Well, he has called fixed speed cameras “arbitrary” and “unfair,” preferring instead the far less arbitrary and unfair average speed cameras. You know, the ones that record your speed over a large distance then send you a ticket in the mail should your average exceed the posted limit. He’s also proposed that drivers could lose their licenses after only two speeding offenses. Why?

No, not because speeding is dangerous — it seems that even the Ministry of Love Labour Party has lost faith in that lie — but, get this, because the faster you drive, the more you pollute. Coincidentally, Geoff Hoon has just approved an extra 23,000 flights per year at Stanstead and who supports a third runway at Heathrow.

Despite his anti-car policies, Hoon has had the gall to have himself described as “car mad” in newspaper interviews. Ignoring his car-hating policies for a second, let’s take a look at the Hoon fleet: a Ford Galaxy minivan, a purple Mini and his Government issue Prius.

What’s most interesting about Hoon’s appointment to the position isn’t the cynical policies or spin however, it’s the resigned acceptance shown by the English press. Writing in The Times, former CAR editor Jason Barlow cites all of the above offenses but doesn’t move on to present a cohesive argument for either Hoon’s dismissal nor the repeal of his policies; instead moving on to a tired and trivial Clarkson imitation, calling for people with stuffed animals in their cars to be banned. For this ex-resident of Blighty, it’s sad and frightening to see the degree to which the British are prepared to roll over and accept the slow progression of Orwellian rule. The United Kingdom used to be a bastion of reasonable laws and personal freedom. Not anymore. [via The Times]

[Rebuild The Party, via Wonkette; go here if page disappears]

While Richard Milhous Nixon drove a man-of-the-people-esque '48 Mercury woodie wagon during his first senatorial campaign, once he got to be president, by God, he was going to roll in a vehicle befitting a man of his stature. A car that would show the doubters, the back-stabbers, the East Coast elitists, and- especially- the treasonous press that here was a man not to be trifled with! A man who would make you pay for trying to thwart him during his rise to power! For that, it pretty much goes without saying that you need a great big Cadillac Fleetwood, and that's just what Nixon got once he became president. His first presidential ride was a 1967 Fleetwood 75 limo, outfitted with the best in commie-bullet-stopping armor plate and- we're assuming here- a gold-plated Dilantin dispenser. Now, you'll need to add the presidential goodies yourself, but it's no sweat finding a suitable Fleetwood; take, for example, this 1967 Cadillac Fleetwood 75 limo, priced at just $1,250. That leaves you plenty of cash left over to fix the rust (the seller says "needs body work," which- given that the car is in Minnesota- we're interpreting as "more air than metal") and have the interior done in leather embossed with the presidential seal. Throw a microfilm-stuffed pumpkin in the trunk and you'll be ready to roll!

Sure, Nixon had a lot of power, but de Gaulle had style! Not only that, when you're choosing a President Grade Hell Project, you need to ask yourself: did a Cadillac ever save Nixon's life? The battleship-like construction, hydropneumatic suspension, and excellent handling of the Citroën DS saved de Gaulle at least twice, once when some right-wing dingbat tried to machine-gun him, and again when his DS drove right through a roadside napalm bomb explosion. Clearly, the DS is the way to roll like a president, but it's going to be tough to find one in the same price range as that super-cheap Caddy. Not to worry, though, because all tortures good things are possible in Project Car Hell; we've found this 1967 Citroën DS sitting with a price tag of just two grand! The seller (apparently suffering from the kind of Citroën Fatigue that renders one incapable of using punctuation or capitalization) claims the car is "nearly rust free"- which we're inclined to believe, given that this DS is in Arizona- but follows that statement with the less encouraging "needs new interior and a little work done its been sitting for some time." You figure maybe the hydraulics need complete replacement a little work, and possibly the engine is frozen solid requires some freshening, but so what? If it was good enough for de Gaulle, it's good enough for your garage!

