HealthyCar.org has generated a list of the most and least toxic cars. Cars are rated from 0 to 6 where the lower number is the better. The best car was Acura’s RDX with a score of 0.6 while the Mitsubishi Eclipse Spider GT scored the worst at 4.7.

At the end of your lease, don’t buyout your car! At least, don’t buy it out until you’ve looked at the market and found on the true value of it. We are about to find dramatically lower prices for used cars as lease returns flood the market and there are no consumers willing to pay for larger trucks and SUV’s (and hopefully sports cars).

One of the casualties of dramatically higher fuel prices is the car leasing business. These once profitable arms of car companies like GM and Chrylser are now exiting the leasing business in a hurry. With such large inventories of large cars/pickups/SUV’s that are leased, noone is buying them back at the end of the lease and prices for these in the used car market are getting utterly demolished. Sometimes fetching a 15% discount from their buyback prices.

What does this mean for us? Well if you currently lease a car, you might find it harder to lease a new one when it ends. There will be less leasing companies around and lease rates won’t be very competitive anymore. Moreover, the buyback price of the car might be a lot higher than the market rate if you drive a SUV or any car with a large engine.

This is from the Inside Line blog at Edmunds. It’s the first blog post from “The Mechanic” which I presume is a pen name of one of their regular staffers that doesn’t want hate mail.

His conclusion is something that I agree with. Don’t go buying a new hybrid thinking that you’re doing more for the environment. If you want to save the environment, keep your existing car and drive more soundly. It will have less of an overall impact.

Hybrid.

Hybrid, hybrid, hybrid.

It’s all you ever hear anymore. Hybrid this. Hybrid that. Hybrid wore a funny hat.

Driving a hybrid sucks. A real hybrid, like a Prius, or a Civic. Please don’t lump those fake hybrids into this rant. And by fake hybrids, I mean those leather-laden Lexuses and big fat Escalades. They’re about as green as Al Gore and his private aircraft.

No, I mean real hybrids. The ones that pack the entertainment value of a Post-it. The ones that suck the car down to its basic intent: transportation. A to B. Nothing more. Nothing. No cool. No smiles. No looking at it in your driveway because it’s fun to just look at it in your driveway.

Screw that. The car can and should be so much more. You should want it to be more. You should want your car. You should want to be in your car. Desire. That’s the word I’m looking for. Does anybody really desire a Prius? You remember desire, don’t you? How about covet? Yearn for? Crave? Of course not. It’s the soy milk of the car world. You drink it because some doctor convinced you you’re lactose-intolerant and now 6 months later you’ve convinced yourself that it tastes good. But it doesn’t. It’s a mind game. It still tastes like chalk and you know it. Put the Lactaid down, Eujean. Have a Coke. Life’s too short.

I know, I know, they’re good on gas and gas is expensive. Hey, jughead, anything worth having is expensive. A good car. A good house. A hot wife. PlayStation. HDTV. Table service. You pay for what you get in this world and if you want to live a good life, it costs money.

But the people who have them love ‘em. Heck, the Toyota Prius is so popular, Toyota is upping production as fast as it can. Just last week the automaker announced it will produce 70 percent more Prius hybrids next year. And in 2010 Prius production will move to a new production facility in Mississippi.

Too bad popularity is not a measure of good. Never has been. Millions of people watch Grey’s Anatomy. Millions more smoke menthol. Last year a ridiculous number of people paid to see Celine Dion in concert. No thanks.

What about the environment? What about it? The best thing you can do for the environment is drive the car you have.

You heard me. The fact is, it takes thousands of factories to build a car. Think about it. The tires, the steel, the rubber, the aluminum, the plastics, the seats; every individual component of a car is made somewhere else before it is trucked to the assembly plant where it’s built into a car. In the case of the Toyota Prius, that plant is in Tsutsumi, Japan.

And if that car is a hybrid it takes even more factories and even more trucks because the car is now that much more complex. There’s an electric motor, batteries, etc.

Then of course, they ship them to America on a big smelly ship. Talk about a gas guzzler.

But if we all just continued to drive the car we have, then we can shut down all those dirty factories that build all those new cars. And if we do that, we can stop all the trucks and the ships that transport all those new cars to those new car dealers. And then all those new car dealers can turn off their lights and the employees can stop driving their cars to work. And so on. And so on. And so on.

Sure we’ll all be in bottomless economic depression, but if you want to be green, then let’s be freakin’ green.

Bottom line, get over it. Get over this hybrid fixation. Drive the car you desire. Whether it’s new or old, drive it and enjoy it. Enjoy driving. Pay for the gas. It’s worth it. Cut something else from your life if you have to. It may not be politically correct, but it’s the right thing to do. – The Mechanic

Torontist ran a great article about how the major newspapers are sensationalizing crime statistics and selectively showing news that hype up the gun violence seen here in the city. Read it.

