Rush Limbaugh: El Rushbo Drives Mean Environmental Car

RushLimbaugh.com ^ | 3/22/06 | Rush Limbaugh

[wagglebee]

RUSH: I'm ecstatic. I heard about this list this morning. It's a list of the "meanest" cars for 2006, and I am on the list -- well, my car is. "High-performance sports cars, ultra-luxury sedans and powerful trucks all rely on high-powered engines to deliver performance and towing capacity — but that performance comes at a price — landing these vehicles at the bottom of the list in the annual Green Book from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). Each year, ACEEE rates vehicles on their overall impact on the environment, with vehicles earning the best scores dubbed the 'Greenest,' and those with the worst scores labeled the 'Meanest,'" and I am proud and I am honored that my car is among the meanest cars made and sold today.

This is in terms of its effect on the environment and global warming. (story) "At the top of the meanest list for 2006 is the Dodge Ram SRT-10." Well, let's just go through the list. The Dodge RAM SRT-10 is the meanest. The Lamborghini Murciélago is the next meanest. The Bentley Arnage, the Dodge Durango, the Dodge Ram 1500 and the Maybach 57-S are all tied in the next position here as the third meanest. The Hummer H2O and the Ferrari F-99 GTB Fiorano and the Ford F-250 Super Duty 5.4 V8 four-wheel drive. The GMC Yukon, the Volkswagen Touareg and the Chevy Suburban all come in tied at the next stop. Now the vehicle I drive, I'm not going to identify it, but is somewhere on that list. (laughing) I love being honored this way: having one of the meanest cars in terms of its environmental impact, knowing full well how that irritates the socialist environmentalist wackos. I just love it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Christie in Half-Baked Moon Bay, California, welcome to the program.

CALLER: Thanks, Rush. Hey, I just wanted to let you know you could help the environment. That mean car you have? If you just switched out all your lightbulbs to the environmental wacko kind, then you would have a net zero impact on the environment.

RUSH: Yeah, well, I remember that story. This is the CFLB, the compact fluorescent light bulb.

CALLER: (giggles)

RUSH: I'm not putting down the lightbulbs! I got an e-mail from a guy who sells them who thought I was putting down, harming his sales. Nope, nope, nope. It is something you can do. In fact, that was my own suggestion. You people out there driving Yugos and these little lawn mowers with four seats on them thinking you're helping saving the environment, go switch out all your lightbulbs to these new super-duper lightbulbs, because it was Laurie David that said that if every house was just using one or two of these lightbulbs it would have the equivalent of taking eight million cars off the road every day. I figure enough people will do this that I won't have to sacrifice on either side.

So I'm not going to go change any lightbulbs and I'm not going to get rid of my mean car because I know other socially conscious people who want to make themselves feel better about themselves will go do it and more than accommodate for my mean car and my natural (interruption). Laurie David? Did you see her? She has no claim too fame. She's a Hollywood liberal that organized a bunch of rallies against Bush. Bobby Kennedy, Jr. turned her into an environmentalist wacko, and that's her claim to fame.

Her husband's Larry David, Seinfeld's partner and creator of that show. I mean, that's it. I mean, what's Sharon Stone's claim to fame? Sharon Stone is out there making all kinds of political statements. She went over to Israel. She said, "We're just a breath away from peace. I can feel it." (exhales) Well, she ought to know about breaths, but what the hell are we talk about here? Why is it news that Sharon Stone thinks that we are "a breath away from peace" in the Middle East, just because she touched down there? And then she says whatever else. They're just celebrities and so what they say is given weight? It's screwy.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

What you save in hybrids will be made up for by insurance for it. Those little cars don't look very sturdy for impact IMO.

[jalisco555]

It's off topic but since Larry David is mentioned here goes. Last night my wife and I finished our "Curb Your Enthusiasm" marathon by watching the finale of the fourth season on DVD (we'll watch season 5 once it's available). The show is absolutely hilarious, a true work of genius. Throughout the show David subtly mocks liberals and liberal pieties. I know he's a big-time Dem contributor but I agree with Ann Coulter that he's actually a closet conservative. It's just that in the circle he moves in he has to behave as if he's a liberal.

[MaryFromMichigan]

Maybe he has security issues with wackos?

That could be part of it, but business man that he is, if he advertises, he wants to get paid for it.
Really angered me how Apple treated him.

[wagglebee]

Larry David may be like Sonny Bono. Back in the 60's and 70's everyone assumed that Sonny was a big leftist, then he runs for office as one of the most conservative Republicans to come out of California since Reagan.

