You call this a car culture?

A recent poll finds that most Americans would be willing to pay higher taxes for less congested roads. You have to hand it to the American people for thinking of the immediate benefit to their own welfare. Let's change the rallying cry to: "No taxation with traffic congestion!" We may not want universal health care, but we'll certainly take universal ease of commute.

Verbal Jazz happily rides the Commuter Rail to Boston every day to beat roadway congestion. Although soon, Verbal Jazz, who has very little use for arbitrary flexes of authority, will be subject to random bag searches on this same commuter rail. Checking my bag is not going to stop a terrorist from driving into the city and leaving a bomb to detonate in a parking garage or some other random place. I'll assume that the police conducting these searches are not checking to see whether I have photo equipment, dirty socks or a notebook filled with scribbles that end up on Verbal Jazz.

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