When we were in Illinois in early January, we drove past several billboards like the one above.

I was annoyed.

I think it's great to work toward a world of less pollution, lower energy bills, and more efficient sources of energy. But I was annoyed to see the sign that essentially stated two false ideas:

1. Global warming is the only issue. Really? What about

• AIDS in Africa,
  
• people dying of preventable or curable diseases like Malaria,
  
• people dying from dirty drinking water,
  
• persecution based on religious belief in China,
  
• genocide in Sudan,
• and oppression of the Dalits in India?

This is by far not an exhaustive list.

All of these are killing people today. Global warming is unique on a list like this - it's not killing anyone today. If we fight these other things, we'll be saving people's lives today.

2. If you don't both believe what we tell you AND do what we say, you're doing absolutely nothing, you're wrong, and you're probably stupid.

Yes, it does sound like a cult when you think about it. We're being told that we're not allowed to question, not allowed to think, not allowed to ask. In order to avoid being stupid, you have to check your brain at the door and just follow what Al Gore and others say.

Perhaps a time is coming where critical thinkers are completely unwelcome in our society.

Instead of requiring that everyone place their faith in, and live in accordance to an apocalyptic vision based on the theory of global warming, we should be taking care of the planet because we hate the effect pollution has today, and we should be putting our time and money into saving lives rather than buying a different brand of lightbulbs.

In other news, the global temperature has plummeted in the last 12 months, in the "the single fastest temperature change ever recorded" [source]

I'm working late and am watching C-SPAN as I finish up work for the day. Senator Carl Levin (I only know because his name is on the screen) is talking about the horrible state of the military. He just said that only 50% of new recruits are scoring above average on the entry aptitude test.

That sounded pretty bad... but then aga, isn't that what average means? Shouldn't it work out that 50% are above average and 50% below?

(As always, this post is personal opinion only, and not paid for by anyone.)

Ok, maybe not everything is cheaper online, but most things.

Most major online retailers have affiliate programs - if you send a visitor from your website to their store, and a purchase is made, they'll give you a percentage of the purchase price.

A few websites will give you some or all of that cash. I'll mention 2 today, that I use.

• Ebates - Tons of stores, great rates, and they automatically send you your cash quarterly. To date I've gotten $127 cash back in the last few years by using Ebates.com. Ebates is also a great source for coupons - search for a product or a store, and see what web coupons are available.
  
  Some sites for cashback from ebates: Buy.com, Old Navy, Barnes & Noble, Babies R Us...
  
  Sign up and you'll get $10 for free!
  

• ExtraBux - Extrabux does essentially the same thing, but with different cashback rates and some different stores. I bought Rosetta Stone language-learning software and am getting 12% cash back! Instead of paying quarterly, they hold each purchases' cashback for so many days, after which you can get a payout.
  
  Some sites for cash back from extrabux: Ebay, Walmart, priceine, skype, Best Buy, iTunes!
  
  Sign up for extrabux for cash back.
  

Both Internet Explorer and Firefox memorize what you type into forms. This is based on the name of the form field, what you type for "email" on one form will be saved and shown to you next time you're filling in another "email" field. "email" and "e-mail" would be memorized separately, so that's why sometimes you'll see options, but not other times.

Every day I'm reminded of all the typos I've made in website forms because my browser memorized it and never forgets!

Finally I figured it out by several web searches. When you're filling out a form and see things memorized that you don't want to show up again, hit the down arrow until the option is highlighted. Hit shift+delete and the item will be deleted.

This also works for the auto-complete in the Address bar when you're typing in a website address.