| View Cars of the Future at Auto Expo | | Posted Saturday, January 13, 2007 12:45:46 PM by Blog57 Team | | The 2007 Utah Auto Expo is now open to the public at the South Towne Expo Center. More than 400 vehicles are on display for you to get up close to! Q: "Keith, what car are you going to buy?" A: "Not sure yet, there's a lot to choose from!" Big, small, bright colored, gas or hybrid? Stats show that about 70 percent of the people who visit the auto show will buy a new vehicle within the next 3 years! "Max" the robot will be telling auto show visitors the latest on what Ford has to offer this year. For the next four days the Expo Center in Sandy will attract tens of thousands of people... Max' the Robot: "Hi there Channel 5, come to the auto show!" Craig Bickmore, Executive Director, UADA: "This is a show where everybody can get something that just thrills them!" .... | |
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| | | Medical marijuana takes DEA hit | | Posted Thursday, January 11, 2007 2:45:45 PM by Blog57 Team | | HAYWARD ? Until federal drug agents arrested him earlier this month, Shon Squier was one of Hayward's most successful and generous young businessmen. Customers lined up outside his downtown storefront, particularly on Mondays, when he offered free samples to the first 50 visitors. Business was so good that Squier, a former construction worker, was able to donate more than $100,000 to local charities. But Squier's success as a dynamic medical marijuana entrepreneur also was his downfall. Federal drug agents raided his home and business, arresting Squier and his store manager, freezing bank accounts containing $1.5 million and confiscating several expensive cars, motorcycles and $200,000 in cash. Medical marijuana advocates claim the raid constitutes unfair, selective enforcement by the Drug Enforcement Administration of the estimated 170 medical marijuana dispensaries in the state, including 85 in the Bay Area.... | |
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| | | Grede Foundries part linked to Hummer crashes | | Posted Tuesday, October 24, 2006 10:46:10 AM by Blog57 Team | | Federal traffic safety officials are investigating a series of Hummer H2 crashes and their possible link to a failure of a part supplied by Grede Foundries Inc. of Wauwatosa. No official cause for the crashes has yet been determined under an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In reports to the agency, Hummer manufacturer General Motors Corp., Detroit, denies that the cause stems from a defect in the suspect part. The federal agency is investigating 26 incidents of wheels falling off or front suspensions collapsing on Hummer H2 sport utility vehicles. The incidents are accompanied by an apparent fracture of a part called a steering knuckle, which connects the upper and lower ball joints that serve as pivot points for the front steering system.... | |
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| | | Mom's got driving ambition to set pro-Earth example | | Posted Sunday, October 01, 2006 10:45:54 AM by Blog57 Team | | T his is the town that big cars built and everyone -- even my 5-year-old -- knows all about it. Excess sheet metal may be tanking the economy, but the enduring spirit of Detroit -- the big-is-better zeitgeist -- remains visibly jaunty, like those deck chairs on the Titanic. My daughter's been waiting for the car lease to expire, keen on a truck, a van, a missile launcher -- a bloated, incredible hulk, the kind of vehicle the regular moms use to haul provisions from Costco, pumpkins for the sidewalk patch, entire hockey teams and gear. Please, she says. Aha, I think. Here is a teachable moment, an opportunity to talk about global warming, depleted fossil fuels, all those deadly greenhouse gases -- carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide -- that are turning the atmosphere into a radioactive furnace.... | |
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| | | CRASH DEATHS MANSLAUGHTER TRIAL OFF UNTIL NOVEMBER | | Posted Thursday, August 31, 2006 4:45:59 PM by Blog57 Team | | The trial for two men charged with voluntary manslaughter in connection with an abandoned car and a crash that killed a family of four in Santa Rosa in January 2005 will not start until Nov. 6. James Eichman, 56, and his brother Jerry Eichman, 48, were to be tried earlier this month but scheduling conflicts postponed the trial until November. Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Cerena Wong will continue to hear pre-trial motions until that time. The prosecution claims the Eichmans are responsible for the deaths of Matthew Spencer, his wife and two children in a crash on Jan. 24, 2005 because they allegedly left a Ford Thunderbird they were towing on Guerneville Road after a tow rope broke. Defense attorneys claim Spencer, 27, was responsible for the deaths because he allegedly was intoxicated when he sped past the disabled vehicle and the cars that had stopped behind it at 80-100 mph.... | |
