Eddie’s at it again, a brilliant satire. I am now adopting the vernacular of tragicle. George Bush’s eight years in office saw tragicle after tragicle. See, it works! I guess the lord does work in mysterious ways!

Watch. Remember. Hope. Tomorrow brings a new chance. But it’s only that, a chance.

And, after watching this video, if you have any doubt about a) the silliness of organized religion b) the rationality of followers c) the danger (they could really hurt themselves) then we live on vastly different planets. Yes, this is but one flavor of practicing religion and it’s extreme. However, it’s no more strange than drinking grape juice and eating crackers to show devotion on a weekly basis…..

You can imagine a new ad campaign: Voice over from James Earl Jones This is your behavior. [cut to video above] This is your behavior when hooked on god.

After eight years of angst, religious faith, faux cowboy wisdom, and more missteps than any leader has a right to make, George Bush (43) departs the Whitehouse. Today is his last full work day. Which is odd to say about the man who took more vacation than any other President, 485 days. Good work if you can get it, that means Mr. Bush was out for 33.2% of his term.

Oddly, I find myself wondering if we might all have been a little better off now if we had encouraged him to vacation a little more. No, I will not miss George Bush as Commander-in-Chief. He simply bumbled from one fiasco to the next thinking everything would turn out alright in the end because god wants America to succeed; after all, this is the chosen nation. If there was justice in the world, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, and the rest of the gang would all be tried for war crimes and torture.

Well, goodbye George. While I haven’t agreed with virtually anything you’ve done, I do believe you were acting in accordance with your belief and within your clearly limited capacity for rational thought and decision making. Please, take a long vacation now. You might find the bottle or other drugs again, it would likely make the time pass a little faster and might keep you out of the public eye. I wouldn’t recommend pulling a Palin post-election…..

One last parting thought to you, as a devout christian:

“Don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya!”

As many of you know, my personal mission is to “Be A Good Ancestor.” I use that as my lighthouse to help guide my decisions, large and small. As a consequence, we have compact fluorescent lamps in our sockets, we recycle stuff (more than the obvious paper, aluminum, and glass – clothing, toys, household items, electronics, etc.) and we now have a hybrid gas-electric vehicle that I use on my 82 mile (~132 km) round trip to work. Not that these things alone qualify in succeeding at that mission, but they do contribute.

And while I respect the efficiency of the 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid, I don’t particularly like it. As to the title of this entry, “Car Wars,” on the weekends I like to drive my 2006 GMC Sierra 1500 pickup truck. It’s 18 miles to the gallon in the truck vs. 42-49 mpg in the Honda. But, on every single dimension other than carpool lane stickers and fuel efficiency, my truck is a better vehicle and I simply like to drive it.

Why is this true? Well, for one thing, I like the visibility the truck affords, my vantage point in the driver’s seat is probably 2-3 feet (~0.60-0.90 meter) higher than the Honda. The vehicle is spacious, it’s comfortable, and it’s solid. Couple that with (gasp) better fit and finish than the Honda and better creature comforts (built in hands-free phone, satellite radio, automatic climate control, automatic headlights and wipers, etc.) and it’s no competition between them. Additionally, I like to be able to throw stuff in the bed of the truck as necessary and I do it more than I thought (since driving the sedan.)

The problem is, every time I slip behind the wheel of my truck, I don’t feel like I’m being consistent with my mission. I’m burning more fuel, spewing more CO2 NOx and SOx into the atmosphere, putting more wear and tear on the roads, and “optically” not sending the message I’d like to send with my practices. Now, I’m not driving it to work, it’s simply the around town stuff people do on the weekends, but it still makes me yearn for this vehicle (with access to the carpool lane) for my daily commute. Ugh.

I have been contemplating for some time whether to undertake the project of converting the truck to an all electric vehicle ala the electric Mini in the UK (640 hp!) or the same project with a 1 liter displacement motor for realtime charging of the battery system as required. Aside from the obvious cost, my beloved spouse would strangle me as I barely have time to spend with the family – imagine my behavior in the garage every night for six months performing such a conversion. Nope, can’t happen now.

For now, I’ll just have to have my weekend guilty pleasure with my truck and relegate it to driveway duty during the week. I can rationalize the weekend use, but it does still make me feel somehow hypocritical and inconsistent. Oh well, I’m a human, I guess that just makes me normal. Anyone have any bright ideas about how I can have my cake and eat it too?