Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.’s chief fundraiser asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the NAACP’s tax-exempt status shortly after the 2000 presidential campaign, questioning whether the civil rights organization had inappropriately sought to influence the election.
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Leaders at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who have called the IRS audit a political smear campaign to silence the group, released the documents yesterday, saying they represent only a fraction of the information the IRS has turned over to the NAACP in response to the group’s request that the agency reveal the complaints that initiated the audit.

The NAACP received the documents in March 2005 after making several requests under the Freedom of Information Act, and an attorney with the organization said he hopes that making these documents public will prompt the federal agency to release other documents in its files.
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The other lawmakers included: Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Sen. Susan M. Collins of Maine, Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, Rep. Jo Ann Davis of Virginia, Rep. Larry Combest of Texas and Rep. Joe Scarborough of Florida, now an MSNBC personality. Like Ehrlich, all are Republicans.
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When Gore addressed the NAACP convention in July, group leaders practically crowned him. The Washington Post reports that much of the $7 million raised for the National Voter Fund came from one anonymous donor. That is, it is the sort of soft money back-door maneuver that Democrats are supposed to oppose — unless it goes into their pockets. That’s because Democrats are so good, that they can spend millions in special-interest money for ads that deliberately mislead black voters without being honest as to their real intentions.

DURHAM — Defense lawyers suggested Wednesday that the District Attorney’s Office may have shown favoritism as early as 2002 to an exotic dancer who claimed she was gang raped during a Duke University lacrosse party in March.

In a written motion filed in Durham County Superior Court, attorneys for indicted rape suspect Reade Seligmann asked why the dancer received “such a favorable plea bargain” for criminal charges arising out of a drunken, stolen-car, high-speed police chase in June 2002.

Court records show that even though the woman was charged with four felonies and numerous other traffic violations, the offenses were plea-bargained down to misdemeanors and she received only probation.
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Meanwhile, a Durham County Sheriff’s Office report — reviewed four years ago by Sgt. T.H. McCrae and recently obtained by The Herald-Sun — provides details of the 2002 car chase involving the alleged rape victim.

The incident began at a topless dance club while the woman was performing for a taxi driver, McCrae wrote.

“As she was feeling him up and putting her hands in his pockets she removed the keys to his taxi cab, without him knowing,” the officer said. “He [the cabbie] told her he would drive her home but needed to go to the restroom first. While in the restroom he was advised that she was driving off in his taxi cab.”

McCrae said he chased the woman at speeds up to 70 mph in a 55-mph zone until she finally stopped.

“As I began to approach the vehicle she put it in drive and drove towards me,” McCrae added. “I jumped out of the way to the right and she missed me. The suspect then struck the right rear quarter of my patrol vehicle.”

Another chase ensued, but the woman finally was apprehended after having a flat tire, according to McCrae.

The officer said she registered a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.19 on a portable sensing device — more than double North Carolina’s 0.08 legal threshold for impairment.

And while being questioned, the dancer “passed out and was unresponsive,” McCrae said.

She was taken to the emergency room at Duke University Hospital, McCrae’s report indicated.

On the night of the alleged rape, the woman was also described by an officer as being “passed out drunk” before being taken to the emergency room and saying she had been assaulted.

In connection with the 2002 incident, the woman was charged with felonious assault with a deadly weapon [the stolen taxi] on a government officer, felonious larceny and felonious possession of a stolen vehicle, felonious speeding to elude arrest, driving while impaired, driving with a revoked license, driving while left of center, ignoring an officer’s blue lights and siren, reckless driving, driving the wrong way on a dual-lane highway, having an open alcoholic beverage container in the car, two counts of damaging personal property and resisting a public officer.

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CNW Marketing Research Inc. spent two years collecting data on the energy necessary to plan, build, sell, drive and dispose of a vehicle from initial concept to scrappage.
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To put the data into understandable terms for consumers, it was translated into a “dollars per lifetime mile” figure. That is, the Energy Cost per mile driven.
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For example, the Honda Accord Hybrid has an Energy Cost per Mile of $3.29 while the conventional Honda Accord is $2.18. Put simply, over the “Dust to Dust” lifetime of the Accord Hybrid, it will require about 50 percent more energy than the non-hybrid version.

One of the reasons hybrids cost more than non-hybrids is the manufacture, replacement and disposal of such items as batteries, electric motors (in addition to the conventional engine), lighter weight materials and complexity of the power package.
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For example, while the industry average of all vehicles sold in the U.S. in 2005 was $2.28 cents per mile, the Hummer H3 (among most SUVs) was only $1.949 cents per mile. That figure is also lower than all currently offered hybrids and Honda Civic at $2.42 per mile.
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All this sudden fuel-saving fervor is admirable. But the question many consumers may not ask is whether hybrid cars and SUVs really will save them money. There’s no question they achieve superior gas mileage but they don’t cost less to operate, at least not yet.

ConsumerAffairs.Com compared three hybrid vehicles with three top-of-the-line vehicles in the same class by the same automaker. We calculated gasoline costs at $3 a gallon over 120,000 miles and 80,000 miles to arrive at the likely operating costs.

The results would seem to demonstrate that people are buying hybrids for reasons other than saving money.
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What’s the Question?

If the question is, will you save money buying a hybrid, we’d have to say it’s not likely. On the other hand if the question is, will buying a hybrid make you feel good, we can’t answer that. It might, at least for a little while.

If the question is, will your hybrid help save the earth, we’d suggest the answer to that is, the earth will save itself. It was here long before we were and will be here long after we’re gone. (It’s the date and method of our departure that hangs in the balance).

Ah, but here’s another factor. In many major metro areas, hybrids are allowed in car-pool (or HOV) lanes. Thus, by buying a hybrid, you may be able to continue driving alone to work, squeezing into the already congested HOV lanes that were created to reduce congestion by reducing the number of cars on the road.

In that scenario, hybrids are a threat to the environment because they contribute to increased congestion. We know from reading our mail that this is not a popular thing to say but, as our editor constantly reminds us, we’re not running a popularity contest.