First up was the McCain Uphill Slog Penalty. John McCain has done plenty of struggling in his life, and trudging to the top of the very tall mountain that is the United States Presidency is tough enough under any circumstances… but what about when you're dragging the dead weight of an unpopular lame-duck administration, during tough economic times, and most of your own party hates you? What's that like? Well, we figure it probably feels similar to donning a rubber McCain mask and pushing a Ford Taurus SHO with seven burly guys sitting on it the length of the pit road in the muggy petro-enhanced Houston air… so that's what we had this miscreant do after he did Badness on the track. Bet he thinks twice before trading paint with a CRX at the next race!


The jeering crowds liked that so much that we figured we'd McCain-ize the next driver black-flagged in for too much aggro on the track. It's a lot easier when the car is a BMW 2002 and your team only has four members, so we had the Loverman add his weight to the load. Man, that McCain mask gets sweaty fast!


Then there's Barack Obama, who promises change and plenty of it. You know what, though- change can often be painful, hard work, and it can force you to throw away a lot of sweat you've already invested! That's why we figured the Obama Change You Can Believe In Penalty had to be hard mental and physical work that undid a lot of the team's previous efforts. The way it works goes like this: we give the team members spray paint, tagger-grade fat permanent markers, colored tape, etc., and the team needs to completely change their car's theme before we'll let them continue racing. Not only that, we have to believe in the change, so half-assed efforts get sent back to the penalty box for more work.


By far the most impressive Change We Can Believe In victims were the guys on the Svedish Slaabs Saab 900 Turbo team. Their original theme was a sort of IKEA-meatball-style mishmash of Swedish Chef and ABBA iconography, but they managed to change their car to the Exxon Valdez in about six minutes flat.


Got to admit, we were freakin' awed by their accomplishment (which stood in stark contrast to their typical LeMons Saab on-track performance, which generally involves completing less than 20 laps and then nuking the engine). "Dancing Queen" became "Leaky Queen," for starters.


The Swedish Chef doll became Captain Hazelwood, complete with beer cans ziptied to his body. We liked this accomplishment so much that we gave the Slaabs our created-on-the-spot Judges' Choice Award (12-pack of Shiner Bock) after the race.


Other teams didn't quite measure up to the incredibly high bar set by the Svedish Slaabs; the Enginerds went for a "We're Sorry" theme, apparently figuring we'd stop punishing them if they showed remorse.


When they beat the shit out of their formerly-dent-free car with hammers, their new theme became "Sorry Piece Of Crap," and we let them back on the track.


Then we had the über-recidivist Unintended Acceleration Audi team. The kind of Audi you can get for 500 bucks is almost invariably gonna be one evil-handling beast in a LeMons race, and this one was no exception; we hit these guys with every penalty we had (though they successfully pleaded their way out of the metal-shavings-in-the-crankcase one), but every time we turned around they'd be back in the penalty area with sheepish looks on their faces after spinning out and/or hitting something… again.

By that time we'd used up most of the spray paint turning Neons into Civics and Mustangs into Camaros, so these guys were limited to white appliance paint and red duct tape for their Change We Can Believe In penalty. They opted to make the move from "Unintended Acceleration" to "Peace And Love," complete with hearts and peace signs in white and red. Even though they were spending most of their time in the Crime Scene impound yard by this point in the race, they were still driven mad by race fever and threw on the new theme in record time; they managed a very respectable 25th place and a pretty good 1:21.105 best lap time.


We also had a Hillary Clinton mask and a couple of genuine Hillary signs picked up by a friend who was on the floor at the Democratic National Convention, so we figured we'd do a Hillary punishment as well. To symbolize the broken dreams of Clinton supporters, we taped the posters to the car and had the miscreant (in this case, one of the Punisher Racing Caprice drivers) put on the Hillary mask and sit, disrespected and forgotten, at the judges' table for 30 minutes.


