The government's four month program to give up to $4,500 to every person who trades in their 'clunker' for a more fuel efficient vehicle has run out of money in about a week.  If you're planning to take advantage of the program, don't worry.  Congress looks to be close to throwing another $2 billion at it this week.

By the way, do you know what gets done with all those clunkers that auto dealers take back from customers?  Dealers have to pour sodium silicate in every engine and run it until the engine is forever ruined. No matter if the vehicle was 1 or 21 years old - no exceptions.

So, tilt your head, close your eyes, and try to wrap your mind around the sometimes convoluted thinking of government lawmakers: the environmental benefits of eliminating the emissions these clunkers will have put into the atmosphere have a higher moral value than the premature conversion of roughly a million vehicles to scrap that could have been used for a number of useful, even practical, purposes (i.e., charities here in the U.S., even exporting them to poor nations).

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