Pickups, Hybrids Most Expensive Vehicles to Insure

January 15, 2008

  • January 16, 2008 at 12:32 pm
    John says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    I can understand why the hybrid is higher from a repair standpoint. Plug in electrics should be low when they become available.

  • January 16, 2008 at 12:38 pm
    PRIUS OWNER says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Well I own a Prius and I know first hand the cost to repair is staggering. For example, I had a small scratch on my rocker panel under the door. Well, to repair it, the whole piece had to be removed and in order to remove, my car had to be towed to and from the Toyota dealer to hook up / unhook the battery. I really hope rates go down for Hybrids. I think assholes driving huge SUVs should pay higher rates.

  • January 16, 2008 at 12:45 pm
    Jasper says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Another crazy insurance rating, similar to credit scoring. The Chevrolet silverado and the GMC Serria are essential the same vehicle yet one is more expensive to insure that the other.

  • January 16, 2008 at 12:49 pm
    Mr. Obvious says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Ditto the Chrysler Town & Country and the Dodge Caravan.

  • January 16, 2008 at 12:49 pm
    Anon says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Of course, SUV drivers should pay more because hybrid costs are higher. Typical self-righteous hybrid owner.

  • January 16, 2008 at 12:52 pm
    Tree Hugger says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    This crap about reducing carbon output does not fly so well when the alleged hybrid driver is killing the environment with his other person habits. Al Gore heating and cooling his 28,000 square foot home far exceeds any benefit of his hybrid vehicle. As well, the private plane Al Gore flys upon does much more harm than any 20 hybrids could do good.
    Green people are full of crap.

  • January 16, 2008 at 1:04 am
    KLS says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    I am not above admitting to watching and enjoying the occasional episode of South Park. (Life is too short, can’t take oneself too seriously.)

    There’s a recent episode called “Smug Alert” which has to do with people driving a new Pious hybrid car. Yes… Pious. LOL All their smugness creates this huge cloud of smug pollution that threatens to destroy the town.

    It pokes such wonderful fun at the whole environmental panic scene. =)

    Yes, we should take care of our planet, but I don’t think brand new hybrid cars are necessarily the ultimate solution. The manufacturing involved creates way more pollution than if you just take good care of an older economy car for a few extra years, or carpooled to work.

  • January 16, 2008 at 1:16 am
    phil says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    If you look through many reports, from birth to disposal, a Prius is actually worse for the environment than the Chevy Tahoe, and a Hummer.

    The benefit is reduced fuel use, but it is still worse for the environment. You would be better off just buying a small civic or similar at the moment. It is great that the technology is getting better, and also putting it in SUV’s now. Although, for the time being, it does not pollute less.

  • January 16, 2008 at 1:22 am
    Andy Shakhnazaryan says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    I agree. I don’t see why insurance would be so much more costly for Hybrids than it should be for people who drive those SUV’s.

  • January 16, 2008 at 1:32 am
    Sunnie says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Why are SUV’s always brought up? Mine only has a small 6 cylandar. I travel 40 miles one way, five days a week and I use one tank of gas per week. I haven’t own a car since the ’90’s. What do micro-car owner’s think we should own for hauling, kids, cargo, dogs, yard stuff, shopping…on and on and on, etc.

  • January 16, 2008 at 1:32 am
    Insurance Woes says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Of course, many don’t understand that conservatives (as a group) are more safe. Credit scores do matter because those people give a crap. The GMC Trucks are built a little tougher, so people who buy them may be thinking a bit more, which can mean a lot when traveling down the road in a 6,000 pound metal monster.

  • January 16, 2008 at 1:39 am
    Sunnie says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    I am trying to understand the lemon vs the orange vs the apple discusion. Can someone please enlighten me? Thanks.

  • January 16, 2008 at 2:47 am
    ad says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Sunnie, you can tie them (kids) to the roof if you purchase the optional luggage rack.

  • January 16, 2008 at 2:48 am
    Stat Guy says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    KLS, thanks for that good belly laugh! I too try not to get too serious; my kids love South Park but sometimes it is over their heads and they only think it plays for the laughs :-)

  • January 16, 2008 at 2:59 am
    Jasper says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Just for some perspective about Al Gore…
    Maybe youve never heard of a thing called Carbon Credits. I wont bother explaining it, but Al Gore could fly circles around the Earth all day, and if he buys enough carbon credits he could STILL be helping the environment more than he is hurting it.

    Just a little education for some of you. Back to work now…

    Oh, one more thing, smog is created when you use a vehicle that runs on gas – Smog is not fun to breath, its very unhealthy and will almost kill the olympics this year in China.

    As far as a hybrid vehicle being worse for the environment? Thats all about economies of scale. If they made and sold a ton of them, then it would be better for the environment than a gas guzzler.

    Can I help you with anything else??

  • January 16, 2008 at 3:06 am
    caffiend says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Sunnie,
    Instead of buying a SUV next time, perhaps consider a van?

    From what it sounds like you do a lot of highway driving (which extends your gas milage) I’m not really an ecofreak but here’s a point of comparison.

    I own a 1995 Honda Civic 2wd 1.6L 4cyl with an 10 gallon tank (approx.)and average about 24-26 mpg city / 36-40 mpg Hwy. From the car stats provided by Kelly Blue Book (KBB), a 1995 Ford Explorer with 2-WD 4.0L 6cyl engine gets 16 mpg City /20 mpg Hwy with a 21 gallon tank. (I understand you may get better or worse mpg then this, depending on what you drive. I’m using this as a point of comparison)
    This is one of the smaller SUVs.

    Using the lesser of my highway milages…
    95 Civic — 36 mpg*10 Gal. = 360 Miles
    95 Explr — 20 mpg*21 Gal. = 420 Miles
    On one tank I can travel more then 2/3’s the distance that one would cover in the SUV… for a little less then half of the fuel used. (Note that’s 36 MPG at 70+mph in the Civic, and that is based off of personal experience, K.B.B. puts it at 35 mpg)

    Financially speaking it costs me less then $30 to fill up, how about you?

    One of my arguements against the prevalence of SUV’s is this, use the right tool for the job at hand.

    If all you are doing is moving back and forth to work for 1-2 adults & perhaps 1-2 children and shopping on occasion, a midsize or econocar is perhaps the best way to go. Your gas will last longer and costs less to fill up.

    If you are hauling 1-2 adults & 1-4 children (and perhaps a pet); or 1-2 adults with cargo a van would probably do quite well. Especially as some have very expandable interiors. Also for safety of the occupants, vans are really the way to go.

    SUVs are/were supposed to be used in rougher terrain and haul heavier loads and trailers. For everyday back and forth to work or driving the kids to school it just doesn’t make sense.

    For really heavy hauling a pickup or box van. Pickups are not a good choice for day to day driving.

