Have you seen the Top Gear review of the Fiesta? It's amazing.

Nope. How so?

When I got my Civic five years ago, it was getting 30 city/40 highway, but it's down to 25/35 now.

Here's the review.

[link]

It's amusing all the way through, but it gets really interesting just over the 4 minute mark.

ION, I was wasting time reading about the Boeing 707. Did you know the 707 was the first commercial aircraft to have an inherent instability issue that was fixed with an auto-pilot type device?

The 707 wings are swept back at 35 degrees and, like all swept-wing aircraft, displayed an undesirable "Dutch roll" flying characteristic which manifested itself as an alternating yawing and rolling motion. Boeing already had considerable experience with this on the B-47 and B-52, and had developed the yaw damper system on the B-47 that would be applied to later swept wing configurations like the 707. However, many new 707 pilots had no experience with this phenomenon as they were transitioning from straight-wing propeller driven aircraft such as the Douglas DC-7 and Lockheed Constellation.

This is kinda' cool (Tex Johnston was a Boeing test pilot who at the time probably knew more than anyone else about flying the 707):

In his autobiography, test pilot Tex Johnston described a Dutch Roll incident he experienced as a passenger on an early commercial 707 flight. As the aircraft's movements did not cease and most of the passengers became ill, he suspected a misrigging of the directional autopilot (yaw damper). He went to the cockpit and found the crew unable to understand and resolve the situation. He introduced himself and relieved the ashen-faced captain who immediately left the cockpit feeling ill. Johnston disconnected the faulting autopilot and manually stabilized the plane "with two slight control movements".

[link]

I have to admit I didn't know who Marianne Pearl is, so that's news to me. Although I'm sure there's a full-lipped exception for Angelina, because she's so exotic.

Orange juice gives women gout. Trufax.

Oh shoot, that link left out the best part.

This seems to take over about where the other ends.

[link]

Is gout back, or was it just not as talked about over the past however many years? I feel like it's an old-timey old-man's problem, but suddenly it's everywhere.

I'm glad to see new cars (other than hybrids) finally getting better mileage than my '98 Monte Carlo. My dad wanted me to get a new car 3 years ago and I told him I would wait until someone built a car that I actually want. I was leaning toward Honda, but I'm curious about the Cruze.

It's amusing all the way through, but it gets really interesting just over the 4 minute mark.

Oh dear. That was fun!

Oh shoot, that link left out the best part.

This seems to take over about where the other ends.

Yeah, that was hysterical....