While it seems, for now, we’re no longer in danger of the U.S. dollar losing its status as the global reserve currency (thanks to those socialist nutjobs in Greece), we’re not out of the woods yet. That’s because English (or more generally, the Latin alphabet) is no longer the king of the hill for the internet. That’s right, we no longer own the internet!

ICANN, the governing body that doles out domain names, has begun issuing domains using the Arabic alphabet! Yep. I’m serious.

Now, I’ve got no problem with folks having domains in their own language using their own alphabet. But just you wait. I predict it will be less than a month before some clown finds some characters in a foreign alphabet that look like smiley faces or flowers or music notes and gets a domain name like “www.♠Cool♥Online♦Poker♣.com”.

And I’m pretty sure that’s one of the signs of the Apocalypse.

The “Big Three” are back in D.C. today, begging for more of your money. This time, they “humbled” themselves by driving the 8 hours from Detroit. Purely symbolic, playing to the media, don’t buy it.

There are lots of reasons that the US auto industry is a mess. First and formost is that their products suck. If you can’t compete with quality products in any industry, you’re not going to make money.

The other huge contributor is the UAW. Unions are a good thing when they do their job which is to protect workers from abuse and corruption. Their job is NOT to insure retardedly high wages and benefits that drive the company out of business. That’s what the UAW has done.

Good Morning America this morning, in their usual doom-and-gloom, the sky is falling, fright-fest, featured two people who lost their jobs last week. One was a office admin from a failed financial firm. She’s a single mom and can’t make ends meet with her unemployment check alone.

The other was a GM assembly line worker who, between is unemployment check and his UAW benefits, brings home more money, while unemployed, than my wife does from her full time job. That is, this guy (I lost by UAW protected job. Boo hoo hoo.) is pulling down MORE than many hard working, full-time employed Americans. Gee, I wonder how in the world, GM could be hemorrhaging money.

So what do you think? Should the Big Three get billions of dollars of our money?

The gas crunch is here and all the signs seem to indicate it’ll be here for a while.

What can I say? We’re spoiled here. Travel by car is as much a part of the American culture as TV and fast food. There can be no question that America can not function “as usual” without affordable fossil fuels. So what’s the answer?

Artificially lowering the cost of fuel is a pipe-dream. It would require massive government intervention and the free-market crowd (who has a *lot* of power in Washington) just wouldn’t stand for it. Aside from that, I’m not even sure the government would be able to do much in reality. The cost of regulation, the bureaucracy, the inevitable foul play, I just don’t think it would work. Think prohibition. There are some powers greater than the government.

So if you can’t “make” gas affordable, the only other option is to change our culture. That is to say, we need an alternative to driving our cars. (Yes, I know. It’s the tree huggers’ dream come true and I hate it, but it’s true.)

Mass transit is great when you’ve got 8 million people living on top of each other in a tiny area, a la New York City. But if you live in a more “rural” setting like Amarillo, or Colorado Springs, or even in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, that’s just not a viable option. Yes there are buses and trains in a few parts of DFW, but where I live (North Richland Hills) and where I work (Grapevine) there’s nothing.

Yes, I can and do ride my bike. But I’m one of the blessed few who has that option. I live eight miles from work. (Some of my coworkers drive 100 miles a day.) I’m healthy. (I know lots of people who couldn’t ride two miles, much less eight.) I don’t have to carry anything to or from work. (Imagine riding a bike with a laptop bag hanging from your arm.) I don’t have to wear business clothes. (Riding a bike in a suit? Or worse, a pant suit and heals?! Riiight.) There are any number of reasons why biking won’t work for most people. And even I don’t ride as often as I should because of heat or wind or being a wuss.

Another possible culture shift is in the hands of our employers. The five day, forty hour work week is something we all take for granted. But some employers (including mine) are willing to change. Many companies are offering employees the option of working ten hours a day for four days. You still get your forty hours of work, but you save 20% of your commuting costs. Alt-N has made this arrangement with our customer and technical support folks. The call center will still be open five days a week, but every day some folks will stay home. For parents, this not only saves on gas. It saves on daycare and gives them an extra day to be with their kids, especially during the summer.

Also more companies are willing to let their employees telecommute. Alt-N has offered this for years, but now more folks are being encouraged to stay home and work remotely. This is the option I’m considering. The only thing holding me back is that I’m spoiled at work with two 20 inch flat screen monitors and a fast PC. Working from home means working on my own machine with my single 19 inch CRT. At least until I can convince the bosses to set me up with a hot rod laptop docked to a couple of flat panels. *wink*

So, faithful readers, what changes have you made? What are you considering? What are the lines you will not cross? I’ve set up a poll to gather some basics, but tell us more! The comment section awaits.

This weekend, we got our first damaged, unplayable DVD from NetFlix. That’s pretty good. Out of a couple dozen DVDs sent to us in unprotected paper envelopes, only one has showed up cracked. I’ve also watched several movies online and watched all of the available episodes of “The Office”, both Brit and Yank. I’d have to say, I really like NetFlix.

It got me thinking. How do you get your movie fix? C’mon all you lurkers out there. I want to see some votes from people other than Ghosty and David. I’ve seen the logs. I know you’re there. Speak up!

(Intercepting your comments ahead of time:) Yes, Ghosty and David. You can still vote too.

There’s been some chatter in the news lately about this Puerto Rican ex-convict who’s gotten rich through blasphemy. An Orlando TV station did a short piece on him, including a video and a slide show.

His web site is in Spanish and has only a small English section. But using Google’s translator, I was able to read a little bit of the site. Essentially, the guy claims to be God incarnate and that his teachings “replace” those of Jesus Christ. His followers joyfully display “666”, the mark of the beast mentioned in Revelation, some even getting it tattooed on their wrists.

It’s amazing to me the lengths to which people we go in order to feel religious, or included, even when ten minutes worth of reading would defeat the whole premise on which they are hanging their spiritual well-being.

I often feel that the success of cults like this shines a spot-light on the fact that the modern Christian church does such a bad job of reaching out to people who are looking for an answer. But I could be wrong. What do you think?

I’d nearly forgotten about my new poll feature! So, let me know how you really feel.

I have discovered a new toy! I just created an account for myself at PollHost.com. So, I’m thinkin’ about doing a monthly poll. Weeee!

See what you think. If I get enough response from this first poll, I’ll do more later.