By most accounts, I’m a good citizen. I work, I pay taxes, I keep my crimes to myself and I call my mother at least once a week. But I have a wild side. Like a vintage race, this part of my personality just begs to be taken out and let loose from time to time. I’m not going to tell you what I spent my first Bush tax rebate on. But I will tell you that when the $600 arrives in June, I will be at a $10/$20 No Limit table. So, when I was contacted by a guy in Prague to transport a 1981 Corvette from Oakland to a container ship in Los Angeles, I jumped at the chance. How could I lose?

Today is not diesel's day. Not only is the stuff expensive, it's bad for you, too. The Motor Authority reports that Dutch scientists have discovered that diesel fumes stress the brain. The boffins have (apparently) known for some time that teeny-tiny particles of diesel soot can go up your nose and lodge in your brain. (I will go on the record saying I did not know that.) Though our scientists friends were aware of the itty-bitty petrochemical chunks getting crammed in our noggins, no one had figured out whether it was bad or meh (you know it ain't good). So they stuck ten volunteers in a room filled with diesel fumes and monitored their crania. After 30 minutes, the volunteers' brains displayed signs of "stress." What does that mean? “It is conceivable that the long-term effects of exposure to traffic nanoparticles may interfere with normal brain function and information processing.” Yeah, so says… hang on, what were we talking about?

As if Ford wasn't losing enough money, AP reports [via Forbes ] the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals today ordered Ford to pay a California woman $82.6m for injuries sustained when her Ford Explorer rolled over in 2002. A jury had originally awarded the plaintiff $369m. Like street cocaine, that number has been cut several times in course of the case. Ford had appealed the verdict all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the Explorer met all federal safety standards. The Supreme Court sent the case back to the 4th Circuit to determine whether or not their ruling was in line with a previous determination which overturned nearly $80m in damages awarded in a tobacco lawsuit. Today's decision blesses the plaintiff with $55m in punitive damages. The legal point: federal safety standards are not enough to shield automakers from legal liability. The scary bit: class action lawsuits will now fall like rain upon Ford's head. The Blue Oval Boyz have yet to publicly comment on the case, probably as they're busy talking to their insurance agent and trying to figure out what they're going to sell next.

In February, lovers old and new turn their attention to matters of the heart. No 'bout a doubt it: automakers weren't feeling the love. Overall U.S. light vehicle sales dropped 6.3 percent in February and 5.3 percent for the year.  With precious few exceptions, sales were down across the board. And this time, the usually impervious foreign nameplates and transplants felt the pain along with their Detroit counterparts (although not quite as badly). Let's take a closer look at the love's labor lost.

Several of the original Seven Deadly Sins– Pride, Wrath, Lust, Gluttony, Envy, Sloth and Greed– have enhanced automobile sales and pistonhead pleasure. But Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti, the Pope's BFF and the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary (uh-oh) reveals that these "sins of yesteryear'' have a "rather individualistic dimension.'' The Church's seven new deadly sins are intended to make worshippers realize that their poor decisions also do unto others: Human Genetic Modification, Human Experimentation, Environmental Pollution, Social Injustice, Causing Poverty, Seeking Obscene Wealth and Drug Abuse. Did you know that every deadly sin has a traditional punishment? Pride leads to being broken on the wheel. Wrath leads to being dismembered alive. And so on. Hence, our QOTD: how can the car industry and pistonheads stay on the side of the angels with these new strictures, and what should happen if they don't?

The Camaro has had spy photographers up its tailpipe ever since GM announced that they were thinking, maybe, about possibly perhaps building a new Camaro. And although we've seen some pretty good shots before, GM is now running undisguised prototypes around so you can get a complete view of what the Camaro looks like. Can you really call them spy pictures when GM is asking to have the pictures taken? Instead, maybe we'll call them "pre-press kit photos" because they're taken before GM invites over the professional studio photographers and then rubs oil all over the car and puts up those funny silver umbrellas. Aside from the horrific watermarks involved, there's a downside to documenting every step of the testing process and showing people the car before it's actually good to go (the Flex effect). Even though the development time line for the Camaro has been reasonably quick, it seems like we've been waiting since Burt Reynolds' first face lift for the new Camaro to hit the showroom floor. Anyway, to quote Three Dog Night, a child is black, a child is white, it turns by day, and then by night.

