Free Republic

America's state attorneys general were getting in touch with their wacky side this week. That is, assuming the comedy of their new campaign for SUV safety is, er, intentional. It's certainly one of the most bizarre public-safety efforts ever. The AGs of Connecticut, Florida, Iowa and Vermont helped launch the $30 million ad campaign at the Central Park Zoo on Monday — and its key feature debuted on the Today Show next to a befuddled Katie Couric. "Esuvee," a truck-faced furry monster, is somehow supposed to scare teenage drivers about the dangers of SUVs. "The yearlong national consumer education campaign...

TOLEDO -- Consumers at the 2005 Toledo Auto Show are shopping for more than the latest vehicle trends. Locally, gasoline prices flirted with the $2.00 per gallon mark this week. How much higher would prices have to go before vehicle buyers shied away from hot selling SUV's and full-size pickup trucks? According to Perrysburg resident Heidi Decker, $2.50 to $2.75 per gallon. Decker checked out a large Toyota SUV reported to get 15 miles per gallon in the city and 19 miles per gallon on the highway. Fred and Sherry Clark didn't let high fuel prices stop them from buying...

Aaron Carter Drives Over Mattress, Escapes SUV Moments Before Flames Erupt 01.07.2005 9:51 AM EST Singer and his passenger treated for minor bumps and bruises. Aaron Carter emerged unscathed from an accident late Wednesday night when he hit a mattress with his SUV, causing the vehicle to burst into flames. The singer, 17, was driving his 2004 Cadillac Escalade on Florida's Turnpike, north toward Orlando, at around 12:30 a.m. when a mattress fell from the cargo bed of a delivery truck ahead of him, according to his spokesperson. Carter drove over the mattress, which became lodged under the SUV and...

Dave Breggin eats no red meat, barely waters a drought-resistant fescue lawn and has a highly energy-efficient Arapahoe County home. All that good karma suddenly evaporates when he gets behind the wheel of his cherished Hummer. Like most other Hummer drivers, Breggin is the target of clenched fists, single-fingered salvos and screamed epithets from the greener-than-thou crowd. With fuel prices near record levels -- up roughly 35 cents a gallon over last year's prices -- both owning and selling the gas-thirsty military clone may require more finesse. General Motors is projecting a 20 percent drop in national sales of its...

Ashes are ejected from the crater of the Shiveluch volcano in Kamchatka to a height of up to 2,000 m. The height of the ejection above sea level exceeded 5,000 m. The seismic stations near the volcano register underground tremors from a depth of up to 5,000 m and interrupted spasmodic volcanic vibration. For the greater part of the past 24 hours it was impossible to conduct video observation of Shiveluch because of bad weather but scientists hold the view that some ejections are accompanied by fragmentation avalanches. Shiveluch (its height is 3,283 m) is now at the stage of...

One person is dead after an SUV fleeing from state troopers headed the wrong way across the Howard Frankland Bridge and crashed into oncoming traffic early this morning. Investigators say that a Honda CRV was involved in a minor fender-bender in the Kennedy-Westshore area around 1:40 a.m., but when troopers arrived on the scene, the vehicle took off, striking a trooper in the process. "The gentleman in the vehicle refused all FHP trooper commands to stop and step out of the vehicle, backed his car into two FHP patrol cars, and struck Trooper Maddox with the Florida Highway Patrol's Tampa...

  Major Climate Change Occurred 5,200 Years Ago: Evidence Suggests That History Could Repeat Itself December 16, 2004 Glaciologist Lonnie Thompson worries that he may have found clues that show history repeating itself, and if he is right, the result could have important implications to modern society. Thompson has spent his career trekking to the far corners of the world to find remote ice fields and then bring back cores drilled from their centers. Within those cores are the records of ancient climate from across the globe. From the mountains of data drawn by analyzing countless ice cores, and...

FIANO ROMANO, Italy, Nov. 5 - It is not a toy, they swear, but a serious piece of police gear, no matter how many Japanese tourists stood at a highway rest stop here snapping away in awe. "It's a responsibility to drive it," said Chief Inspector Laura Ciano of the Italian highway police. Paolo Mazzini, a highway police commander, said: "Italian people are not always friendly toward authorities. They are curious, so they accept the ticket more readily." "It's not for fun," he added. Still, Superintendent Vincenzo Bizzarro wore a satisfied look on his face when he gave a reporter,...

