Didn't the Democrats take over the Congress just over a year ago with a common sense plan to lower gas prices?

Oh come on...  come on...  are you serious?  Do you have a link to a video of this? 

you sure are dead on about this one. Yepper, your average car, SUV or P/U has a 200 to 250 gallon tank attached right there on that there vehiclular. And yepper, it cost us all $1,000 or more to fill em up each time. I would call you an idiot but that just doesn't cut it. In fact, words cannot descibe just how ignorant you really are on this issue. Simply incredible!

"...the risk is that they use their tax rebate simply to buy fuel, boosting the profits of the oil companies but doing little or nothing for the wider American economy."

More and more I'm hearing laments throughout the MsM that we're not going to spend the tax rebate the way we're "supposed to" -- ie. frivilous material goods, vacations, etc.

It's as if the government is alloting us money for a specific purpose and by not using it the way it's intended we're not holding up our end of the deal or something.

It's our money!  It was taken from us via taxes (at least from those of us who pay taxes).  Getting a little bit of it back shouldn't be regarded as some benevolent act by the government.

If I decide to pay down some principle on my mortgage, invest in some stocks or just tuck it away, it's my business.  Not running out an buying a plasma TV isn't a misallocation of resources.

I am not defending what the BBC said at all here because our cars and even SUVs are way smaller than a big rig, but we do have some ridiculously over sized pieces of crap on the roads that are driven by MORONS, and not just any morons, but morons in a HUGE HURRY. What good is it to have a 'hybrid' SUV when it's STILL a waste? Another thing about these SUVers. They RARELY use their turn signal (all 982 of them) The only 'off road' driving they would do is accidentally.. on their flower bed a bit when leaving the driveway.

"To beat Violence, You must ignore the focus groups. You must send in the Mossad, turn off the BBC, CNN, and don't look back."

LOL, might this be some British humour and sarcasm at work? If this was actually meant to be serious then this would have to be one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. I bust out laughing when I read this and rarely comment.

For MM, when you've got two parents and two kids and an in-law or two commonly with you, there's really no way to get by *without* either an SUV or a minivan. And FYI, a lot of the crossover SUVs out there are just as efficient as minivans. The main thing pushing people to larger cars are the *mandatory* child car seat laws. Not that that's a bad thing, but a small child in a car seat takes up just as much seat space as a full-sized adult. If you're commonly going places with your 4 person family and in-laws, the in-laws can't just hold the kids on their laps or squeeze them into the back. They all must be in car seats, properly belted in, *cannot* even have them in the front either. So yeah people need gas guzzling minivans and SUVs with three rows rather than the two row Corollas and Camrys people can get by just fine with in other countries without such extensive and mandatory child car seat laws. Again, not that that's a bad thing, but it does force people into larger cars that drink more gas.

I never had a Brittax Marathon when I was growing up and I'm just fine! lol

in spite of my limited time spent here I can't help but notice you seem to be a repository of lib talking points and rarely make a point. (duuh, one would follow the other) I do have to admit you miss your points in a very well written way.

And the MSM/Liberals blame Bush for negative European attitudes toward America? 

It reminds me of an anecdote I heard from the daughter of some good friends of ours.  When she was 16 years old, she spent 6 months in Germany as part of an 'emersion' program she'd been participating in.

At school, one of the text books the Germans were using made the absurd claim that "Americans eat fast food three times a day."

In class, she pointed out to her instructor that (1) the statement was false, and (2) she afterall is American, and didn't eat fast food more than once a week back in Arizona.  The instructor told her that she must be mistaken, because the book was thoroughly researched and accurate. 

I guess what I find interesting about the article is that it didn't even surprise me that BBC got it wrong.  Their reporting has been shoddy for years, and articles like this are no longer unusual.

Watching the BBC or other European media attack America in this fashion is akin to watching the last great buggy-whip manufacturer rail against the "evils" of the automobile. Like the buggy-whip manufacturer, the BBC and Europe can't accept the fact that they are no longer the "big dog on the block".

It's time you take your bows Europe, and exit stage left.

PS. Take the BBC with you.

At least once-a-month, my curiosity gets the better of me and I scour lib websites like The Daily Kos, Democratic Underground and others. I notice that like you, most posters on these websites usually end their posts with an obscure quotation... Is it done to reinforce a point, or is it done to highlight said poster intelligence?  

This is not meant to insult. It’s simply an inquiry.