As I've said several times on my own site, people buy minivans because they needs the space, not because they're following a fad.  But in the US a large share of pickup trucks and SUV's (especially Hummers) are bought by people chasing a fashion.  There are some people who really do need pickups and SUV's (like my brother-in-law, who runs a construction company), but for the vast majority of drivers a car or minivan is fine.

Well, I guess it's time to dig out all my Talking Heads CD's and have a David Byrne overdose...

These days any real bands would jump at the opportunity of this exposure and would probably be offered alot more. These bands have the advantages of senility and low bribes to influence their moral stance.

Hollywood words of the year

Placing third on the list was "petronoia," a phrase inspired by the film "Syriana" and meaning an irrational fear of the collapse of the oil industry followed by global economic crisis.

But what do you call it when it's a rational fear?  

A few weeks ago, on the 11 o'clock news, the scene of an accident in Portland Oregon where a Hummer rear-ended a Nissan sedan set off my alarm bells. The Sentra had stalled and stopped on the narrow shoulder of the curving ramp between I-205 north and I-84 east. The Sentra was completely demolished, crushed on every side and top, probably rolled between the ramp's concrete abutment wall and the Hummer. The Hummer? Not a scratch! Not a fucking scratch! The two passengers in the Sentra died. They were on a cell phone to their son at the moment of the crash.

My first thought was whether the Hummer driver had at high speed cut the corner of the ramp into the shoulder. Now I wonder if maniacal (music noise?) was playing on the stereo.  

The more people drive Hummers the faster oil will go to $200. The faster it goes there the more will be left for the essential needs for our kids.

If they want to make a favor to the society, then take the 180 grand, buy 60 Hummers and Hum around with them :)

Well, how about we all start standing up to the Hummers that invade our cities and villages?

This guy is totally right!:

SUV offensiveness taken to a new level. Since when have the children of the post-Vietnam War era wanted to identify with the military? The Hummer not only acknowledges the war-as-energy-policy paradigm, it makes it palatable by commodifying military aesthetics as a luxury status symbol. Hummer sells fantasies of ruling the road. And the world. Cue post-apocalypse fantasy of picking up the groceries in an armored tank; though where in this fantasy the milk is supposed to come from, let alone the gas, has been left out of the script.

And then, there is always their sociopathic Superbowl commericial.

Not quite like the French yet. They go around Paris letting the tyres on SUV's down.

Some very fine posters on this site:

http://homepage.mac.com/leperous/PhotoAlbum1.html

Or just google 'the propaganda remix'
The posters are simply brilliant.

First of all, Cadillac went with Zep 'cause the Doors refused.
Second, I believe Trans Am is still around. (you can hear the sounds the DC Metro transit system on Futureworld)
And what's with the hippy slag? Are you being facetious?
Are you so Richy Rich that $180,000 is chump change to you? Serious? That's hot.

Finally, who watches TV anyways?

-Walter

BUT, in reality, the Hummer people are no worse than the rest of us. ALL (well, almost all) of us in the US are so extravagant in our use of resources, as a society, that it just doesn't begin to touch the problem that we exercise personal virtue. It cannot just be a matter of personal virtue -- it has to be mandatory, a matter of law. But that won't work until people know the issue. And they don't. They don't know energy situation, they don't know that we, 5pct of the world, consume 25pct of the oil, etc. We are trained from infancy to consume, taught that it's silly to suffer even the slightest inconvenience or discomfort when more stuff, some product, will solve the problem. And indeed, it is silly unless there is a countervailing concern.

It's only when we get our minds around the fact that it's not going to continue working that it will change. And this really won't happen bigtime until it starts to stop working.

Much as I love feeling superior to the owner of the Hummer on my block, in the back of my mind is the family in Africa or Latin America that would have an improved standard of living if they could only get their hands on what I throw away. What do they think of me? Well, I suppose this too is useless.

When there's a movement, when people know, when the gov't is telling them we've got to change, when there are laws enforcing those changes, then I won't look down -- I'll ask the police to enforce the law. Oops! The Hummer owner is a cop.

For those of us old enough to recall, the period of roughly the auto model years 1966 through 1971 (give or take a year or two at either end depending on how much of a definitional stickler one might be) could be characterized as the Muscle Car Era. Young people, like myself, were attracted to such ground-thumpers as the Pontiac GTO, Chevelle SS, Plymouth Road Runner, Dodge Charger, Shelby Mustangs, etc. Neck-snapping acceleration was everything. (Regardless of how fast some of these modern high-tech peformance cars may be, there is nothing that quit feels like the kick in the seat of the pants from a high-performance, high-torque big-block V8 letting loose).

