Well, here’s the latest and greatest:  The Sony Classics film, "Who Killed the Electric Car? ":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F

The film covers the GM car called the EV1, of which about 1000 were sold and driven from 1997 to 2003… They were owned by many VIP’s including Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks and Alexandra Paul of Baywatch fame.

In 2003, they were repossessed by GM and crushed .   …The vehicles had plenty of power and would drive 110 - 160 miles on a charge… for the equivalent of of $0.60 / gallon (!!!)

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=who%20killed%20the%20electric%20car&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wv#

As a CPA, let’s take a look at some numerical comparisons:

Enlarge Image President-elect Bush vows that "together, we can put the triumphs of the recent past behind us."

"My fellow Americans," Bush said, "at long last, we have reached the end of the dark period in American history that will come to be known as the Clinton Era, eight long years characterized by unprecedented economic expansion, a sharp decrease in crime, and sustained peace overseas. The time has come to put all of that behind us."

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28784

In this case, $19 Billion of its deposits are insured by FDIC and will be recoverable by depositors… About 5%, however was not.  Those investors are out of luck on about $1 Billion of their deposits.
(CNN) — IndyMac Bank, closed Friday by federal regulators, will reopen Monday with a new charter and a new name — IndyMac Federal Bank.

Analysts fear thousands of IndyMac customers could lose as much as $500 million.

Customers who found locked doors and armed guards Friday afternoon could use ATM cards over the weekend to get to their money, but an estimated 5 percent of the $19 billion deposited in the bank was not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

Indymac’s failure, which the FDIC chairman said could add up to be the most expensive U.S. bank failure ever, came as the FDIC’s list of "problem" institutions is on the rise.

The FDIC disclosed last month that it was closely watching 90 financial institutions on its "problem list," up from 76 in the first quarter of 2008. The total assets of "problem" institutions rose from $22.2 billion to $26.3 billion, the FDIC said.

The number of troubled institutions monitored by the FDIC has grown in each of the last six quarters, starting in the fall of 2006 when there were just 47 on the list, the agency said. The last time it approached this level was in the fall of 2004 when the number was 95.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/07/13/indymac/

Medical staff help a boy injured in Sunday’s attack

A US air strike in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday killed 47 civilians, 39 of them women and children, an Afghan government investigating team says.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7501538.stm

For more than two decades, Washington officials have expressed faith that financial markets were best left alone to regulate themselves. But that faith has been shaken by the collapse of the investment bank Bear Stearns, and a growing number of officials are calling for tougher government regulation. On Tuesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke joined the chorus.

Read more:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/43476.html

The Onion:

WASHINGTON, DC—In his State of the Union address to the nation last night, President Bush announced a new cabinet-level position to coordinate all current and future scandals facing his party.

Enlarge Image President Bush announces his plan to manage the numerous scandals of his administration.

“Tonight, by executive order, I am creating a permanent department with a vital mission: to ensure that the political scandals, underhanded dealings, and outright criminal activities of this administration are handled in a professional and orderly fashion,” Bush said.

The centerpiece of Bush’s plan is the Department Of Corruption, Bribery, And Incompetence, which will centralize duties now dispersed throughout the entire D.C.-area political establishment.

The Scandal Secretary will log all wiretaps and complaints of prisoner abuse, coordinate paid-propaganda efforts, eliminate redundant payoffs and bribes, oversee the appointment of unqualified political donors to head watchdog agencies, control all leaks and other high-level security breaches, and oversee the disappearance of Iraq reconstruction funds. He will also be responsible for issuing all official denials that laws have been broken.

<Click for More>

From MSN.com. My Favorite:

The security we profess to seek in foreign adventures we will lose in our decaying cities. — Dr. Martin Luther King… [Referring to U.S. Vietnam policy.] Address at Riverside Church, New York. (Source: History Today, April 1998)

http://spotlight.encarta.msn.com/Features/encnet_Features_Lists_default_article_MLKQuotations.html?GT1=10789

A major bailout… Rumors are that special terms include the Fed will provide guarantees on Countrywide’s loan portfolio.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080111/ap_on_bi_ge/countrywide;_ylt=AhARySvLuah3KGgzoZdY6A4DW7oF

BEIJING (Reuters) - More than 100,000 Chinese died in workplace accidents last year, including on the roads and railways, but the figure was down one-tenth on 2006, a senior official said on Friday.

Li Yizhong, head of the State Administration of Work Safety, said 101,480 people died but that government education and publicity campaigns were paying off.

“The national production safety situation continues to steadily improve,” he told a national meeting, carried live on central government Web site http://www.gov.cn.

Accidents in coal mines and on the roads showed the largest improvement, Li added.

China’s coal mines are the world’s deadliest, with fatal accidents taking place almost on a daily basis as mine owners push productions beyond safety limits to pursue profits.

Li said many problems remained.

“One is that the implementation and propagation of the concept of safe development and of safe production policies is not deep enough,” he said. “The work of some localities and work units is still superficial.”

Supervision and safety inspections were carried out unevenly, Li added.

“The results have not been consolidated, and there can easily be localized rebounds,” he said. “It will be hard to maintain the downward trend in 2008.”

Last year’s death toll was still unacceptably high, added Zhou Yongkang, the former head of public security who was raised to the Politburo Standing Committee in October, the Communist Party’s most senior group of leaders.

“It ought to be said that 100,000 people dying in accidents every year is a serious social problem,” he said.

Natural disasters including floods, landslides and lightning strikes also took their toll last year, killing 2,325 people, the Ministry of Civil Affairs added.

More than 1.46 million houses were destroyed and 48.67 million hectares of arable land affected, the ministry added in a statement on its Web site (http://www.mca.gov.cn).

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie and Alex Richardson)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080111/wl_nm/china_accidents_dc;_ylt=AvxUBk3yyBHFxCjE04cx16EDW7oF