The Insurance Institute of Highway Safety released its annual list of the safest cars for the upcoming year. This year’s list, for 2010 models, highlights Subaru, Ford, and Volkswagen cars. The Triangle Business Journal has more:

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety released its top safety picks among 2010 model year vehicles, and the results might have Subaru, Ford and Volkswagen/Audi dealers gearing up for sales spikes in coming months.

The winners (as quoted from the article):

Large cars
Buick LaCrosse
Ford Taurus
Lincoln MKS
Volvo S80

Midsize cars
Audi A3
Chevrolet Malibu built after October 2009
Chrysler Sebring 4-door
Dodge Avenger
Mercedes C class
Subaru Legacy
Subaru Outback
Volkswagen Jetta sedan
Volkswagen Passat sedan
Volvo C30

Small cars
Honda Civic 4-door models (except Si)
Kia Soul
Nissan Cube
Subaru Impreza except WRX
Volkswagen Golf 4-door

Midsize SUVs
Dodge Journey
Subaru Tribeca
Volvo XC60
Volvo XC90

Small SUVs
Honda Element
Jeep Patriot
Subaru Forester
Volkswagen Tiguan

In honor of Veterans Day 2009, here’s a list of 25 quotes to live by:

1. We make war that we may live in peace. -Aristotle

2. Nobody ever drowned in sweat. -US Marines

3. Those who cannot bravely face danger are the slaves of their attackers. -Aristotle

4. More powerful than the will to win is the courage to begin. -Unknown

5. Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him. -Dwight D. Eisenhower

6. Many become brave when brought to bay. -Norwegian proverb

7. Courage is fear holding on a minute longer. -George S. Patton

8. It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you. -Unknown

9. Either war is obsolete or men are. -Buckminster Fuller

10. There never was a good war or a bad peace. -Benjamin Franklin

11. Unless one says goodbye to what one loves, and unless one travels to completely new territories, one can expect merely a long wearing away of oneself. -Jean Dubuffet

12. This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave. -Elmer Davis

13. Freedom is never free. -Author Unknown

14. Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul. -Michel de Montaigne

15. The more we sweat in peace the less we bleed in war. -Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit

16. In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot. -Mark Twain

17. Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous. -George Bernard Shaw

18. It is not only the living who are killed in war. -Isaac Asimov

19. Life is 10 percent what you make it and 90 percent how you take it. -Irving Berlin

20. History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap. -Ronald Reagan

21. Soldiers generally win battles; generals get credit for them. -Napoleon Bonaparte

22. “Where there are too many policemen, there is no liberty. Where there are too many soldiers, there is no peace. Where there are too many lawyers, there is no justice.” -Lyn Yutang

23. Moral courage is the most valuable and usually the most absent characteristic in men. -George Patton

24. I think there is one higher office than president and I would call that patriot. -Gary Hart

25. Have the courage to act instead of react. -Earlene Larson Jenks

Whether you’re close enough to retirement to make the 62 vs. 65 debate, or you’re just initiating a 401K, Dr. Thomas Perls’ Living to 100 life expectancy calculator might throw you for a loop. The calculator, associated with a New England-based study on the characteristics of centenarians, estimates your mortal years based on stress levels, health factors, diet, and lifestyle.

When the calculator spat out an estimated dying age of 97 for me–I had myself slated for 80, tops–I took a closer look at current aging trends. The old mid-70s life expectancies for men and women might be a thing of the past. According to a recent study (as reported in the Seattle Times):

Life expectancy has been increasing steadily in developed countries such as the United States, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan. If this pace continues, reaching the age of 100 will become ordinary for most people in those countries, according to a report published earlier this month in The Lancet.

The New England study (on which the Living to 100 life calculator is based) found that most centenarians share these characteristics: emotional resilience (ability to adapt to life’s events), self-sufficiency, intellectual activity, a good sense of humor (including about themselves), religious beliefs, strong connections with other people, low blood pressure, appreciation of simple pleasures, a zest for life, don’t currently smoke or drink heavily, may play musical instruments and follow an anti-inflammatory diet (like the Mediterranean diet) that has been linked to longevity. About 80 percent of all Americans over the age of 100 are women and most of them gave birth to children after age 40.

If wages continue to stagnate, developed countries might see a much older workforce than in the past. Imagine retiring at 85, then enjoying your golden years until you’re more than 100 years old. The idea gives new meaning to “planning for retirement.”

On October 12, 1942, Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas. Since 1934, the day has been a federal holiday. But what does that mean for daily activities? Here’s the lowdown:

United States Postal Service (USPS): Closed.

Federal government services: Closed.

Banks: Closed.

UPS, FedEx, DHL: Open.

State/local government services: Vary. Check with your service of interest, such as the school or library.

Colleges and universities: Some observe Columbus Day as a holiday. Check with yours to see.

Conde Nast will announce the closure of Gourmet magazine–and several other titles–this morning. The New York Times has more:

The magazine has sustained a severe decline in ad pages, but the cut still comes as a shock. In addition to Gourmet, Condé Nast plans to announce it will also close Cookie, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride. Cookie is a relatively new introduction, started in 2005, while the bridal magazines were seen as offshoots of the bigger Brides magazine, which Condé Nast also owns.