Hillary haters- no shortage of them in Texas- got a big kick out of the "Hillary: To Enslave And Torture" logos on the Punisher's new/improved door emblems.

In keeping with his elite Northeastern liberal ways, Joe Biden typically rides AMTRAK back and forth from DC and Delaware, claiming last summer, ““I am the reason Amtrak keeps moving.” When Joe isn’t single-handedly keeping our nation’s rail system in business, he drives a 1967 Corvette, which might indicate that he moonlights as some sort of pimp.

When asked what type of car he drove, John McCain couldn’t remember. Thankfully, a younger, less mentally decayed aid was able to point out that not only did McCain own a Cadillac CTS, but that he even passed his last vision test at the DMV. McCain did remember that his first car was a 1958 Corvette, although why he didn’t start driving well into his 20s we don’t understand.

In keeping with her role as a rugged frontier mother of five and sworn enemy of Communist Russia, Sarah Palin drives a Chevy Suburban. The eight-seat vehicle may not be big enough for her growing family though, which will number nine when her 17-year-old daughter gives birth and gets married. Palin’s suburban is provided by the state of Alaska; in keeping with her hard-partying ex-beauty queen nature, she previously drove a Ford Mustang.

In addition to his gas guzzling V8 Chrysler 300, Obama once owned an equally unfrugal 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee. We’re unable to confirm if either vehicle was ever used for drug dealing, but we’d like to ask that question, and strongly insinuate an answer anyway.

Of course, both candidates and their running mates aspire to trade up to the ultimate in wasteful government spending: a fleet of armored Cadillac Limos. While we don’t have official MPG figures on these vehicles, we can only assume that their environment-killing credentials are topped by Air Force One and Marine One, respectively. [via the LA Times]

Speaking of stems and seeds, here's a shot from the Alameda High 1984 yearbook, showing the cheerleaders sitting on a new Corvette at the local Chevrolet dealership. Yet some folks feel compelled to celebrate 80s nostalgia. Thanks to Rognbrow for the tip!

Let's take a look at some of Carter's laundry list of brilliant ideas on energy policy as an example of what happens when politicians create artificial winners and losers in technology out of a quest for providing specifics. Set the Wayback Machine for 1977 — President Carter proposed a $142 billion energy plan to achieve energy independence by 1990. The plan included "creation of this nation's first solar bank, which will help us achieve the crucial goal of 20 percent of our energy coming from solar power by the year 2000," an import quota of 8.5 million barrels of oil per day and creation of the $20 billion Synfuels program, which was supposed to produce 2.5 million barrels of synthetic fuels per day by 1990. All these specifics? Totally useless. His one useful energy policy, other than asking Americans to put on a sweater? Dismantling Nixon's crude oil price controls — another example of specific policy created to put meat to bones which needed none.

Now let's take a look at what Sen. Obama (D-Shiny, Happy, Hopeful people) proposes:

"And for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as President: in ten years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

Washington's been talking about our oil addiction for the last thirty years, and John McCain has been there for twenty-six of them. In that time, he's said no to higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars, no to investments in renewable energy, no to renewable fuels. And today, we import triple the amount of oil as the day that Senator McCain took office.

Now is the time to end this addiction, and to understand that drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution. Not even close.

As President, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I'll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America. I'll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars. And I'll invest 150 billion dollars over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy - wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and five million new jobs that pay well and can't ever be outsourced.

America, now is not the time for small plans. "

Other than an extra $8 billion dollars, we're not entirely sure what's different between the two plans. Maybe it'll be the extra few bucks that'll make the difference this time.

