Thankfully, the Republican party, for all its failings in the last few years, has still some concept of fundamental principles of economics. The Senate blocked a windfall profits tax on oil companies, a tax much like many of the taxes that prolonged the Great Depression in America long past its end elsewhere. Thank goodness for small blessings.
A Backup Solution that Works on Vista
I detailed here the problems I had trying to craft a script-based backup solution using vshadow and robocopy. I never did figure it out, even after a BIOS upgrade and hours and hours on various forums. I ended up downloading a trial of SyncBack SE, which has worked very well so far, even with open files like Outlook PST files. I am not thrilled about having to go with a commercial solution, but I have to say it is pretty cool and convenient.
(Hat tip to Brian Hinkle.)