So much "greenwash?" Where are the people with "common sense" these days? Most of us, just want to get to work on time, and how are we supposed to have the time to worry about "environment this, environment that?" What about the "environment" of my car, with a stupid leak in the rear window? Who cares if the next time I need to mount my spare tire, it's all rusted, the rubber rotted, or all full of nasty stuff or mildew? How much would it cost me to get it repaired? It looks just find, except where is that water coming from when it rains? A lot of the apparent problem with "technology," is that too many designers don't bother with elegant design. iPod batteries, where can somebody buy them? They're nonstandard. (Same problem with some cordless phone batteries and quite a lot of electronic gadgets.) But then does can anybody change the battery anyway, other than Apple? Where are the standards? You can't even buy a movie, designed to fit one's TV screen? Why? Even widescreen TVs are plagued with those pesky "black bars" because there are 3 different "widescreen" ratios! The manufacturers are just determined to waste all that expensive TV screen real estate, with black bars, stupid channel logos that won't go away and burn into CRTs and plasmas, but don't burn into DLP and liquid crystal. Where are the double-sided Full-screen/wide-screen DVDs to avoid customers buying the wrong one? Well at least the double and triple-features DVDs might actually be a somewhat understandable "excuse" for such an obvious oversight. Enviro-wackos try to put us on some "guilt-trip" if we don't pony up lots of money for a trendy new hybrid, and yet, I have so many old dead batteries for my cordless phone, that apparently won't take a charge anymore, why should I trust the huge, heavy, costly hybrid batteries to last? Why be a "guinea pig" to try out the nifty new technology, when that iPod won't last with normal usage, more than a few years, computers crash and get viruses, batteries are nonstandard and don't last, and stores don't stock what I need anyway and they make me order stuff online? "Buy! Buy! Buy! and then you will be happy, the corporate propaganda says incessantly in most every TV ad. To which I respond Why? Why? Why? What's in it for me, other than an opportunity to make some greedy corporation rich? If there's actually anybody out to pollute the planet, other than Sadaam Huisein and other similar eco-terrorists, I might guess that some greedy corporations may be among the chief suspects. Because they all the time are pushing paper, making busiwork, pushing the latest trendy crap often made with slave labor in China, and buying up Mom & Pops and taking away any sovereignity individuals might have had left. Who piles on the tasks at work, and downsizes, so that people are overwhelmed at work, and perhaps working "off the clock" something like maybe Wal-Mart may have got themselves burned in lawsuits over? Corporations. Who is so clueless about morality, and McDonalds got themselves into some media hotwater in editorials and on talk radio over hiring Twista to corrupt the youth with senseless profanity in some stupid concert tour? Then they fired him, after "discovering" some excuse about how he might not be so appropriate after all. Corporations. Who wants to devour or assimulate the entire planet, leaving little left for culture and individuals? Corporations. Why don't more people produce elegant design? Partly because they aren't their own sovereigns, as the tradespeople of old, such as the community carpenter or blacksmiths, and they have stupid corporate-propaganda-spewing bosses forever pushing micromanaging, inefficiency caused by lack of trust of workers to do it as they know best, "productivity"-hyping/deadline-hyping yes-men types trying to "look busy" canceling perfectly good models of products, to spew out trendy new annual models full of rather "obvious" flaws. Did you know that most any clock-radio or alarm clock, should be easily setable at night, in dark, after just a few days of use? Duh? Well most manufacturers either do not know this, or do not care, because just look at the crap in the stores? Buttons all over the place, no rhyme nor reason to them. I'm not saying that they have to glow, just be in a nice straight row, with feelable cues as to which button is which. That just isn't possible when the buttons are too small, don't do what they say, or don't respond to being pressed because they are too cheap to last for more than a few months. And most people don't like to sleep "in a spotlight" so where is the "dim" switch (or better yet--knob) on some models? And BTW, can anybody tell me why the stores are clogged with around 7 different formats of video game software? What are the odds, that that nifty video game I want, will run on my "was-nearly-universal" Sony Playstation 2? Just another reason to boycott quite a lot of this corporate-dominated, trendy marketplace.
I didn't mean to turn that into a Chevy vs. Ford or Chevy vs. Dodge or whatever thing TooNiceGuy.....if your Astro van lived to be 211K....while that is no where near 300k in car years Merry Christmas to you.....as for Hybrids.....bottom line I just do not trust the technology yet and I personally would not buy one purely for the fact that they do not produce enough power for what I need. When they come up with one that can haul a 6 horse trailer up and down mountains all day then maybe I would consider it.
I just do not trust the technology yet. Check. That makes sense. Do not produce enough power? Huh? Well how much power do you really need? Are you blasting off the earth to the moon? What are you doing towing horse trailers? Wasting gasoline? When we ought to be trying to boycott the greedy oil corporations monopoly? Don't you know, the horse is perhaps an alternative to having to buy price-gouged gasoline, so ride the horse, don't tow it. But the economics of hybrids makes no sense at all. Pay more, for almost as good of performance? I thought you pay more for more, and not pay more for less. Sort of like the convertible rip-off, but without all the "environmental" baggage? Pay more for less? Only but a flimsy tent on top? Shouldn't that cost less? I used to think of hybrids, twice as many parts--2 engines, to go bad and need repairs. That's the wrong direction. Don't make cars more complicated and costly, make them more affordable and simple, with less stuff to break on them. But bummer, horses don't have any air conditioning, and this spoiled-rotten comsumerist American culture, seems to be phobic of smelling a little body odor or sweat. Oh yeah, arrive sweaty. Could be just another way to protest something.
I need such a big trailer because I work with multiple equine rescues in the tri-state area and am constantly picking up loads of slaughterbound horses that are rescued from feedlots in PA and NY and placing them in foster homes until they can be adopted....plus I transport sick and injured horses from local farms to the large animal hospital at UPENN....come wind, snow or sleet....thats why I need the powerhouse I drive....it runs on biodiesel and I am happy with that. I am quite aware that a horse does not have A/C trust me, I spend a minimum of 3 hours a day on their backs when its 90 degrees out....just in case you were wondering they do not have heat either : )