Broadband Nation: So how's your broadband speed? Don't have broadband? Then you're probably not reading this, takes too long to do any real work with dial up.

Did you know that in Japan nearly every home is wired with a broadband connection? The cost? Only about $22 dollars per household. What are you paying?

And speed? In Japan broadband delivers speeds on the average of 16 times faster than in the U.S. How come? It's called national priorities. Before the Bushites entered office, the U.S. was among the world's leaders in connectivity. Now we rank at the bottom among industrialized nations. We've been busy searching for WMDAs in Iraq and fighting to get ten right wing judges into America's courtrooms. And then there was poor Terri Schiavo to politicize.

The Economy: Friday's downturn in the stockmarket topped off the worst week on Wall Street since election day. Consumers, for a change, are acting responsibly, according to one Citigroup exec; they're paying down credit card debt and limitting their gambling habits on The Street.

Speculation now surrounds the adverse effects that the high oil prices will have on the economy. In addition to higher gasoline prices affecting consumer behavior, the price of moving anything around the country is going up, and everything has to be shipped. Then there are heating and cooling considerations.