Governors parking SUVS as gas prices soar

Excert from AP Wire, Monday October 10, 2005

KEN THOMAS

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - When gas prices soared after Hurricane Katrina,
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson looked at the Lincoln Navigator
that ferries him around his home state and thought about the
message he was sending.

The large sport utility vehicle doesn't get the best gas
mileage - about 15 miles per gallon. So the former U.S. energy
secretary decided to switch to a Ford Escape hybrid, which
combines gasoline and electric power for twice that mileage.

"You need to practice what you preach," Richardson said.

Rugged SUVs have been a popular choice for governors on
the move, providing plenty of security, extra legroom and
space for staff members. But with gas prices hovering
near $3 a gallon, some governors are trading in their
gas-guzzlers and asking state employees to cut back on
unnecessary travel.

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has been using a white Ford Escape
hybrid after Katrina, keeping his Ford Expedition parked
when he travels around Tallahassee. The hybrid goes
hand-in-hand with Bush's recent push for alternative fuels.

"It's kind of hard to be arguing to conserve gasoline
when you're driving around in a Ford Expedition that
guzzles it down at a 6- to 8-mile per gallon clip,"
Bush said last month.

Two Midwest governors, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and
Tom Vilsack of Iowa, are shifting to SUVs that run on E85,
a gas-ethanol blend. Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne started
using an E85 Chevrolet Suburban after helping open a
pump for the alternative fuel in Boise.

Pawlenty, who is awaiting a black Chevy Suburban,
considered getting a hybrid. He chose an ethanol-powered
SUV because he couldn't find a hybrid large enough to
accommodate himself, three family members, security,
equipment and staff members.


http://tinyurl.com/bldc5

 

Good show though.

And our third rate govenator is still driving his 7 Hummers.

 

Unfortunately, this is more PR than true concern about saving gas. I
read an article somewhere about famous Hollywood personalities who
show up in Priuses at red carpet ceremonies before awards shows.
Turns out they usually fly to LA in their private jet, then hop into a
Prius to make their appearance.

 

I thought - in Frisco - they were calle BISTRO standards?

 

Where'd he find a FORD Prius to smash into, though?

Bob M.

 

"May I boil in oil and fry in Crisco
if I ever call San Francisco 'Frisco'!"

And in SF, we have Cafes, not Bistros. We've got Italians, not French.

Al Moore
DoD 734

 

And since you can't count on renting or borrowing one when you want,
to, they probably have it trucked down ahead of time, just to make
sure it arrives in good shape.

Al Moore
DoD 734

 

The best thing about calling "San Francisco" "Frisco" is that the only
people
who'd really complain are anti-violent!

It is like walking into a quadripilegic ward and saying "I'll fight
anyone in the house
with one arm tied behind my back"

 

Jawohl mein herr.

 

Oo! Ooo! Why I Oughta!

--
PC Paul
89 PC800
77 R100RS

Trip pics at: http://photos.yahoo.com/paul1cart

"To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to
society" - Theodore Roosevelt

 

Yeah, I was thinking neighborhoods, really. North Beach still shows
signs of it's formerly Italian character, but I don't know of any
characteristically French neighborhoods.

Al Moore
DoD 734

 

You'd be surprised. After the famous "Auto Row" sit-ins, a civil
rights action (which became violent) the House Committee on
Un-American Activities decided to hold hearings out here. The result
was more riots, and HUAC never again travelled West of the
Mississippi, and was dissolved a few years later.

When there's good reason, people will do most anything.

Al Moore
DoD 734

 

Unfortunately, the Frisco line's web site doesn't explain the term.

http://www.frisco.org/vb/faq.php?s=&do=search&q=frisco&match=all&titlesonly=0


http://www.sfgate.com/traveler/guide/

"It used to be that if you referred to the City (the preferred term for San
Francisco) as Frisco, it signalled you as an ignorant rube.
[/QUOTE]
When my Mom lived in "Frisco" (during WWII) it was the prefered term for
it. Then the folks
got pretentious and wanted to be called "The City" as if, New York,
Chicago, London and Paris
didn't even exist

 

It was a joke... it was based on the notion that most San Francisco
snobs are
such wimps that you can say anything you like to 'em. The SFites who
could kick your
ass aren't as snobby.

OTOH: I could be wrong --- it was a joke, not a sociological study

 

And they were right!

--
PC Paul
89 PC800
77 R100RS

Trip pics at: http://photos.yahoo.com/paul1cart

"To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to
society" - Theodore Roosevelt

 

The Examiner, a free almost-daily newspaper, always refers to San Francisco as
"The City."

Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, always talk about Boston, Our Fair City,
MA.
[/QUOTE]
Everyone can call their local big city "Our City" - that's reasonable...
but people in the tri-state area don't
mean San Francisco when they say "The City". In fact, some Easterners
think the Bay Area has a lot of
chutzpah (or drug-addled brain cells) referring to a burg with less than
a million inhabitants as *The* City.

 

That's what everyone has been brainwashed into believing. KGB records
wnearthed after the fall of the USSR documented the very deep extent to
which agents of the KGB and other Kremlin controlled assets had
penetrated the US Government and society at large. Below are refernces
for our own "Verona Project" covering just a few years activities.

http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/venona/venona.htm

http://www.nsa.gov/venona/index.cfm

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/hissvenona.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/venona/intercepts.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VENONA_project

http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/venona.htm

JOe McCarthy may have been a bit of a nut case, but he wasn't all wrong
either. The US was undeniably under attack by the USSR's various intel
agencies.
--
PC Paul
89 PC800
77 R100RS

Trip pics at: http://photos.yahoo.com/paul1cart

"To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to
society" - Theodore Roosevelt

 

<snip the links>

And how many of those did HUAC manage to uncover? As compared to the
damage they did to decent, honorable people, they were a burden to the
US, not an asset.

I know, I was a victim.

Al Moore
DoD 734

 

Tell that to the Boudins. ;-}

Rich, Urban Biker

 

The French influence is somewhat older and more diffused by now than the
Italian, but there is a church on Nob Hill named "Notre Dame des
Victoires", a soubriquet conferred on the Empress Josephine. And if I
want Italian bread, I can more easily find it in New York than in SF.

Rich, Urban Biker