    One of my other arguments is that while YOU may be safer in your car in most collisions (excepting roll-overs which you are more prone to), I no longer am. A 1-ton auto vs a 2-ton SUV is not a pretty sight. This is compounded by the fact that a majority of SUVs ride significantly higher then the front and rear bumper of most small cars, and on some of these I fear the first thing a small car would hit would be the tires. Another problem caused by this is that while you can see the road better (because you are sitting higher up), all the driver of a smaller car behind or next to you generally sees is door panels or bumpers and this creates a huge blind spot. And as a small car owner, I get blinded at night by SUVs due to the fact that with your height your headlights are even with my rear view mirror. Think of it as having someone behind you at all times with their high-beams on.

  • January 16, 2008 at 3:21 am
    Insurance? says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    How did you all get so far off the subject. Let me get you back on track. My insurance is less for my Ford Expedition because when I run the #@%$ over your Prius I only dent my bumper, and you need a replacement car.

  • January 16, 2008 at 3:34 am
    INS OWL says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    When the lights from the SUV’s are shinning in your face as they do mine, that’s when i adjust my side views to reflect the lights right back in the truck or SUV’s face. Works every time!

  • January 16, 2008 at 4:33 am
    Nohugtreesbut... says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    I agree that you should buy a car for its intended purpose. People driving huge SUV’s (I’ve owned one)and using them to go to the market or a soccer game is a pretty sad commentary on where people’s heads are. I hope they know that they’re doing a good job of supporting the oil companies, but I doubt it. They just complain about the high cost of fuel. I for one would like to screw the oil companies and the oil producing nations so I’ve had a major change in heart about what I drive (a butt ugly Honda Element @ 26 mpg on the highway). My next car…who knows but I’ll be sure it fits my needs and doesn’t cost me a fortune to fill up. A lot of people need to get real about oil and how much they use. It’s ancient, dirty technology.

  • January 16, 2008 at 4:51 am
    KLS says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    You’re most welcome, Stat Guy. I’m pleased to know I’m not the only adult who is bold (crazy?) enough to admit I watch a cartoon!

    For the person who said SUVs are an annoyance because of their size… I agree! It’s like being surrounded by moving billboards.

    However, I would leave the country and surrender my citizenship if the government started restricting our current automobile choices. As much as Hummers and Expeditions with a single occupant (almost every time I see one, grrr) peeve me to no end, I will support a person’s choice to own and drive one.

    I’m sure my gas-gulping sports car gets under the collar of the hard core tree huggers in a similar fashion.

    They have a valid point; I should probably have a more fuel efficient/practical vehicle, blah blah blah. However, I carpool and I only live 5 miles from the office, so I think it balances out. Just don’t take away my horsepower!

  • January 16, 2008 at 5:51 am
    ad says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Thanks KLS for saying what I was thinking. How many people on this site suggested what type of vehicle we should or should not have. It appears socialism is being drilled into this generation at a tremendous rate of speed.

    By the way, I drive diesel. OUCH!

  • January 17, 2008 at 10:44 am
    SUV definition? says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Let’s see, I thought a Tracker, Geo, Outback & Element were SUV’s also. I feel your pain, ad. I drive a diesel also! What irritates me is that there is hardly any processing to diesel, but it sure costs a whole lot more. Go figure.

  • January 17, 2008 at 1:05 am
    Mr. Obvious says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Don’t forget that there are now Hybrid SUV’s as well. They may not get the mileage of the Prius, but they are a better choice than was available in the past.

    For who ever it was suggesting a minivan over an SUV, my SUV gets better mileage than my last minivan did. Also for those of us that live in a part of the country with actual seasons, it is worth the expense to own a 4wd vehicle, even if you never take it off road.

  • January 17, 2008 at 2:40 am
    Stat Guy says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Did I mention I drive a 2000 Honda Civic that gets 36 MPG? I commute 34 miles one way, 5 days a week. Straight shot, 4 lane highway driving. Occassionally, we take the van to golf on the weekends or to take the 5 “younguns” to visit the grandparents….but I am the one responsible for my choices. Wish that we could find a way to either get better gas mileage or find another, cheaper source of powering our vehicles….sigh…but until their is money to be made, no new technology will be adopted….

  • January 18, 2008 at 11:58 am
    Sunnie says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Well, I’ve been an insurance agent for 22 years, drive a Chevy Blazer 4 wheel drive with a little six cylandar. I need my baby-truck to pull my motorcycle trailer, Home Depot stuff, Sams Club, Wal-Mart, yard sales, flee markets, dogs to the vet…………..

  • January 22, 2008 at 10:53 am
    Nickolas says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    I own a GMC Yukon Denali XL. It is the finest vehicle I have ever owned as far as quality, versatility, and safety. Pious owners who cuss out SUV owners should get a life. This whole idea that man is ruining the Earth by the vehicle he drives is just plain bunk. It is called freedom. You buy the car you want, I will buy the car I want. You show how small you are when you belittle the other driver who just happens to want something different.

  • January 22, 2008 at 11:10 am
    Maud says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Actually SUV’s contribute more to the smog problem than a car like the Prius. Im sick of trying to educate stupid people like you though – Its getting old.

    Do you know what smog is? Do you know why its a problem? Do you know what good health is? How about clean air?

    Id say clean air has more to do with freedom than what car you drive.

  • January 22, 2008 at 11:21 am
    Mr. Green Jeans says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    The debate will go on forever, but the Prius is not the answer. The material being mined to make the battery for this vehicle is doing more harm to the environment than it is doing good. Once the battery technology has been improved, possibly it will be a plus. Plug in electic vehicles will be the answer on down the road, but the amount of fosil fuel energy needed to charge a battery is creating more emmissions from power plants than the emissions from the fosil fuel vehicles.

  • January 22, 2008 at 11:42 am
    Anon says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Don’t confuse Maud with the truth.

  • January 22, 2008 at 12:03 pm
    Nickolas says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    I have found a common thead among Pious owners, with a few exceptions. They are mean spirited, angry, fearful they are walking on a dying planet, and do all they can to restrict folks from living a life of freedom. They try to put folks into cars like they own, stop fireplaces from burning wood, stop property owners from living in the kind of house they want to own, and love to put others down that disagree with them – painting them as fools. This is a sad way to live a life and one where bitterness only ferments into more.

  • January 22, 2008 at 12:10 pm
    ad says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Nickoluas, eloquently stated and right on target. I’m impressed. I’m afraid I might have told rude Maud to go …

  • January 22, 2008 at 12:11 pm
    Maud says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Just try to be more forgiving and compassionate Nick. Don’t you feel bad for all the people who suffer from polluted air and water just so you can live in the lap of luxury?

  • January 22, 2008 at 12:13 pm
    Nebraskan says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    If i am wrong, i will accept that.

    to some extent haven’t cars already become better for the environment? compared to 20-30 years ago? cars are used with a lighter material thus necessitating less gas (you just stand less of a chance in a head on collission). and don’t they make them now so they emit toxins into the air? aren’t we already heading in the right direction to some extent?

