I just finished reading an interesting article about SUV's (from someone's blog via my wife).
It's a good read, especially the debunking of claims that SUV's are safer than normal cars.
While reading this article, I had an insight about generational rivalry. The reason to hate baby boomers isn't that most of them have sold out -- that's irrelevant. What's wrong with baby boomers is what's always been wrong with them. They're self-centered pricks who violate the social compact. It doesn't matter if it's by buying cars which are likelier to kill, or by not vaccinating their children: these are people who maximize their immediate advantage, even though that incurs an expected long-term loss. They're defectors in life's prisoner's dilemma.
(Unfortunately for this generalization, the only baby boomers I know are my wife's parents, who don't fit this sterotype. They are pleasant, gentle, giving church people. My own parents/stepparents are not in the baby boom demographic; nor do they behave badly.)
But this Washington Monthly article is not without its howlers, notably:
Sport utility vehicles have become like guns
Oh? I must have missed the part where the author explains how SUV's can be used by the people to defend themselves against state tyranny.
Oh, you mean that nice leftists find them unpleasant! Well, then I do see how SUV's are like guns. Idiot.