 Well, the party came to a crashing close immediately after the first Arab Oil Embargo. I happened to have a 1970 Camaro at the time with a 350 ci V8 and 4-speed Hurst shifter. It was a quick car, but not nearly as way out as many of the real full-blown muscle cars. Once gas lines set in, I felt really stupid with this car having marginal interior space and which got 14 -15 mpg, IF I drove it nice (but what was the point in even having a car like that if you had to drive it 'nice')?

In very quite order, what was once cool, overnight became very uncool. There was a time when it was hard to give muscle cars away (I should have taken advantage of it, as nice specimens are now commanding high five-figure prices, but who woulda thunk it).

So, I see the same sort of thing beginning to take place today, but with SUVs
rather than muscle cars. It's gradually becoming uncool, or worse yet, out of style to be driving a humongous SUV. You can see it on the smug faces of those who drive Toyota Prius hybrids. The thing that will kill the SUV will not be their horrendous gas mileage, but rather their going out of style.  

Human vanity does have some useful purposes after all.

I am sure one reason President Bush suddenly chose to build his State of the Union address around ending our oil addiction and moving toward a renewable-energy future was because his private polling told him the same thing. But Mr. Bush simply occupied this ground rhetorically -- before Democrats could get there -- without actually offering a real solution.
The only real solution is raising our gasoline tax, which is a paltry 18.4 cents a gallon and has not been increased since 1993. Only by bringing the total price of gasoline into the $3.50-to-$4-per-gallon range -- and keeping it there -- will large numbers of Americans demand plug-in hybrid cars that run on biofuels like ethanol. When large numbers of Americans do that, U.S. automakers will move quickly down the innovation curve.
"Impossible," campaign consultants say. "A gasoline tax is political suicide." No, it all depends on how you frame it.
The poll, reported yesterday, found that 60 percent of those polled, including one-third of Republicans, disapproved of how Mr. Bush is handling our energy crisis. Only 27 percent approved. Most want real action -- now. In the poll, 87 percent said Washington should require car manufacturers to produce more efficient cars.
Of course, when asked simply whether they'd favor a gasoline tax, 85 percent said no and only 12 percent said yes. But when the gas tax was framed as part of a national strategy to achieve energy security and climate security, pollsters got a very different answer. When the tax was presented as reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil, 55 percent favored it and 37 percent said no. And when asked about a gas tax that would help reduce global warming, even more respondents supported it -- with 59 percent in favor and 34 percent opposed.
And that is without a single Democrat or Republican leading on this issue! Imagine if someone actually led?
Many Americans now understand: the Energy Question is the big strategic issue of our time, overtaking 9/11 and the war on terrorism. If a leader from either party would correctly frame the issue -- that a gas tax is the single most important geostrategic move we could make today -- a solid majority would support it.
Taking on this issue is the only hope the Bush team has for producing a legacy out of its remaining years. And it is the Democrats' only hope for taking on the Republicans with a big idea -- rather than relying on G.O.P. scandals to win.
Sadly, both sides fear the other will smear them if they run on this issue. O.K., say you're running for Congress and you propose a gas tax, but your opponent denounces you as a wimpy, tree-hugging girlie-man, a tax-and-spender. What do you say back?
I'd say: "Oh, really? I guess you think it is smart, tough and patriotic for us to be financing both sides in the war on terrorism -- the U.S. military with our tax dollars, and Al Qaeda, Iran and various hostile Islamist charities with our energy purchases. Now how patriotic is that? I guess you haven't noticed that today's global economic playing field has been leveled and that three billion new players from India, China and Russia have walked onto the field, buying new cars, homes and refrigerators. So if we don't break our addiction to crude oil, we're going to heat up this planet so much faster -- enough to melt the North Pole and make Katrina look like a summer breeze. Now how smart is that? I guess you don't realize that because of this climate change and the rising cost of crude, green technologies are going to be the industry of the 21st century, and a gasoline tax is the surest way to make certain that our industries innovate faster and dominate innovation in green cars, homes and appliances.
"Finally, I guess you haven't noticed that the wave of democratization that seemed unstoppable after the fall of the Berlin Wall has run into a black counterwave of petro-authoritarianism. This black wave of oil-financed autocrats -- Venezuela, Russia, Iran, Nigeria, Burma, Saudi Arabia -- has all the money in the world now to turn back the democratic tide. And you think doing nothing to reverse that is patriotic? Shame on you, you unpatriotic wimp. Green is the new red, white and blue, pal. What color are you?"