    I personally don’t have a problem with SUV’s and trucks…i laugh quite hardily when i see one person riding around in one, but i don’t begrudge them. it’s their choice. i’m only one person so don’t see the point in having one, but who knows, that could change in 10 years.

    but i will say this in response to people who keep saying, “how else am i to cart around my kids, my home depot crap, blah blah blah…” you cart it around the same way people did before SUV’s became all the rage….it’s kind of like cell phones…people were able to exist without them….but we’ve grown accustomed to that lifestyle.

    but hey, if you can afford it and that’s what you prefer, more power to you! (and I mean that.)

  • January 22, 2008 at 12:14 pm
    Jasper says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    why is it that this site always deteriorates to name calling and gets way off subject. I would hope that since this is an Insurance Journal site that the people who post could be above the name calling and mean spirited postings.

  • January 22, 2008 at 12:20 pm
    KLS says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    But I don’t think it’s just the Insurance Journal. I do a lot of work online and I see it everywhere. Maybe it’s an aspect of mob mentality and the fact that people can hide behind electronic anonymity?

    Actually… even in my office, some have stooped to a junior high level of behavoir a time or two.

    It has long puzzled me why a select few can’t just grow up. But I’ve given up on trying to figure it out.

    Best to ignore them.

    If you really look around, there are a lot of intelligent points raised and clearly the majority of people here are bright, professional and able to debate a topic without acting like children.

    Yeah, we’ve got a couple of bad apples, but so what? If anything, we need them for cheap entertainment. Hee hee!

  • January 22, 2008 at 12:25 pm
    bubba says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    well, last I checked life expectancy in the united states was going up. Social security is becoming an increasing burden because people are living longer and not dying, as was originally expected. Even if clean air, clean water, and destroying the environment were a big problem, it is not the responsibility of the United States to go above and beyond to make up for other countries that don’t care. True concern for the environment embraces things that make sense all the way around. False or misguided concern embraces anything that leads to bigger government/nanny state, and rejects anything that makes sense.
    Just my opinion.

  • January 22, 2008 at 12:31 pm
    Nickolas says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Luxury is in the eye of the beholder, or the person who must pay for it. I love people and no one want’s dirty air or water. Pollution in our society is a complex issue and not driven by what kind of car you or I drive. If anything can come from this debate, I hope it is that freedom is something to be cherished and protected. Communist states put people into little boxes to live a life of sameness with few choices to see. Let us not allow our country to become such a state.

  • January 22, 2008 at 12:36 pm
    Roger Mount says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Maud! You are well behind the times with regard to petrol engines. Modern petrol engines are extremely clean – hardly producing any smog creating exhaust, neither do they produce much in the way of carcinogenic carbon particulates. On the other hand, Diesel fueled vehicles (even with catalysts and soot collectors) are responsible for most vehicular smog and air pollution. Petrol’s (or Gas as it’s referred to in the States)only “crime” is to produce more CO2, a totally harmless constituant of air.

    In Europe (and now increasingly in the USA) our cities have worsening air quality because of the unproven link between man-made CO2 and Global warming, leading to the increased use of lower CO2 emission fuels whilst ignoring all other pollutants. As for the Prius; several studies by well respected scientists have shown that it is responsible for more CO2 production during it’s manufacturing, life and recycling than an SUV such as a Jeep Cherokee or a Range Rover (assuming all are driven for an average 10,000 miles per annum).

    Now the Green Lobby want us to use Biofuels. They should ask themselves why food prices are rising and why Rain Forests are being cut down to make way for Palm Oil production. Many of these people are guilty of not bothering to think things through and, as a result, often make matters worse. Perhaps, this is because many of them have the fervour of religious fanatics where a request for justification of their views is tantamount to blasphemy.

    Case closed.

  • January 22, 2008 at 1:32 am
    LAR says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    You are so right about the Element being butt ugly. And how they came up with the colors for them God only knows.

    I drive a VW Beetle and the cost of insurance and miles per gallon is very good. Cost of fuel however has me very ticked off, now at $3.11 a gallon for regular unleaded where I live. But, I can still drive for a week on $40.00. A pick up or SUV is double that to fill a tank.

    As for the electric cars, we had an insured that had one and the thing caught on fire in the garage while it was charging and the house burned to the ground. Million dollar loss to house and obviously a total loss for the car.

  • January 22, 2008 at 1:49 am
    Maud says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Ok, Roger, then why in huge cities like LosAngelos do we have smog alerts and terrible pollution? Is it because everyone in LA only drives 20 year old cars? Your theory is prepostorous!

    Also, it is about QUALITY OF LIFE. Kids shouldnt have to go inside because of a smog alert. And regardless of how long you live, dirty air is a bad thing.

    And as far as other countries, im not sure what fool came up with that, but smog in LA is caused by cars in LA, period.

    So Roger, please go back home and save the queen, why would I listen to someone who still bows down to a Queen??

  • January 22, 2008 at 2:12 am
    MK Greenawalt says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Yeah!! Roger Mount.People only see as far as the end of their nose.

  • January 22, 2008 at 4:14 am
    Mr. Green Jeans says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Too many refried beans has partially led to the smog problem in LA. Ruminants have led to global warming as well. This is a different kind of gas that needs to be harnessed. I had enough in me the other day to have heated a home for several minutes. You could say that I am full of it!

  • January 22, 2008 at 4:23 am
    American American Pride says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Al buys carbon “credits” from exactly who? Several “Carbon Credit” companies have been found to be a total fraud as they did NOTHING to reduce any carbon and just took Al Gore’s money and laughed their way to the Bank.

    Wake up Jasper, buying credits is a scam with many of those companies. If Al truly cared, he would actually reduce the amount of pollution he spews by opening his mouth. Nobel Peace Prize my a ss.

  • January 23, 2008 at 11:08 am
    Reason says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    LARS, you think the Element’s ugly; everyone is entitled to their opinion.
    I just find it ironic that you justify that opinion by driving a car that looks like a bloated pimple.

    Whatever floats your boat.

    Maud, you really want to know what causes the majority of the smog in the L.A. basin?
    It’s not the cars as it was 20-30 years ago. The majority of the smog is caused by industry. Then that smog gets trapped by the mountains to the east.

    Do some research; my fear-mongering little kumquat.

    PS: Insurance is higher on a Prius because most people that drive them do so like crap.

  • January 23, 2008 at 11:15 am
    Maud says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

    The study concluded that the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.”

    The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

  • January 23, 2008 at 11:24 am
    Mr. Green Jeans says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    I wondered why the insurance was higher on the Prius. It is Bush’s fault!

  • January 23, 2008 at 11:31 am
    Maud, what does this have to d says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Maud, you’re a very angry liberal.