That's not to say we don't applaud Obama for his ten-year call for energy independence; we do. We'd just prefer to see something more akin to a Manhattan Project than a rehashing of what's been done before. The Manhattan Project was the result of Roosevelt sinking a huge investment into a bunch of brilliant scientists given just one direction — build the bomb. And lo and behold, it succeeded. We kind of feel like maybe that's what's necessary now — instead of sending the brilliant brains into a room with the task of "wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels," send them in with one task, "energy independence in ten years." Preferably with a menacing tone. If he gives them specifics that reek of an attempt to pacify the Democratic Party base, it's just too limiting. Just like Carter's call to action at the close of that 70's show of his. [Text of speech from Marketwatch]

Photo Credit: Stan Honda / AFP

I'm not one of those guys (and they're all guys) who blindly worship every mark that the dope-palsied hand of Hunter S. Thompson ever set on paper, but when the man was on, he was really on (insert rant here about annoying HST wannabes who focus on the lifestyle instead of the writing). Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail '72 stands as one of the finest works of American political journalism ever written. It's so good, in fact, that we can disregard all the weaker stuff Thompson wrote when he became a parody of himself in later years and lost the ability to meet any sort of deadline. In the book, Thompson refers to several vehicles he drove while covering the 1972 presidential race, and since the current contest features a pair of candidates who differ as widely as Richard M. Nixon and George McGovern did back then, it seems only right to grab a couple of the cars from the book for today's challenge.

Thompson rented an "Auto/Stick Cougar" in Washington DC, a car "built by junkies to teach the rest of us a lesson." While it's possible that rental car companies were using '71 or maybe even '73 models in the fall of 1972, we're going to assume it was a '72 and go with this 1972 Mercury Cougar, which is priced at a price that will inspire very little fear or loathing: a thousand bucks! The seller figures it's best to let the grainy, ill-focused photos tell the whole story, with "72 cougar,351ci-runs-needs some work" being the only description. But what more do you need? You'll be spitting hot black divots all over the road when you get a 460 in this thing!

Thompson arrived in DC behind the wheel of a brand-new Volvo wagon issued to him by Rolling Stone; there's no mention of whether it was a boring ol' 145 or a snazzy 1800ES, so we're going with the latter option. Yes, you'll suddenly find yourself aiming a .44 Magnum at the Mojo Wire as it beeps, beeps, beeps for more copy once you buy this 1972 Volvo 1800ES... well, no you won't, because you'll need to get it running before you head off to stalk cover the '08 candidates. The transmission went bad last year and it hasn't run since, but the driver alleges that the engine "ran good" up to that point. There's rust. Parts are hard to find. Your project will be nothing next to what faces the guy who wins the ticket to the Oval Office, however, so keep that in mind as you shout into the phone to "Big Sven," your parts man in Malmö.

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We don't mean to indicate that Sarah Fisher isn't a capable driver or team owner, it's just that she's never won a race and her best finish is 17th. We think that "top woman" honors should go to Danica Patrick, who actually won a race. Still, after this we predict a 15-point spread for Hillary in Indiana. (h/t Hyman_Decent)

[NYTimes]

Today's comment of the day comes by way of firepwr, who decided to tell it like it is and provide a very unique but accurate take on George "Dubya" Bush and his take (or seeming lack thereof) on gas prices and the whole oil hubbub.

You know, sometimes, you get into a relationship with someone that lies about where shes been, or what she does during the day, or why she can't find the money you gave her...and at some point, you know she lying, and you know shes a bitch, and you know that its a bad situation, but you just can't drop it.

You can't drop it because you both signed the lease, or because you have a shared bank account, or maybe because you are driving her dad's spare truck while you wait on the new turbo and manifold to come in.Whatever it is, even though you know you'd be better off, it's just not a good time, and you can't do anything to speed it up.

So there you are, sitting on the couch, listening to her inconceivable bullshit rants...and just hoping that, for the next 6 months, that she will learn to bullshit convincingly so that, even though you know it, you can pretend that dating her wasn't the worst fucking decision you ever made

Individual donors that stand out include GM CEO Rick Wagoner, who gave to Romney, and Roger Penske of Penske Corp., who gave to Giuliani. The good thing for all involved is that, after the primaries, everyone can make sure their company gives enough to the remaining candidates to make sure no one feels left out. [Automotive News]

Spruill decided to pursue the ban after a constituent complained about his young daughter seeing them. According to the Associated Press, Spruill said, "Sir, I'm going to be a laughingstock, but I'm going to do it."

