This commercial bugs me. The snotty little brat asks dad to drop her off a few blocks away, because everyone in the neighborhood she's headed to drives hybrids. He explains that their Ford Escape is a hybrid. "A hybrid-hybrid?" she ask. Yep.

Ok, two things:
1) She's a pretentious little bitch. If her friends are going to judge her solely on the merit of her father's choice of vehicle, she needs new friends.

2) The camera shows that the Ford Escape has "HYBRID" in big letters on the back of it. She's either blind (which she doesn't appear to be), the least observant person on the planet, or retarded. Considering her choice of friends, I'm going with retarded.

But Little Miss Dee-Dee-Dee isn't the only annoyance in this commercial. Dad says that he's never felt the need to talk about the fact that his Earthkiller Junior is a hybrid, as if implying that people who drive obvious hybrids like the Insight or the Prius are compensating for something, similar to the way that people assume Hummer drivers are just compensating for small, impotent penises. Dude, your daughter is brain-damaged and has really poor taste in friends (which you are enabling), and you bought a Ford when similarly-priced, more reliable vehicles of comparable stats are readily available. Don't act all coy, because it just comes off as bragging. You don't really have a lot to brag about.

-pb

Dear Marketplace,

So, as I'm cruising along on my way to work this morning, I hear your report about hybrid SUVs that says that my Prius gets great gas mileage in the city, but drops off sharply on the highway. So, I double check with my Prius' mileage display to see if I am, in fact, getting worse mileage than the 51mpg highway that I was told I would be getting. Sure enough, I'm not! I'm actually getting over 55 miles per gallon. I guess I won’t complain.

So what's this about the hybrid Tahoe being able to use its electric motor on the highway? Not exactly a novel concept, as I switch screens to see my electric motor helping my gas engine get up a hill, and then start recharging as I head down the other side.

Your story made it sound like a hybrid Tahoe would be, mileage-wise, superior to (or at least on par with) the Prius. I get 55mpg highway, average, and my daily driving is almost 90% highway (66 miles round trip, 59 of that at a constant 55MPH). Even with a 40% increase in mileage for the Tahoe, that's still less than 30mpg highway, over 20mpg less than the Prius is advertised at. Even for Prius owners who do 80mph and wonder why they're not getting the advertised mileage, their average of 40-45mpg is still far superior to GM's proposed Tahoe.

And please let's not forget that the size of these giant SUVs makes them near impossible to see around, accounting for them taking up an estimated 1.4 car lengths in traffic. That increase in city mileage might be great for the Tahoe, but it's not doing anyone else's mileage any favors... except that is, Prius drivers.

-pb

Chrysler to make hybrids with Hemis

The closely related Hemi-powered Durango and Aspen are estimated to get about 15 miles per gallon in combined city and highway driving, according to the EPA. That would increase to just under 19 miles per gallon overall in the hybrid versions, according to Chrysler's estimates.

Back up, say that again? You're using 19 MILES PER GALLON as a SELLING POINT? "Marlboro Lights! ONLY HALF THE CANCER!"

Give me a break. This is why Detroit auto makers are dying. Putting "hybrid" on an SUV is just putting lipstick on a pig. SUVs don't just waste their own gas, they waste everyone else's. And it's not just an environmental issue, either. It's a "How many Iraqis per gallon does your vehicle get?" issue. The difference between 15 and 19 MPG is like the difference between taking your leg off at the upper thigh or just above the knee.

-pb

I love how auto manufacturers are starting with SUVs for hybrids. Ford has one, Lexus, VW's eyeing one up... And none of them have a hybrid sedan.

Toyota's got the Prius, then they said "OK, SUV". Then they followed that up with a hybrid version of the Camry.

Isn't a hybrid SUV like diet fucking crack cocaine? "It's great! My hybrid SUV gets 28MPG!" Whoop-de-fucking do. My Sundance got that and more, and I managed to move furniture with it. Guess what my Sundance didn't do? Cause 1.5x as much traffic than the average vehicle. Instantly kill anyone it collided with. Block the vision of everyone behind it.

It doesn't matter if you make an SUV more fuel efficient. That's like saying you're making a "safer" cigarette. It's still deadly. It's still going to cause problems. Manufacturers should take the initiative to make their cars more fuel efficient, and then see how the market reacts.

