About 27 years ago, I had a client who had a plug-in electric car. I took it for a spin. It ran about half a mile and didn't get up to 35 MPH, which was not what the manufacturer had promised. The car had a bunch of batteries in the front battery compartment and in the back battery compartment and was plugged into an outlet while not being driven. No gas. It was not a hybrid. My client bought it because he thought gas was going to go up to over a buck a gallon and that this was the way to beat the high cost of gasoline.
The electric car maker went belly-up way back then.
Now, the U.S. government is paying lip service to the goal of a clean electric car. In a glorious announcement by the Department of Energy, the U.S. government spoke loud and clear about what is important. The DOE has pledged $30 million over the next three years to develop a plug-in hybrid vehicle.
THIRTY MILLION?
The impeachable offense, otherwise called the illegal, con-job, lied-into war in Iraq, is costing the citizens of the United States and their posterity THREE HUNDRED AND FORTY-FIVE MILLION DOLLARS ($345,000,000) a day. That's one day -- all of that borrowed from China and other countries. $2.4 billion a week.
The DOE wants to spend $27,397.26 per day to develop an electric car.
What are our priorities?
And McCain wants more of the same. For crying out loud, Tiger Woods just won $1,350,000 for playing golf. The total prize money in that tournament, the United States Open Golf Tournament, was $7,500,000, almost as much as the U.S. government wants to spend on electric cars in a year. Kevin Garnett, playing for the Boston Celtics basketball team in the National Basketball Association finals, was paid $22,000,000 this year.
NASA has two electric-powered vehicles that have been driving around Mars, albeit very slowly, for the last four-and-a-half years. We apparently have the technology. There are fuel cells generating electricity on the space station, from which the space shuttle just returned. We apparently have the technology. Germany generates more electricity with wind power than the U.S. generates. Spain generates more electricity with wind power than the U.S. generates.
The oil companies received $18 BILLION in tax breaks last year. If the U.S. government spends $10 million dollars a week on electric cars or on electricity-generating wind farms, it would not spend as much as the oil companies got in tax breaks last year until the ball drops on New Year's Day -- in 2043.
We are leaving a disaster to our posterity -- shouldn't we be trying to do something about it instead of establishing some idiot's idea of democracy over in Iraq? And another flag-waving idiot is trying to take his place ...
Jeff and I were just talking about this. I have about a four mile radius from the house to hit all the important places in my life: church, school, work, grocery store.
It would be great to have a vehicle that sat four comfortably that was gas free.
-d
Yup. Amazing, isn't it. Fecking amazing. Where are the people with COMMON SENSE? Why aren't any of THEM in Washington running this country?
Posted by: Keri at June 17, 2008 07:13 AMStupidity, Thy name is Congress.
I never heard what the daily tally was for the Iraq war, but that amount is un-freakin'-believeable?
And, we can't afford universal healthcare?
Bastards.
Posted by: Cowtown Pattie at June 17, 2008 11:09 PM