SMOKE magazine Fall 2004 vol 9 no. 4

My Father bought a case (or crate or whatever they come in) of cigars. My mother was cleaning it out ready to toss and found this magazine in the bottom which my Father had overlooked.

Page 58 has an article called "Smoking out the best Cigar Cars"

Sounds lame I know.

It reviews three cars: Mercedes Benz SL500, GMC Sierra Hybrid and Jeep Wrangler Unlimited. Where is the Prius you ask? In the middle off the GMC Sierra Hybrid section listed as the only truck that can provide a safe haven for cigar smokers, because it's a hybrid.

Here is the money paragraph:

"Thanks to the Toyota Prius, anyone who drives a hybrid can do so with a conscience as clean as the engine's ultra-low emissions. Never mind that the hybrids' Hollywood champions have heated swimming pools, air-conditioned mansions and a secret stash of gas-guzzling SUVs and exotic sports cars. A hybrid vehicle gives you a free pass from tree-hugging, environmental extremists and their politically left-of-center allies---the very same people who vilify cigar smokers.

What could be better than lighting up a Zino Platinum Scepter (or such like) in a hybrid pickup truck? The anti-cigaristas have to love you---even though they hate you. You're performing one of the most politically incorrect of acts in the most politically correct vehicle. It will drive them nuts."

It then goes on to say the GMC Sierra Hybrid truck isn't a real hybrid.

The next paragraph talks about the mileage the GM hybrids get or I should say don't get. For instance the GMC Sierra Hybrid getting 16.5 mpg instead of 15 mpg. Then says "It's a good thing facts have nothing to do with politics."

www.smokemag.com

Sorry, full article not online.

 

Sure there's a law. So what? What's the point off making a law that is never enforced? You have to actually catch someone doing it. Even then, it would have to be a police officer. If YOU see someone toss a butt out the window, take down their license plate number and report it, do you think anything happens?

At least my Dad does not toss his cigar butts on the ground when he's done. He disposes of them in trash cans. I've watched him. Maybe it's 50 years of nagging from my Mother, but he does.

Cigarette butts are NOT bio degradeable. Years pass and they're still there. It's not just the smoke that vilifies smokers to non-smokers. For me, tossing the litter on the ground is just as bad. We lost blocks of homes on the rim of Mission Valley here a few years ago because some smoker tossed his lit cigarette out the window while going down the ramp from 805 north to I-8 east. Major fire with many homes lost. And smokers wonder why they are hated. If you want to kill yourself, just jump off a bridge. You want to do it slowly and painfully? Eat rat poison.

The thing I found interesting about the article was the Prius being used as the symbol of politically correct hybrid. They then say that the GMC truck gets the benefit of the hybrid label without actually being a true hybrid, giving the 10%-15% improved mileage (15 mpg to 16.5 mpg) as the example. But the fact that it's called a hybrid still makes it politically correct.

I found another article while reading our local paper online that mentioned the Prius when talking about developing hybrid electric warships. I have to wonder if the guys in the naval research lab drive Prii and that's why they're used as the example.