A life spent stranded in Los Angeles traffic can nonetheless yield its epiphanies. One such moment came in November 2008, when L.A. County's beleaguered commuters voted to increase their sales tax by half a cent over the next 30 years to build an electric rail system that could speed their journeys and clean their air.

Now, Los Angeles is asking Washington for loans -- not grants, mind you -- to be repaid with that sales tax revenue, to accelerate said construction so that it can be done in one decade rather than three. In other words, to help finance a major environmental and stimulus program that won't add to the federal deficit. It's an idea so novel that Washington's initial reaction was befuddlement.

"You would have to be stupid. You would have to trip to not succeed at this at some point."

Those words may come back to haunt the former Bebo chief Joanna Shields, now that rumors are circulating that the social network is about to be dropped like a hot potato.

Back when AOL bought Bebo for $850 million, I was already speculating that the social network had slipped from its valuation high of $1.5 billion. Now it appears that the social network has lost users-down from 22 million a month to 14.6 million-and with it, it's value to AOL.

What's interesting is the predicament facing AOL. Due to some complex tax laws, it may actually make better financial sense for AOL to just shut Bebo down

Everyone's doing it.

And by everyone, we mean over 45 million Americans, including Earl. See that girl at the corner, waiting for the stop light to turn green? She's doing it. And that guy in the bank carrying a helmet? He's certainly experimenting. Thousands of Americans age 18-30 are doing it every week.

The Writers Guild of America, west (WGAw) and the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) have announced the 101 Greatest Screenplays of all time - as voted on by members of the Writers Guilds, west and East.

"This list and the films on it are meant to be scrutinized and criticized, dissected and collected, viewed and reviewed," said WGAw President Patric M. Verrone. "They are the literature of our industry and the legacy of our union."

The number of millionaires in the United States jumped by 16 percent last year after slumping by 27 percent in 2008, a report released Tuesday shows.

Last year, some 7.8 million US households had a million dollars or more in investable assets -- not counting capital invested in their primary residence, the report by the Spectrem Group shows.

That was up by 1.1 million from the year before, when the number of US millionaires fell to its lowest point since 2003, hitting 6.7 million as the US economy stumbled.