The old Mercury Mountaineer is still my main ride. I think the mileage is getting worse, or maybe it just seems that way because the price of gas keeps going up.
Whatever it is, I'm still dreaming of getting my GM Chevy Volt.  I know GM has some large sunk costs into the Volt electric car, but I'm having trouble overcoming two issues:

First, the cost.  For me as a consumer, the cost is about $10,000 out of reach. I know that there are tax rebates, but... it feels like they've jacked up the price of the car so that they are effectively usurping the rebate.  I know... billions in sunk costs, yadda yadda.  But  I have a family to feed, a mortgage to pay.  Before I can drive a Chevy Volt, I first need to afford one.  And right now, as badly I as I want one, I can't afford it.

Second, there is the uncertainty over the battery. I understand it will cost more than $10,000 to replace the battery if something happens to it.  Eventually, it will need to be replaced.  So that cost is out there no matter what. I wish I could amortize the cost of the replacement battery, perhaps by buying a warranty of some kind.  For a car as expensive as the Chevy Volt, this is an extra cost burden I'm not excited to bear.

Random...
Started using Lockbin email encryption service today. My job requires that I trade sensitive information with another party, and I'm bound to protect it. Lockbin is the easiest, best way I've found so far to send documents securely without a huge cost or complex key exchange involved. Check out Lockbin.

Meanwhile, life here goes on. I'm stuck driving my gas guzzler for now, but I'm hoping the Chevy Volt will eventually reach some kind of threshold where it makes sense for GM to sell it for about $30k.

Mitt Romney earns "not very much" from speaker's fees: $374,327.62.

It is unbelievable just how out of touch Mitt Romney is with ordinary Americans. The guy doesn't have a clue what middle and working classes are going through.  With Romney, money is just an afterthought. Truly, he doesn't have a fucking clue.

The New York Times reported Romney earned $374,327.62 in speakers’ fees from February of 2010 to February of 2011, at an average of $41,592 per speech.

“And then I get speakers’ fees from time to time, but not very much," said Romey.

Read it here.

$375k is just a piddly little inconvenience to one of the richest men to run for any office in America. I'm not prepared to trust my future and my children's future to a guy who is so far out of touch with the values of 99% of Americans.

You can wrap a pig in denim, but that doesn't make him a working class pig.