Detroit

If you need reminding why the moribund and innovation bereft Detroit auto industry is teetering on the brink of collapse, here's a primer from the 1980s courtesy of General Motors and the Pontiac 6000. It just sums it all up perfectly, doesn't it?

Michael Moore was a recent guest on Larry King talking about the auto bailout. Moore's terrific documentary, "Roger & Me," targeted the auto companies in 1989 while they closed plants and laid off workers. Moore tells Larry King that in the movie when the GM representative said that 30,000 people could be laid off in Flint, he thought it was a joke. Years later, it came true. Moore says he's conflicted, as many of us are, about what to do. He doesn't have any confidence in the leaders of this industry.

Moore doesn't want to see the loss of more jobs in the US auto industry.

Great article from the Wall Street Journal's Paul Ingrassia that summarizes how and why the US auto industry fell to pieces. My favorite part was this telling excerpt:

In Detroit, amid worker alienation and the "blue-collar blues," Chevies, Fords and Plymouths rattled, rusted and rolled over -- and those were the good ones. The Ford Pinto's gas tank was prone to explode into flames when the car was hit from the rear, making the Pinto the poster product for corporate callousness.

Last week, the U.S. Senate passed a bill, the Federal Railroad Safety Improvement Act, that President Bush says he'll sign [though the margin of yeas to nays - 74 to 24 including yeas from both Illinois Senators Obama and Durbin - made the bill veto-proof] that will send $13.1 billion in funding to Amtrak over the next five years.

Brownlee was just so impressed with his little iPhone app, PhotoSwap. You should have seen him bouncing around the BBG offices, squealing and micturating in excitement like a vertiginous lemonade junkie strapped to a carnival Brain Scrambler.

"Look, Marvin!" he literally ejaculated. I hate this guy.