    A bit chopped up, but makes my point.

    “The first rationale presented for the war was to destroy Iraq’s
    weapons of mass destruction.” This familiar Democratic claim is itself
    probably the biggest lie of the Iraq war, rather than anything the
    president or his administration has said.

    In fact, the first — and last — rationale presented for the war by the
    Bush administration in every formal government statement about the war
    was not the destruction of WMD but the removal of Saddam Hussein, or
    regime change.

    This regime change was necessary because Saddam was an international
    outlaw. He had violated the 1991 Gulf War truce and all the arms control
    agreements it embodied, including U.N. resolutions 687 and 689, and the
    15 subsequent U.N. resolutions designed to enforce them. The last of
    these, U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, was itself a war ultimatum
    to Saddam giving him “one final opportunity” to disarm — or else. The
    ultimatum expired on Dec. 7, 2002, and America went to war three months
    later.

    Contrary to everything that Al Gore and other Democrats have said for
    the last four years, Saddam’s violation of the arms control agreements
    that made up the Gulf War truce — and not the alleged existence of Iraqi
    WMDs — was the legal, moral and actual basis for sending American troops
    to Iraq.

    Al Gore and Bill Clinton had themselves called for the removal of Saddam
    by force when he expelled the U.N. weapons inspectors in 1998, a clear
    violation of the Gulf truce.

    This was the reason Clinton and Gore sent an “Iraqi Liberation Act” to
    Congress that year; it is why the congressional Democrats voted in
    October 2002 to authorize the president to use force to remove him; and
    it is the reason the entire Clinton-Gore national security team,
    including the secretary of state, the secretary of Defense and the
    director of Central Intelligence, supported Bush when he sent American
    troops into Iraq in March 2003.

    The Authorization for the Use of Force bill — passed by majorities of
    both parties in both Houses — is the legal basis for the president’s
    war, which Democrats have since betrayed along with the troops they sent
    to the battlefield. The Authorization bill begins with 23 “whereas”
    clauses justifying the war. Contrary to Gore and the Democratic critics
    of the Bush administration, only two of these clauses refer to
    stockpiles of WMD. On the other hand, 12 of the reasons for going to war
    refer to U.N. resolutions violated by Saddam Hussein.

    Even if these indisputable facts were not staring Gore in the face, the
    destruction of WMDs could not have been the “first rationale” for the
    war in Iraq for this simple reason. On the very eve of the war, the
    president gave Iraq an option to avoid a conflict with American forces.

    On March 17, two days before the invasion, Bush issued an eleventh-hour
    ultimatum to Saddam: leave the country or face war. In other words, if
    Saddam had agreed to leave Iraq, there would have been no American
    invasion. It is one of the most revealing features of the Democrats’
    crusade against George Bush that they blame the war on him instead of
    Saddam.

    If its offer had been accepted, the Bush administration would have left
    in place a regime run by the Ba’athist Party and headed by Foreign
    Minister Tariq Aziz or some comparable figure from the old regime. The
    idea was, that without Saddam, even such a bad regime would honor the
    truce accords of 1991 and U.N. Resolution 1441. This would have led to
    Iraq’s cooperation with the UN inspectors and the destruction of any WMD
    or WMD programs that Saddam may have had — without necessitating a war.

    Ignoring — and distorting — the facts about how and why his country went
    to war, … repeats the slanders of the president — and therefore his
    country — that have become a familiar aspect of our political life.

    The charges are transparently designed to destroy the authority of
    America’s commander in chief, while his troops are in harm’s way — an
    unprecedented sabotage of a war in progress.

    Even so, the argument that Bush manipulated the facts about Iraqi WMD to
    pursue a war policy that was aggressive and unfounded is demonstrably
    false.

    Bush acted on the consensus of every major intelligence agency,
    including the British, the French, the Russian, the German and the
    Jordanian — all of whom believed that Saddam had WMD. In other words, he
    cannot reasonably be accused of inventing the existence of Saddam’s WMD,
    although that is precisely what Gore and other demagogues on the left do
    on an almost daily basis.

    Since every Democratic senator who voted for the war was provided by the
    administration with a copy the intelligence data on Saddam’s WMD, the
    charge made by Gore and other Democratic senators that they were
    deceived is both cynical and hypocritical as well as false.

    American pilots were engaged in a low-intensity armed conflict with the
    Iraqi military over the “no-fly zones” the truce had created. Clinton
    and Gore had allowed Saddam to get away with breaking the truce he had
    signed for two reasons. First because they were preoccupied with the
    fallout from Clinton’s affair in the White House; but more importantly,
    because ever since Vietnam the Democrats had shown no interest in
    deploying American troops to protect the national interest (and thus had
    opposed the first Gulf War).

    In 1998, Saddam expelled the U.N. inspectors from Iraq. Why would he do
    so if it was not his intention to do mischief as well?

    Specifically, why would he do so if it was not his intention to develop
    the weapons programs, the WMD programs, that the Gulf truce outlawed and
    that the U.N. inspectors were there to stop?

    The terrorist attacks of 9/11 showed that Saddam’s mischief could have
    serious consequences, not because Saddam had a role in 9/11, but because
    Saddam celebrated and endorsed the attacks, had attempted to assassinate
    an American president and had hosted terrorist organizations and
    gatherings engaged in a holy war against the West.

    The only reason Saddam allowed the U.N. inspectors to return to Iraq in
    the fall of 2002 was because Bush placed 200,000 U.S. troops on its
    border. It would have been irresponsible of Bush to put those troops on
    the border of a country which was violating international law unless he
    meant to enforce the law. But the troops were there to go to war only if
    Saddam Hussein failed to honor the 1991 truce, not to slake the
    aggressive appetites of the president of the United States, as America’s
    enemies — and Al Gore — maintain.

    Saddam’s offer to allow the U.N. inspectors to return to Iraq coincided
    with Bush’s appearance at the U.N. in September 2002. His message to the
    U.N. was that it needed to enforce its resolutions or become irrelevant.
    If U.N. did not enforce the resolutions that Saddam had violated, the
    United States would do so in its stead. Jimmy Carter and Al Gore marked
    the occasion by publicly attacking their own president for putting such
    pressure on Saddam Hussein. This was the beginning of the Democratic
    campaign to sabotage an American war in progress, which has continued
    without letup ever since.

    As a result of Bush’s appeal, the U.N. Security Council voted
    unanimously to present Saddam with an ultimatum, and a 30-day deadline
    to expire on Dec. 7, 2002.

    By that date he was to honor the truce and destroy his illegal weapons
    programs or “serious consequences would follow.” The ultimatum was U.N.
    Resolution 1441 — the seventeenth attempt to enforce a truce in the Gulf
    War of 1991. The deadline came and went without Saddam’s compliance.
    Saddam knew that his military suppliers and political allies, Russia and
    France, would never authorize its enforcement by arms. This is the
    reason the United States and Britain went to war without U.N. approval,
    not because George Bush preferred unilateral measures, which is simply
    another Democratic deception.