-pb

So, while I'm happily watching the NHL Skills Competition, Bush is going to be giving his sixth unwarranted State of the Union address, in which he will declare the state of the union to be "strong". He's also going to continue the theme of last year's chunky vomiting of nonsense about us being addicted to foreign oil (which we should replace with raw Alaskan crude!), and suggest that we turn the lights off cut gas consumption. Oh, wait, one of the ways to do that is to turn the lights off. And they say that Jimmy Carter was stupid. Meanwhile, every auto manufacturer selling to Americans knows that giant gas-guzzling behemoths are the way to go. Think the administration is going to offer any sort of rebate for hybrids? Toyota just upped production of the Prius, but even for states that have rebates, too many have been sold for future buyers to qualify. That's right folks, Toyota sold so many Prii that Pennsylvania doesn't feel the need to offer you a rebate anymore if you buy one. Problem solved! We sure licked that global warming!

No, Bush's call for us to use less gas is a strategeric move designed to benefit oil companies. Come on, people, with an approval rating LOWER THAN NIXON'S, what do you think America's going to do? "Fuck, that asshole told me to save gas? No fucking way! I'MA BUY ME A HUMMER AND LEAVE THE A/C ON ALL FUCKING DAY."

The man can even use his unpopularity to benefit his friends.

-pb

Tom the Dancing Bug says it all (msmagenta, I thought you in particular might get a kick out of this.)



-pb

Can someone please explain to me how 20mpg HIGHWAY is a SELLING POINT for a production vehicle?

I heard an H3 commercial where they made it sound like 20mpg was something to brag about.

My car gets relatively shitty gas mileage, yet I can still get from here to Pittsburgh and back about $55. The H3 would get there and about 1/3 on the same $55. Oh, and my car is far less likely to roll over or kill people. And it produces less emissions. And other drivers can see around it. And it seats the same amount of people and has about the same cargo capacity.

What's really disturbing is that a 2004 Prius, operating at user-reported standards, could make the complete round trip on a single tank of gas costing less than $30. Of course, since the H3 costs twice as much as the Prius, you'd expect it cost twice as much to operate. Well, you would if you were stupid enough to buy a Hummer.

-pb

Who gets fucked? The little guy, that's who.

A gas station owner was run over and killed when he tried to prevent an SUV driver from bolting before paying for $52 worth of gas. (there's no small irony that an SUV killed a man of Arab descent over some gasoline there, either). The article above demonstrates something interesting. Gas stations make about $0.01/gallon out of what they charge you. That owner didn't die over $52, he died over the profits he would have made from all the gas I've put into my car SINCE I BOUGHT IT OVER TWO YEARS AGO.

Couple that with the fact that ExxonMobil announced over 7 billion in profits from last quarter, and you've got a giant, gas-powered fucking machine, and not the kind you marvel at in strange pornos. The oil companies, flush with resources garnered from Our Partners in the Great War on Terror, mostly despotic regimes, generate huge profits by selling their products at hugely inflated costs. The station owners, however, barely break even. If oil companies are raking in tens of billions in gross profits every year, do you really think that Hurricane Ivan battered the Gulf Coast is the reason prices spiked? Do you think it's because Saudi Arabia just can't pump it fast enough? No, it's because corporate greed is preying on our addiction to oil. They're priming us for that point where gas isn't as available, and they can continue to soar prices well above their margins. Gas costs them $3/gallon? By the time it gets to that, we'll be paying $6.

By the time it gets to that, smart people (hopefully myself included), will have found vehicles that don't require their 'black crack'.

-pb

-pb

This pretty much sums up just how dumb we can be:

http://www.zanthan.com/itymbi/archives/001388.html

-pb

So, with allegations of war crimes coming out in the media (and even worse from foreign sources), we're having a great month in Iraq already. We're humiliating, torturing, and even killing 'enemy combatants' over there, and Paul Wolfowitz can't even get the number of US casualties right.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/02/opinion/02DOWD.html)

Nightline ran 10 seconds on each soldier killed, and it was called a political stunt. Some even called Ted Koppel 'unamerican'. You know what I want to see? 10 seconds dedicated to every Iraqi killed as a direct result of our occupation. To list American casualties: just south of two hours. 10 seconds for each Iraqi?

Almost 28 hours.

Even if you took ONE SECOND to flash their picture on the screen, it would still take longer than it took to dedicate ten seconds per American death. I'm not trying to take away anything from our servicemen, but the additude of 'us' and 'them' is what got us into this mess to begin with. So, from now on, I will make no reference to American deaths in Iraq. There will be no running count. There will be no rant when the number hits 1000 (sometime around the middle of the month). I'm going to focus on the complete number. The number of people who have lost their lives because someone wants a couple more pennies per share.

And all you right wing fascists can take your 'But we liberated' bullshit and go to whatever hell you believe in. Because everyone who has invaded the Fertile Crescent since the beginning of recorded history has said the same damn thing, and wouldn't you know it, they all lied.

I've no reason to believe we're any different. We didn't come to liberate. We came to feed your SUV.

-pb