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| | | RESCUING OTHERS, HERSELF | | Posted Wednesday, August 30, 2006 6:46:01 AM by Blog57 Team | | The Angel in a Hummer fires up her big, black SUV with chrome rims, the same one she used a year ago to pluck stranded New Orleanians from Katrina's malevolent waters, the same one that delivered her a few months later into a personal hell. ``So many bad things have happened in my life since New Orleans,'' says Rena Salomon. ``Heroic things don't always happen to heroes.'' The slender and stylish Santa Clara woman with a penchant for muscle cars, guns, cowboy boots and saving people in need had crash-landed by last November. ``I couldn't get out of bed on Thanksgiving Day at all.'' Her long-successful custom window and door business was failing. She had spent about $50,000 of her own money on Katrina victims, some of whom she brought back to California from Louisiana.... | |
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| | | Roadshow: Anti-social, macho commercials for Hummers endorse road ... | | Posted Tuesday, August 08, 2006 8:46:02 PM by Blog57 Team | | Q Your recent letters about the Mercedes commercial ending with a drag race didn't mention the Hummer commercial. A woman and son are waiting in line for the slide in the park, when another woman cuts in line to have her son go ahead. So the victimized woman goes out and buys a Hummer to ``get her girl on,'' trumpets the ad. I thought that there were efforts to reduce road rage, not encourage it. Mike Melligan Campbell A Those macho Hummer ads aren't going over well with everyone. Q For blatant sociopathology, it's hard to beat the new Hummer TV ads, in which a woman who has been treated rudely waiting in line for a kid's ride gets instant revenge by buying a Hummer. The male-equivalent ad is equally nauseating. Why not just advertise: Buy a Hummer and become a sociopath? Buyers do manage that, through their unfettered pollution, absurd gas mileage and ability to crush whatever they hit as they sip their lattes and chat on cell phones while driving.... | |
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| | | Jalopnik Reviews: 2006 Hummer H3, Part 3 | | Posted Monday, August 07, 2006 10:45:52 AM by Blog57 Team | | Why you should buy this car: You already have an H1 and an H2 and want to complete the set. You want a car that "feels safe." You're genuinely interested in off-roading. You want an SUV that actually looks like a truck instead of some warmed-over tall wagon. Why you shouldn't buy this car: It's slow as molasses, fuel economy is terrible, and your left-leaning neighbors might scream "no blood for oil!" when you drive by. continued .... | |
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| | | Danger not an obstacle for Champ Car drivers | | Posted Sunday, July 16, 2006 8:46:07 PM by Blog57 Team | | SAN JOSE, Calif. - Two weeks from now, when the San Jose Grand Prix takes over the city streets, Champ Cars will roar down Almaden Boulevard at upward of 180 mph. And drivers will reach that breathtaking speed as they race just inches from concrete walls and sometimes each other. An obvious question is what the heck are they thinking? Here's the short answer: Nothing. At least not about the dangers so inherent to racing. "As a race-car driver, it's my job not to think about it," said Nelson Philippe, a 19-year-old Frenchman. "I can't really tell you how I don't. But if you're scared of dying in the car, then you don't race. You go play pingpong." That's a common sentiment among drivers, born of equal parts supreme confidence in their ability and the safety of the cars.... | |
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| | | Movie review: 'Who Killed the Electric Car?' short circuits | | Posted Saturday, July 15, 2006 10:45:54 AM by Blog57 Team | | Was it foul play? Natural causes? Conspiracy? Whatever the cause, General Motors' EV1 coupes -- nonpolluting, quiet, almost maintenance-free compacts that could scream along at speeding-ticket velocity on domestically produced electricity -- are deader than a possum in a crosswalk. Manufactured between 1996 and 2000, the car went from the wave of the future to a footnote in automotive history without ever having a chance in the marketplace.The facts could make for a great Oliver Stone political thriller. The California Air Resources Board forced automakers to build a "zero emissions" vehicle to secure the right to sell cars in that state. GM produced a limited run of battery powered EV1s but did not sell any to consumers, doling them out through cumbersome rental agreements. The auto giant lobbied state iregulators to reverse their position, then repossessed the 800-car fleet at the end of their lease, trucked them to a remote facility and shredded them into confetti.... | |
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