Toyota’s Prius Becomes a Southern Belle | Autopia from Wired.com
The SUV is dead and Toyota can’t build Prius hybrids fast enough, so it’s suspending production of big trucks and will build the Prius in Mississippi at a plant that was slated to produce SUVs.

Not until 2010, but it looks like Toyota is betting fuel isn’t going down, and they’re going to give up on the Big Truck market, or at least give up their push to displace one of the Big Three.

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Yes, I got my daughter a Crown Vic PI for a first car. It seemed at least somewhat logical: a big, safe car that’s also cheap, as it’d been lightly wrecked by the Nacogdoches, TX Police Department and auctioned off (91,000 miles, no nonsense interior). My dad fixed it up to excellent running condition, and it looked pretty good with a blue paint job.

Daughter liked the car, sort-of, but its size intimidated her, and she wouldn’t drive it any more than to and from school (bug, or feature?). At any rate, the Ford now resides with my eldest daughter and son in law, so it’s still in the family, and they like and drive it. The Prius is in good hands, and I have a new ride I won’t be talking about because it’s so nice it’s embarrassing. It gets 21 MPG, which isn’t the 44 I got with the Prius, but I can live with it.

Youngest daughter occasionally laments the loss of acceleration, but really likes the tiny bill when refueling, which more than makes up for the lessened horsepower.

Because I know you want to know these things, that’s why.

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The 24-year-old son of former Vice President Al Gore was arrested for drug possession on Wednesday after he was stopped for speeding in his hybrid Toyota Prius, a sheriff’s official said.

Al Gore III — whose father is a leading advocate of policies to fight global warming — was driving his environmentally friendly car at about 100 miles per hour on a freeway south of Los Angeles when he was pulled over by an Orange County sheriff’s deputy at about 2:15 a.m.

I wonder how environmentally friendly a Prius is at 100 MPH?

Thanks to Mr. Gore for giving the Prius a sportier reputation. The rest of it, including his arrest, is too bad. It stinks to be related to the rich and famous.

Hat tip to reader Jim for pointing this out.

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This tank I just drove it like I would any car, and it surprised me by turning in the same mileage as when I was consciously trying to maximize the mileage. I don’t suppose that’s a huge surprise to anyone but me, but I thought it’d make a difference for the worse. Nope.

And, it’s a nice car, the nicest sedan I’ve owned.

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via Instapundit.

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St. Nicholas’ Episcopal Church parishioners peacefully worshipped together Sunday, even as the congregation is splitting over denomination politics and biblical teachings, resulting in the charter of a new Midland church.

… Almost 90 percent of members and their pastors were ordered by the Northwest Texas Diocese to leave St. Nicholas’ for dissenting with the Episcopal Church’s stance on homosexuality by naming a gay bishop in New Hampshire, among other things.

"But the homosexual issue is just a small part of a greater crisis," said the Rev. Jonathan Hartzer, associate rector. "The greater crisis is cultural accommodation at the expense of biblical Christianity."

Support for the ousted Midland congregation has come from all over the world, Hartzer said, and vast numbers of believers from afar are expected travel here to attend the last service of the full congregation May 29.

Conservative pastors trying to oust a couple of Kerry voters (which is stupid and wrong, BTW) were headline news on CNN, but the vast majority of a congregation being kicked out of a church because of ‘cultural accomodation(s) at the expense of biblical Christianity’ hasn’t been Big News yet.

Why?  It’s not even my church, and I wonder.

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