Condé Nast tends to hold tight to its prestigious titles, making the Gourmet closing all the more startling. In an interview in February, even Paul Jowdy, publisher of the in-house rival Bon Appétit, said that such a closing was unlikely. (To be fair to Mr. Jowdy, the economy has plummeted, and Condé Nast has been hit particularly hard since then. Its magazines have lost more than 8,000 ad pages, excluding its bridal titles, so far this year.)

Why fold the more prestigious title? I hope Conde Nast maintains Gourmet online, the way they did Portfolio.

We may be resorting to beans and rice for dinner, but Fido isn’t suffering. This Denver Post article points out that the pet food industry is solid as ever:

…spending on pets remains robust, with total sales of all pet products topping $45 billion this year, a 5 percent increase, according to the American Pet Products Association. And retail sales of pet food are up 4.5 percent in 2009 at about $18 billion. Future pet-food sales are projected to top $21 billion by 2013.

“We have so many customers who say they’d eat macaroni and cheese before they’d cut back on their dogs,” she said.

This trend towards premiumization is helping keep the pet food industry on its feet. According to this Petfood Industry article,

The only categories showing a drop in volume are mid-priced and economy dog foods and economy cat foods. Some market researchers believe there is less price elasticity in the demand for petfoods than for human food, and the industry’s latest (2008) sales figures are bearing this out.

Consumers appear to be accepting these price increases in spite of declining real disposable income and falling consumer confidence. Due to deepening anthropomorphism, pet owners are becoming even more brand loyal. Many owners hold the view that their pets can tell the difference between different products and they are therefore reluctant to switch brands in case it upsets their pets’ digestive systems.

That “deepening anthropomorphism” could actually be considered a revolution in the way Americans treat their pets, writes ABC News:

In an atomized society, the growing amount of time and money we collectively spend on pets is an indication of how much we thirst for community, leaning on animals for support once provided by other humans.

The pet food industry knows it, too:

“The pet-food industry has gotten very good at tapping into peoples’ anxieties about the quality of their own diet, and then getting them to apply that anxiety to their pets’ diets,” says (author and historian Katherine Grier). “First, of course, the industry had to convince people that the traditional way they fed pets — cooking them meat or feeding scraps — was unhealthy.”

Always, the message is the same: You’d do it for yourself — why not for the animal you love? “Things that were once considered optional are now really being considered necessities by pet owners,” (another source) says. “These companies have made the attachment between the health and well-being of your pet and their product.”

(Read more of this excellent article.)

I’d be interested to know how/whether increased computer use has affected the way we see pets, especially dogs. In any case, pet food marketers are onto something. It looks like this trend is going to last.

Today is National Coffee Day, one of many annual food-related celebrations of unspecified origin. If you’re among the 54% of Americans who enjoy a daily brew, you might want to celebrate National Coffee Day by acquiring your juice for free. Below, we’ve listed some of the coffee shops offering special National Coffee Day deals:

Texas/Midwest: Dunn Bros. is offering one free 12 oz. cup with this coupon.

Los Angeles: Panera is offering a second cup of coffee, free, when you order one cup and say “pay it forward.”

Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire: McDonald’s is giving away free cups of Newman’s Own coffee today and tomorrow.

Coral Gables, Fla: Buttercream Cupcakes & Coffee is giving away a cup of free joe.

All over the country, Starbucks will be giving away a free cup of its new VIA instant coffee on October 2-4. The catch: It’s instant.

Filterfresh, a coffee supplier, is offering a home brewer and coffee for your office if you write a winning story about “why coffee is the greatest beverage of all time.”

Ohio and Kentucky: Busken Bakery is offering free coffee and a cookie.

If you don’t see any offerings in your region, walk up to your favorite brewer and ask nicely whether they have anything to give you on National Coffee Day. If they say no, throw a fit, start crying, and blame lack of caffeine for your temper tantrum. You stand a chance of invoking their pity and getting something:

If they remain stubborn, tell your local brewers that National Espresso Day is on November 23, and they’d better offer you something free…or else.

James Vellanti, COO of the New York hedge fund JNF Asset Management, fell to his death early this morning in an Atlantic City accident. FINAlternatives has more:

Vellanti…was declared dead after falling from an escalator at The Pier Shops at Caesars. The shops are connected to the casino by a sky-bridge and an escalator.

Prior to his role at JNF Asset Management, Vellanti, who lived in Clinton, New Jersey, served as managing director of trading and operations at Koch Global Capital.

According to NJ.com,

About 75 percent of injuries on escalators each year are fall-related, according to the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission. There were about 11,000 escalator-related injuries in 2007, the commission reports.

Police haven’t yet released details of exactly what happened. We extend our deepest sympathies to Mr. Vellanti’s family and friends.

If escalator accidents aren’t that uncommon, and Mr. Vellanti was the second person to suffer a fatal such accident at The Piers Shops, what will the company do to prevent others from falling?

For the first time in history, women may outnumber men in the workforce. Job losses and women’s ever-changing roles are responsible. USA Today has the scoop:

Women held 49.83% of the nation’s 132 million jobs in June and they’re gaining the vast majority of jobs in the few sectors of the economy that are growing, according to the most recent numbers available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At the current pace, women will become a majority of workers in October or November.

The only parts of the economy still growing — health care, education and government — have traditionally hired mostly women. That dominance has increased in part because federal stimulus funding directed money to education, health care and state and local governments.

There may be a she-vival in the he-cession. Ideally, however, the economy will grow to a state where everyone has a shot at employment, regardless of gender.