mustang84

If it were me, I'd get the Trans Am. But like you said, I'd be leery about the insurance costs, especially if you aren't 25 yet. Part of the reason I'm still driving my Lumina in college is to save money on insurance to pay off loans. I'd say go for it if you can afford the insurance.

Alone, both the '49 Ford and MN-12 Thunderbirds are great cars. Together, however....ugh. Why are some so cruel? Who EVER thought this would look cool? Mutilated Mercury The perpetrators http://www.halerconcepts.com/49%20ford.htm

Alice in Chains - Dam that River

Oh geez, the old grease trap in the pool prank! Ha ha...ha? Definitely lame.

Strange Knightfan, I wonder if you guys got hit by the same storm that hit us a day earlier. I was awoken abruptly at about 5 AM. I heard a loud "BOOOOOM" and felt the apartment rattle, and since I live about a mile away from huge industrial chemical tanks I thought there had been an explosion. I sat up and kinda peeked out my window and noticed it was a hazy brown outside with low visibility (no rain either). I laid back in bed expecting to hear police sirens but then fell back asleep. Later I woke up and checked the news, but found out that some big storms had passed through so it was probably just lightning striking the apartment. It was pretty unsettling at the time however...living near a heavy industrial area isn't exactly comforting. My other rude awakening was about 12 years ago in the middle of the night. My mom burst into my room and then to my sister's room to get us out of bed. The tornado sirens had been going off and the radio said there were funnel clouds headed our way. We scrambled to get flashlights and blankets and had to sit down in the basement for an hour. You could hear the wind and hail tearing up the trees outside. Luckily the funnel never touched down but the winds reached 80 mph gusts at times and toppled a lot of 100+ year old trees around town.

Holy hell, that is the exact same car my dad used to drive...even down to the color.

'63 Falcon rat rod '57 Chevy in aquamarine blue

It's kinda sad too, because China used to have some great culture and civilization before they fell to the Commies. When the Red Army took over, they destroyed a lot of ancient Chinese history...and the stuff that survives today have become tacky theme-park like attractions. And this is what my Chinese architecture history professor who was born in China and escaped to the US said.

Another one of those articles that seems like its straight out of The Onion. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22183967-2,00.html Of course it did, that route sees more traffic than the Lincoln Tunnel.

Yeah, same here....in a museum.Good for GM, I hope they beat Toyota to the punch.

Yeah, probably. We're sandwiched between the Missouri and Mississippi, then you've got other major ones like the Des Moines, Raccoon, Boyer, Iowa, Cedar, etc. But since Iowa's roads follow a pretty strict mile grid pattern, they built bridges over every single river crossing....even on roads today that are nothing but dirt farm lanes. If you figure that an average county is about 30 miles tall, that would mean that river would be crossed approx. 30 times just in that one county. Add in all the tributaries and creeks and it increases very quickly.Check out this image from the Flood of '93 to see how many bridges a chunk of downtown Des Moines has alone. There's 12 shown in this image...today it's 14.

Man, Iowa has more bridges than California, New York, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Michigan, and nearly as many as Illinois even though we have a fraction of the population (3.6 million). No wonder they close them down...we don't have enough taxpayers to keep them all in operation. Most of them that you find closed are the rural ones on gravel and dirt roads that were built during the family farming era. Now that many farms are corporate and people are moving into the cities, some of these roads and bridges don't see action anymore.

From the comments section

Why do they single out the Big Three? This would harm any other manufacturer that builds a full-size truck, SUV, or luxury / sports car. It sounds like it will be revisited in September, so they're not out of the woods yet.

The snowball is getting larger.

Iowa has many of the same problems, especially with the rural bridges that were built between the turn of the century and the 1940s. Whenever a bridge is deemed unsafe, they close it down and let it rot because there is no funding available to repair them. Luckily they rebuilt two of the longest and most heavily traveled bridges in my county a few years ago, but many of the others are 50 or 60 years old and just look like hell. More than 70,000 US bridges rated structurally deficient: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070803/ap_on_...g8HmdtnmptH2ocA

I wonder what this will do for rush hour traffic with this bridge out of commission...reg, was this route pretty busy?

Winger - Spell I'm Under

This is getting ridiculous. What the hell is wrong with Chinese manufacturers? I passed this info on to some of my family members with small kids...disgusting.

In June, the Tundra had $5089 average in incentives on the hood.What's up with the Corolla? Did Hertz not put in any orders for July?

One of my friends lives a mile from the bridge and sent me some pics taken from her apartment. Luckily she was at home at the time it collapsed, but she crossed the bridge half an hour before it collapsed!

For some reason, I've never really liked the aeroback Grand Prix and Monte Carlo, even though I love G-bodies. I think it's because they look too much like a big hatchback. Nice graphics though...sounds like they're vector graphics if they are keeping the same resolution when you enlarge it.

You know, I remember an article a while ago saying that 85% of America's roads received a D or lower letter grade. Now I can see why. Considering most of America's interstate highways were built in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, I wonder how much longer before something like this happens again.

Holy cow! I have a ton of friends that live up in the Twin Cities area...I hope none of them were on it!