The same old scare tactic on Social Security

My recollection of this Democrat tactic around election time goes back more than 40 years--they've used it for at least that long.

Obama must be running out of stuff to say.

Thank goodness I don't actually have to watch and listen as he says it. The summary on the White House site says enough:

Your Weekly Address
President Barack Obama intends to publish a weekly video address every Saturday morning of his presidency.
· Weekly Address: Honoring Social Security, Not Privatizing It
On the 75th anniversary of Social Security, President Obama promises to protect it from Republican leaders in Congress who have made privatization a key part of their agenda. He makes clear that, especially in light of the financial crisis, gambling Social Security on Wall Street makes no sense.

One way or another the younger folks in America have to begin saving and investing for their own retirements. They will probably be paying quite a bit to provide the funding needed to keep the promises made to older folks by politicians elected by those older folks. Whatever they have left over needs to go into personal savings and investments, because there is so little probability that the Social Security funding model can work when there are so few young workers to support each older retired person.

Promising to "protect" Social Security by continuing to rely on this obsolete funding scheme is a promise to leave the younger folks in the lurch when they reach retirement age.

Running on fumes

A fascinating possibility is reported by the Telegraph:

The researchers found that, when deprived of the oxygen and nitrogen from which it made ammonia and given carbon monoxide instead, vanadium nitrogenase automatically started using it to produce short carbon chains, two or three atoms long.
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Cars produce carbon monoxide in their exhausts through incomplete combustion, so in the not too distant future, it might be possible partly to fuel cars off their own fumes.