More concerned with not "giving in" to the environmentalists then doing what's practical.

I haven't read it and I won't. But I'm sure it's about something lame. Probably something vaguely arrogant too.

I wish that I could get an electric car like that. I'd mount a flat solar panel on the roof.

I live right where the solar insolation is the best in North America so it would run to town and back forever.

As for French cars, I had a Diesel Peugeot station wagon for awhile because no American manufacturer made one. French cars can be odd but it was reliable.

BB must be feeling better (I hope). My best wishes.

If I had to guess, I'd say it's a SmartCar, due to the form factor. One oddity is that they're generally not electrified; that is being looked into. Even if so, I suspect they're not 110V, but rather 220V.

It almost makes me think Zenn but again the form factor isn't right; something of a competitor to the Smart in their petrol/diesel pre-conversions as Microcars plus actually out of France. They're bigger too - 10' long versus 7' for the two-door/four-seater. Miles' are bigger still & four door/four seater.

Alternatively, it was just something to annoy Zod, and that's worth confusion. Odd to post a whine about something as short as this comic though, doncha think?

BlueAmberol: Without going into the why, putting a solar panel on your electric car is almost always not a good idea. I like the idea but it just doesn't work out.

ultimately loss of self. Which reminds me of a really quite humorous joke:

Q - What’s the difference between a new, large SUV and a T-shirt that reads: “Please validate me. I feel very small and weak.”

A - About $40K, plus the T-shirt doesn't need oil changes.

See?

Funniest Opus in many moons. And the punch line was revealed upfront. Bravo!

Just excellent. Poor Steve. Didn't he drive a Corvette back in the day?

Is this strip officially "Mallard Fillmore" yet?

First, I think this is one of the sharpest BB's in many Sundays! Welcome back, Berkeley!

Second, it suddenly strikes me as terribly interesting that so many people who loathe this strip are always so quick to post letters expressing their hatred of it.

As much as Salon's op-ed pieces get hate mail, Opus gets--I'm totally speculating based on my sense of it--substantially more negative mail than any other op-ed/satirical feature. Why?

My first ever published letter to an editor was a response to all of the hate mail sent to the Spokesman Review re:Doonesbury's flag burning strips back in the late 80's, so it's certainly nothing new. AND, it's not relegated to the right either as all of the posts referencing Mallard Fillmore prove--liberals hate comics they don't agree with more than they hate columns just as much as conservatives do.

This is simply an observation, but I'd love to hear what y'all have to say about this. WTF?!? What is it about speech ballons and line drawing that sets people off???

truly one of the great imagines of hammer attacks in the history of comics... poor Steve, life hasn't been so good to him!

Keep it up, Berkeley, I'm enjoying this strip more and more.

I live in France. I would love to have an electrified SmartCar & then charge it from solar panels. Cool! I'd settle for a little electric Renault, though, cause folks around these parts loves to buy and drive their own national manufacturers. They're funny that way. SmartCar is a bit - German - if you know what I mean.

Doesn't matter what you drive though - it's just plain pricey to drive anything with a motor. Cause our gas prices are at $8/gallon. That's right, dearies. I wouldn't even mind the Hawaiian grooviness of Steve's model, though it's not very French either. A bit - how you say - 'loud', 'feminine' and 'American', all at the same time.

Anyhow, just saying, Steve's car doesn't look particularly 'French' to me, but I would drive it around in France any day of the week, in spite of its Germanity. And I would never, ever hit it with anything harder than a buffer cloth.

In the 70's I thought Citroens were pretty neat, especially those SM's with the Maserati engines. But I was an intermittantly employed surf bum so I stuck with my Corvair Greenbrier van. Back then Renault tried marketing an electric Le Car. A friend drove one at the lead of a marathon foot race.

In the 70's, I picked up a $500 VW beetle. It didn't run for very long. I was told that the vehicle we people drive reveals our obsession with perfections. It is supposed to also communicate 'our' non-verbal-grunts and striving for increased recognition in the fearsome environment that we share and try to exist in? And hidden behind the transportation car vehicle is 'our' sexual obsessions? I am no chemist. If you see a neighbor waxing the sports car each Sunday morning in the rain, he's just trying to adjust. O why analyze it. We will be old dead flops of protoplasm some day and replenish the Earth's fertility. That's great.

The VW I picked up was red. On the right front fender some previous owner painted a yellow design on a dent. It was a cross between a crocodile with the jaws wide open, and the painter seemed to wish the fender to resemble a yellow flower. I never washed or waxed the VW. I wish I didn't sell it for $500.

It had the small back oval window.

It had a extra gallon gas reserve.

Run out of gas? O flip a lever.

The blinkers were manual.

Remembering. Grief. Loss.

I wish I still had that red VW. The gas fumes would leak inside the cab and put passengers to sleep. I remember that's why I sold it when the real babies starting arriving from the stork.

The most important step in surviving is to spread seed. The extension of people is the continuation of proper propagation. A plant, and every 'living' organism-material-spiritual,

plant, and animal cell, craves to attain some further advancement (perfection? Vain?) and desires to adjust in a better way towards the environment? Adjustment is a real trial, and it is to exist, BE, and is a never ending trip, so-to-speak. Maybe the innate spore is within the complex seed? Humans. Of course it is.... we cross-pollenate. I think that may be? yes. The spore is the most reproductive agent (I am not a botanist), and needs to interact with the other environmental, vast variety, and versatility in the bigger, surrounding world. Sun Moon, air, birds, bushes people etc., glean delicious food. Travel. Explore. Take a Sunday drive to the mall and carnival.

It's all the `potential` inherent 'stuff' which is dormant and inherent in the germ seed. It needs a stimulus. A drip. Dew. Others to hoe. Smash a pitchfork, and break up the crap. Unloose a nutrient.

Poor Opus look on.

I am only paraphrasing my son, and probably botched what Environmental Topic OPUS had in mind up. apologies.

O Good Grief. It's not a new heresy. I hope.

Now. I want a new hybrid Red VW with a yellow flower on a dent. I want it today. Now.

Maybe d. sugarman will say it's a double dose of carbon dioxide in the red blood cell's pigment. okay. d.s. drive the car backwards? We gravitate toward the sod, don't forget it.