Scott Nathanson talks to us about hybrid Vehicles - they're not all the same 7:40 Saturday morning 590KZO

Dear Roger,    As I mentioned last month, we have a big hybrid announcement to make: we’re unveiling UCS’s brand-new Hybrid Scorecard today! I’m very proud of what the entire team has produced with this new resource. First and foremost we should thank our Senior Vehicles Analyst Don Anair (or “Sharkey” to those who remember HybridBlog) and our Program and Outreach Assistant Leah Parker who did much of the number crunching. It’s really a comprehensive, and quite unique way to rate all the hybrid vehicles on the market today, so let’s get to it! Enjoy the ride, Scott Nathanson UCS National Field Organizer & HybridCenter.org Administrator   7:40 Satudrday In this issue The UCS Hybrid Scorecard Like the Scorecard? Help Spread the Word Scorecard Hints from the Detroit Auto Show’s "Electric Avenue" "Who’s Got Hybrids" Now?	Fisker raises enough capital to tap into government loans; Ford Fusion Hybrid wins North American car of the year; GM to launch Volt ahead of schedule. Click here. Make sure consumers around the country know the real score on today's hybrids. Click here to spread the word. Do you know people who want to help get cleaner, more efficient cars, trucks, and SUVs on our roads? Forward this message to them and ask them to sign up for the HybridCenter Driving Change Network. Click here.
The UCS Hybrid Scorecard!After months of hard work pouring over automakers’ web sites and vehicle data, I am delighted to share our new consumer resource with you: the UCS Hybrid Scorecard. Let me actually start by telling you what the Scorecard is not. Our Scorecard will not tell you that a Prius gets better gas mileage than a Chevy Tahoe Hybrid—that’s front-page news in "Duh Magazine." We believe that American drivers have many different vehicle needs—but all drivers should be getting the best that hybrid technology has to offer in any size and class. And that’s exactly what makes our scorecard so interesting: it actually measures how well each vehicle has incorporated hybrid technology, as compared to a similar conventional model, using three very helpful, and we feel unique, metrics: Environmental Score, Hybrid Value, and Forced Features. More...  Like the Scorecard? Help Spread the WordIf you’ve taken a test drive of the Hybrid Scorecard and you like what you’ve seen, I really hope that you as a DCN member will help us let other people know about this new resource. DCN members have been so good about responding to our calls—be it for our petition campaign for a hybrid minivan or our need to get Letters to the Editor placed in local papers—I hope you’ll help us spread this new resource far and wide and help point consumers to the cleanest and most consumer-friendly hybrid choices. More... Scorecard Hints from the Detroit Auto Show’s "Electric Avenue"So with the Hybrid Scorecard we’ve given consumers what I think is an extremely valuable new tool for looking at today’s hybrids. But what about the ones coming down the pike? Well, without detailed information on pricing and emissions, we can’t make any solid predictions. But some of the news from the 2010 Detroit Auto Show—especially from its much ballyhooed "Electric Avenue" corridor of hybrid and other advanced tech models—indicates that we can shine a scorecard-colored light on what may be coming ‘round the bend. This month I share are a couple of highlights. More...   Who's Got Hybrids?We’ve got some excellent additions to our growing community of hybrid drivers! More...     If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for the Union of Concerned Scientists' HybridCenter Driving Change Network. If you have general questions, comments or concerns about this newsletter, send email to hybridcenter@ucsusa.org.
To ensure you continue to receive emails from UCS, be sure to add hybridcenter@ucsusa.org to your address book. We are committed to protecting your privacy, your email address will NEVER be sold or exchanged. This message was sent to roger@wildbirdradio.com. To stop receiving HybridCenter Driving Change Network emails, click to unsubscribe.

Republicans talk cooperation but...

Media Matters put their brilliant little research monkeys into overdrive last night to provide an up-to-the-minute fact check of VA Gov. Bob McDonnell’s rebuttal to Barack Obama’s State Of The Union last night — a few doozies in there.  Here is an example:

Wrong On Republican "Cooperation"

Gov. Bob McDonnell:

We want results, not rhetoric. We want cooperation, not partisanship.
There is much common ground. [McDonnell Prepared Remarks, 1/27/10]

Republicans Have Shown Absolutely NO Interest In "Cooperation" Or "Results":
Michael Steele, 12/10/09: "The Democrats have accused us of trying to delay, stall, slow down, and stop this bill...They are right. We do want to delay, stall, slow down, and ultimately stop them from experimenting on our nation's health care."
Sen. Jim DeMint, 7/17/09: "If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo, it will break him."
Sen. Chuck Grassley, 7/6/09: "'I take pride with being an obstructionist,' he said, if that means scuttling a public option that could lead to a single-payer system."
Sen. Chuck Grassley, 9/1/09: "The only way to get a bipartisan agreement is to defeat a Democratic proposal."
Rep. Steve King, 8/25/09: "I think it's time to really slow down or stop the negotiations with the Democrats."

Click here to see the entire article. 

Halliburton - always watching out for employees

Halliburton is fighting hard to stop a Texas woman from bringing her alleged rapists to justice. The billion-dollar corporation is asking the Supreme Court to reverse a lower court decision to let Jamie Leigh Jones go to trial against the men who raped her while she was working for Halliburton subsidiary KBR in Baghdad in 2005. Halliburton says the woman’s contract specified that all claims — even being confined and gang raped by your coworkers — must be settled out of court, with a quiet arbitration, not with a trial, damages and jail time. As it stands now, the trial is set to begin in February 2011.

Ahhh, South Carolins the state of...?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Thank You, South Carolina - Andre Bauer
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Why we don't think the stimulus stimulated

A new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll found that nearly 3 out of 4 Americans think that at least half of the money spent in the federal stimulus plan has been wasted. (Experts say it actually saved jobs. According to the economists’ median estimate, unemployment would have hit 10.8 percent without Obama’s $787 billion stimulus program, or another 1.2 million jobs lost.) I liked Joel Klein’s (Chancellor of the New York City Dept.of Education) response, in is new piece about how Americans are dumber than they used to be, titled “Too Dumb to Thrive.": “...it’s been wasted on them. This is why your child’s teacher wasn’t laid off ... and why the fire station has remained open, and why you’re not paying even higher state and local taxes to close the local budget hole.” 

You mean foreign corporations can...

One of the subtleties overlooked by conservatives in the Supreme Court decision on allowing corporations to buy their way with our government – foreign corporations can do it as well.  Just imagine Europe’s Air Bus buying support for selling their planes to the Pentagon at Boeing’s expense. Since governments control Air Bus this means foreign governments can buy our congress people.  How would you like Chinese Corporations buying influence in congress or running slick commercials telling us how to vote?  I don’t know about you but I see a problem.

Move Your Money - Still moving

Jim Rubenstein at the Credit Union Times – January 25, 2010

Consumers are being driven in higher numbers to credit union Web sites as a result of the media and government focus on big bank practices, according to NAFCU and CUNA. NAFCU, for one, said this week its “CULookup” locator has recorded “a tripling of volume” since the first favored mention of CUs appeared on New York pundit Arianna Huffington’s “Move Your Money” Web site.