Some people buy cars because they fall in love with the style, the curves, the attitude of something new. But a lot of people buy cars for the same reason they buy a dishwasher: They need an appliance to do a job.
There's good news for the latter group: Cars really are lasting
longer, and that is starting to have an impact on the way the car
business works from the factory to the dealership.
Passenger Cars
Light Trucks*
50% survived until age
Expected lifetime travel in miles
50% survived until age
Expected lifetime travel in miles
1977 Data
10.5
107,000
14
128,000
1990 Data
12.5
127,000
15.5
154,000
2001 Data
13.0
152,000
14
180,000
*Light
trucks include pickups, vans, and sport utility vehicles under 10,000 pounds
GVWR.
Here's an excerpt from a recent WSJ analysis on the subject:
"In 1977, half the cars on the road survived until they were 10.5 years old and you could expect to put about 107,000 miles on a car during its useful life, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data. By 1990, half the cars put into service stayed on the road for 12.5 years, and owners could expect to get 127,000 miles out of their vehicles.
The government's latest survey, using 2001 data, found that 50% of cars were lasting 13 years, and drivers could expect to roll up 152,000 miles on a new vehicle over its life.
The data for light trucks, the category that includes pickups, sport utility vehicles and minivans, make a choppier graph. The government's measure of 50% survival rates for light trucks has bounced from 14 years for 1977, up to 15.5 years in the 1990 sample and back down to 14 years in the 2001 sample. But the expectation for miles traveled over the vehicle's life has risen to 180,000 miles as of 2001 from 128,000 in the 1977 survey.
There are other signs that consumers are hanging on to cars longer. Although 2004 was a pretty good year for new-vehicle sales, with 17.4 million registered, only 11.9 million vehicles were sent to the junkyard. The vehicles scrapped in 2004 were equivalent to just 5.4% of total vehicles registered. A decade earlier, the number of vehicles scrapped was 6.6% of total registered vehicles. At one time, car makers assumed that roughly 8% of vehicles on the road would get scrapped in any given year."
Sales data suggests a lot of consumers put a high value on brands that have a track record of delivering cars that last. The brands that had the biggest market-share gains during the 2000-to-2005 period -- BMW, Toyota, Nissan and Honda -- also had relatively strong records for functional reliability, according to an analysis by Walden Consultants. Chevrolet, Ford, Dodge and Chrysler have lost share or stayed flat in that period, and they also have worse-than-average reliability records.
1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the
country.
3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the
country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.
4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country
but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like
their statistics shown in pie charts.
5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running
the country -- if they could find the time -- and if they didn't have
to leave Southern California to do it.
6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the
country and did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.
7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's
running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a
seat on the train.
8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the
country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably
while intoxicated.
9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country
but need the baseball scores.
10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there
is a country . . . or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose
all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders
are handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs who also happen to be
illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided of course,
that they are not Republicans.
11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the
grocery store.
12. The Pensacola News Journal is read by people who have recently
caught a fish and need something in which to wrap it.
This will boggle your mind. One hundred years ago -- here are some of the U.S. Statistics for the Year 1907:
The average life expectancy in the U.S. Was 47 years.
Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.
Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.
A three-minute call from Denver to New York City Cost eleven dollars.
There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more Heavily populated than California .
With a mere 1.4 million people, California was only the 21st Most populous state in the Union.
The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower !
The average wage in the U.S. was 22 Cents per hour.
The average U.S. Worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, A dentist made $2,500 per year, A veterinarian $1,500 per year, And a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
More than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. Took place at HOME.
Ninety percent of all U.S. Doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION! Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which Were condemned in the press AND the government as "substandard."
Sugar cost four cents a pound.
Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.
Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.
Five leading causes of death in the U.S. were: 1. Pneumonia and influenza 2. Tuberculosis 3. Diarrhea 4. Heart disease 5. Stroke
The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn't been admitted to the Union yet.
The population of Las Vegas , Nevada , was only 30!
Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea hadn't been invented yet.
There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.
Two out of every 10 U.S. Adults couldn't read or write.
Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.
Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores. Back then pharmacists said, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."
There were about 230 reported Murders in the ENTIRE U.S.A. !
In recent times US grand strategy has been guided by a new kind of doctrine, named after not its author but its exemplar: the Costanza doctrine. The Iraq policy pursued by the Bush administration satisfies the Costanza criterion: it is the opposite of every foreign policy the world has ever met:
First, military and diplomatic resources are finite and should be directed towards your greatest priority. An example of the opposite approach would be for a country that has been attacked by a non-state terrorist group to retaliate by removing a state regime that had nothing to do with the attack.
Second, take care not to weaken your intimidatory powers through poor military performance. Aim for short, sharp victories (such as that in the 1991 Gulf war) that get your adversaries worrying about the extent of US power. The opposite would be to launch a war of choice involving the drawn-out occupation of an Arab country – the kind of thing that gets your allies worrying about the limits of US power.
