Agree with you on this. The "Oil Giants" likely have their own scienctists who say they can calulate the benefits of their products. Let's compare the benefits and the costs and see which comes out ahead. I suspect the benefits might appear to be more tangiable than the costs.

I use a text-based browser too for similar reasons. I found that NetVibes has a special page: http://wap.netvibes.com/ that seems to work for me. I just signed up today so I can't tell yet if it's good enough to replace Google Reader.

Probably because at the rate they wish to tax per mile, the bill will be so huge that it would be a burden for people to pay it. Better to tax people in small increments over a long period of time than to hand them a huge bill all at once.