5 Mile Run (A) *167*

SANTA MONICA -- This was the definition of an average run. Set out to do a "recovery" run and did just that. Rarely pushed, recovered very quickly after stopping. Fairly mindless.

The cool thing about the last few days has been responding to a column that I wrote for the DetNews about ethanol vehicles. There's fewer topics that can piss off the State of Michigan, I guess. I had no idea so many people had high hopes for this garbage to save us from the evil Arabs and their evil oil. Pretty funny really. Unfortunately, it takes more energy to produce ethanol than it provides when burned, there isn't enough farmland on Earth to produce enough ethanol to fuel our vehicles and finally...there are hardly any places you can buy the stuff outside the Midwest. Ta-daa.

In fact, the response of GM and Ford and their honks has made me even madder about the whole thing. It's a complete scam. I thought it was just a bad idea, but turns out it's more likely the darker scenerio I brushed off... a massive dupe to get government CAFE credits for the Big Three. Great stuff. Good work everyone. Meanwhile, Toyota does virtually nothing for the environment with their modest hybrid program and consumers think it's one of the greenest companies on Earth. But who's the bad guy...some dork who wrote a column daring criticize ethanol because it's not available and thus useless. It's like the State of Michigan has Stockholm Syndrome for the Big Three.

If GM and Ford make it out of the next few years alive, it will be proof that they are indeed invincible. They have done virtually everything in their power to go out of business, yet still they rise. Sometimes I get a little angry at them and their pathetic "feel sorry for us" attitude. Poor us! We pissed away 90 percent marketshare! Poor us! Toyota stole our Big Three monopoly while we lazied away the 70s and 80s. Poor us! Who could have seen the SUV boom coming to an end? How could you pick on us?? How could you? You obviously hate America.

Grow the fuck up.