    Since war was not the president’s preference, first, last, or otherwise,
    the United States did not immediately attack. Instead, the White House
    spent three months after the Dec. 7 deadline trying by diplomatic means
    to persuade the French and Russians and Chinese to back the U.N.
    resolution they had voted for and to force Saddam to open his country to
    full inspections. In other words, to honor the terms of the Gulf War
    truce that they, as Security Council members, had ratified and promised
    to enforce.

    Virtually all of the claims that make up the core of the Democrats’
    attacks on Bush’s decision to go to war — that he manipulated data on
    aluminum tubes to present them as elements of an Iraqi nuclear program
    and that he lied about an Iraqi attempt to buy yellowcake uranium — were
    never part of the administration’s rationale for the use of force, and
    were not mentioned in the Authorization for the Use of Force
    congressional legislation.

    They were political attempts to persuade the reluctant Europeans to
    enforce the U.N. ultimatum and international law. Even then, by offering
    Saddam an escape clause, Bush provided an alternative to war. If Saddam
    would re-settle in Russia or some other friendly state, the United
    States would not invade.

    For Gore and the president’s Democratic critics, all these facts count
    for nothing. In their place is the great American Satan, George Bush.
    According to Gore and the Democrats, America went to war for reasons
    that are either illegitimate or immoral or both.

    According to Gore, the sending of American troops to Iraq was an
    imperial aggression, orchestrated by the president and his advisors who
    manipulated the evidence, deceived the people, and ignored the U.N. to
    carry out their malign intent: “The pursuit of ‘dominance’ in foreign
    policy led the Bush administration to ignore the United Nations,” writes
    Gore, showing his utter contempt for the facts.

    What Bush actually ignored was the French, who built Saddam’s nuclear
    reactor, collaborated with Saddam’s theft of the “oil for food”
    billions, and threatened to veto any attempt to enforce international
    law or the U.N. ultimatum.

    Bush also ignored the Russians, who supplied two-thirds of Saddam’s
    weapons, helped him sabotage the U.N. sanctions, and refused to enforce
    the U.N. ultimatum.

    What Bush did not ignore were the 17 U.N. resolutions designed to keep
    the Middle East peace and protect the world from the consequences of its
    failure.

  • January 23, 2008 at 11:42 am
    Maud says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

    White House spokesman Scott Stanzel did not comment on the merits of the study Tuesday night but reiterated the administration’s position that the world community viewed Iraq’s leader, Saddam Hussein, as a threat.

    “The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world,” Stanzel said.

    The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

    “It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida,” according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. “In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003.”

    Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

    Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq’s links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell’s 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.

    The center said the study was based on a database created with public statements over the two years beginning on Sept. 11, 2001, and information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches and interviews.

    “The cumulative effect of these false statements – amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts – was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war,” the study concluded.

    “Some journalists – indeed, even some entire news organizations – have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, ‘independent’ validation of the Bush administration’s false statements about Iraq,” it said.

  • January 23, 2008 at 11:44 am
    Rebublicans Are Liers says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    When statisticians look at cold numbers, they have variously estimated the chances of the average person dying in America at the hands of international terrorists to be comparable to the risk of dying from eating peanuts, being struck by an asteroid or drowning in a toilet.

    But worrying about terrorism could be taking a toll on the hearts of millions of Americans. The evidence, published last week in the Archives of General Psychiatry, comes from researchers who began tracking the health of a representative sample of more than 2,700 Americans before September 2001. After the attacks of Sept. 11, the scientists monitored people’s fears of terrorism over the next several years and found that the most fearful people were three to five times more likely than the rest to receive diagnoses of new cardiovascular ailments.

    Almost all the people in the study lived outside New York or Washington and didn’t know any victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. But more than a 10th of them reported acute stress symptoms (like insomnia or nightmares) right after the attacks, and over the next three years more than 40 percent said they kept worrying about a terrorist attack affecting themselves or a family member.

    Their worries were understandable, given the continual warnings from Washington. Officials repeatedly raised the color-coded level of the National Threat Advisory and sometimes explicitly warned of imminent attacks from terrorist cells supposedly operating in America. The alert level has never dropped below yellow (the third of the five levels). About a third to a half of Americans have continued to tell pollsters that they’re personally worried about being victims of a terrorist attack, and that an attack is somewhat or very likely within several months.

    “It’s amazing how enduring these feelings of fear are, but look at what’s been going on,” said Alison Holman, a professor of nursing science at the University of California, Irvine, the lead author of the study. “I’d be surprised if those terrorist alerts didn’t contribute in some way to the ongoing worry about terrorism in our sample.”

    Another of the authors, Roxane Cohen Silver, also at U.C. Irvine, is a psychologist who is on an advisory council to the Homeland Security Department.

    “I’ve regularly pointed out to the department that there are psychological consequences to the raising of the alert,” Dr. Silver said. “Now we’re demonstrating that it may have physical consequences.”

    The researchers caution that they’re not sure how serious the physical consequences are, because they’re relying on people reporting that their doctors have diagnosed new cardiovascular ailments. Also, studies like this show correlations, rather than an identifiable cause and effect. But since the researchers have taken into account reports of people’s health problems and anxiety that were collected before Sept. 11, and the levels of lifetime and continuing stress, they’re confident they’ve identified a worrisome increase in heart disease.

    After controlling for various factors (age, obesity, smoking, other ailments and stressful life events), the researchers found that the people who were acutely stressed after the 9/11 attacks and continued to worry about terrorism — about 6 percent of the sample — were at least three times more likely than the others in the study to be given diagnoses of new heart problems.

    If you extrapolate that percentage to the adult population of America, it works out to more than 10 million people. No one knows what fraction of them might consequently die of a stroke or heart attack — plenty of other factors affect heart disease — but if it were merely 0.0003 percent, that would be higher than the 9/11 death toll.

    Of course, statistics of any sort, even when the numbers are rock solid, don’t mean much to people when they’re assessing threats. Risk researchers have found that even when people know the numbers, they’re less worried about death tolls than about how the deaths occur. They have good reasons — called “rival rationalities” — for fearing catastrophes that kill large numbers at once because these events affect the whole community and damage the social fabric.

    Living in Fear and Paying a High Cost in Heart Risk The sponsors of the New York campaign were so pleased with the results that they papered the subways with congratulations to the riders: “Last year, 1,944 New Yorkers saw something and said something.” But as William Neuman reported in The Times, the ads neglected to mention the number of terrorists arrested as a result of the tips: zero.
    Meanwhile, how many subway riders were given diagnoses of new heart problems after riding to work every morning looking at ads reminding them that they might be blown to bits any second? Not zero, if you believe the new study.