Recently, a friend of mine returned from a tour of duty in Iraq; and I was later informed that he had made 16 registered kills. A 20 year-old man with 16 Registered kills? From my friend? The very same person that I got into a fight with after baseball practice in eight grade? Am I supposed to be happy about that? Should I go and pat him on the back and congratulate him for what he has done? In all reality I will tell him that I am proud of him and support him, but I should not have to...

John Kerry Monsieur BLING!!!! Isn't it easy to talk about helping the "little guy" when you travel around in chauffeured cars, private jets and luxury yachts from one mansion to another? Let's face it, John Kerry has no idea what it's like to be the "little guy" and he never has. His Hair Kerry’s magnificent hair is handled by native French stylist Isabelle Goetz from the exclusive coiffure, Salon Cristophe in Washington. Cost $1,000 per styling His Transportation The Jet John Kerry travels on the deluxe model of the Gulfstream V private jet called the Flying Squirrel. Cost $35,000,000 not...

Peter Parks/Agence France-Presse-Getty Images, top Compared with the average Gulfstream jet, a Hummer H2 can seem downright fuel efficient. THERE are objects or possessions that scream "I'm better than you" - items that remind the average Joe of a cultural and economic divide that cannot be crossed. It's a $10,000 bottle of wine, a Hummer, a real Rolex. This year's conspicuous object seems to be the private jet. Once, this prized possession was associated with corporate executives and reclusive stars. Or with congressmen on a junket. There was nothing political, or at least nothing partisan, about them. But since...

Highway safety has been improving for years, and it's good to see the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration finally catching up with reality. In releasing its annual report on traffic fatalities Tuesday, the agency said U.S. roads are now safer than ever. That's good news, especially in August, when folks are packing up the family SUV for a week at the beach. But what a change from the doom and gloom of a year ago, when the agency warned that highway fatalities were at the "highest level since 1990" and suggested that the "grim" numbers were a reason to shame...

PARIS (Reuters) - Bulky four-by-fours could be banned from clogging up the chic streets of Paris after a top official in the capital's left-wing government described them as a polluting "caricature of a car" unsuited to city life. An anti-sports utility vehicle (SUV) resolution passed by the city council could lead to a ban on the popular vehicles in about 18 months if it is included in an overall project to improve traffic flow in the city, Deputy Mayor Denis Baupin said Wednesday. "You have to wonder why people want to drive around in SUVs," Baupin, a Greens party member,...

PARIS - Bulky four-by-fours could be banned from clogging up the chic streets of Paris after a top official in the capital's left-wing government described them as a polluting "caricature of a car" unsuited to city life. An anti-sports utility vehicle (SUV) resolution passed by the city council could lead to a ban on the popular vehicles in about 18 months if it is included in an overall project to improve traffic flow in the city, Deputy Mayor Denis Baupin said Wednesday. "You have to wonder why people want to drive around in SUVs," Baupin, a Greens party member, said...

To: Candidate John F. Kerry From: James (Cooter) Thompson Re: More Campaign Tips #5 Me and Boudreau and the rest of the guys down to Daryl's Bait Shop here in Lagniappe, Louisiana, have spent considerable time grading your campaign. The consensus, I regret to say, is somewhere between 3 and 4 on a scale of 10. So, the best mark we can put on your report card it Needs Improvement. In a previous e-mail—you can read them all at Trentino's Magazine—we cautioned you that your image is unPresidentially fuzzy. We are still having trouble deciding whether you are fish, fowl,...

A rented SUV was speeding at more than 90 mph when it clipped a car it was trying to pass and veered out of control, killing seven people inside, including four young children, authorities said. The Ford Explorer went airborne, slammed into trees in the median of Interstate 95 and landed on its roof. The accident happened Sunday about 10 miles west of Bangor in south-central Maine. Two women and a child died when they were thrown from the SUV, while its other four occupants -- a woman and three children -- died inside. Troopers initially thought five people died,...