[Kenton]

"So I'm not going to go change any lightbulbs and I'm not going to get rid of my mean car because I know other socially conscious people who want to make themselves feel better about themselves will go do it"

No problem Rushbo, it's your money, but lemme tell ya, those CFLBs are a real money saver. They use approximately 1/4 the electricity as a conventional bulb. But if ya don't mind paying four times as much for your electricity, ignore the new technology. You probably got more money than me anyhow.

I put them in the lamps in my house that get the greatest usage, and I've seen a dramatic drop in my electric bills.

I also use them at my deer camp, and they draw so little current that I am able to light the place with a 12-volt battery.

[saminfl]

...but that instead it was about the survival of the US as a country able to chart it's own economic fate and freely able to act against those who wish to destroy us.

Congress and the envirowhackos not allowing us to drill in our own country are the ones hurting us.

Your collective reasoning is off base.

[M. Dodge Thomas]

Keep in mind he may just drive fewer miles per year than you do

Perhaps. But IMO to whatever extent he drives, and there is a higher mileage vehicle available that preforms pretty much the same function, he's making a choice to add to our national difficulties.

I perform home inspections for a living, and I could easily "justify" to myself a larger and lower mileage vehicle to haul my tools and ladders. And if I buy a really big (or at least really heavy) vehicle the government will (IMO perversely) let me take a big deduction for purchasing it.

I choose not to do so because it appears to me that one of the biggest threats facing my country is dependence on imported oil and the subsidies this forces us to pay to repressive states with a distasted for our freedoms and a proven track record of sponsoring attacks on Americans - it seems crazy to me to give these guys a dime more that we have to, especially as the marginal practical advantage for me to use such a vehicle for my work is small.

And it appears to me that is likely also he case for Mr. Limbaugh - that if he wants either luxury or performance he can have plenty of ether in vehicles that aren't at the bottom of the list for energy efficiency, while I doubt that he has a pressing need to tow 6,000 lbs or haul 50 sheets of drywall home at a time.

And when I encounter someone who is proud of burning more gas than the next guy to get himself and his cargo from from point A to point B I “just don't get it” - sure he's got a “right” to do it, but the practical result – a weaker America – is the exact opposite of the things Mr. Limbaugh he says he stands for.

[Sunnyflorida]

Hehe,
Very good.

Actually the place is pretty nice and I'm not usually into crowds. The big water slide takes your breath away. Being bought by the UAE, I hear, so I guess we will not see too many FReepers over there!

[Sunnyflorida]

I saw the new lotus at 12-Hours at Sebring last year. Pretty impressive. Have you seen it? I almost bit but giving up all that tourque in my Vette would be tough.

[Erasmus]

A little engineering here for you.

Power plant turbine/alternator sets do run at a constant speed, so that we get a constant frequency of AC (60 Hz around here).

However, let's say you switch your light bulb from a 60W incandescent to a, say, 12W fluorescent (giving the equivalent light output). Now, you've just reduced your power consumption by 48W. The power company does indeed have regulators to keep your line voltage (more or less) stable, so your current consumption goes down.

That reduced power/current consumption now ripples back up the distribution system all the way to that ultra-monster turbine/alternator. Due to voltage regulators and steam throttles and boiler thermostats and oil pump regulators and such, the horsepower being delivered to the alternator goes from 100,000 horsepower to 99,999.98 horsepower. The oil flow to the boiler's burner goes from 50,000 gallons per day to 49,999.998 gallons per day. (I made that oil number up.)

Bear in mind, this all happened because you unscrewed your incandescent bulb and screwed in a fluorescent one.

Now, people in your area duplicate your action by 60,000 times. Now the power plant has decreased its oil consumption 60,000 x .002, or 120 gallons, per day.

And, of course, a similar effect obtains for power plants using other energy sources.

One final comment. 120 gallons of oil savings per day at the power plant looks like a drop in the bucket, so to speak, for all that Green light-bulb-switchin' goin' on. But remember that I made up those oil numbers, so the savings might be more significant than that. Or maybe less. < ]B^)

[Lx]

My SL has the 155mph limiter. To eliminate it requires two chips at over $500 each. I live with the limiter.

[BobS]

First they come for your light bulbs. Then they come for your computers, TVs, air conditioners, washing machines, dryers, and fridge. And your vehicle.

They want you to hitchike around in sandals, filthy clothes and long hair. Just like them.

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

"The Maybach seems to make a little more sense, for both style and sizzle. A Bently is a bit on the stuffy side - pretentious for prtentious sake."

Harrumph. I saw one in Sunnyvale, being driven by a silicone-enhanced blonde slightly past her sell-by date. Overweight, pretentious, silly-looking, rather ugly when you get right down to it, awkward, nouveau riche, bloated, prissy, un-fun and ungraceful. So was the car.