    Even before this study, some doctors were arguing that terrorism wasn’t nearly as dangerous as the related “epidemic of fear,” as Marc Siegel called it in a 2005 book, “False Alarm.” Dr. Siegel, of the New York University School of Medicine, pointed to studies linking fear of terrorism with increased risk of heart arrhythmias and elevated levels of an enzyme that correlates with heart disease.

    “The fear response causes the heart to pump harder and faster, the nerves to fire more quickly,” Dr. Siegel said. “Excess triggering of this system of response causes the organs to wear down. For a person who is always on the alert, the result is a burned out body.”

    It’s not fair to blame public officials alone for this fear epidemic. We in the news media have done our part to scare people. (More on how the “terrorism industry” distorts risks can be found at tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com.) But since there hasn’t been an attack in America for six years, for domestic drama we’ve had to rely on dire predictions of politicians and security officials.

    What if the alerts stopped? What if the security officials looked at this new medical evidence — or at their own perfect record of false alarms — and decided that the nation did not need to be in a perpetual state of yellow alert? What if they even decided that Americans could survive without any color at all?

    I guess that’s a hopeless fantasy. No politician wants to be blamed for failing to anticipate a terrorist attack. No bureaucrats willingly abandon a system that keeps them employed.

    But maybe these officials could be induced to take one more precaution. The next time they raise the threat level to orange or red, they could add, “Warning: Heeding this alert may be hazardous to your health.”

  • January 23, 2008 at 11:45 am
    Reason says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Uh….you don’t actually expect us to believe you typed all that; do you?

    You could have just cut to the point and said that Maud is a goober or something. We all know that her comment has no bearing on the smog in L.A. or her “doo-doo” brown Prius.

  • January 23, 2008 at 11:46 am
    Nickolas says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    You sound like an apologist for the Republican Party trying desperately to rewrite history to conform to the debacle in Iraq. The war we brought to that country to save them from themselves has cost the lives of at least 135,000 that includes 3931 US troops. This is not a game to be won by political persuasion nor an argument to bolster the argument for the attack. These are real lives we are talking about sacrificed based on a false premise that Iraq had some weapons of “mass destruction”. By the way, there will come a day when the US will be ordered the “international community” to do something we find abhorent, such as disarm our citizens, under the threat of sanctions such as we have promulgated. The weapons of politics we have used will be used against us.

    There is no justification to call evil good and good evil. No, Mr. Hussain was not a good man by any measure, but the world is filled with despots and dethroning them is out our responsibility nor is it worth US lives to do so. If they attack the US, by all means we need to defend the country. Until then, US blood should not and cannot be justified.

  • January 23, 2008 at 11:48 am
    jasper says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    what does all this drivel about iraq and bush have to do with Pickups, Hybrids Most Expensive Vehicles to Insure

  • January 23, 2008 at 11:51 am
    Mr. Green Jeans says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Is the Prius a weapon of mass destruction?

  • January 23, 2008 at 11:55 am
    Reason says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    CRAP!!!

    Someone I know once knew someone who died from a peanut and another who was whacked by an asteroid, Then the asteroid guy knew someone that drowned in his own toilet. To top it all off, I have been struck by lightening.

    According to the odds; I’M DOOMED!!!!

    But that being said, I have to agree with Jasper; what does this have to do with Maud’s “doo-doo” brown Prius and the expense associated with insuring her bad driving habits?

  • January 23, 2008 at 11:56 am
    Mr. Green Jeans says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Through a study by CNW Marketing called “Dust to Dust,” the total combined energy is taken from all the electrical, fuel, transportation, materials (metal, plastic, etc) and hundreds of other factors over the expected lifetime of a vehicle. The Prius costs an average of $3.25 per mile driven over a lifetime of 100,000 miles – the expected lifespan of the Hybrid.

    The Hummer, on the other hand, costs a more fiscal $1.95 per mile to put on the road over an expected lifetime of 300,000 miles. That means the Hummer will last three times longer than a Prius and use less combined energy doing it.

    So, if you are an environmentalist – ditch the Prius. Instead, buy one of the most economical cars available – a Toyota Scion xB. The Scion only costs a paltry $0.48 per mile to put on the road. If you are still obsessed over gas mileage – buy a Chevy Aveo and fix that lead foot.

  • January 23, 2008 at 11:58 am
    Mr. Green Jeans says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Given current trends, there will be more than one million hybrid gas-electric vehicles on American roads by late 2007 or early 2008. Many will celebrate reaching the milestone of one million hybrids zipping around on power from their rechargeable batteries—and burning a lot less petroleum. But some environmentally motivated car buyers are concerned about trading one problem for another. They worry that a hybrid utopia might turn into a toxic nightmare when the nickel metal hydride batteries in today’s hybrids end up in landfills. After all, aren’t all car batteries —conventional lead acid and hybrid batteries alike—filled with the same nasty corrosive carcinogenic ooze?

    According to environmental researchers, that’s not the case. Jim Kliesch, author of the “Green Book: The Environmental Guide to Cars and Trucks” told HybridCars.com, “There are many types of batteries. Some are far more toxic than others. While batteries like lead acid or nickel cadmium are incredibly bad for the environment, the toxicity levels and environmental impact of nickel metal hydride batteries—the type currently used in hybrids—are much lower.”

    Get the Lead Out
    There’s little argument that lead is extremely toxic. Scientific studies show that long-term exposure to even tiny amounts of lead can cause brain and kidney damage, hearing impairment, and learning problems in children. The auto industry uses over one million metric tons of lead every year, with 90% going to conventional lead-acid vehicle batteries.

    According to a 2003 report entitled, “Getting the Lead Out,” by Environmental Defense and the Ecology Center of Ann Arbor, Mich., an estimated 2.6 million metric tons of lead can be found in the batteries of vehicles on the road today.

    While lead recycling is a mature industry, it’s impossible to rescue every car battery from the dump. More than 40,000 metric tons of lead are lost to landfills every year. According to the federal Toxic Release Inventory, another 70,000 metric tons are released in the lead mining and manufacturing process.

  • January 23, 2008 at 11:58 am
    Reason says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    I wonder if these Prius combined energy numbers are taking into account all the hot air spewed by their drivers…

  • January 23, 2008 at 11:59 am
    Roger says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    They possibly are if driven by Maud! And so, could explain why they are so expensive to insure.

