Mark Watson's opinions on Java, Ruby, Lisp, AI, and the Semantic Web

Apparently the "best government that corporate lobbyists can buy" is considering giving U.S. tax payers a $100 credit to help out with the higher cost of gasoline. A little reminder: these are the same "public servants" who just gave $5 billion in tax credits to the oil industry and a few years ago instituted huge rebates for people who bought very low gas mileage vehicles (here in Arizona the local news had clips of people lined up to buy hummers before the $10,000+ tax rebates went away).

OK, here is my advice:

• Give tax credits for high gas mileage vehicles (Duh!!!)
• Show a little honesty and decency and levy short term excess profits taxes on the energy industry - just take back a little of the congress-to-corporations give-aways
• Institute a luxury tax on low gas mileage vehicles (Duh!!)
• Outlaw no-passenger use of inefficient vehicles for a few time spans per day (for example: 8am-9am and 3pm-4pm) - make it hurt to be an energy abuser

Really, just use some common sense, and dig deep for a little bit of moral backbone (and, Congress members: why don't you stop taking those "exotic" vacations paid for by corporate lobbyists?)

Idea for average people: stop voting for any incumbents of either political party until our "public servants" clean up their acts and start to show some integrity. There are a few dozen responsible people in Congress - go ahead and keep voting for them.