MIDI - PIANO MAN It is 9 pm on a SaturdayThe crowd begins filing in I prepare to debate and set my record straightI hardly know where to begin La la la la...la la la la...la la la la la la la...la la la la FReepers start shouting, "Hey, waffle man...do you own SUVs? Would you just tell it straight...do not fabricate You really sling B.S. with ease" The crowd is hostile in questioning...about all the medals thrown They are sticking it to me relentlessly...I screwed up...and that issue I've blown Then they ask me where is my wife's...

Kerry Says His 'Family' Owns SUV, Not He PITTSBURGH (AP) - Does John Kerry, who supports higher automobile fuel economy standards, own a gas-guzzling SUV? He does, but says it belongs to the family, not to him. During a conference call Thursday with reporters to discuss his upcoming jobs tour through West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan, the Democratic presidential candidate was asked whether he owned a Chevrolet Suburban. ``I don't own an SUV,'' said Kerry, who supports increasing existing fuel economy standards to 36 miles per gallon by 2015 in order to reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil...

<p>A 23-year-old graduate student has been indicted for firebombing or vandalizing 125 sports utility vehicles in the Los Angeles area last summer, prosecutors said on Wednesday.</p> <p>William Cottrell, who was denied bail by a federal judge during a brief court appearance, faces more than 70 years in prison if he is convicted on all nine counts, U.S. Attorney's spokesman Thom Mrozek said.</p>

LOS ANGELES – A graduate student with alleged connections to a radical environmentalist group was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of firebombing and vandalizing dozens of sport utility vehicles, authorities said Wednesday. Billy Cottrell, 23, a physics student at California Institute of Technology, was indicted in connection with vandalism that damaged or destroyed about 125 vehicles at car dealerships and homes in the San Gabriel Valley last August. The indictment was returned Tuesday and announced Wednesday. Cottrell appeared Wednesday in court where a judge ordered him to remain held without bond. The indictment charged him with one...

Obesity and lack of exercise will soon overtake smoking as the leading cause of preventable death in the US, scientists from the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. The research prompted the Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC's parent, to announce a new national advertising campaign and increased research into obesity and related diseases. "Americans need to understand that [being] overweight and obesity are literally killing us," said Tommy Thompson, HHS secretary. Anti-obesity activists were sceptical that the initiative would make a significant difference. "The government took years to act as aggressively as it might...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. As world demand for energy rises, even Saudi Arabia may not be able to meet it New estimates of world oil reserves are making the conservation goals of the 1970s more relevant than ever. It's time the White House and Congress paid heed. According to a recent New York Times report, internal memos of Saudi Armaco, that country's government owned oil company, capacity is likely to continue at today's rate of 10 million barrels a day through 2011. But U.S. energy experts say Saudi Arabia would have to pump 13.6 million...

Sport utility vehicles made Patrick Dillon see red, according to the police. In a more-than-two-month spree in Manhattan, Mr. Dillon, a 53-year-old building superintendent in Manhattan, squirted more than two dozen sport utility vehicles with red paint from a ketchup-like squeeze bottle, police officials said. Last night, the police charged him with criminal mischief. At 6:40 p.m., Capt. James W. Murtaugh, who was on patrol on his bicycle on West 77th Street, rode past a man also on a bicycle, dressed in a black shirt, black hat, and black camouflage pants, with a black scarf wrapped around his face, holding...

ALBANY, N.Y. - What's a truck? The answer to that question, posed by a New York City lawmaker, could end up restricting which highways and streets large sport utility vehicles can travel in New York. Assemblyman Ivan Lafayette wants to require heavy SUVs to travel along truck routes, saying their girth makes them subject to the same weight-based safety standards as their commercial cousins. "Where does a passenger vehicle end and a truck begin?" Lafayette asked. "Is a 10,000-pound Hummer a truck?" A typical compact Honda, by contrast, weighs about 2,400 pounds. Lafayette, who drives a Ford Taurus, said he's...

Driving Away Pollution By Ben Lieberman Your next new car or truck will be the cleanest-burning one you've ever owned. And it means the end to the already-diminishing problem of air pollution. This week Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Mike Leavitt unveiled seventeen model year 2004 vehicles meeting tough new emissions requirements. These provisions, which begin now and will be fully phased in by the end of the decade, demand 77-95 percent reductions in exhaust emissions for cars, SUVs, minivans, pickups, and all sizes of trucks. EPA is also requiring sharp reductions in sulfur content in both gasoline and diesel...

