Before you buy your next flat-screen TV, let's think about the future of television for a minute.

Odds are, you're going to be getting it through your computer. Whether it's Hulu.com, Netflix, another Internet subscription or a la carte payment per show through the networks themselves, your computer is going to be your hub for televised entertainment.

So, you could route your computer to display the picture on your HD TV, but that expensive TV is now just serving as a monitor. There's no real need for most of the costly electronic components that come with it. Your computer is serving that purpose.

You just need a rectangle. So wouldn't hooking an HD projector up to your computer mean a much bigger picture for a much lower investment?

Why not?

If people were covered in oil right now rather than animals, do you think we'd be seeing the mass floods of busing down to the Gulf to help to aid in the recovery like we saw in Katrina?

It's actually a valuable lesson. Because the net devastation in the Gulf is probably economically comparable to Katrina. Yet, it's harder to understand indirect costs.

In order to get attention, you need to visualize it. Drench a baby in oil and watch a whole new wave of sympathy come flooding in.