpreted or even completely fraudulent statistics and with the same underlying support from the enemies of freedom; the Religious Right.

Wow, I didn't know Hillary was a part of the Religious Right. All this time I thought she was a leftist who is trying to ban the sale of violent video games to children. This is one step closer towards a total ban on video games someone doesn't like. IMO, Hillary is no different than Jack Thompson. Seems to me there is little difference between the right and the left as they both have their share of those who cry "Won't somebody please think of the children?"

BTW, I am a Christian who doesn't support bans on video games.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2006-07-06-new-words_x.htm (google was added two years ago)

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-12-06-complicating-things_x.htm

As a side note, be aware that the majority of people who use online dating sites don't have the courtesy of replying to messages. In the case of women, they use the excuse, "I get so many a day I can't respond to them all!" while in the case of men it's, "Why would I want to talk to that dog?"

It's funny considering that people will claim they're outgoing, friendly and "living every day as if it were my last"*. Apparently friendly and outgoing only apply if you're a model (in the case of women) or George Clooney (in the case of men).

*If this were true, they wouldn't be spending it on a dating site. They would be out doing things that would get them jailed or killed because after all, if it's your last day, what does it matter?

The conventional voting booth (with the curtain) on the other hand prevents vote selling because there is no way for a voter to prove he voted the "right way" to get the money.

When it gets higher taxes it passes the costs on to the consumer.

Maybe, maybe not. If they do, then the consumer will change their behavior. As we are seeing right now with the price of oil.

It don't work for cigarettes either, governments keep raising that sin tax on cigarettes to try and get people to quit smoking so they can be healthier and not die of cancer, but smokers still buy cigarettes even if the price of cigarettes has gone insanely high.

You are utterly wrong. Wrong to the point of negligence. Could you look something up now and then before you run your mouth?

I went to Google and typed in cigarette tax smoking rate study. In about 3 seconds, I found an easy-to-read newspaper article about a study that shows that cigarette taxes are very effective in reducing smoking. Carbon taxes would be similarly effective, but cap-and-trade systems seem to be an adequate substitute.

I guess the Magic Lantern article wasn't enough for you then?

How to legally spy on your employees and Spy cover up

Major employers such as Delta Air Lines and Google have fired employees for what they put on their own blogs. Ellen Simonetti, a Delta flight attendant, says she was fired in October 2004 after she posted pictures of herself in her uniform in suggestive poses on her blog.

"Employees should know that your employer is looking over your shoulder. If they catch you, they're canning you," says Nancy Flynn, executive director of The ePolicy Institute and author of Blog Rules. "You can be fired for anything, even for blogging right at home in your jammies."

Spy software can be used at work or at home to spy on employees and is marketed as so and Boeing used it like that.

That is nothing compared to the amount of passenger's luggage that is lost daily by the airlines.

But still, what kind of moron loses their laptop while traveling? I can't imagine letting it out of my sight or even out of my reach.

That's how it came out at the time. You have to remember that this was at the end of a very expensive war with Iran and that Iraq was very deep in debt and on the brink of economic collapse. A lot has been written about the this.

It's a cute theory and may have been a contributing factor or a means of influencing other Iraqi's but it takes more than an insane whim for these things to happen.

People have made all sorts of accusations about it. But you also have to look at their motivating factors behind what they are saying. Iraq was pissed because Kuwait increased production of oil in order to pay off some of their debt when Iraq was relying on relatively high prices for the time to boost income from their damaged and limited production capacity. I'm not positive but I think the comment about the whores came during a discussion about that problem. It might have been just the straw that broke the camel's back.

As for a contributing factor, you wouldn't really need that in Iraq at the time. Saddam was a dictator that more or less ruled by fear. He didn't need public support primarily because of the way any opposition was handled. Some of his sons were masters at torture and the citizens knew it.

There is a saying that free nations don't invade other free nations. This is primarily true because of the need for public support and justifications in free countries. It is far more likely that problems can and will be solved without violence when both sides are free and democratic. I don't think I can remember one war between free nations that was started by either free nations other then a civil war within a free country. If I'm wrong, correct me. But at least in recent history of the last century or two, it has all involved a dictator of some sorts on one end.

The really bizzare thing is the propaganda has been painting Saddam as Hitler when he compared himself to the possibly worse figure of Stalin

Killing the Kurds didn't help his reputation any. He surrounded himself with people willing to torture others into submission. Now keep in mind, these reports of torture and inhumane treatment came long before the Bush administration set it's eyes on Iraq. I'm talking about previous administrations too. Here is a human rights watch document dated from 1995. Here is one from 1991. I think the problem with comparing him to Hitler instead of Stalin has more to do with the willingness to take other countries by force. Russia basically walked in and in three cases (greece, iran and turkey) walked back out but it was all without violence after WW2 fprming the USSR. Hitler, claimed the same protection of borders but as we know, used violence to effect his wishes.

