I didn't say that's what the consumer pays. I said that the FiT program directly increases the cost of electricity beyond the level you indicated. It's been covered here in Ontario several times by even the most left wing papers that FiT generally drives up the electricity price by 2-8c/kWh depending on the TOU charge as well. So far here in Canada, the only thing that are causing 'very bad problems' are the solar and wind farms.

Funny enough we don't really have 'carbon producing generators' here in Ontario, we do have one of the largest nuclear power plants in the world through.

When's the last time it was every six months?

Hint: It was probably sometime back when the release was two CDs, and not 6 CDs and 2 double-sided DVDs.

Yep, a few years ago I used to send a LOT of CDR's and DVDR's to friends in Canada I would trade for Cuban Cigars.

I say we take the Politicians money first. That would be the ultimate in honest.

Or, simply configure the pumps to have different IP addresses. Does his boss pour gasoline on him and set him on fire if he changes their IP addresses?

Which is why it should be tied to the car value.

Driving a Bugatti Veyron? you pay $22.50 per mile for the tax.
Driving a 1995 Civic? $0.05 per mile.

Very simple to do, which means the government will completely fuck it up.

If they really want to make road taxes usage based, then they need to charge by the ton-mile or something like that. Wear and tear on roads goes by the weight of the vehicle, and if I remember correctly it is a non-linear relationship (square or cube, I can't remember).

It's pretty trivial for a vehicle to compute its own weight, so it is similarly trivial for a vehicle to compute its own road tax as well. Many cars are now coming equipped with GSM modems as well, so your car could simply upload your road impact once/month and you can be billed for your use tax.

Piece of cake.

Well, with electronic toll-paying that could work, but it would still shift the burden from low MPG to high MPG cars.

The great thing about a gas tax is that it's a simple way to kill two birds with one stone: encouraging higher mileage and paying for infrastructure. The problem is that not everyone agrees that both birds are important. Two-birders think that high mileage vehicles should be discouraged because of externalized costs -- pollution mainly, but also space required in parking lots, greater risk to other road users etc. One-birders don't care about externalities but understand that the roads and bridges need to be repaired. Zero-birders are just idiots.

I'm a two-birder myself, so raising the gas tax is a no-brainer. I'd also issue everyone a flat rebate per driver, because in fact I'm a three-birder: I'm concerned about the effect of a regressive tax on the working poor who have no options but to drive to their jobs.

But I'm also a realist. There are a lot of one-birders out there and the roads need repair. It's also politically easier in one-birder territory to sell something as a fee rather than as a tax, even though from my perspective that's an irrelevant difference if you're raising the same revenue either way.

Well, they're already opting to have damaged natural joints like hips and knees replaced. That's a case of upgrading from natural to artificial to gain function. As the performance of artificial limbs increase, it might become an increasingly commonplace treatment for older people, just like knee or hip replacement.

If we project that trend forward for twenty or thirty years I wouldn't be surprised at all to see artificial legs that outperform natural legs for the purposes of walking or even running. But I don't think people with normal abilities will be trading in their limbs just to be able walk a little longer, run a little faster, or carry more weight. That won't happen until the replacement is subjectively indistinguishable from the real thing; until you can feel the grass under your toes.

I'm comfortable predicting locomotion parity in the next fifty years, but I wouldn't care to speculate on when we'll see sensory parity.

Well that depends now won't it? Where I live, operating any type of taxi service requires a chauffeurs license and insurance to protect against liabilities. In the case of Uber they're operating an illegal taxi service, not a ride share service. Ride share here, falls under specific definitions.

Of course, even with automated cars you're still going to have to have insurance, which should be really interesting.

I'm thorougly convinced there is a way of interpreting these four words that doesn't lead to mass murder. Really.