Third, you get by with help from friends. Although the powerful are sometimes tempted to go it alone, international support helps determine the perceived legitimacy of an action, which affects its risk and costs. Building this support requires discussion and compromise. The opposite would be to spurn real negotiations, slough off your allies, bin multilateral agreements you do not like and declare that you are not bound by the rules that govern everyone else.
Fourth, state-building is hard. Few of the international efforts at state-building since the cold war’s end have succeeded. Luckily there are numberless reports identifying lessons learnt. The alternative would be to do the opposite of what those reports recommend, for example by deploying insufficient troops and dismantling any extant national institutions such as the army.
Fifth, democracy is a blessing that requires patient nurturing. The opposite approach would be to seek to impose democracy by force of arms on a population traumatised by decades of vicious and totalitarian rule.
Sixth, politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. If two dangerous states are struggling for dominance of a strategic region, maintaining a balance between them may be the least worst option. The opposite would be to emasculate one of them, thereby greatly increasing the relative power of the other.
Source: America’s ‘Seinfeld’ strategy in Iraq By Michael Fullilove FT, March 29 2007 17:46 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/f1874316-de08-11db-afa7-000b5df10621.html
Let me start off with a list of good tips each with its own article from the very organisation who wants money from you. IRS 2007 tax tips
"10 tax blunders that can cost you" from CNN gives you list of don'ts. It is a good check list, you may know most of them. Also check out their Audit red flags article on more dont's
Smartmoney's tax tips are here. It also lists what is new for this year here. Both resources are useful and cover some new ground
Tax filing is all about various limits. Although most of the limits are verified and calculated by the tax software. It still makes sense to check them out at About.com and verify.
Top 10 tax tips from Turbo Tax is very detailed and useful.
Now here are few places covering special situations...
Small business portal AllBusiness provides 10 tax tips for the self employed. Another place where you can find help for avoiding audit on your small business return
What happens when one of the worlds top violinists plays in a subway station as an anonymous street muscian?
Dig this:
No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?
The musician did not play popular tunes whose familiarity alone might have drawn interest. That was not the test. These were masterpieces that have endured for centuries on their brilliance alone, soaring music befitting the grandeur of cathedrals and concert halls.
The acoustics proved surprisingly kind. Though the arcade is of utilitarian design, a buffer between the Metro escalator and the outdoors, it somehow caught the sound and bounced it back round and resonant. The violin is an instrument that is said to be much like the human voice, and in this musician's masterly hands, it sobbed and laughed and sang -- ecstatic, sorrowful, importuning, adoring, flirtatious, castigating, playful, romancing, merry, triumphal, sumptuous.
So, what do you think happened?
Source: Pearls Before Breakfast Can one of the nation's great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour? Let's find out. Gene Weingarten Washington Post, Sunday, April 8, 2007; Page W10 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html
Friday the 13th - The Most Widespread Superstition?
The sixth day of the week and the number 13 both have foreboding reputations said to date from ancient times, and their inevitable conjunction from one to three times a year portends more misfortune than some credulous minds can bear. Some sources say it may be the most widespread superstition in the United States. Some people won't go to work on Friday the 13th; some won't eat in restaurants; many wouldn't think of setting a wedding on the date.
IT looks like a Volkswagen Microbus, the
sort that starred in last year’s film “Little Miss Sunshine,” somehow
squeezed into a sphere six feet in diameter.
The ball is the work of the artist Lars-Eric Fisk of Burlington,
Vt., who specializes in sphere-shaped sculpture. His work has been
shown in museums including the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in
Lincoln, Mass., outside Boston, and the Dartmouth College museum.
In the catalog for the DeCordova exhibition, he called the sphere
was a “simple, seamless form expressing movement and the concept of
endlessness and timelessness without a beginning, without an ending.”
“Everyone gets it,” Mr. Fisk said of his use of the sphere in a recent interview.
He completed the VW ball in 1999. “I don’t know why, but the VW ball keeps surfacing every few years on the Internet,” he said.
The VW ball is in a private collection. Mr. Fisk, who was born in
Vermont in 1970, has made other balls with auto themes: a school bus, a
green John Deere tractor, a drab brown U.P.S. truck and a white Mister
Softee ice cream truck, complete with lights.
“A U.P.S. guy saw the U.P.S. ball and stopped by the house of the
owner,” Mr. Fisk said. “He thought it was a package ready for
shipping.”
His spheres come with windows and steering wheels. He does all the
work using metal and glass fabrication skills he taught himself. He has
also sculptured a street ball, a sphere of asphalt marked with painted
dotted lines. Mr. Fisk’s barn ball, with wood painted red and a window,
was used for the cover of the Phish album “Round Room.”
