ht never yet melted
Get ready, America, for a return to the 1970s era of federally-mandated nationwide 55 mph speed limits, emission-strangled automobile engines, and speedometers topping out at 85.

Barack Obama has appointed America’s Safety-Nazi-in-Chief Charles A. Hurley, current head of Mothers Against Drunk Driving to preside over the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Well, you’re living in the Nanny State now, boys and girls. Hurley is a long time advocate of drastically more extensive federal supervision of your naughty driving.

He is on the record as supporting a .04% Blood Alcohol Content limit, meaning you are guilty of DUI if you sip one glass of Chardonnay at dinner, and he favors vastly expanded pullover alcohol checks to enforce it, along with breathalyzer-ignition interlocks.

Expect to see the federally mandatory 55 mph speed limit again, expanded liability opportunities for trial lawyers, and a nationwide regime of stoplight and speed check cameras everywhere.

Repeat after me: “I love Big Brother!”

The largest crop in the U.S. by weight is grass clippings, which are cellulose. If every county had an alcohol plant turning green waste and cellulose into alcohol, we would be replacing a lot of our fuel.

Let me continue my previous post. The China car market will be a godsend to all the US manufacturers, as it provides a busy and profitable new market for the many car makes.

Look for a resurgence of imported cars, and a continuing trend of weakness from GM and Chrysler, since they make expensive and poorly built cars, and are managed by the union and the government. When UAL was bought by its union, the Union president said they were not going to kill the golden goose, just strangle all the golden eggs out of it. Sure enough UAL went bust four years later.

China's Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Corp (BAIC), rival Geely, and at least one "Western industrial group" remain interested in Ford Motor Co's Volvo car unit, a person close to the situation said on Tuesday.

Geely, which has already visited Volvo in Sweden, plans to make a fresh visit soon, the person added. A second person close to the situation said Geely representatives were likely to visit this week.

my comment: The China auto market is growing quickly, and will soon the be the worl's largest

Hottest car on the block---the new Chevy Camaro sports car with an enormous engine. They are on back-order. Meanwhile, sales of tiny car/golf carts are languishing.

Obama can't wait to jack up gas prices.

Be sure to visit www.personallettermarketing.com and hire us to write nice personal letters to your customers each month.

gas from wood
Until 1970, there were taxis in S Korea that ran on wood gas...

ht gendas nu
Over the last few years, a new gasifier design bas been developed through cooperative efforts among researchers at the Solar Energy Research Institute in Colorado, the University of California in Davis, the Open University in London, the Buck Rogers Company in Kansas, and the Biomass Energy Foundation, Inc., in Florida (Reed and Das 1988). This simplified design employs a balanced, negative-pressure concept in which the old type of sealed fuel hopper is no longer necessary. A closure is only used to preserve the fuel when the engine is stopped. This new technology has several popular names, including 'stratified, downdraft gasification' and 'open top gasification.' Two years of laboratory and field testing have indicated that such simple, inexpensive gasifiers can be built from existing hardware and will perform very well as emergeney units.

..ht msn autos
The statistics tell the story. With approximately 20 million drivers involved in crashes in the United States every year, each driver faces a likelihood of being in one of them about every eight or nine years....Vehicle mass is more important than any optional feature. The mass of car surrounding you can determine how much protection you have. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said its laboratory crash data show that heavy vehicles offer more protection than light vehicles with the very same safety equipment, particularly in two-vehicle crashes.

ht manythings.org
Researchers in Senegal have created what is described as a clean substitute for charcoal that not only helps protect the environment, but costs far less. The alternative fuel has just gone on sale in the markets of northern Senegal.

The new environmentally friendly charcoal is made from vegetable waste mixed with a binding substance, such as clay, to produce small balls that resemble black charcoal, which is traditionally used for heating and cooking.

But unlike it's darker cousin, green charcoal is efficiently produced, burns cleanly and is made from renewable local materials.

This innovative product was developed by the French environmental NGO ProNatura International. It is expected to be available soon in Mali, Niger, Madagascar, China, India and Brazil using such diverse raw materials as cotton stems, peanut shells and coffee bean husks.

"What's really new is our technology - it's groundbreaking - because we are the only ones having developed the technology where the machines run on a continuous basis," said Guy Reinaud, director of ProNatura International.

ht usa today Americans are buying more small cars to cut fuel costs, and that might kill them.

As a group, occupants of small cars are more likely to die in crashes than those in bigger, heavier vehicles are, according to data from the government, the insurance industry and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).

The newest small vehicles, of course, meet today's strict safety standards and can be laden with the latest safety hardware, such as stability control and side air bags. They are safer than ever. And differing designs mean some small cars are safer than average. But even the safest are governed by the laws of physics [in particular, Newton's laws], which rule in favor of bigger, heavier vehicles, even in single-vehicle crashes.

Sales and registration data show that small cars — what most people call compacts and subcompacts, such as Civic, Toyota Corolla, Ford Focus, Mazda3, Nissan Sentra, Chevrolet Cobalt and smaller — are about 14% of vehicles on the road. But they accounted for nearly 24% of occupants killed in one- and two-vehicle crashes in 2005 [the government should apologize for the three thousand or so casualties a year from forcing people into smaller cars, far more folks killed than in the wars in Asia.]

What is the term for a three wheeled car? If the wheels are in front or in back? Lots of third world cars and one Fiat has only three wheels. Remember the classic UK Reliant Robin?

The Good Car

The Good car is a blob about which cars make the most sense for purchase or rental, and a larger view of what cars make the most sense for all of us.