Environmental pornography.

[NNadir]

When it's all over, the survivors will look at pictures like this and hold us in excruciating contempt.

[Ezlivin]

1. Global warming will take care of the snow; GM will take care of itself

This area (Dallas-Fort Worth) is crawling with Hummers, almost always sporting a "W" sticker.

I eagerly await the assembly of the last Hummer.

[awoke_in_2003]

7. Well, to be honest,

global warming WILL take care of that snow, at least until the next Ice Age sets in.

[liberal N proud]

2. Every time I see a Hummer I say: "Obscene"

A Hummer is simply an obscene vehicle.

[Submariner]

3. How about the Hummer Mother

(CBS) One military mother is going to extraordinary lengths to pay tribute to her fallen son. Jerry Bowen reports on her journey in the fourth part of the CBS Evening News special series, "The Iraq War: Three Years and Counting."

It's family day at the U.S. Marine Corps boot camp in San Diego and all eyes should be on the graduating class. But, there is a tricked out Hummer that is drawing all the onlookers.

Karla Comfort, the SUVs driver, is posing for pictures.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/16/eveningnews/main14

I wonder if she realizes her son died so Bush could grab the oil for the Hummer dorks?

[Mythsaje]

4. Someone I work with

was just telling me that her brother and sister in law just bought a hummer. They're obviously pretty affluent--they own fourteen rental houses. They're actually both teachers, if you can believe it. He apparently inherited a number of houses from their mother to get a start.

She thinks Hummers are ugly, but doesn't really grasp HOW ugly they are. And absolutely LOVES Wal-Mart. Great prices, ya know? I've explained the issue with Wal-Mart a number of times, but those prices make it impossible for her to avoid it. She doesn't even WANT to avoid it, I guess.

<sigh>

[Quakerfriend]

5. My 12 year-old-son told me that all the kids on the school bus

BOO every time they see a Hummer.

I heard that you can get a tax refund for buying a Hummer. Could this be true???

They are totally obscene and pretty soon I suspect that people will start getting shot at if they drive them in public!

[OhioNerd]

11. RE: Tax Refund

You don't get a tax refund for buying a Hummer. You get a refund for overpaying your taxes. I'm not trying to be snide, I am just trying to get the terminology straight.

What you CAN get is a Tax Deduction. Now let me explain why.

As you probably know, if you have a business you can claim all sorts of tax deductions for damn near anything you purchase. Additionally, congress is routinely passing laws giving tax breaks for one thing or another. In regards to this particular issue, congress created a tax break for people buying a truck for their business. This deduction applies to vehicles over a certain weight and was INTENDED for things like a new dump truck for a landscaper or a new van for a plumber. That sort of stuff. As it happens, the Hummer is heavy enough to fall into this weight category. So theoretically you can buy one, register it in the business name and take the deduction. The flip side of that is that everything for business vehicles is more expensive, from registration to insurance. Plus of course, you actually need to have a business to do this AND it needs to make enough money that the deduction would actually DO something. Otherwise, it's pointless.

Personally, I find people who buy these things to be annoying by their mere existance.

Hummer makes three vehicles; The H1, the H2 and the H3.

The H1 is legitimately a world-class off-road vehicle. Bone stock, it'll pound across the desert at 70mph for as long as you have fuel and it'll slog through more mud than you'd believe. It'll even climb rocks, which is amazing for a vehicle with so little flex. Plus of course the ability to mount everything from ambulance bodies to 105mm recoiless rifles makes them amazing trucks. If you're a forest ranger or a soldier. On pavement, it's kind of a joke, but at least the vehicle itself is still a legitimate hard-core off-roader.

The H2 on the other hand is a waste of a perfectly good truck chasis. It's almost as if GM said: "Hey, we have this really great Pickup Truck. What can we do to FUCK IT UP and render it useless for anything except demonstrating to the world that you have more money than brains?"

[Sinti]

6. How about the Hummer H2 Salute

Flip the Hummer, send them a picture.

http://www.FUH2.com home of the official Hummer H2 salute

[Kolesar]

8. That looks like a vehicle used to take skiers to remote sites

I had heard that there were tracked Suburbans used to take skiers to remote locations on the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Have we reached a time at which vacations are considered anti-social, like drunk driving?

[skids]

9. The news coverage of disasters is pretty much porn.

Human nature can't resist watching more of it than needed to to get the essential information. It's the very definition of the word. I'm not saying we shouldn't watch it, just that the id is sitting there in the back of the head hoping to see that flying garbage can hit the newscaster and people are otherwise drawn into a vicarious horror-movie-like fascination.

[Dead_Parrot]

10. There's probably a study here...

...for a really bored psychology postgrad. I suspect "climate porn" is a real phenomenon: Look at the freepers getting a hard-on over SabreRattle porn...