However, I don't think Washington's approach is appropriate. There shouldn't be a flat-tax for EVs. Taxes that go toward transportation infrastructure upkeep should be usage-based since the more a vehicle uses roads and bridges, the more wear and tear it causes. Similarly heavier vehicles cause more damage. Vehicles that consume liquid fuels pay a per gallon tax. The more they are driven and the heavier they are, the more fuel they use and thus they pay more tax.

Secondly, why are plug-in hybrids (either power-split like Ford or Toyota or series like the Volt) exempted? In theory, these vehicles pay tax based on the fuel they will inevitably use. However, many of these vehicles, especially Volts use almost no fuel and will pay a disproportionately low amount of tax.  Like pure BEVs, these should pay a mileage/weight based tax although perhaps at a lower rate in proportion to their EV driving range. 

My guess is that politicians opted not to go the mileage based route for plug-ins over privacy concerns because drivers don't want to be tracked. However, if road taxes are to be fair, they should be levied in proportion to use and this is not the way to do it. 

Reshared post from +Green Car Reports

What do you think of Washington's new flat tax rate for electric cars… and its exemption for cars like the Chevy Volt and Prius Plug-In?

The reality is that much of the damage caused by hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, fires and other natural disasters is not covered by any kind of insurance and virtually every location is susceptible to something. Infrastructure is generally built and maintained by governments, often state and local. These governments almost never have the financial resources to recover from these disasters on their own and the federal government is the only body that can step in to help.  

If you really don't want help to recover from your fellow Americans (and in turn to help them when they need it) go ahead and vote for these right-wing extremists next time. But if you feel that we should help when needed, tell the Koch brothers to go pound sand.

Reshared post from +Russ Abbott

One of the most important roles we assign to the government is to act as insurer of last resort. Apparently David Koch would have it give up that responsibility.

I don't recall this sort of reaction when disasters struck red states. Am I wrong about that? Was Koch just as vociferous about withholding aid from red state victims?

When I was about 11 and going to the local YMCA on Saturdays, there was a photography club and I was lucky because they had a dark room and an instructor named Gary Fliss that taught me a lot about both taking photos and processing them. At some point before the photo club, my parents had given me a little 110 Instamatic camera. 

However, when I started really getting into it, my dad let me use the 35 mm camera he had acquired somewhere along his travels, a Kiev 4A http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Kiev_rangefinder . Kiev's were knock-offs of the 1930s-era Contax II and it was actually quite a good camera to learn with. Unfortunately somewhere in the last 20 years, my dad sold the Kiev in a garage sale.

By the time I was 14, I got my first SLR, a Fujica ST-801. The ST-801 was the first camera with a through-the-lens LED light meter. However, unlike the  automatic Canon AE-1 that came out about a year later, everything else about it was completely manual, aperture, shutter speed, focusing, film advance, everything. I still have that camera and it still works although I haven't put film in it in about 15 years. Through my high-school years, I saved up some of the money I earned from delivering papers and lifeguarding and acquired a 28 mm wide angle, a 2x teleconverter and a 200 mm telephoto. 

That camera served me well over the years and I learned a lot about the mechanics of photography using it and a lot of images captured with it, ended up in high school yearbooks. 

Reshared post from +Mike Keller

Ghoul mouthpiece indeed.

 I just tried out photosphere in the yard and it came out reasonably well for a first attempt.  I'll have to practice a bit to figure out how to avoid some of the stitching issues.