A former Cy-Fair High School student serving five years' probation for felony arson in a flag-burning case headed a group of self-described environmental guerrillas who vandalized almost 50 sport utility vehicles, officials said Tuesday. Precinct 4 deputy constables said the group, led by Randall W. Heinrichs, 18, smashed windows and slashed tires on SUVs in north Harris County from October through December. Investigators said the vandals used bats embedded with nails to smash windows and cut tires and sprayed graffiti, including Nazi swastikas, on the vehicles. Four teenagers have been charged with criminal mischief. Heinrichs, placed on deferred adjudication last...

Can't excerpt from the New Yorker, therefore I'll just here slam one of the more asinine of New Yorker articles... Big and Bad (called online "Road Killers") Hating Life (and the SUV) Some nine years ago I leased a Jeep Grand Cherokee. It was November. I remember it. I had just moved to Virginia from Miami. Got the car, and it snowed three feet two days later. Awesome! I ran that damned car in glorious circles all over the Safeway parking lot. Driving around the next day I saw at least five other, what we now call, SUVs (I think...

<p>Red Alert to Sierra Clubbers, bearded Birkenstockers and other greenies: Under no circumstances be duped into attending the (mildly oxymoronic) Greater North American International Automobile Show now under way here.</p> <p>Utopians might expect that the auto makers will offer countless octane-stingy hybrids and zero-emission fuel-cell vehicles to a public seeking to wean itself from all addiction to the cursed internal combustion engine. Sadly, this is not the case. Tree-huggers and Friends of the Earth would be better advised to picnic on the banks of the Love Canal than to set foot in the vast precincts of Detroit's Cobo Hall--where, last Friday evening, the auto show kicked off with the world's largest charity ball. Seventeen thousand of the industry's closest friends pitched in $400 apiece for a champagne-soaked, black-tie gala that might have been confused with a world convention of maitre d's and cocktail-lounge hostesses.</p>

For Immediate Release Two separate attacks against urban sprawl have been reported to the Through media reports, the ELF Press Office has been made aware of three ELF actions occuring in the early morning hours of August 22, 2003. Although the ELF Press Office has received no communications about these actions from the persons responsible, spraypainted signatures at all scenes indicates claims of responsibility by ELF activists. The actions include: Arcadia, California - Rusnak Mercedes Benz. Ten S.U.V.s were spraypainted with "terrorist," "killer," and "ELF". Duarte, California - Duarte Mitsubishi. The dealership building and approximately twenty vehicles were painted with...

Sequoia Crushes SUV In National Park POSTED: 4:46 p.m. PDT August 18, 2003 SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK, Calif. -- A 200-foot-tall giant sequoia tree fell along Sequoia National Park's main road, crushing a vehicle into a several-foot high pile of crumpled metal, park officials said Monday. The tree, believed to be approximately 1,000 years old, fell Sunday at about 5:15 p.m. along the Generals Highway several miles east of the Giant Forest Museum, said park spokeswoman Alexandra Picavet. No one was injured but the Jeep Grand Cherokee was destroyed, Picavet said. The vehicle was parked in a turnout alongside the road....

MI Senate RollCall Gasoline Mileage, 1st Ld-Writethru The Associated Press 7/29/2003, 8:36 p.m. ET (AP) — The 65-32 roll call by which the Senate voted to reject an amendment that would have required automakers to achieve a 40 mpg fleet average fuel economy by 2015. On this vote, a "yes" vote was a vote in favor of the amendment and a "no" vote was a vote against the amendment. Voting "yes" were 27 Democrats, 4 Republicans, and 1 Independent. Voting "no" were 18 Democrats and 47 Republicans. Alabama Sessions (R) No; Shelby (R) No. Alaska Murkowski (R) No; Stevens (R)...

Government Ratings I was amused recently to see that the federal government has rated vehicles on their propensity to turn over. Their ratings are based on a math formula, not on a field test. But who needs the federal government to tell them the obvious? Anybody with sense enough to pour rain out of a boot knows that a tall vehicle will tip easier than one built low to the ground. After all, racing cars are not built low to the ground just for looks. Anytime a vehicle gets into a turn, centrifugal force and gravity have a contest. Gravity...

