i blame bush and suvs, thats the easiest explanation.oh and throw in rap music.

I thought everything was supposed to be Clintons fault.

Blame it on El Nino.

Blame it on advertising (propaganda)...one and the same.
Probably the greatest "evil" facing our country..

aint it all dem rockets taking off to take over our plantet? I seen tom cruise and dat's where they came from.
my suv ain't left my driveway, so I don't think it's been melting mars' icecaps, but them martians are sneaky, they might have borrowed it some nights after I had a few too many.

The polar ice caps on Mars regularily recede and reform in step with Mars winter-summer seasons. Astronomers postulate these "ice caps" are not made of water.

No the "ice caps" are frozen Carbon dioxide. But now they've noticed the caps are moving at a more rapid rate than usual. They calculated the rate of movement to be 10 feet per Martian year. And the scientists have deemed that Mars is in fact experiencing "Global Warming" just like Earth.

Well, then this should disprove the theory that global warming is caused by greenhouse gasses or excessive CO2 from combustion....

The presence of so many trucks and so-called SUVs,(neither sport, nor so much utility).. reveals that we now have unparalleled wealth...and judging from the condition of our infrastructure (New Orleans insufficient levees) , I'd say more taxes are in order...

I'd say more taxes are in order...

So how much more are you willing to pay? There's a federal form you can fill out to add to your income taxes if you want to pay more than you owe. Feel free to fill it out. But I have yet to find anyone that advocates higher taxes that has filled one out. They always want somebody ELSE to pay. So I advocate that anyone making more than $30,000 a year have their taxes raised. And eliminate all deductions for homes and farms valued at more than $100,000.
If you want higher taxes on fuel, go to a truck stop and talk to the owner operators and get them to agree. I'm sure they will.

'Well, then this should disprove the theory that global warming is caused by greenhouse gasses or excessive CO2 from combustion....'

Not at all. It proves the problems those soccer mom's driving suburbans are causing is bigger than originally thought. They are not only ruining the environment on this planet, but it's spreading out into the solar system. Got to stop suv use today before the environmental impact spreads throughout the galaxy.

I bet martians drive SUVs.

I value my life, Christopher...

No visits to the truck stops are planned...
No question, the Bush tax roll backs for the wealthy should be reversed..

And New Orleans ... do you know of anyone willing to rebuild the levees to the quality they should have been in the first place..... for nothing ????

And WHY is FEMA under the Homeland Security umbrella ??

Maybe no new taxes are necessary, better to eliminate excessive federal bureaucracy and have those left either do their job or get out !

Them Stupid Martians!!!

"No question, the Bush tax roll backs for the wealthy should be reversed.."
So you believe somebody else other than you should pay taxes. You can make the tax on everybody making $1,000,000 a year at 100% and you still wouldn't have enough to meet the Federal budget. But the top 5% of taxpayers pay 50% of the money collected as it is. And you want them to pay more? Why shouldn't the people that most use the Government pay for it too? We could be like Sweeden, where everybody pays 56% of their income to the Government.
That's why I'm an advocate of the national sales tax. If Bill Gates buys a $50,000,000 jet, he pays the tax. And if I buy a used Explorer, I pay the tax.

"And New Orleans ... do you know of anyone willing to rebuild the levees to the quality they should have been in the first place..... for nothing ????"
I would like to know what happened to the $43,500,000 that went to the Levee Commission in the mid 90s for levee upgrades first. Two years later they were broke. And no levee work was done. Where did that money go? It's called the "Big Easy" for a reason.

"And WHY is FEMA under the Homeland Security umbrella ??"
I agree. A dumb move.

"Maybe no new taxes are necessary, better to eliminate excessive federal bureaucracy and have those left either do their job or get out !"
You and I totally agree here! In 1994 Newt Gingrich wanted to eliminate a lot of federal jobs and move them to the private sector. Because historically, when the Government is the largest employer, waste and bureaucracy occur. But the unions fought tooth and nail against it for obvious reasons. So bureaucracy will always reign supreme in Washington. Theonly ones in Washington that can be fired are the politicians. That guy in the third floor cubicle that determined that all toilets in the country must only use 1.6 gallons isn't going anywhere.