He has moved beyond the balls into new modes of sculpture. “The new
theme for some reason seems to be garbage,” he said. Among his latest
pieces, shown at the Taxter & Spengemann Gallery in Manhattan, is a
sculpture of a garbage can and another of a garbage bag. PHIL PATTON
A friend emailed this weather graph -- but its not what you think. As Snopes suggested, sometimes a cigar-shaped wind swath path is just a cigar-shaped wind swath.
1. Paul McCartney is or has ever been dead. 2. Stevie Nicks’ assistant had to blow coke up Stevie’s ass due to Nicks’ destroyed nasal passages. 3. Mama Cass died after choking on a ham sandwich. 4. Angie Bowie caught her husband in bed with Mick Jagger. 5. Mark David Chapman was an assassin programmed by the CIA. 6. Members of Led Zeppelin pleased a teenage groupie using a red snapper/shark as their sex toy of choice. 7. Jim Morrison was killed by members of the Nixon administration/faked his own death/died from a heart attack brought on by masturbating in a Parisian bathtub. 8. Deborah Harry was once abducted by serial killer Ted Bundy. 9. Keith Moon drove a car into a Holiday Inn pool on his 21st birthday, knocked out a couple of teeth and got the Who banned for life from all Holiday Inns. 10. Gene Simmons had a cow tongue grafted onto his own tongue after a car accident. 11. Rod Stewart/Lil’ Kim/Jordan Knight had to get their respective stomachs pumped after ingesting a gallon of semen. 12. During a drug bust on Mick’s place Marianne Faithfull was once found with a Mars bar between her legs. 13. Marilyn Manson had his lowest set of ribs removed so he could blow himself. 14. Alice Cooper and Frank Zappa attempted to gross each other out by shitting onstage, then eating it. 15. Bob Marley was assassinated/given cancer in his toe by the CIA. 16. Phil Collins’ tune “In the Air Tonight” was written after Collins witnessed a gruesome incident in which one man let another man drown. 17. Keith Richards routinely has in the past/continues today to get full-body blood transfusions. 18. Jack and Meg White are brother and sister. 19. “Hotel California” is about a Christian church that was abandoned then taken over by Satan worshipers, the Eagles are Satan worshipers and Satan him (or her) self appears in the window on the album jacket. 20. Bob Ezrin, who produced Lou Reed’s Berlin, got the anguished children’s cries you hear on “The Kids” by telling his own children their mother was dead and recording the sounds they made. 21. Pearl Jam was named after a peyote-infused jam Eddie Vedder’s grandmother used to make. 22. Charles Manson auditioned for the Monkees. 23. Marilyn Manson played Kevin Arnold’s friend Paul Pfeiffer on the Wonder Years. 24. Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his guitar-playing gifts. 25. Roy Orbison was an albino and wore dark glasses because he was blind.
Decent video of the song I hadn't seen before; A YouTube poster notes:
The Beatles recorded a segment for the David Frost Show in 1968, but instead of it being totally live, they used a track to sync along to. The BBC had a rule stating that all music videos had to be recorded live or else they wouldn't play them. To loophole this, the Beatles added a few "live" elements to this song, such as Paul's screaming, the extra reverb, and the "shoob-be-doo-wop" vocals.
This is circulating again via email -- its old, but funny enough to be worth posting
>
Chili Cook-Off
If you can read this whole story without laughing, then there's no hope for you. I was crying by the end. This is an actual account as relayed to paramedics at a chili cook-off in Texas.
Note: If you pay attention to the first two judges, the reaction of the third judge is even better. For those of you who have lived in Texas, you know how true this is. They actually have a Chili Cook-off about the time Halloween comes around. It takes up a major portion of a parking lot at the San Antonio City Park. Judge # 3 was an inexperienced Chili taster named Frank, who was visiting from Springfield, IL.
Frank: "Recently, I was honored to be selected as a judge at a chili cook-off. The original person called in sick at the last moment and I happened to be standing there at the judge's table, asking for directions to the Coors Light truck, when the call came in. I was assured by the other two judges (Native Texans) that the chili wouldn't be all that spicy; and, besides, they told me I could have free beer during the tasting, so I accepted and became Judge 3."
Here are the scorecard notes from the event:
CHILI # 1 - MIKE'S MANIAC MONSTER CHILI Judge # 1 -- A little too heavy on the tomato. Amusing kick. Judge # 2 -- Nice, smooth tomato flavor. Very mild. Judge # 3 (Frank) -- Holy crap, what the hell is this stuff? You could remove dried paint from your driveway. Took me two beers to put the flames out. I hope that's the worst one. These Texans are crazy.