He introduced the bill to the Virginia Assembly on Tuesday, undeterred by their past experience trying to ban baggy trousers, saying he planned to bring a set of the plastic nuts with him to prove his point, "I'm going to bring them out here and show them to you till they tell me to stop." [Via Yahoo!]

Already, most of the major carmakers have said they felt the new standards would be a "stretch" and "difficult." The White House is also upset over a plan to roll back $16 billion in tax breaks for oil companies, who have clearly been suffering over the past few years. Where this might hit consumers is the possibility of reincentivizing the purchase of advanced technology through tax breaks. Of course, it's all still in the negotiation phase, so no one can be sure what's posturing and what's real.[Detroit News]

In addition to car parts, you can also find interesting objects left behind in cars by former owners. For example, these campaign buttons for past California gubernatorial races. The guy on the left is Abe Tapia, erstwhile head of the Mexican American Political Association and candidate for Lieutenant Governor in 1978; on the right is a Dennis Peron button; Mr. Peron ran in the Republican primary for governor in 1998, on a platform centered on the legalization of marijuana.

Kline staffer filmed using racial term outside Rowley event [StarTribune.com]
Weirdness in CD2-Kline's Director becomes unhinged (video) [Inside Minnesota Politics]

Related:
George W Bush: Bad For Cars, Good For Motorcycles [internal]

Related:
Japanese Drift Champ Takes On The VW GTI's DSG [internal]

Reaching My Petroleum Tipping Point [Podcast @ NPR]
Drivers switch to public transit [USA Today]

Related:
Adventures in Peoplemoving [internal]

• So first you give me the $50K, and then we get the oral pleasure? No. First you get the $50K and then you get a pay cut. [Detroit News]
• Seriously, we don't wanna push the "Worst-Ever" jokes, but this picture of Mark LeNeve could be it. [Freep]
• We are going, going - back to, back to - Cali, Cali. [The Auto Channel]
• Sioux Falls got their first taxi service. It's called "Project CAR," and it's to help old folks get to church. Geez, we thought Sioux Falls residents would be using it to get home from their thriving bar scene. [Keloland]
• Don't need no credit card to ride this train...oh can ya feel it? That's the power of...Ethanol. [Freep]
• Fleet sales are the new health care costs which were the new legacy costs which was the new black. [Detroit News]
• DADA, will you please get me a new Cobo, cause I wanna bigger Auto Show! [Detroit News]
• The White House is playing a new Card, and he's all about da HOG! [Wonkette]

About 60% of Kenya's 32 million people live on under a dollar a day. Meanwhile, between January, 2003 and September, 2004, the government has purchased: 57 Mercedes Benz luxury sedans and sport utility vehicles, 42 Land Cruisers and three Range Rovers. There's other stuff in there, too, but it's generally lower-end Japanese off-road equipment that makes sense in a place like Kenya. Seriously, couldn't president Mwai Kibaki roll in some kind of used bulletproof Mercedes Pullman?

Living Large Kenya Style [News 24]

Related:
Ahnuld Crashes, Has Wrong License [Internal]

Slate blogger Mickey Kaus meditated on China's recent currency revaluation, noting that with every 2% increase in the value of the yuan, it makes it 2% easier to buy floundering American brands and use them as venues for their own products. And who fits that bill right now better than General Motors? He also notes that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts drives a PT Cruiser, saying, "This may be the scariest thing I've heard about him. ... An ugly, immature attempt at returning to an earlier era! Is that what the Constitution will look like after Roberts is through with it?" [Thanks to CTE for the tip.]

Does China Want to Buy GM? [Slate]

Related:
The Truth About the GM Death Watch: Employee Discounts Unmasked [Internal]