  • January 23, 2008 at 12:01 pm
    Mr. Green Jeans says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    The Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles.
    The plant is the source of all the nickel found in a Prius’ battery and Toyota purchases 1,000 tons annually. Dubbed the Superstack, the plague-factory has spread sulfur dioxide across northern Ontario, becoming every environmentalist’s nightmare.
    “The acid rain around Sudbury was so bad it destroyed all the plants and the soil slid down off the hillside,” said Canadian Greenpeace energy-coordinator David Martin during an interview with Mail, a British-based newspaper.
    All of this would be bad enough in and of itself; however, the journey to make a hybrid doesn’t end there. The nickel produced by this disastrous plant is shipped via massive container ship to the largest nickel refinery in Europe. From there, the nickel hops over to China to produce ‘nickel foam.’ From there, it goes to Japan. Finally, the completed batteries are shipped to the United States, finalizing the around-the-world trip required to produce a single Prius battery. Are these not sounding less and less like environmentally sound cars and more like a farce?

  • January 23, 2008 at 12:04 pm
    Reason says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Ironically, that takes us back to the main reason for smog in Los Angeles…INDUSTRY.

    GAWD I’m good!
    :thrusts hips:
    Can you feel that, huh, huh, huh!!!!

  • January 23, 2008 at 12:11 pm
    Nebraskan says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Here’s a paragraph from your post:

    “But worrying about terrorism could be taking a toll on the hearts of millions of Americans. The evidence, published last week in the Archives of General Psychiatry, comes from researchers who began tracking the health of a representative sample of more than 2,700 Americans before September 2001. After the attacks of Sept. 11, the scientists monitored people’s fears of terrorism over the next several years and found that the most fearful people were three to five times more likely than the rest to receive diagnoses of new cardiovascular ailments.”

    if i read that correctly, i assume these scientists were PREPARED for a terrorist attack to occur because why else would they study the fear of terrorism BEFORE an attack to be compared to fear AFTER a terrorist attack unless they knew something was going down?

  • January 23, 2008 at 12:19 pm
    Reason says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    What that article doesn’t say is that the study was conducted by Iraqi scientists.

  • January 23, 2008 at 12:50 pm
    Nobody Important says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    That was my thought too Reason. Also, maybe I’m being simplistic, but doesn’t it follow that if it costs more to fix a hybrid it will cost more to insure one. Tell me if I’m wrong.

  • January 23, 2008 at 1:30 am
    Reason says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    I just want to make this perfectly clear, I will do anything to stop the terrorists. Iraq is the most liberal nation on Earth and those communist socialist Iraqies would love to see Clinton in office so they can attack us again and beat us in this war! I would get down on my knees and lick George Bushs boots if he would just run for one more term!

  • January 23, 2008 at 1:42 am
    The REAL Reason says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    What kind of a asshat uses someone elses name?

    Goober.

  • January 23, 2008 at 1:45 am
    Mr. Green Jeans says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Mr. Goober, what is an asshat? Is it anything like underwear?

  • January 23, 2008 at 1:48 am
    The REAL Reason says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    And one more thing, just because I would lick George Bushes asshat if he would run again doesnt mean Im not a real man – It takes a real man to bow down in front of your hero.

  • January 23, 2008 at 1:50 am
    Linda says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    These posts are getting better and better. I can’t stop laughing. Keep them coming.

  • January 23, 2008 at 2:22 am
    KLS says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    My husband’s ’62 Dart 440 Max Wedge runs on a combination of race fuel and nitrous oxide. So technically, it’s a hybrid, right?

    Plus it’s old and he bought it used… so that’s like recycling and junk, too. Right?

    Just wonderin.

    BTW, Reason, I’m going to sue you for pain, suffering and public humiliation as I spewed coffee out of my nose reading your posts. It disrupted my co-workers who proceeded to laugh at me and I maxed out my Tide Pen trying to remove the stains from my shirt. Crap… that means I have to sue you for my dry cleaning, too. This is clearly a $65 million dollar shirt. Please post your name and address so I can have service of process sent to you. Money will make me feel much much better and it will keep you from going to hell for the awful things you’ve viciously done to me. Work for you? K, thx.

  • January 23, 2008 at 2:26 am
    Reason says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    KLS, my name is Maud, and my address is Los Angeles, CA. I have insurance, but I’m not sure I carry high enough limits. You can have my house and my ugly Prius too.

  • January 23, 2008 at 2:31 am
    Mr. Green Jeans says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    I remember when I was a kid, there was a show called Maud, played by “B” Arthur. Anyway, I was wondering if the new Chevy Volt will be as expensive to insure. I would like to buy one, but not sure I can afford the insurance.

  • January 23, 2008 at 2:38 am
    Linda says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Reason, this is now going to be a class action against you because I too am laughing and spewing and being laughed at.

    BTW, if you go online to HGTV.com you can win a house and a hybrid. Although, if I win I won’t be able to afford the insurance on either.

  • January 23, 2008 at 2:40 am
    Reaon says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Again, this Goober can’t even use his own alias.
    What an asshat.

    There is a clinical definition for the term asshat.
    Asshats are people who wear their own buttocks as earmuffs. This affliction can also be known as chronic cranialrectosis. The implication here is the person in question is unable to understand the conversation because of aural obstruction, and of sufficiently dubious mental capacity to be considered part of the conversation.

    But beyond the simple clinical diagnosis of one’s inclination to wear their own sphincter as a choker necklace, asshat can be a poetic term; it cannot be defined by words alone, but ideally by examples.

    Here are but a few scenarios that illustrate the meaning of this great American term…

    -You go through my garbage looking for cans and spread the non-can contents of the bag all over the street.

    -You move into my neighborhood and leave your boxes, hunks of styrofoam, and other assorted non-bagged crap out of the street to blow around until someone else cleans it up.

    -You wear one of those pseudo-vintage shirts, get manicures, pluck your eyebrows, yet get mad when people think you’re gay. Way to be different, asshat. If you don’t want to be called a duck, quick quacking.

    -You go to Home Depot or Lowes with every kid you own, blocking half the friggen isle with a large flat cart to buy your weekly supply of paper towels, light bulbs, craft glue, or fly paper.

    -You drive a BMW, Mercedes, or Saab and think you are better for it.

    -You get angry about stuff posted on an anonymous message board.

    -You walk along narrow sidewalks with 10 of your closest friends – slowly – and you do not allow anyone to pass you.

    -You were my old boss.

    -You put a “Bush/Cheney” sticker on your car. Not a good idea asshat. Some passionate lefty may key your car.

    -You put a “Kerry/Edwards” sticker on your car. Not a good idea asshat. I may key your car.

    -You wear glasses with those big retro frames, and you have perfect eyesight.

    -You are a freakish/somewhat feminine guy who wanders around downtown with your annoying clone friends, complete with your greasy hair, tattoos and jeans that are way too tight for healthy circulation. Keep suffocating “Mr. Johnson” like that, and your next adventure out of your neighborhood will be to Sweden to complete your feminine transformation, asshat.

    -You walk around wearing a shirt bearing the name of the school you are about to attend or were going to attend, even though you haven’t spent an hour in class at said school.

    -You see a car parked on the street with the legit Hawaii license plate and make a remark to those around you about “What a long drive it must have been!”

    -You laugh at the asshat who made the above comment.

