Beware Of Birds

Birds and high performance cars don't mix much better than birds and planes. The windshield did a good job staying solid!

Al Gore: KWh Bandit

An enterprising Tennessee organization called the Tennessee Center for Policy Research did a little bit of digging into Al Gore's personal energy consumption. According to the utility bills, Gore's McMansion uses 20 times the energy of the average American house.

The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.

Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.

Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.

Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.

And, do you know where most of that energy is coming from? Coal. Heh.

66 Mustang Limo

A waste of a perfectly good old Mustang? Perhaps. But it does have a strange charm to it. For sale on eBay.

Why Buy Chrysler?

Speculation is rampant about who may buy the Chrysler group from DCX. The Detroit News reports one rumor that GM is considering buying out Chrysler.

I'm not seeing it.

Where is GM strong? SUVs (Hummer, GMC, etc), crossovers, trucks, high end luxury cars, large family cars, sports cars (Corvette, coming Camaro) and economy cars (Aveo, Cobalt). Where is Chrysler strong? SUVs (Jeep), minivans, trucks (Ram), large family cars (300 family), sports cars (Viper, upcoming Challenger?), economy cars (Caliber family).

Both companies are weak on near-luxury (Buick) and moderately priced mid-sized cars.

Where would the "synergy" be, to use the management buzzword of the decade? GM needs viable mid-sized cars, not more trucks. The only Chrysler properties that would make sense for GM to buy would be Jeep, because of the obvious Hummer/Jeep tie-in and a corner on the hard-core off-road market, and maybe the minivan lines.

In addition, Chrysler brings bloated inventories, cranky UAW locals, debt, too many dealers, pension and healthcare obligations--in other words, more of the same problems GM already has.

If Chrysler is spun off from DCX, I would expect that it would be bought by an overseas company which wants a larger presence in SUVs and trucks (Hyundai), or a private investment group.

MI AG, Mike Cox, Rocks!

Michigan's attorney general, Mike Cox, has issued a ruling effectively banning automated red-light ticket cameras in MI.

Cox's legal opinion rekindled the debate over the growing number of red-light cameras, which are used in 22 states and 200-plus communities nationwide. They can't be installed in Michigan because state law only lets police cite motorists after personally seeing a violation, with an exception for cameras at railroad crossings, Cox said.

I thought his tussle with big-dog trial attorney and Democrat loudmouth Jeffrey Feiger was odd and distasteful, but I love how Cox walks the conservative walk.