In response to viking427, I have the commercial Honda. It came with their "Micro-cut" blade system, which is 2 stacked blades. The top is basically flat, and the bottom has a fairly wide paddle shape with what I would say is pretty good lift. I've found a gator type blade by Oregon,and tried that too. It has to be used alone,with a spacer as the creases/bends in Honda's upper blade won't allow the 2 to fit flat together. The standing grass blade issue has existed since it was new, and grass free. Honda denies any issues, other than the pasty clumps you mentioned. They sent me a spacer to use in place of the upper blade, which also gave the same results. I've figured out how to increase the full throttle rpm a little, but I still see blades left uncut. Just can't figure out the cause. This has the BBC, so it is rather difficult to find non Honda blades whose holes are spaced the correct distance for this mower. Any other suggestions for non OEM hi-lift blades, or fixes? Thanks to all for your input.

DH just informed me that he learned while watching the Congressional Hearings on the auto industry that the auto industry's current debt is also heavily leveraged by credit defaut swaps. So if they go under and stop paying off their debt, we can expect another round of financial industry failures. Why not just keep them in business and let them pay off their debts? Why bail out the financial industry again when they produce nothing material? jkom51: I believe that Buick is the luxury car of choice in China, a huge emerging market. I agree that the Big Three need to get rid of their airline fleets. So shoul all the other business bailed out by the government. In doing a search on "Corporate Jets," I came across a story from 2005 that talked about executives being required to use the coporate jet when on personal travel! "Citigroup's proxy says it spent $309,783 for personal "company transportation" for Chairman Sandy Weill, $108,208 for CEO Chuck Prince and $459,153 for executive committee chair Robert Rubin. Citigroup doesn't break out personal expenses for planes or ground transport." And Jack Welsh, the rumored new Auto Czar: "After reports of heavy personal plane use among disgraced CEOs and negative PR heaped upon former General Electric CEO Jack Welch over his post-retirement use of company jets, "Culturally, you don't want to send a message to the market, employees or customers that CEOs are treated preferentially," notes compensation specialist Mike Kesner of Deloitte Consulting." Yikes! He used the coporate jet after retirement, and he is going to be the guy who gets the Big Three to be frugal? But realistically, here is basic info on coporate jet use from Wikipedia: "There are approximately 11,000 business jets in the worldwide fleet with the vast majority of them based in the United States or owned by US companies. The European market is the next largest, with growing activity in Asia and Central America. There is a pre-owned marketplace in which aircraft are bought and sold based on their immediate deliverability because new aircraft orders often take two to three years for delivery."

Mombondo, my best friend's first car was a red 1960-something Plymouth. My second car (first new off the lot car) was a 1971 Toyota Corona Mark II (payment $68.90/mo) The car my DH owned when we got married was a 1968 Grand Torino (which we had no problems with but still are not Ford fans) Jodi-

I love it!!! I agree with toni about the UAW. I'm sure most people would love to get paid 90% of their salary & be laid off! The auto makers have been wasting tons of money for years by bowing to the demands of the UAW. Many other people in this country have to plan for their own retirements & do not have company-funded pensions. They also have to pay for at least some of the healthcare premiums & care for themselves & their families. I don't know the details, but I've read that they also pay healthcare & pension benefits to surviving spouses. Why can't they do what the rest of us do - get a life insurance policy on our spouse? For most people a layoff means collecting whatever amount of unemployment your state pays (I know in my state it's not even closed to 90% of your salary) & for many it means losing your health benefits or having to pay much more to get on your spouse's policy or use COBRA. Sorry, but there's not much downside to a layoff when you're still getting paid most of your salary & your health & other benefits continue. Most people can adjust to a 10% pay cut. I believe they did agree to temporarily suspend the jobs bank in order to get the bailout money. There were several thousand workers who were part of this. "Laying off" people when you have to continue to pay them salary & benefits is no savings to the company. Based on news reports of some of the average hourly wages of these union members, they could afford to help pay for some of their benefits. The rest of us do, often on less than what these people make. It is time for people to start being responsible for themselves & thinking that employers should provide everything. DH & I are putting away money into our 401k's & our health ins. is only partly paid by our employers. We would love to have that money every month to use for something else. But we need to prepare for our future, so we do the responsible thing. I think that restructuring under bankruptcy would have been better for the automakers. I do worry about the jobs & the effect on the economy, especially right now. But most of those jobs could have probably been saved under bankruptcy. It would have given them a chance to get rid of those ridiculous union contracts. The union executives act like royalty & waste tons of the unions' money. The people I feel really sorry sorry for are those like marlingardener's husband - the ones who work in support industries but aren't protected by a union & will really have to struggle if their company goes under.