I came across this earlier this morning, and am only just getting to post on it now.  Just read the WIRED item.

Isn't innovation great?

I'm personally angling for one of these, I'll be honest.  Though it has been suggested to me that with the bumper-to-bumper traffic one gets in the Washington, DC, area, a hybrid of some sort might be a better buy. [intro]

(Full disclosure: one of my clients is the Auto Alliance).

Today, there have been (probably) thousands of tea parties taking place across the country, including the one right here in Washington, DC, which I, admittedly, did not personally attend. They've been the subject of some pretty hot emotions, too, and a lot of charges being flung about. From the left, there's been a sustained barrage of talking-point-compliant, on-message claims that tea parties aren't "grassroots-y" at all, and that they're "astroturf-y," and a top-down project of any or all of CNBC, Fox News, the Republican Party as an organized entity, FreedomWorks, and/or Newt Gingrich (I'm probably missing a few out). From the right, we hear sustained replies that the tea parties are, in fact, the result of purely grassroots, organic activity. Who's right? Well, irrespective of what you may think of the tea parties, the people who frequent them, or the underlying objections being raised by tea party attendees, the simple fact is that the people who are claiming this is all the product of some top-down organized astroturf effort are talking out of their rear ends and need to do some homework....

Longtime readers know I'm not a taxes girl. I'm a spending girl. As in, if I'm asked to pick which irks me more, on balance, high spending or high taxes, I'll say high spending a good 8 times out of 10.

Nonetheless, I consider this noteworthy:

A new Gallup Poll finds 48% of Americans saying the amount of federal income taxes they pay is "about right," with 46% saying "too high" -- one of the most positive assessments Gallup has measured since 1956. Typically, a majority of Americans say their taxes are too high, and relatively few say their taxes are too low.

These results are based on the Gallup Economy and Personal Finance poll, conducted each April, including April 6-9 of this year.

Since 1956, there has been only one other time when a higher percentage of Americans said their taxes were about right -- in 2003, when 50% did so after two rounds of tax cuts under the Bush administration. (emphasis mine)
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