May 16, 2003
Dumb and Dumber
Seems I'm on a roll today...so on to the next asshat.
You've prolly seen or heard of the SUV tickets that Earth on Empty is encouraging tree huggers to print out and leave on SUVs.
My question to the Brains on Empty over at EOE is what of the wasted paper and the toxic printer consumables that their little stunt produces? They claim
"Over a million tickets served in 500 cities and 48 states."
How many of a MILLION tickets end up in storm drains increasing water pollution or littering 500 city streets?
Does it not seem counter productive for a conservation organization to encourage the waste of paper products, and to increase the number of printer cartridges going to the landfill? I guess it's the old ends-serves-the-means justification that the Liberal left is so fond of when it serves their purposes.
Of course it would be a waste of time to point out that the SUV craze began and peaked during the Clinton Administration since this group will only hold Republicans to account.
"Figure 3: Consumers’ average expenditures for each light truck [SUV] were greater than for cars in every year between 1991 and 2001. This chart shows, however, that the total amount spent by consumers for light trucks did not exceed the total spent for cars until 1999." --The Road Ahead for the US Auto Industry (Acrobat Reader Required)
The Clintonistas could have tightened DOT regulations and required SUVs to adhere to passenger car, not truck specifications anytime during the their eight year tenure in office. Why didn't they consider the environmental impact when the SUV caught on during the mid-90's market boom? Could be that they are too beholding to the unions? Or that a percentage of the GNP is based on auto sales, and SUV in particluar?
Not entirely humorless, EOE posted this reader response on their website, unfortunately without a credit. Print them out folks, slap them on every hybrid and auto with a Liberal/Tree Hugger/Dem bumpersticker/decal.
Click on thumbnail for full size image
UPDATE: Tree huggers might want to think twice before ticketing one of These.