"I'm A Gas Guzzler And I'm Proud!"

(Editor's note: this morning I hand over blogging duties to my 2003 Jeep Renegade, at his insistance)

As I wake up today, the sun is brighter, the air is crisper, and the world has more possibilitites than it's ever had in my lifetime. For the joyful sound of confession came to my ears, a confession from one of the most influential scientists of the study of "global warming", one in which he recants his past heresies against me and my kind:

Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.
The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

FInally. After years of derision, scorn, and dirty looks, I can drive down Route 9, blow my horn, flash my lights, and shriek, "I get 14 MPG/City and 19 MPG/Highway, and I am proud!"

It's been a tough seven years, to be sure. The uppity attitude from Prius owners, the looks of disgust from the college crowd, and the holier-than-thou upturned nose of the compact car driver (except the one who crushed her little box while flying a full speed into my rear bumper; I suffered a few scratches while she was "accordioned") - it was all hard to take, believe me. I questioned myself constantly, and lived in self-doubt and denial - was it the color of my skin? My wide stance and ample girth? "I was made like this, I cannot change who I am!", I tried to explain to the haters, but despite their superior intellect and morality, they all seemed curiously uninterested in listening to reason.

By my owner - the one you know as the JerseyNut - never wavered in his belief. He loved me, and mocked the naysayers. He refused to "refine" me in any way that would increase my "green power" while decreasing my horsepower. He whispered to me, as he polished my steel wheels, that we would win this fight, and to stay strong, and never be ashamed of who we were.

So alone we relished what we had, whether it was driving offroad, moving thru waist-deep snow with ease, or packing up the roof rack and hitting the Jersey Shore. And I began to notice that there were those who believed as we did, who looked upon us with admiration rather than loathing, and who occasionally would come to chat with us, to confess to us their secret shame, and their lust for strength and torque. And the Jerseynut whispered to me to stay strong, that our time was about to come.

And so it is here. After a winter where my unique capabilities were needed more than ever, comes a spring where my oppressors have been exposed as the frauds and liars which me & the Jerseynut always called them out for. And I'm free, so free! I can let the sunshine sparkle off by blackness, let the glare reflect off my thick wheels, let my engine growl with joy as it leaps from gear to gear, and I can flash my bling -my six additional halogen lights - with pride.

I am a 2003 Jeep Liberty, with special badging that the Jerseynut always polished last. He said it spoke of both of us, and that it made us brothers of a type, as it described us both. It is a name usually given to outlaws, but I was told that this name can also be applied to someone who "express opposition through action or words; "dissent to the laws of the country"

Apt. For I am a 2003 Jeep Liberty Renegade, limited to one year production. There are few like me, and I have been scorned since my birth to the gifts I have received.

But no longer.....our time has come...