Analysts tell the Wall Street Journal that the low end of the classic car market is getting hammered (so to speak) by sagging real estate values. "Home equity was the ATM out of which a lot of people were withdrawing money to have fun,"  says McKeel Hagerty. The CEO of Hagerty Insurance Agency says the market for mass produced "enthusiast cars" in the $30k to $50k range has tanked by two-thirds in the last two years. Another factor: age. Apparently, the people who pined for cool-but-not-collectible American iron of the 50's and 60's during their youth are getting older and less interested. The president of Hyman Limited Classic Cars claims the high-end of the market remains unaffected by the credit crunch; as collectors who buy hand-built, limited edition classics don't need to mortgage the mansion to pick-up a toy or twelve. Wordsmith Dan Carney would like to leave you with the impression that today's depressed low-level market makes it a good time to buy a classic, but we remember the price crash of the late 90's and reckon the down economy will sink the market even further.   

According The Wall Street Journal, New York governor Eliot Spizter admits he "failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself." Whatever. As Client Number 9 continues his fall from political grace, Empire State motorists are breathing a sigh of relief. The scandal effectively kills Spitzer's plans to remove the state's gas tax cap. If he'd been successful in that endeavor, the potential indictee's Petroleum Business Tax (PBT) would have elevated gas taxes by nearly $56m per year. The Hudson Valley Times also reports (retroactively) that "Spitzer Car Tax" would have increased NY's registration fee from $5 to $20. Oh, and Spitzer also supported Thruway toll hikes. So, once again America's hopes for freedom from onerous taxes begin with the Mayflower. [thanks to starlightmica for the link]

I studied epistemology in a college religion class. Epistemology is a fifty cent word for the branch of philosophy that explores the way in which man learns truth. What leads a person to the certain conclusion that God exists? Is it the conclusion of a logical process? Or personal spiritual experience? Maybe it’s embracing family tradition? At the risk of offending deity and condemning my soul to an eternity burning amid fire and Bridgestone, I liken the process of buying new tires to the quest for faith.

According to the American Automobile Association [via The New York Times], the average nationwide price for diesel has set records 18 of the past 19 days. It's currently sitting at $3.83 a gallon. (New York, California, Pennsylvania and Vermont averaged over $4 a gallon.)  The effects are being felt throughout industry. On the positive side, trucking companies are buying more fuel-efficient equipment, using electronic devices to slow driving speeds and installing auxiliary power units so truckers can sleep in their cabs without idling their rig's engine. Larger companies are looking to hybrid diesel-electric powerplants and better aerodynamics for fuel savings. On the negative side, paying for the new equipment could lead to layoffs. Smaller trucking firms and independents are putting off maintenance and generally struggling to make ends meet. “It’s killing us,” said Chad Beachler, co-owner of nine-truck Beachler Trucking. “Every day, I come in here and wonder if I have enough money to buy fuel.” 

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Renewable Energy Technologies Grants Program is forking-over $1.5m of residents' hard-earned tax dollars to an incipient E85 producer making ethanol from sweet sorghum juice– rather than corn squeezins. Discounting all the Starbuckian Fair Trade blather– the Renergie company wants to build small local plants, give farmers a royalty from [theoretical] E85 sales, etc.– sorghum's advantages over corn include less pesticides and water requirements, higher yield (4700 to 7500 liters per hectare), rapid growth and the ability to grow marginal soil. Yes, well, as Checkbiotech reports, the song remains the same: subsidies! "Once state approval is received, Renergie’s variable blending pumps will be able to offer the consumer a choice of E10, E20, E30 and E85. Via use of the Blender’s Tax Credit, Renergie will be able to ensure that gas station owners are adequately compensated for each gallon of fuel-grade ethanol that is sold via Renergie’s variable blending pumps at their gas stations." 

