Wednesday Open Thread and News Dump

We've talked about a gas tax quite a few times here at TOD, but Menzie Chinn over at Econbrowser has a interesting post discussing the NYT article from yesterday on that nasty pariah/demand destroyer/R&D&I savior that no politician ever wants to talk about. There's also a great set of posts over at EB by Michael Ventura entitled "Things to Come"...very provacative.  But feel free to bring up other things down there in the open thread as well...