The Future is -- When? & People who drive Hummers lack orgasms in their lives

I attended elementary school in the late '70's and early '80's. More than a few times discussion in our "environmental studies" classes -- the closest thing our cash and imagination strapped school board had to science class -- centered on how the future world (then, the Year 2000 was still the golden, seemingly unreachable science fiction dateline) would consist of solarium houses, jet packs rather than cumbersome cars, moving sidewalks, and no worries about the energy required to run any of this. Because it would all be solar powered, or by sunflower seeds or corn oil, or something.

When I was in the market to purchase my first home a couple of years ago, I researched what it would cost to have a solar powered home. I'm no "tree hugger" or granola-eating self-righteous sneerer at all things mechanical -- hey, I live by my PC, DVD player, electric guitar and cordless phone (I won't yet sully myself with a cell phone). But I want to do my share. I don't believe in "saving the planet." What an arrogant, assholic idea. However, I think there is such a thing as responsible citizenship. My next car will be a hybrid. And when I was buying a home, I wanted it to be solar powered (aside from any environmental considerations, my main idea behind this was not having to pay exorbitant hydro [as we call it in Canada] rates. I thought I'd ultimately be saving cash going solar).

The long story made short is -- solar power vendors talked me out of pursuing solar power. Yes, you read that correctly. Maybe this is just ass-backward Ontario with our Soviet-styled customer service instincts, but people running companies that made solar panels or did whatever they do to make your house solar powered, basically told me not to bother considering that option. I didn't bother saving these emails as I was too shocked and incensed to pursue the issue further. But I do recall one solar power vendor actually seeming to say I could only have a solar powered house with my local utility's permission. Again, you read that correctly. That's like having to ask Chrysler for permission to buy a Ford vehicle. It made no goddamned sense at all.

Yes, I must be an absolute bumpkin. Stupid me, I thought there might actually be tax credits, and, you know, incentives for people to have solar powered homes. No such thing exists in the Great Territory of Ontario, Canada. It may exist elsewhere, but no one here seems to have seen the news recently and caught the story about OUR MOTHERFUCKING FOSSIL FUEL RESOURCES RAPIDLY DEPLETING. I hate using all caps, but it's easier than composing a Flash animation of me thrashing a cartoon representation of a politician/bureaucrat with a baseball bat.

So, I was thrilled and tickled today when I saw a link on the CNN.com home page -- ever-tuned to the pulse and mind of North American society -- to a review of the new Hummer. First, I love the idea of this overpriced, oversized, ego-masturbating monstrocity actually being named after slang for oral sex. Of course it is. I can just see the comb-over, low-carb salesman making his latest sale:

"Yes, Mr. Gobshite, I think you're going to be very happy with your new Hummer."

The eleven year olds in the peanut gallery shit themselves blue.

Honestly, there are well over a hundred thousand troops from the United States alone in the middle east at this very moment being blown up on a daily basis as they carry out the mission of securing America's fossil fuel future. The troops go where they're sent. They don't make policy. God help them, they must trust the policymakers. And maybe if we had a sunflower seed-based fuel economy the U.S. would be at war with the country that leads the world in sunflower seed production. But where the hell is a human being's priorities when fuel prices are galloping upward, the news is filled with stories about the ever-increasing number of war dead and the world's oil resources are peaking out? "Boy howdy! It's HummerTime!"

People who drive Hummers lack orgasms in their lives.

People who drive Hummers are wretches working out their inferiority complexes by driving faux military, faux masculine type vehicles, all the while sucking up fuel like Bangkok whores on PCP. Is it a coincidence that Hummer owners are primarily lawyers, corporate executives, or persons equally devoid of souls? I say not.

Even if a Hummer that ran on sunflower seeds were built, I'd still question the character of anyone who desired such an ugly, oppressive, life-denying, status-groping thing as their mode of transportation.

So, while the number of U.S. dead in Iraq nears 2,000, and the civilian dead number ten fold the lives lost in the 9/11 attacks, CNN.com feels it's a great time to feature a review on the new Hummer.

All drivers of Hummers -- ditch your goddamned vehicles and give a try to real hummers. You'll never go back!