More people were killed last year in rollover-type accidents involving pickup trucks and SUVs than in previous years--statistically speaking, about 1.51 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. But despite alarmist reportage by the major media and SUV-haters in the punditocracy, that is still pretty low by historical standards. (There were 5.5 million deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled in the mid-1960s, and 1.75 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled in 1992.) Moreover, it's rarely mentioned in anti-SUV rants that rollover-type accidents account for just 2.5 percent of all crashes. Or that the actual number of people killed...

McGee loses his job Termination follows anchorman's arrest in DUI-related case Brad McElhinny <bradmc@dailymail.com> Daily Mail staff Friday July 04, 2003; 10:30 AM Television anchorman Tom McGee has been fired from his job at WCHS and WVAH Fox 11 after a drunken driving arrest, sources said. Station manager Terry Cole said he could not confirm the firing. "I can't comment on personnel matters," Cole said Thursday evening. The two Charleston-area television stations already have taken pictures and references to McGee from their Web sites. The anchorman's position is expected to be posted early next week, sources from the station said....

Los Angeles Daily News Tax guzzlers Legislators trade in SUVs for more gravy To the great surprise of many, it seems that state legislators do, in fact, have some sense of shame. Last year, when Sacramento Democrats were busily pushing legislation to crack down on California's sport utility vehicle owners, it came to light that many of the would-be environmental crusaders themselves drove SUVs -- on the taxpayers' dime, no less. Embarrassed by their own hypocrisy, legislative Democrats are now working on ways to purge the behemoths from their fleet. The state Senate might soon bar its members from using...

Anyone old enough to remember this? Time for another episode of "Mr. Rogers’ Liberal Neighborhood." Come on, everybody play along. Park your SUV, put out your cigarette, reschedule target practice and sing along with me: "It’s a grumpy old day in the neighborhood." Can you say "enslavement?" That’s right, boys and girls, today we’re gonna learn about Liberalism. You see, you’re not smart enough to know how to take care of yourself, so Big Brother is gonna be your caretaker. Yea. Big Brother is really thoughtful. That’s why private property is meaningless. Now it wouldn’t be right for some mean...

<p>Santa Cruz police are searching for vandals with an anti-war message who defaced an estimated 65 sport utility vehicles and trucks in a late-night spray-painting blitz.</p> <p>Slogans including "No Blood for Oil," "SUVs Suck" and "No War" were spritzed onto 45 new vehicles at the North Bay Ford and Lincoln Mercury dealership on Soquel Avenue, as well as onto 18 or 20 vehicles parked in front of residents' homes, police said Thursday.</p>

<p>A guinea fowl that took a harrowing 23-mile ride to Washington (Pennsylvania) on the front bumper of a sport-utility vehicle has returned home to Morgan, Greene County, with nary a ruffled feather.</p> <p>"I'm glad he's home," guinea owner Donna Leposky said after a monthlong effort to capture the feathered refugee.</p>

Good News From The UN! By - William A. Mayer In April of 1993 the 41st president of the United States - George H. W. Bush - traveled to Kuwait, at the invitation of the Emir. While there he and the Emir narrowly escaped death at the hands of an Iraqi led assassination squad. Shortly before Bush's arrival, Kuwaiti authorities seized 16 people, including at least 2 Iraqis believed involved. The assassination weapon was a potent 180-pound bomb that had been loaded into a Toyota SUV. Authorities also found a remote detonator in the automobile. US intelligence determined that...

We are driving down the New Jersey Turnpike, waiting for the cellphone to ring. Normally we'd hope that the damn thing never made a sound. But today we are plumbing the depths of resentment that Americans bear toward those polluting, car-crushing, un-Christian, Osama-funding road monsters known as SUVs. Our vehicle is a canary-yellow, three-ton, 6 1/2-foot-high Hummer H2, with tires that look as if they came from an earthmover. On the rear is our phone number and a big sign inviting motorists to call. Oh, it sounded like a great assignment at first. "I want you to do something with...

Okay, Jesus Christ would not have driven a sport utility. He would have had a 4x4 pickup with crew cab. It's Salem all over again. This time the alleged witches are sport utility vehicles, said to be the work of the Devil. More particularly, the government's chief safety official says SUVs are too dangerous. The Wall Street Journal says in an article: "Auto Makers Start To Back Away From Big SUVs." The greenies say the big cars heat up the earth, the know-nothings blame them for Arab terrorism, and the yahoos figure that Jesus wouldn't drive one. Where does all...