It's bad enough that filmmakers are so out of ideas they are on a rampage of "movies about stuff you liked as a kid" (and unfortunately only liked because you were a kid). But the cross marketing of cars in movies and TV is not only out of hand, it's just awful. Transformers was transcendently terrible. Knight Rider IS the dark side of product placement. And, now, the newest addition to the list: Iron Man, which stars a recovering drug addict and his Audi R8. To help convince you that their car will make you a superhero, Audi launched an Iron Man microsite that lets you begin watching commercials for free in advance of the two-hour commercial coming to theaters soon. How much of a role the car will have in the movie remains to be seen; sometimes filmmakers will just tease viewers with a supposedly hot car and then it's Gone in Sixty Seconds. Other times its a ten-minute set piece involving Robots Gone Wild. Or an R8 sneaking into Moe Green's bedroom to make him an offer he can't refuse. Anyway, we'll give you the link, but don't click on it or else you could accidentally buy an R8 and pay 10 bucks to see a bad movie. P.S. Iron? That's soooo 18th century.

The New York Times reports that biodiesel producers are dumping vegetable oil byproducts into local streams and rivers, harming wildlife.The National Biodiesel Board claims that their members' industrial byproducts are "nontoxic, biodegradable and suitable for sensitive environments." Yes, well, Bruce P. Hollebone, researcher with Environment Canada, says the result is some bad shit for birds and fish. "As with most organic materials, oil and glycerin deplete the oxygen content of water very quickly, and that will suffocate fish and other organisms. And for birds, a vegetable oil spill is just as deadly as a crude oil spill.”  The problem is, of course, money. "Glycerin, an alcohol that is normally nontoxic, can be sold for secondary uses, but it must be cleaned first, a process that is expensive and complicated. Expanded production of biodiesel has flooded the market with excess glycerin, making it less cost-effective to clean and sell." And more cost effective to dump in untreated form. The National Biodiesel Board dismissed a litany of violations as "growing pains" for an industry that's doubled in the last year (to 160 plants). Oh, that's OK then.

The Register reports that MIT scientists have unveiled a new, "stacking vehicle" concept which will "reinvent urban mobility." The concept is based on stacks of small vehicles which fold up to stack together into small racks which would be located near subway stations or bus stops. The vehicles would be powered by "wheel robots:" tiny, self-contained, digitally controlled reconfigurable electric motors in each wheel. In theory, the system provides all-wheel power and steering, easy navigation of urban areas and best of all, sideways parking. The vehicles would charge while folded on their racks; the user would "simply take the first fully charged vehicle from the front of the stack." The concept's website states that "The City car is NOT a replacement for personal vehicles, taxis, buses, or trucks; it is a NEW vehicle type that promotes a socially responsible and more effective means of urban mobility." That doesn't conform to automotive safety standards. Never mind. Team leader architecture professor Bill Mitchell say he'd like to see the system in production in three to four years. Team member Christopher Borroni-Bird is a little more skeptical. "What we have is a very intriguing concept. It is certainly a very promising idea," GM's Director of the Advanced Technology Vehicle Concepts said. "but I don't want to say it is ready for production… there's still a lot of work yet to take it from concept to production." This from the people who champion E85, the Volt and two-mode hybrids.

According to a new study revealed in The Washington Post [via MSNBC], the world needs to cease carbon emissions altogether, within a matter of decades, to avert global warming. And in case you’re wondering who’s the bad guy in this incipient environmental catastrophe, the lead photo shows a [choose one] jet contrail, a coal-burning plant, a ship at sea, traffic on the smog-filled streets of Beijing. Correct! So pull over and take Lord Humongous' advice: just walk away. “The world must bring carbon emissions down to near zero to keep temperatures from rising further,” Gavin A. Schmidt, of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies warns. "The idea of shifting to a carbon-free society appears to be technically feasible. The question is whether it's politically feasible or economically feasible." I’d blog the rest of this story but what’s the point, really? If all of these conclusions bear out, Hell will freeze over the oceans will come to a boil long before our entire planet reduces carbon emissions to near zero. Party on?