HUMMER? I HARDLY KNOW HER

I guess I should say something about the demise of The Hummer, seeing as how I got to drive the pre-commercial version.

I was in the Army once, you see. And my primary job was driving and looking after the squad M151 Jeep. Shortly before I was kicked out left, the Army decided to start swapping out the Jeeps for the Humvee (or, as we never called it, the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV).

I forget the reasoning they gave us for the switch, but the general pitch was something like: “It’s bigger, it runs on diesel and it’s not 20 years old like that M151. Go play.”

Close enough, Jim.

I took it on one field maneuver, and we really put it through its off-road paces. (No one ever said it wasn’t fun to stress-test govt vehicles.) In the end I thought it was a fun new piece of equipment, but the only real advantages were that it was newer and you could fit more stuff in it. And it was less likely to flip over like the M151. The automatic transmission was not an improvement, for my money.

Anyway, that was my experience with it. So I was rather amused – though not surprised – when AM General released a civilian version (which, supposedly, was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s idea).

I never wanted one, myself. I thought it was way too big for the roads, a pain to park, and yes, the gas mileage sucked. I could see getting one if you worked on a ranch or otherwise did a lot of off-road driving. But not if you were a soccer mom. Or a rap artist.

So naturally they became hot items. Especially after 9/11, for reasons I still don’t quite understand.

“Fight al Qaeda by purchasing the biggest gas-guzzling American-made car possible! If yr not driving a Hummer, yr with the terrorists!”

Then the stupid liberals made up stupid global warming and ruined it for everyone and that’s how Hummers lost the War On Terrorz. The end. Stupid libtards.

Something like that.

Anyway, I’m not particularly sorry to see them go. But then cars stopped being cool since 1977, so I would say that, wouldn’t I?

Fill ‘er up,

This is dF

NEW ADVENTURES IN BATSHIT

Long-time readers may have gathered that when it comes to US politics, I’m not a big fan of Republicans. Some people take this to mean that I’m therefore a Democrat by default.

Well, no. Not exactly. I’m not enthralled by either party, to be honest. But one thing the Democrats have going for them is this:

They don’t have party members going around trying to argue that Planned Parenthood shouldn’t get govt funding because abortion leads to God punishing women by making them give birth to deformed children.

Also, they don’t generally push for legislation that would make miscarriage via reckless act (like falling down the stairs) equivalent to homicide.

Seriously. I’d be embarrassed to be a card-carrying member of any party that came up with stuff this weird and tried to pass it off as a reasoned argument.

That said, I’ve recently formulated a theory that all of this may actually be a clever tactical ploy of some kind. Maybe ... just maybe ... these people think that the way to win an argument is to take the most extreme made-up batshit position possible to the point where you couldn’t possibly argue against it even if you wanted to ... and so the conservatives win.

Or shit, maybe they ARE batshit. An argument could be made. So to speak.

Whatever. The Democrats may be full of bad ideas, but if the alternative is paranoid superstitious fearmongering God-bothering crazy talk, I’d rather be mistaken for one of the bad-idea people, thanks.

But that's just me.

A suitable case for treatment,

This is dF