Sweet Spot is the companion website to the “Sweet Nothings” newsletter that many of my friends have subscribed to. There’s quite a few that have signed up to it because I keep getting invited to whatever restaurant the Sweet Nothing feature is about when it comes out

The website has a summary of the restaurants in the Eat & Drink area of their Toronto section.

The book, When Good People Have Affairs by Mira Kirshenbaum outlines 17 reasons why people have affairs. The Independent summarized these reasons in an article titled, What Kind of Adulterer Are You?

Break out into selfhood

Kirshenbaum writes: “For a long time there are forces in your life that have opposed your being yourself, expressing yourself.

The affair is the best way you knew how to stand up for who you are.” Virginia Woolf’s husband, Leonard Woolf, is reckoned to have been more of a guardian than a lover. She broke out into a torrid affair with Vita Sackville-West, on whom she based the novel Orlando.

Accidental

Kirshenbaum writes: “You weren’t looking for it … but you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Vivienne Haigh-Wood married the poet T S Eliot weeks after they met. He later confessed: “To her, the marriage brought no happiness. To me, it brought the state of mind out of which came The Waste Land.” But she does not seem to have intended to betray him quite so soon. It was just that Bertrand Russell happened to drop by.

Sexual panic

Kirshenbaum writes: “You feel your sexual powers are waning and in a kind of panic, you have an affair to prove you’re still as sexually able as you were.” The career of John Prescott was, outwardly, a story of success, the former ship’s waiter who rose to be Deputy Prime Minister, but he never got over his sense of inferiority. In his sixties, he seduced Tracey Temple, a civil servant 26 years his junior.

Let’s kill this relationship (and see if it comes back to life)

Kirshenbaum writes: “The idea is that once an affair is discovered it will deliver a blow that will either kill your relationship or make it stronger.”

No sooner had Napoleon Bonaparte married Josephine than he was off to war, when rumours surfaced that she was having an affair. When he returned to France, she never cheated on him again.

Mid-marriage crisis

Kirshenbaum writes: “Without time and attention marriages get stale or feel full of problems, so … you have an affair.”

David and Victoria Beckham have done well to stay together. Plenty of women would not mind a turn with the footballer, and one or two claim to have had that experience. “No one said marriage was going to be easy,” Victoria admitted.

Trading up

Kirshenbaum writes: “You’ve moved ahead in life but your spouse has stayed behind. Having an affair is your way of being with someone you think better matches your circumstances.”

Horatio Nelson was an unknown young seaman when he met and married the widow, Frances Nisbet, who already had a son. Eleven years later, in 1798, he was a national hero, after winning the Battle of the Nile, and took up with Lady Emma Hamilton. Their affair was a national scandal, and the birth of their child had to be kept secret.

Heating up your marriage

Kirshenbaum writes: “Unconsciously, you’re hoping that the affair itself or your spouse finding out about it will make things more passionate…” In 1907, President Woodrow Wilson’s wife, Ellen, was suffering depression when Wilson met Mary Hulbert. Whether they had an affair is disputed, but the friendship caused Ellen pain. He introduced her to Ellen; the women shopped together, and the marriage revived.

I just needed to indulge myself

Kirshenbaum writes: “It may not be noble, but the fact is that you’ve been working so hard that an affair is the best way you know how to give yourself some pleasure.”

Poor Monica Lewinsky is fated to be remembered for the rest of her life for the misjudgement she made at 21, as an intern in the White House, by allowing herself to be the latest in the line of women to reward Bill Clinton for all his hard work. “He talked about it as though I had laid it all out there for the taking. I was the buffet and he just couldn’t resist the dessert,” she said in her book on the affair, ghosted by Andrew Morton.

Ejector seat

Kirshenbaum writes: “You want out of your marriage but you’re afraid to just quit, so you’re hoping that an affair will end things for you - either your spouse will kick you out or your lover will give you the courage to quit.”

“There were three of us in this marriage,” Diana , Princess of Wales, complained. Indeed there were. Prince Charles seems to have her married out of a sense of duty rather than love. A telephone conversation with Camilla Parker Bowles, as she then was, was taped and broadcast, no one knows who by. “The trouble is I need you several times a week … Oh. God, I’ll just live inside your trousers or something. It would be much easier!” he proclaimed.

See if

Kirshenbaum writes: “You’re in a see-if affair if your motive is to see if what you’ve been missing in your marriage can be gotten with someone else and, if so, does it make as much of a difference as you’d thought.”