This may not have much to do with cars, but I found some more statistics from a 1996 report claiming that the top 5% pays 50% of the taxes.

The top 5% consisted of 6 million earners making at least $101,202 annually, but the annual salary must increase rapidly from there. The top 5% earns 40% of all the money, as measured by Annual Gross Income (AIG). The top 1% earns 25% of the AIG while paying about 1/3 of the taxes. Well maybe that's not "fair" but I'll bet they aren't missing any yacht payments.

The same report also shows that the bottom 50% of taxpayers who earn the least, earn 6.6% of the AIG and out of that they pay 4.3% of the taxes. The report also shows that from 1980 to 1996 the top 5% increased their income by almost 10% while the bottom 50% saw their income decrease by about 3%.

I looked this up because I was surprised to hear that so much taxes could be paid by the top 5%. I can't tell how much those top 1-4% make, but it must be a lot more than the $101,202 minimum. I was also suprised to see that half of Americans earn such a small portion of the AIG. Even though it's easy to imagine they should helping more with the taxes, they probably don't have much to work with after meeting their basic needs.

However, this report is almost 10 years old. I wonder how this his changed since the Bush tax cuts. If they really relieved such a burden on the wealthy as is commonly portrayed, then the middle class (who really doesn't earn very close to the middle in terms of dollars) is really getting screwed.

BTW: There are some really questionable conclusions above, reasoning that since climate change may be occurring on Mars, then our actions here on Earth cannot be contributing to possbile climate change. Regardless of whether "global warming" is "real," is an agenda to conserve resources and reduce pollution really such an offensive idea?

Here is a link that might be useful: Read the report for yourself

Taxes for me are a killer..Even as I own an old 50$K semi-detached house built in 1900 I still have to pay about $1,000 in nuisance and property taxes..
So the small pension and social security check do not go that far...
Yes, the middle class are being shafted - and have been for a long time. The Republicans represent the wealthy, the Democrats, the "poor" - many votes- when they know how to vote.....The middle class is too busy working to participate in politics.....
I think we need a more realistic agenda - conserving recourses - YES.
Eliminating pollution - NO.
First and foremost, terrorism must be defeated - and this will take a long, long time... to undo the harm that is being done by those radicals who wish to live in the past (1600s ?)
Then our economy must be fixed. The federal debt is far,far too high.
Worse yet is the trade imbalance ......
The "no pollution" agenda will have to wait...
The elimination of un-necessary bureaucracy is a must !
So then Bush adds more in this Homeland Security Dept. !!
Having a national sales tax and no income tax is an idea ...The former may be a lot more effective, the latter will throw thousands out of work in Washington, DC......

"the no pollution agenda will have to wait"

I think leaders have to manage all the agendas, not just scare us into reacting to the emergency of the day at the expense of other equally important, but less "sexy" issues.

Terrorism (the new communism?), conservation, pollution, economy, education, beuracracy... these are all perennial issues with no real solution. Yet these are the issues that politicians talk about every year, but the issues are never resolved, nor will they ever be. I think the best approach is to do whatever we can, with a steady and firm resolve, to address these problems all at once. If you compare it to the upkeep of your home, you can't just patch the roof and upgrade the locks, but leave your clogged toilet unattended. You have to budget how to sustain the whole house in operational condition.

Earth; I've been gone for a while, but if you really think that the dems represnet the 'poor'.....well....perhaps 'naieve' is too light of a word.

Jason, you are so right on. The democrats do not represent the poor. They choose to appear to represent them so as to get their votes because, so often, the poor are uneducated in the problems of the world. Think about it - if you have next to nothing, and someone tells you that you are being oppressed and that people with more than you should be supporting you, who would you vote for? If the democrats truly cared about the poor, they would not continue to vote themselves pay raises. They would not continue to collect a pension as soon as their term was up. They would be giving back to society. But they don't, because all they care about is getting elected to get that salary and pension. And the power/ego thing, of course.

Jason, Over and Under states it well.
I should have stated that the Dems TRY to support the "poor" or they try to give the impression...

and you were trying to think of of "naive"- which I am far from...

And then, why are our "poor" so much better off than most of the worlds poor ??? IMO, this is due to the quality of our people, not the greedy politicians..