Honolulu wants people to smell artificial while riding the city buses.

Natural scents will not be welcome – unless you have deodorant up your butt.

City Council members Rod Tam and Nestor Garcia hope to pass a bill that will ban riders with “odors that unreasonably disturb others or interfere with their use of the transit system, whether such odors arise from one’s person, clothes, articles accompanying animal or any other source.”

As Planet of the Chimps points out, it will take smell police to find the stinkers.

Inquiring minds are asking… would riders

• be expected to report the offense via a special “smell phone?”
• be required to rank the reek?
• Twitter the emitter?
• accuse the oozer?
• quench the stench (what about the French?)

By the way, have you been behind a bus lately?

I’ve been on the road a lot this past week. There a lot of trucks on the road.

All together now… durrrrr.

Being behind the wheel, whilst careening down the road at 83 miles per hour,  allows a lot of think time.

I’ve seen long-haul truckers:

• parallel park on the Champs de Elvis in Memphis
• drive three wide in Hurricane Culligan at 83 mph
• flirt with Glinda, eat meat and three, pass gas, all in less than the time it takes me to find my Jon and Kate Wilkes booth
• pick their teeth with a Bowie knife and not draw blood
• with tri-trailers do a reverse 180, release the middle trailer and hook back up to make a dual
• back in between two other trailers at 30 mph and stop within 2 inches of the dock

What’s up with the flashing of lights when they pass each other going 85 mph down the Interstate? Daytime, Nighttime, Anytime.

Flash, flash, flash.

Flash headlights when a trucker pulls into their lane, flash trailer lights after pulling in front of another trucker.

Are long haul truckers stricken with Alzheimer’s when they hit the Interstate Highways so they forget how long their rig is?

Does a long haul trucker’s mirror say “objects in mirror must flash before you turn right?”

Are Interstate truckers so hopped up on bennies that they need visual assistance to get back in line?

Do they think this is NASCAR and to turn right you need a spotter to indicate “clear low?”

They all have cell phones, why don’t they just call each other? They all have GP Esses, can’t they just plot the position of every truck in 1000 yards? Kinda like the voluntary air traffic control over the Hudson River?

What is it with Interstate Truckers?

Oh puh-leeze, the Cash for Clunker Crybabies have just about pushed me to the limits.

First, when the program had been operation for just ten days, an owner of 20 dealerships in the east was crying about how long it took to do the paperwork for Cash for Clunkers. He was bitchin’  because he had to pay a clerk  (probably making $10 an hour) to sit in front of a computer for a few hours to submit the paperwork to collect $4,500 free money collected from you and me.

Now the paperwork is in the gummit’s hands, here’s the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) aka CFCC (Cash for Clunker Crybabies) are crying they aren’t getting their money quick enough.

The National Automobile Dealers Association estimates that dealers have hundreds– and in some cases thousands — of applications pending that are

“worth hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars.”

Peter Kitzmiller, president of the 325-member Maryland Automobile Dealers Association said:

“It is ludicrous at this point, We’ve got deals that are just sitting there waiting to be reviewed. The customer is gone, the car is gone, and you don’t have your money.”

Damn Republicans. (And new car dealers are all Republicans.) They cry that something needs to be done to save the U.S. car business. Obama does something.

They cry that Obama is moving too fast on the stimulus.

They cry that the stimulus idea is bad for the economy.  Cars fly out of the showrooms at record pace – after 18 months of gathering dust.  Factories go on overtime to keep up with demand.

They cry that they aren’t getting their money fast enough. They want quicker turn-around. They want bigger goverment to handle the Cash for Clunkers program.

By the end of the week, up to 1,100 people will be working full time to process cash for clunker reimbursements.

They cry that government is getting too big.

How long would you sit (or pay someone to sit)  in front of a computer to collect $4,500?

Damn Cash for Clunker Crybabies. They give money to McCain, cry that Obama got elected,  line up at the public trough and then cry that the slop is too sour.

I sure hope they keep this little prank in Amsterdam and it doesn’t invade the U.S.

Seems “Smart tossing” is the hot new activity for buzzed out Amsterdam youth. They toss Smart cars into the nearest canal.

A similar conversation took place at Varley and Chickie’s home last evening. Bob and Felicia had taken a ride through the Kentucky version of the hood, which is a very diverse neighborhood of Mexicans, African Americans, Bosnians, Vietnamese, etc. etc.

Nancy said she would take Chickie there someday since she had never been. Bob suggested that she shouldn’t drive her Smart. “They would pick you up and carry you off.”

Laffs all around.

Smart car parked alongside Amsterdam canal.
Photo by Tinou Bao

According to locally-published newspaper De Telegraaf police has not wanted to publicize this form of vandalism for fear of copy-cat incidents. However, police officers are paying extra attention to Amsterdam’s canals, especially during the weekends.

The Smart cars are small enough to be parked with head or tail pointing to the water.

One man who parked his Smart car that way said police woken him with the message that his car had been pushed into the canal.

“Several weeks ago the same thing happened to my companion’s Smart,” Casper de Jong said. “In both cases the Smart was declared a total-loss.”

Alongside most canals a low guard rail helps prevent cars from taking a dip, but the Smart car is small enough to be lifted and tossed.

It is not clear how many Smart cars have been vandalized this way, but an employee of Smart Center Amsterdam confirmed the company has recently been confronted with it ‘a number of times.’

Shouldn’t be a problem here in Podunkyville:

• no canals
• car is tucked away in garage by 9 p.m.

I want this car. Actually I want to but a whole bunch and set up a kiosk in the mall to sell them.

They are Volkswagens and they will be sold in China.

258 mpg. (No typo: Two hundred fifty-eight miles per gallon.)

$600. (No typo: Six hundred American Dollars.)

I’m not sure what the airfare is to Shanghai where the cars will first be sold.  BTW: why do all the other countries get all the fun cars first? France had the Smart, India has the TaTa Nano, and now China has the VW VunderWileage (I just made that up.) And by the way?  the U.K. has a much better name for their auto incentive plan, rather than Cash for Clunkers, the U.K. calls it Scrappage Scheme. And another question I need to have settled. How do you pronounce Peugeot? As in…

Peugeot Dealer
Peugeot 308
Peugeot 107

Back to the unnamed VW.

The car is about 11 feet long,  four feet wide, and about three feet tall.

Obviously it’s a one person car. Which has a lot of appeal for large family. Cars for everybody in the family! The Daily Blonde says she would buy one just for the opportunity to go someplace BY HERSELF. (She has a passle of kiddles.)

As with the Smart five years ago, it’s not legal in the U.S. Nor is the Smart Electric car been approved for U.S. use. But I could call the VW VunderWileage a personal disability device and probably get them imported no prob.

So it’s happened. The 258 miles per gallon car is a reality. Only in China. I accept Paypal.

Here are more specs…

The power plant is a one cylinder diesel positioned ahead of the rear axle and combined with an automatic shift controlled by a knob in the interior.

Safety was not compromised as the impact and roll-over protection is comparable to the GT racing cars.

• Gas tank capacity = 1.7 gallons
• Speed = 62 – 74.6 Miles/hour
• Fuel efficiency = 258 miles/gallon
• Travel distance with a full tank = 404 miles

Another BTW: If I lived in the U.K. I would shop for cars here.
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