When Ryan Phillippe appeared opposite Abbie Cornish in Stop-Loss, this year’s blockbuster about the Iraq war, their professional association blossomed into romance, causing the gossip writers to observe that she looked exactly like a younger version of Reese Witherspoon, Phillippe’s estranged wife. Their marriage has ended. He is certainly not the only man to find solace in a woman who looks like his first love.

Distraction

Kirshenbaum writes: “Things are hard, frustrating, confusing in your life, and an affair is a way to distract yourself from all these difficulties by creating a kind of oasis of romance.”

David Lloyd George was a great one for creating oases of romance after he left his simpler life behind in Walesto enter the world of high politics. His greatest love was Frances Stevenson, “my darling pussy”, who became his second wife.

Surrogate therapy

Kirshenbaum writes: “You need help of some sort - maybe boosting your self-esteem - and an affair is your way of getting it.”

The Austrian writer Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch had an unexciting marriage which did not suit his unusual emotional needs, so he signed a contract with his mistress Fanny Pistor Bogdanoff, making him her slave for six months, on conditions that she wore fur as often as possible particularly when she was of a mind to wield the whip. Hence the term “masochist”.

Do I still have it?

Kirshenbaum writes: “You are getting older, your marriage is stale, and you wonder if you still can attract someone, get them to fall in love with you, and carry on a passionate affair.”

Pablo Picasso married Olga Khokhlova in 1918, and was legally still married to her when she died in 1955, but did not let that cramp his style. He also had two children by Françoise Gilot, who left him in 1953, when he was 71. His drawings show that he now feared he had become a hideous old man, yet he managed an affair with 24-year-old Geneviève Laporte, who, in old age, made a fortune from the pictures he drew of her.

Having experiences I missed out on

Kirshenbaum writes: “You weren’t in many relationships before you got married and now you feel there are experiences that are important to you that you missed out on …”

In 1984, the newly elected Tory MP Edwina Currie, began an affair with John Major, then a party whip. It lasted for four years. They were both married. “Politicians admire the element of the devious in each other,” Currie explained.

Revenge

Kirshenbaum writes: “You’re furious at your spouse for some way he or she hurt you, and you’re having an affair as a way to get back, even if your spouse never learns about the affair.”

Being abandoned by her husband, King Edward II, during a campaign against Robert the Bruce was bad enough - Queen Isabella, daughter of the King of France, narrowly missed being a prisoner of the Scots - but what she really could not stand was his homosexual lovers. So she took up with Roger Mortimer, raised an army, and overthrew the king.

Mid-life crisis

Kirshenbaum writes: “These are rare because true mid-life crises are rare. What people think of as this can be explained by one of the others, such as the surrogate therapy or the mid-marriage-crisis affair.”

John Profumo was 25 when he was elected to Parliament, and was the youngest of the Conservative MPs who brought down Neville Chamberlain. But by 46, he was still only a middle ranking minister when he and his wife met Christine Keeler, then 20. After a few torrid weeks, he ended their affair. Unfortunately, for him, she could not keep a secret.

Unmet needs

Kirshenbaum writes: “Whatever it is you need, you’re not getting it from your partner. An affair is your way of getting those needs met.”

Catherine the Great was an innocent German princess when she was sent to Russia to marry Grand Duke Peter, heir to the throne. He was a disaster as a husband, and as a tsar. She loved sex and needed to produce an heir. Having had Peter murdered, she took uncounted lovers, the most famous of whom was Grigori Potemkin, reputedly endowed with more than just a first-class brain.

I’m on vacation! No blog posts for a week or so.

Global Pro GP-14 Cook's Knife

I’ve posted previously about my favorite knives - Globals. However, there is a line of knives made by Global that is only available for the domestic Japan market called “Global-Pro“.

I had a friend send me one from Japan and it’s a beautiful knife. The blade comes to an extraordinary sharpness at the tip, shown off by a very shallow bezel before the knife edge. It’s something you have to see to appreciate.

Unfortunately, the blade selection is quite small. Only French chef style knives are represented, along with some utility knives and sushi/sashimi knives. A santoku is glaringly omitted.

I keep waiting for these knives to be made available domestically but it doesn’t look like it will happen soon. If you want to “upgrade” your Global set, go for the “GF” series of forged Global knives.

Earlier this year, I wrote “Don’t Buy a Mini!” because J.D. Power’s Initial Quality Survey awarded Mini with 2nd last place. However, in a dramatic turnaround, consumers have ignored the poor build quality of the Mini’s and bought them by the boatload. The rest of the 2008 allocations in the USA are sold out. I’m not sure if that’s the same in Canada, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all.

Why is it? Well the Mini has great gas mileage, and gasoline prices have skyrocketed. Correlation? Yes. Causation? Maybe.