Pull Over, Lady

On almost any southern California day you can turn on the television and find a police chase happening before your eyes. This one is a little more amusing than most. It emphasizes the old term we used to use, "Lady Driver". It also shows the most restrained police action once the chase ends with no heads pounded. Enjoy this video with your morning coffee:



















Copyright @ 1998-2009
All Rights Reserved

A Relaxing Sunday Drive Through Paris

Paris

On an August morning in 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a Ferrari 275 GTB and had a friend, a professional Formula 1 racer, drive at breakneck speed through the heart of Paris early in the morning . The film was limited for technical reasons to 10 minutes; the course was from Porte Dauphine , through the Louvre, to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur.

No streets were closed, for Lelouch was unable to obtain a permit. The driver completed the course in about 9 minutes, reaching nearly 140 MPH in some stretches. The footage reveals him running real red lights, nearly hitting real pedestrians, and driving the wrong way up real one-way streets. Upon showing the film in public for the first time, Lelouch was arrested. He has never revealed the identity of the driver, and the film went underground. It's still a classic. Turn on your sound and enjoy.

Copyright @ 1998-2009
All Rights Reserved

Affordable French Air-Car Coming to America

The Air Car

In the early 1990s at virtually the same time that General Motors was shredding all of its Electric Cars and selling its technology to the oil industry, Motor Development International (MDI) (www.mdi.lu) a French-based company headed by Guy Negre, was busy inventing the Air Car. A former aeronautics and Formula One racecar engineer, Mr. Negre has been working diligently with his son, Cyril, an engineer with Bugatti, and about thirty other engineers to bring the Compressed Air technology to market (CAT). To date, the company holds many patents in over 120 countries for their innovative Air Car vehicles.

French writer Jules Verne predicted in his book of 1860, “Paris in the 21st Century”, that the transportation system would be using compressed air. MDI has finally developed a way to make this prediction work. Zero Pollution Motors will manufacture and sell the compressed air vehicle in the US. It is estimated that the car will cost between $15,000 and $20,000.

Nice call, GM!



HOW IT WORKS

So, while GM was destroying a technology that could have helped the world in the interest of "greed", France was developing the World's Cleanest Car. To drive the world's cleanest car is no longer wishful thinking. The Compressed Air Vehicle is the first affordable and accessible clean car. It brings us our dream: to drive pollution-free and free of fuel dependency.

At Lower Speeds: Since the Compressed Air Vehicle is running exclusively on compressed air, it emit only air -- zero pollution. The air expelled from the tailpipe is actually cleaner than the air used to fill the tank. This is because before compression, the air is run through carbon filters to eliminate dirt, dust, humidity, and other urban air impurities that could hamper the engine's performance.

At Higher Speeds: At speeds over 35 mph, the CAV uses small amounts of fuel - either gasoline, propane, ethanol or bio-fuels to heat air inside a heating chamber as it enters the engine. This process produces emissions of only 0.141 lbs of CO2 per mile. That is up to 4 times less than the average vehicle and more than two times less than the cleanest vehicle available today. (Toyota Prius '07 emissions: 0.34 lbs of CO2 per mile. source: www.hybridcard.com.

Check out the car here: THE FRENCH AIR CAR.

Copyright @ 1998-2009
All Rights Reserved

Ford Motors Continues to Outsource

What Does Ford Have Against Producing Cars in America?

Ford Motor Company started producing its fuel-efficient low-cost Fiesta car at a plant in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing on Thursday, the company said. The Changan Ford Mazda Automobile Company will produce the Fiesta for the Chinese market, with the first vehicles expected to go on sale later in the first quarter, the company said in a statement.

The latest version of the Fiesta debuted last year in Europe, with 61,000 cars sold so far, Ford said.  Ford is one of the US auto giants striving to accommodate car buyers who are abandoning gasoline-guzzling sport-utility vehicles in favour of more fuel-efficient sedans after oil prices hit record highs last year. The auto maker has been touting Fiesta, its second-best selling vehicle behind the Ford Focus, as the first in "a series of global cars."

"We are leveraging our global assets and expertise to design and build vehicles that meet the demands and expectations of customers around the world," Joe Hinrichs, Ford's group vice president for global manufacturing and labour affairs, said in the statement. The Nanjing plant will be the first facility to build the four-door sedan version of the Fiesta and is the second assembly facility in the world to build the car, the company said.

Production began at Ford's Cologne, Germany, assembly plant last year and will begin later this month at Ford's plant in Valencia, Spain. The Fiesta will go on sale in North America in early 2010 and will be produced at Ford's Cuautitlan Assembly Plant in Mexico.

In 2010, Ford and Mazda's joint-venture facility, Auto Alliance Thailand, in Rayong will begin producing the new Fiesta for other major Asian markets.

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GARY MIALOCQ & ASSOCIATES
Copyright @ 1998-2008
All Rights Reserved

Republican Extremism Un-Patriotic

The Greedy Old Party

The Republican Party did not bat an eyelash when it gave Wall Street $700 billion based upon a simple 3-page request, but it screams with outrage that Congress would consider a $15 billion bailout of the three American automobile manufacturers. They blame the workers, never mind the management that owns a fleet of corporate jets and takes hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses.

The southern state Republicans who have lured foreign manufacturers such as Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Nissan, BMW, etc., to develop manufacturing plants in their states are the same ones that stopped the bailout of General Motors, Chrysler and Ford cold. This is insanity if we allow our largest industrial manufacturing base to vanish into oblivion.

These same Republicans who make sure we spend $10 billion per month in Iraq and who have raped our coffers, quote Herbert Hoover of all people, the most inadequate President in modern history prior to George W. Bush as they justify their behavior which is not only un-patriotic, but perhaps treasonous. They are taking every step possible to assure the next President will have a nearly impossible task in saving the American economy. These are the same extremists who rally against any form of universal healthcare while at the same time promoting foreign car manufacturers whose countries provide healthcare for all, and whose cars are not burdened by the extra cost of healthcare that is saddled upon every American car built.

The American middle class will NEVER FORGET. This is the beginning of the end of the party of Big Business. They have stolen billions from the treasury and refuse to this day to even disclose who got money and why, even in the face of Freedom of Information Act requests.

A Breath of Fresh Air

Ready for Market Now

The BBC reported on the French version of this technology which we featured in an earlier item. This report from Australia goes into more depth and also covers an Australian version.

How many billions of dollars in research and development funds would the big auto makers claim they need to get this far? Yet, the technology is here now, ready to exploit - and it is not being used. What's the hangup?

Why are we still:

* allowing ourselves to be dependent on foreign countries for our energy?
* spending billions to transport and refine a highly toxic material?
* polluting our air thereby sickening and killing people, especially children, with toxic fumes?
* putting a massive, daily "transportation tax" on everyone who drives a car?

If you agree, pass it on and let your Congressman know how you feel.