[fintstone]

I don't necessarily think it so much hypocritical to drive a Porsche as to lecture other folks for their choices about where the line should be drawn. For example, here in the desert, water prices make it cost effective for me to purchase the most efficient washer available. My old one still worked, and the best was about 3 times as expensive as the standard model. But it only took a year to make up the difference through water and energy usage....and the new washer has many nice features that my 16 year old washer didn't. I gave the old set to a fellow living where water is plentiful. Let me be honest about my motives. If I could have saved no money, I would not have purchased the new appliances. I probably conserve more than most people, but my motives are not purely altruistic. I believe that a lot of natural resources are either renewable or replacable. We just will not experience that until the costs of the resources we use now are in short enough supply that it becomes more cost effective to consider alternatives. It seems to me that most folks want someone else to conserve while that do as they please. It seems offensive to me that politicians with private jets and SUVs and multimillion dollar homes feel fit to lecture me on conservation and for celebs with expensive homes, maids and limos to lecture the "commoners" on hanging their clothes on a line and taking the bus. I wonder how many guys with older Porsches have spent the bucks to retrofit it with an oxygen sensor and cat?

I feel the same way about taxes. I find it hypocritcal that folks paying little or no taxes want to continually raise rates on those that are. My tax rates are so high that I can live almost as well unemployed as if I work. Sure takes away a lot of the incentive from finding a job.