    -You debate Democrat vs. Republican or Mac vs.PC at length when the majority of visitors here just want to read about some asshat getting popped for insurance fraud.

    -You think smoking weed is the pinnacle of coolness.

    -I used to work with you, and really liked you. I asked you out for “cocktails” twice, and you backed out at the last minute both times for some BS reason. Thanks for wasting my time, asshat.

    -You remind people that smoke that smoking is unhealthy. Unless they have been living in a cave for the past 25 years, they already know this, asshat.

    -You pronounce names of ethnic people or restaurants as you think they should sound in their native tongue. Very worldly of you, asshat.

    -You complain about stores being closed on Labor Day weekend, or any other holiday for that matter. Buy your preparation H on an unobserved holiday, asshat.

    -You take your crappy job too seriously.

    -You are unfriendly and strut around like you are “all that,” and then complain about being lonely on the weekend. Why do you think that is, asshat?

    -You quote “The Simpsons” or any other stupid show/movie, ad nauseum.

    -You sit around in a circle with other asshats in the Public Garden and talk about feelings.

    -You use other people’s screen name in a feeble attempt to make others believe that the actual user of said screen name is saying something stupid but really you just come off looking like more of a loser; albeit an annonymous loser, so apparently that makes you feel OK about it, asshat.

    Those are just a few of the things that come to mind when I hear the word asshat.

  • January 23, 2008 at 2:43 am
    Reason says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    doh!

  • January 23, 2008 at 2:47 am
    REASON says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Figures, dealing with this asshat made me misspell my own name.
    See….stupidity is contagious.

    As for filing suit; lets make a deal. I’ll give you a hand with that bleach pen :wink wink: and we’ll call it even.

    8>)~

  • January 23, 2008 at 2:48 am
    Maud says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Nowhere in the entire dispatch does the AP tell us anything more about the two
    groups than that they are “nonprofit journalism organizations.” In fact, the Center for Public Integrity is a liberal-left group that has taken money from George Soros,who has compared contemporary America to Nazi Germany. The Fund for Independence in Journalism http://www.tfij.org/ seems to be but a spinoff; its Web site says its
    “primary purpose is providing legal defense and endowment support” for the center.

    Certainly if the AP is going to report on this “study,” it ought to disclose the
    political leanings of the groups that sponsored it. Though come to think of it,
    given those political leanings, it’s hard to see why this is even newsworthy.

  • January 23, 2008 at 2:57 am
    Mr. Green Jeans says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    So, am I an “asshat” for just one infraction?

  • January 23, 2008 at 2:58 am
    Reason says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    I’m sure she was going to get around to explaining the political affiliations of the groups, but she was too busy posting under my name at 1:30, 1:48, 2:26, and 2:43.

  • January 23, 2008 at 3:00 am
    Reason says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    It’s possible, but that’s the beauty of it; you can drift in and out of asshattiness depending on your current level of asshattery.

  • January 23, 2008 at 3:35 am
    Not funny says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    you guys are much more funny when you don’t try…

  • January 23, 2008 at 3:43 am
    Carlin says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Yea, I think Reason got the wrong idea. His imposter was the funny one, not him.

  • January 23, 2008 at 3:56 am
    Maud says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    U.S. Given Poor Marks on the Environment
    E-MailPrint Reprints Save Share
    Del.icio.usDiggFacebookNewsvinePermalink

    By FELICITY BARRINGER
    Published: January 23, 2008
    WASHINGTON — A new international ranking of environmental performance puts the United States at the bottom of the Group of 8 industrialized nations and 39th among the 149 countries on the list.

    European nations dominate the top places in the ranking, which evaluates sanitation, greenhouse gas emissions, agricultural policies, air pollution and 20 other measures to formulate an overall score, with 100 the best possible.

    The top 10 countries, with scores of 87 or better, were led by Switzerland, Sweden, Norway and Finland. The others at the top were Austria, France, Latvia, Costa Rica, Colombia and New Zealand, the leader in the 2006 version of the analysis, which is conducted by researchers at Yale and Columbia Universities.

    “We are putting more weight on climate change,” said Daniel Esty, the report’s lead author, who is the director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy. “Switzerland is the most greenhouse gas efficient economy in the developed world,” he said, in part because of its use of hydroelectric power and its transportation system, which relies more on trains than individual cars or trucks.

    The United States, with a score of 81.0, he noted, “is slipping down,” both because of low scores on three different analyses of greenhouse gas emissions and a pervasive problem with smog. The country’s performance on a new indicator that measures regional smog, he said, “is at the bottom of the world right now.”

    He added, “The U.S. continues to have a bottom-tier performance in greenhouse gas emissions.”

  • January 23, 2008 at 4:15 am
    Reason says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    I hope you feel better posting that.
    It may have made sense if the others didn’t address me by name in their post.

    Try reading the preceding posts in their entirety before posting criticisms, asshat.

    And thanks for proving my point.
    lol

  • January 23, 2008 at 5:39 am
    KLS says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Perhaps I’m too easily amused… could be because I work in INSURANCE… but I thought it was funny and for the record, I’m still snickering under my breath. So there.

    ~shrug~

    Maybe “somebody” is jealoussss? cough cough Not Funny cough cough

  • January 24, 2008 at 9:41 am
    Not funny says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Jealous of what? i blog anonymously on an insurance website. and so do you. it’s like we’re all tied for last place….and now among us we’re just deciding who really is the biggest loser.

    a.w.e.s.o.m.e.

  • January 24, 2008 at 2:40 am
    KLS says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    I was just kidding with ya. =)

  • January 24, 2008 at 3:41 am
    Not funny says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    me too….guess i shouldn’t quit my day job either. haha…

  • January 24, 2008 at 3:47 am
    Maud says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Aw shuks guys, why dont you two go get a room?

  • January 24, 2008 at 3:57 am
    jasper says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    you guys are funnier that a one legged man in a butt kickin contest.

    I just love to read this stuff and speculate what you do for a day job.

    must be garbage collection

  • January 24, 2008 at 4:02 am
    ad says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    jasper, that’s SANITARY ENGINEER. A little consideration please. I am proud of my field. Don’t belittle me.

  • February 18, 2008 at 12:30 pm
    wudchuck says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    you have to remember that the basis of rates depends on a variety of factors. now if your looking at this particular type of vehicles, they present a unique situation.

    1) veh you own: remember we have to consider 2 parts – damage your auto will take and those of your passengers and the amount of damage you care can give to another, including medical for any passengers in the other car. so if you have an suv, your more likely to damage another vehicle more than your own vehicle. your own veh can probably absorb damage, but repairs costs can be high.

    2) when you think of Hybrids, it’s because the maintenance and repair costs are high. we have been working on regular vehicles for many years, hybrid is new and so is the maintenance of that veh. again, amount of damage given or taken, is still be assessed.



Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*