Washington, D.C. - The Sierra Club today urged the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to aggressively audit the returns of taxpayers who take advantage of a tax loophole subsidizing their purchases of gas-guzzling SUVs. In a letter to the IRS, the group stressed the need for the IRS to ensure that these vehicles are in fact being used for business purposes at least 50% of the time, as the tax code requires. Already, many individuals have taken advantage of the loophole to drive off the lot with a luxury SUV, often for personal use, assured that they will be able to...

Breaking news: Liberals Endorse War As Inspectors Discover S.U.V.s In Iraq Leading left wing anti-war protesters last night gave their endorsement for an invasion of Iraq after the shocking revelation that Saddam Hussein has been secretly stockpiling Sports Utility Vehicles. U.N. inspectors stumbled on the cache while searching a palace just as Saddam's three wives started on their school run. 'They all had SUVs,' said an appalled witness. 'I couldn't believe it. When the Iraqi minders realised we'd seen them they tried to distract us by saying they'd remembered where they hid some anthrax, but it was too late.' Further...

Jan. 29, 2003, 10:41AM Americans 'keep on truckin' in their SUVs Reuters News Service DETROIT -- Keep on truckin'! That advice, straight from Detroit and the 1970s hit by the late Motown singer Eddie Kendricks, sums up the way many Americans feel about recent attacks on sport utility vehicles. In a land where bigger is usually perceived as better, Americans love SUVs and their high-perch "command" seating. They're not going to give them up, and there's no sign that environmentalists and anti-SUV activists will succeed in driving the gas-guzzlers into the junkyard of history anytime soon. In fact, thanks to...

A truck careened off a cliff and landed smack on top of a sporty Jaguar. That's what the vehicle in the ad looked like. It was the double-decker headlights, I think, that gave this impression. The vehicle in the ad is a sport utility vehicle, a Lincoln Navigator to be exact. Until spying this ad in a national newspaper, I had no opinion of SUVs. I watched with amusement as certain groups demonized SUVs and their drivers. I enjoyed the return volleys from rugged, independent types who only wanted to be left alone to decide what they would drive and...

I created a monster. About a year ago, I was a regular on a Santa Monica radio program called "Left, Right and Center." Arianna Huffington, the protean author and TV personality, was, if you can believe it, the center of our trio. I was the right. Bob Scheer, Los Angeles Times columnist, was the left. Arianna had gone through many changes, as we used to say in the 1960s. Biographer of Picasso and Callas, author of a New Age book on "meaning in a secular world," conservative Washington hostess and zealot on behalf of Newt Gingrich and of course,...

                                FRIDAY JANUARY 10 2003                   ShopNetDaily   Page 1 News   Page 2 News   BizNetDaily   LocalNetDaily   Commentary   Classified Ads   Letters   People Search   SportsNetDaily   Health   Weather   TV Guide   Movies   Stocks     MEDIA MATTERS High-living celebs tieSUV owners to terror Backers of TV ad campaign get along with 21-car garage, private jet travel Posted: January 10, 20031:00 a.m. Eastern By Art Moore © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com A Hollywood celebrity-backed television ad campaign that claims SUV owners are aiding terrorists has prompted the...

During a rebroadcast of a Clark Howard show (WSB-AM in Atlanta), Clark spent some time describing yet ANOTHER bit of insanity in the tax code. For those not familiar with this document, it is so named as it is written in some sort of indecipherable “code” understood ONLY by a hunch-backed creature kept chained in the basement of the Capitol Building in Washington. The creature is brought forth during periodic tax legislation “mark-up” sessions to translate already virtually incomprehensible “lawyerese” into this totally incomprehensible “code.” Howard – apparently having retained the services of the creature for purposes of translation –...

Jan. 10 — Who's the bigger terrorist, the guy who lights a firebomb under SUVs in an auto dealer's lot, or the guy who drives one home? Sport utility vehicles, the gas-guzzling titans of the road that have dominated auto sales in recent years, have recently become the target of firebomb attacks in at least two states by a group the FBI refers to as domestic terrorists. At the same time, in a pair of new television ads, a nonprofit group called the Detroit Project links driving a sport utility vehicle with more money being put in the hands of...