It could be that the insisting on comparing him to Hitler had more to do with how Hitler more or less started WWII by ignoring it's treaty obligations from WWI's Treaty of Versailles. It is interesting that Mussolini was actually invading other countries before Hitler even became offensive yet Hitler is blamed for starting WWII. Well actually, that is a little misleading because Mussolini officially sent aid to General Franco for the civil war in Spain but some claim that Franco was a puppet of Mussolini. None the less, Heinz Guderian, a captured German general was reported in a book about the war to have said ""If you French had intervened in the Rhineland in 1936 we should have been sunk and Hitler would have fallen"

Hitler himself supposedly said "The forty-eight hours after the march into the Rhineland were the most nerve-racking in my life. If the French had then marc

http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/environment/2008-05-11-hybrids-gas-prices_N.htm

Note that the calculation assumes the cost of fuel is $3.67/gallon. I'm sure our Camry Hybrid, which we average 45mpg in, is going to have a much faster payback when gas is at $5/gallon (I just paid $4.30/gallon the other day; Northern Illinois).

I'm not missing your point. I'm contending that the human view of time is written in our biology, not inculcated by environment. Even extending our lifespans as far as 80 years has caused social issues (verging nearly on serious problems) for young and old alike.

Read this, for example. Now imagine it multiplied by four, say: anyone under the age of 150 can hardly find a job and anyone over the age of 575 spends 100 years as a dying old codger. Or if we have some kind of regeneration/rejuvenation process, just imagine a world in which nobody ever retires without getting massively rich (rich enough to live off investments) first, because with an indefinite lifespan nobody ever stops working.

0-100: CHILDHOOD and ADOLESCENCE. Work odd jobs, retail, burger shops, internships.
100-200: FIRST CAREER. I'll assume that 100 years is long enough for entire professional fields to rise and fall in prominence.
200-300: SECOND CAREER. Same as the first career. With the savings from the first career, start a family.

And so on and so forth. Indefinitely. Forever. Just loads of people doing the same things over and over and over and over and over and over and over. That's the world without mortality.

That was so last century. Now the Chinese simply use their snazzy new mobile execution units.

If we took 10% of our defense budget and put it into education I believe we would solve a lot of our problems.
The general population wouldn't be as xenophobic, thus less willing to go after the "evil doers" as our current leader labels them.

George Bush has actually increased federal educational spending by more than any US President since Lyndon Johnson.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-04-02-federal-spending-inside_x.htm

And I wouldn't call Americans Xenophobic when the overwhelming majority of Americans are in favor of legal immigration. It's really only the unions and the cultural right wing that are against even illegal immigration.

You know about the "donut effect" - suburbs around an urban core? An exburb is the area outside a suburb, usually developed because land is cheap, not because it's a practical commute to anywhere. Some exburbs become town centers in their own right, others die off and are abandonned, and still others slowly sink into decrepitude.

There are a lot of McMansions in exburbs; combine the rising house payments, the gas-guzzling SUV financed via a HELOC, the long commute times, the lack of a local commercial base, $5-$6/gallon gas, and you'll see why the "ex" is so appropriate.

If you doubt, check this out

Millions in U.S. face energy shutoff

NEW YORK, April 25 (UPI) -- Large numbers of Americans face the prospect of energy shutoffs during the coming months because of rising energy prices and stagnant wages, officials said. Millions of U.S. consumers are behind on paying their utility bills following a winter in which many struggled to cover the increasing cost of heating their homes, The New York Times (NYSE:NYT) reported Friday, citing energy and utilities officials. The cost of heating oil, propane and kerosene is the biggest problem, officials told the newspaper, but natural gas and electricity prices are also a problem for workers at the lower end of the income scale, who are also struggling with higher prices for food and gasoline.

... and here

An NEADA survey this month shows 8% of four-member households earning $33,500 to $55,500 have had their power turned off for non-payment. "It's hitting people in the suburbs with two cars and two kids," Wolfe says.

The disconnects are rising as warm-weather power bills increase, some state moratoriums on winter shutoffs expire, and rates are climbing in many states.

...

In Michigan, where home foreclosures are soaring and the unemployment rate is the USA's highest, more than one in five Detroit Edison customers were behind in their electric bills in May.

We'e talking about the proverbial family with 2 parents and a cuple of kids. 20%. And once you fall behind, its harder to dig yourself out.

After claiming to be against immunity and against this bill, will Obama actually show up and participate in the voting? Or is he "too busy campaigning?"

Oh, wait. He supports the bill now. Can't you just fell the change we can believe in?

And on that first question, apparently Obama is currently campaigning in Las Vegas, although given the second point, maybe that's just as well.