I'm trying to be good.

Really, I am.

Mrs. Drang hasn't had to hit me for being anti-social or barbaric in public in several weeks. I don't scratch myself in public, and I almost always manage to avoid bursting out in inappropriate language unless the provocation is so extreme bystanders are amazed at my refraining from breaking things anyway. I almost always use the correct fork. All in all, I think I've done a pretty decent job of fitting in to the civilian world...

But sometimes...

Well, sometimes, Mr. Free Market and his pub, "The Slaughtered Socialist", well...

So, following a tip posted in the Washington Hometown Forum on ar15.com, I found an article in Tuesday's Post-Intelligencer--why can't a dead newspaper just go away?--in which a Seattle Socialist suggests

Let's try taxing drivers by the mile, Seattle official says

Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Last updated May 13, 2009 11:17 a.m. PT

By AUBREY COHEN
SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF

Washington state should allow a pilot project to tax drivers by the mile in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties, a Seattle official said Tuesday.

"Let us try it," Seattle Department of Transportation Director Grace Crunican said during a morning Urban Land Institute discussion on how to meet massive and changing infrastructure needs.

William Hudnut, a consultant and former mayor of Indianapolis, called for some combination of a "vehicle miles traveled" tax, tolls, congestion charges and higher gas taxes to help fill a nationwide funding gap.

Okay, Gracey, you're on the list. (Roberta, I think I can figure out why Mr. Hudnutz is your former mayor, but would you please take him back?)