Following orders Aug 17, 2011
Jon Ronson, in his book The Men Who Stare At Goats, mentioned a little about how the soldiers involved in the Abu Ghraib fiasco explained their behavior by saying they were just following orders.  Technically this is a true statement, which makes it seem like a legitimate excuse.  But Ronson points to a movie about the life of Martin Luther and his struggle against the hypocrisy of the Catholic church:  "The moral of Martin Luther is that the individual cannot hide behind the institution."  This reminded me of a haunting scene from an X-Men movie where Magneto dismisses Charles Xavier's explanation for humanity's violence toward mutants as "they're just following orders" with a flashback to his childhood in a Nazi concentration camp where the soldiers used the same excuse.  Ouch.  Personal responsibility trumps following orders. #psychology
Ford Transit Connect Aug 17, 2011
The Ford Transit Connect is that small white truck/van concoction that seems to be all the rage for small businesses and tradespeople.  Quite simply, it's butt ugly.  It doesn't look like it has much storage space, gets mediocre gas mileage, and its triangular design makes it look like it teleported from 1974.  What I don't understand is how car companies intentionally make ugly vehicles, and how they convince people to buy them.  Some vehicles are ugly but acceptable, like the Honda Element (which could be described as "unique") or the Scion xB (which could be described as "cute").  But the Transit Connect is just plain ugly.  You can't put it another way.  There must be some sort of financial incentive or tax break involved, because otherwise this vehicle shouldn't even exist. #travel
Perception of government benefits Aug 17, 2011
A somewhat recent study showed that more than 25% of people who receive food stamps don't believe they receive any assistance from the government.  Almost 40% of Medicare recipients are in the same boat, as well as almost 30% with Social Security. 

Lumped into those statistics are people who don't believe their mortgage interest tax deduction is a government benefit (60%) and people who receive federally-backed student loans (53%).  I don't think real-cash-money from the government in the form of food stamps and health care should be in the same category as paying lower taxes and receiving low interest rates.  Here's a good take on that: 
A 529 program is not a government program like food stamps, it is the absence of a government tax ... People who use 529 programs and who think that they have not used a government social program are not willfully ignorant, they are demonstrating a healthy if fading appreciation of the distinction between civil society and government.  What Rampell et al. implicitly imagine is that the natural state is slavery and any departure from that state a government benefit. Thus, if the government taxes your saving for a college education less than your other savings, you should be grateful for how government has benefited you and your children. And if the government doesn’t jail you today, you should be grateful for how government has granted you the benefit of liberty. This is the attitude of a serf not an American.
#money