CHILI # 2 - AUSTIN 'S AFTERBURNER CHILI Judge # 1 -- Smoky, with a hint of pork. Slight jalapeno tang. Judge # 2 -- Exciting BBQ flavor, needs more peppers to be taken seriously. Judge # 3 -- Keep this out of the reach of children. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to taste besides pain. I had to wave off two people who wanted to give me the Heimlich maneuver. They had to rush in more beer when they saw the look on my face.
CHILI # 3 - FRED'S FAMOUS BURN DOWN THE BARN CHILI Judge # 1 -- Excellent firehouse chili. Great kick. Judge # 2 -- A bit salty, good use of peppers. Judge # 3 -- Call the EPA. I've located a uranium spill. My nose feels like I have been snorting Drano. Everyone knows the routine by now. Get me more beer before I ignite. Barmaid pounded me on the back, now my backbone is in the front part of my chest. I'm getting sh*t-faced from all of the beer.
CHILI # 4 - BUBBA'S BLACK MAGIC Judge # 1 -- Black bean chili with almost no spice. Disappointing. Judge # 2 -- Hint of lime in the black beans. Good side dish for fish or other mild foods, not much of a chili. Judge # 3 -- I felt something scraping across my tongue, but was unable to taste it. Is it possible to burn out taste buds? Sally, the beer maid, was standing behind me with fresh refills. This 300 lb. woman is starting to look HOT ... just like this nuclear waste I'm eating! Is chili an aphrodisiac?
CHILI # 5 - LISA'S LEGAL LIP REMOVER Judge # 1 -- Meaty, strong chili. Cayenne peppers freshly ground, adding considerable kick. Very impressive. Judge # 2 -- Chili using shredded beef, could use more tomato. Must admit the cayenne peppers make a strong statement. Judge # 3 -- My ears are ringing, sweat is pouring off my forehead and I can no longer focus my eyes. I farted, and four people behind me needed paramedics. The contestant seemed offended when I told her that her chili had given me brain damage. Sally saved my tongue from bleeding by pouring beer directly on it from the pitcher. I wonder if I'm burning my lips off. It really ticks me off that the other judges asked me to stop screaming. Screw them.
CHILI # 6 - VERA'S VERY VEGETARIAN VARIETY Judge # 1 -- Thin yet bold vegetarian variety chili. Good balance of spices and peppers. Judge # 2 -- The best yet. Aggressive use of peppers, onions, garlic. Superb. Judge # 3 -- My intestines are now a straight pipe filled with gaseous, sulfuric flames. I crapped on myself when I farted, and I'm worried it will eat through the chair. No one seems inclined to stand behind me except that Sally. Can't feel my lips anymore. I need to wipe my butt with a snow cone.
CHILI # 7 - SUSAN'S SCREAMING SENSATION CHILI Judge # 1 -- A mediocre chili with too much reliance on canned peppers. Judge # 2 -- Ho hum, tastes as if the chef literally threw in a can of chili peppers at the last moment! **I should take note that I am worried about judge number 3. He appears to be a bit of distress as he is cursing uncontrollably. Judge # 3 -- You could put a grenade in my mouth, pull the pin, and I wouldn't feel a thing. I've lost sight in one eye, and the world sounds like it is made of rushing water. My shirt is covered with chili, which slid unnoticed out of my mouth. My pants are full of lava to match my shirt. At least during the autopsy, they'll know what killed me. I've decided to stop breathing. It's too painful. Screw it; I'm not getting any oxygen anyway. If I need air, I'll just suck it in through the 4-inch hole in my stomach.
CHILI # 8 - BIG TOM'S TOENAIL CURLING CHILI Judge # 1 -- The perfect ending, this is a nice blend chili. Not too bold but spicy enough to declare its existence. Judge # 2 -- This final entry is a good, balanced chili. Neither mild nor hot. Sorry to see that most of it was lost when Judge #3 farted, passed out, fell over and pulled the chili pot down on top of himself. Not sure if he's going to make it. Poor feller, wonder how he'd have reacted to really hot chili? Judge # 3 - No Report
Every profession has its lingo. A list of common terms — and a few of the most colorful ones — can come in handy. With cars, words and metal share territory: each brand’s vocabulary of shapes is collectively known as its design language.
The beltline divides the greenhouse, or glassed-in upper body, from the portion that extends down from the window sills. Equally important is the A-line, said Michael Castiglione, principal exterior designer at DaimlerChrysler’s Pacifica studio in Carlsbad, Calif. The A-line runs the length of the body from headlight to taillight, tracing the car’s silhouette. The car may also have a character line, a crease formed in the sheet metal of the sides.
Vehicles are said to have styling cues that prompt viewers to recognize models by their resemblance to other family members — a brand’s characteristic shapes and flourishes, the form of its grille or the arc of the roofline.
A clip from the 1965 episode 'The Chase' where the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki watch the Beatles play 'Ticket to Ride' on the Time/Space Visualiser.
