I have a completely irrational loyalty to Ford (I've only ever bought Fords, Mercurys and a Lincoln) so I'm rooting for them (and happy they're not needing bailouts).

I'm rooting for Ford too. I've had an Escort, a Tempo, a Villager (even though it is really a Nissan), and a Windstar and they have all been good cars for the most part. Plus, they have a plant in Kansas City. At least Ford has got themselves a pretty good CEO right.

I can't find a simple description of the creaky voice online (other than laryngealisation), but they talked about it on A Way With Words one time. [link]

The other Ford division is probably more obscure than Edsel. It was the Continental Division, created to build the Continental Mark II, one of the most beautiful post-WWII American cars. The Mark II cost almost as much as a Rolls Royce, but was largely hand-made in small numbers, so Ford still lost money on the car. The Mark II is sometimes described as a Lincoln, but it's not. The Continental division lasted only two or three years (the Mark II was only produced for the '56 and '57 model years).

Scola get another point, because I did, in fact, have some fruit, and it was just the thing.

I do not know what creaky voice is.

Is creaky voice what the Tin Woodsman had?

If so, I suggest: oilcan!

I'm Chevy biased because we had a 1965 Chevy Impala when I was growing up, drove that car cross country twice and it lasted for 13 years without a breakdown. We were sad to sell it.

I like the Chevy Impala's of '65-'67 vintage, with their grills that lean forward (although Nader complained that such grills were unsafe for pedestrians that might be hit by one - what a whiner).

On the GM side, we had a Saturn we drove for 120,000 files and it was a good car.

The cars we had growing up gave me a negative Chrysler and VW bias. My parents had a Volkswagen Dasher and Plymouth Volare which were both horrible cars. Then they also got a Dodge Omni O24 (which became my first car) which combined a Chrysler body with a VW engine. It was also a very problematic vehicle.

The Evolution of House Cats

Genetic and archaeological findings hint that wildcats became house cats earlier--and in a different place--than previously thought

eta:

With the geography and an approximate age of the initial phases of cat domestication established, we could begin to revisit the old question of why cats and humans ever developed a special relationship. Cats in general are unlikely candidates for domestication. The ancestors of most domesticated animals lived in herds or packs with clear dominance hierarchies. (Humans unwittingly took advantage of this structure by supplanting the alpha individual, thus facilitating control of entire cohesive groups.) These herd animals were already accustomed to living cheek by jowl, so provided that food and shelter were plentiful, they adapted easily to confinement.

Cats, in contrast, are solitary hunters that defend their home ranges fiercely from other cats of the same sex (the pride-living lions are the exception to this rule). Moreover, whereas most domesticates feed on widely available plant foods, cats are obligate carnivores, meaning they have a limited ability to digest anything but meat—a far rarer menu item. In fact, they have lost the ability to taste sweet carbohydrates altogether. And as to utility to humans, let us just say cats do not take instruction well. Such attributes suggest that whereas other domesticates were recruited from the wild by humans who bred them for specific tasks, cats most likely chose to live among humans because of opportunities they found for themselves.

So unlike every other domesticated animal, cats chose us.

Cool!

My cat Ivan woke me up last night. When I looked at him he pushed something at me.

It was an empty French Onion Dip container - he had somehow managed to get it all the way from the front of the apartment to my bed because he wanted me to open it for him.

Demanding? Yes - but also - what a smart kitty!

I laughed and opened it so you could lick out the remains.

See? Before cats were domesticated, they had no one to open containers of French Onion Dip for them....