Friday, November 13, 2026
once owned by James Brown in the 70s,
though the car was seized by the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office in Augusta, Georgia after the owners of a Texaco station filed a lawsuit against Brown for unpaid bills. After that, the Model A garnered $1,500 at auction in 1977
Once the Model T took off, Henry Ford put some of his new wealth into bird watching... he recruited the president of the Michigan Audubon Society to plan a bird watching paradise, releasing 400-500 birds from Europe onto his estate grounds in April of 1913,
In 1909 a bill was brought before Congress for the protection, in the form sanctuaries, of migratory birds, it was known as the Weekes-McLean Bird Bill. By 1911 it was in danger of dying a natural death because the Bill’s sponsors could not drum up enough support to get the Bill passed.
About this time, the celebrated American ornithologist and naturalist, John Burroughs had criticized cars and Ford in particular, he felt the car was not doing the countryside any good. Henry Ford had become a fan of John Burroughs after Ford’s wife had given him first one and then all (when the first was avidly read) of Burroughs’ books. Initially Henry was taken aback by the criticism his hero had made of the car, but in typical Henry Ford fashion he figured out a positive response.
He wrote a letter to John Burroughs telling him there was a brand new Ford car waiting for him at his local Ford dealership. It was free of charge and there were no strings attached – it was not any sort of publicity stunt, it was a gift from an admirer, nothing more.
At first Burroughs did not take to the car, but he persuaded his nephew to drive him around in it. Eventually he mastered the art of driving himself (he was seventy-five at this time) and found he could get around more quickly to many more places to see his beloved birds. He became a firm car enthusiast and he and Henry became good friends.
John Burroughs drew Henry’s attention to the plight of the Weekes-McLean Bird Bill. Henry swung in to action. He contacted his dealer network, all six thousand of them, and asked them to mobilize their community groups in their area to lobby Congress on behalf of the birds. This was Henry’s first foray in to politics and it was a resounding success, he began his lobbying campaign in December 1912 and the act passed in 1913.
He wrote a letter to John Burroughs telling him there was a brand new Ford car waiting for him at his local Ford dealership. It was free of charge and there were no strings attached – it was not any sort of publicity stunt, it was a gift from an admirer, nothing more.
At first Burroughs did not take to the car, but he persuaded his nephew to drive him around in it. Eventually he mastered the art of driving himself (he was seventy-five at this time) and found he could get around more quickly to many more places to see his beloved birds. He became a firm car enthusiast and he and Henry became good friends.
John Burroughs drew Henry’s attention to the plight of the Weekes-McLean Bird Bill. Henry swung in to action. He contacted his dealer network, all six thousand of them, and asked them to mobilize their community groups in their area to lobby Congress on behalf of the birds. This was Henry’s first foray in to politics and it was a resounding success, he began his lobbying campaign in December 1912 and the act passed in 1913.
The Migratory Bird Act of 1913, the first federal bird protection law in the United States, would likely have been ignored in Congress without Ford’s ambitious campaigning efforts to secure passage and support the Migratory Bird Treaty with Canada, to improve the lives of farmers.
Ford later acknowledged that the imported birds did not stick around or successfully colonize the area, remarking in hindsight: "They stayed around for a while, but where they are now I do not know. I shall not import any more. Birds are entitled to live where they want to live."
University of Michigan Press later published a full book on the subject, “Best of Companions: Henry Ford and the Protection of Birdlife in America.”
Best of Companions weaves Henry Ford’s personal and very public participation in bird protection into the overall national push to save disappearing North American birdlife in the early twentieth century.
Acting on his love of birds, Ford formed acquaintances and friendships with some of the most prominent North American wildlife conservation activists of the time.
Michigan Audubon Society President Jefferson Butler was recruited to plan, establish, and promote an expansive, visionary bird protection project known as Henry Ford’s Bird Farm.
Highlighting the economic benefit of birds, the farm modeled how farmers could use both natural and artificial means to boost populations of native insectivorous bird species on their land, reducing crop damage from insects and increasing agricultural productivity.
the Scout is in production... how it's going to accomplish anything the Rivian couldn't, I have no idea
There are already 212,000 reservations, it's a 90 / 10 split with the majority being gas assist, and the vast minority for the all electric, no doubt the same people were the ones buying the cyber truck to be the unusual people with the newest and rarest electric vehicle
Sadly, he lived next to a LAKE and could afford a couple hundred thousand dollars of muscle cars, but not 10k of fire suppression system, water sprinklers, halon, CO2, etc. WTF is wrong with rich people?
If I lived next to a lake, I'd have run a pipe out to the deepest spot in the lake, anchored it 4 feet from the bottom for clean water, and had a pump triggered by a pair of smoke alarms (always have a redundant back up system) in addition to a 2000 gallon pressurized tank of water, that had a pressure regulator on the output line, and it would be triggered by a heat sensitive solder trigger relay system, so that no electricity would be needed to activate and deliver plenty of water to prevent and extinguish a fire
news flash... FAA orders all flights grounded - no reason given, but the cause was inability of the air traffic control system at the FAA to keep up (and it's a funding issue that MIGHT coincide with hinting to a new democrat congress to approving funding). 7800 flights affected in 4 hours
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a nationwide ground stop Friday afternoon, Nov. 13, halting departing flights at airports across the United States because of unspecified safety concerns.
According to an advisory issued by the FAA’s Air Traffic Control System Command Center, the ground stop took effect at 2:54 p.m. Central time and will remain in place until further notice.
Thursday, November 12, 2026
every now and then, someone happens to be in the background of a photo, and though it's rare, most people never notice. So here's a photo I took, and I leave it to you to see if you want to look and see
A moment later he (and a couple PR handlers ) walked right by. I was surprised the people in the area weren't mobbing him for autographs. Not a single person spoke up, walked over to get in his way, nothing. With his lifetime celebrity and icon status (he's even a Goodwood USA legend)
there were a surprising amount of 80s Camaros at SEMA this year. Of course there are a lot of 69 Camaros... but the 2nd and 3rd gen don't get upgraded nearly as much
and this one 70s Camaro
very cool to see this flattened oval exhaust
fwiw... the coolest magazine I've seen ... is this issue number one of Dusty Times, in a leather cover! THAT is really damn classy
and fwiw the back of issue 2 has a collection of vintage patches
just a cool photo
He was in the 401st Bomb Group out of Deenthorpe.
He met his future wife while he was over there, she was one of many war brides that made the trip to the U.S. He passed away at 100 years old, still living in the house they bought in 1948
Is there a legal way for the government to use the photo of a person, without their permission, on license plates and registration? Puerto Rico is certain they CAN, and had Roberto Clemente on their license plate. His sons took their case to the Supreme Court
The US Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a challenge by Roberto Clemente's sons to Puerto Rico's use of the baseball great's image on commemorative license plates and vehicle registration tags, which they alleged violates constitutional protections against government taking of trademark rights.
Clemente, a Puerto Rico native, played for Major League Baseball's Pittsburgh Pirates for 18 seasons from 1955 to 1972. He was a 15-time All-Star right fielder and two-time World Series champion in a career that earned him induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame and a statue outside the team's stadium. He died at age 38 in a 1972 airplane crash while delivering humanitarian aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.
The suit, which claimed the use of the likeness generated $15 million for Puerto Rico, seeks to block any use of their father's likeness on license plates and tags and obtain $45 million in damages and $3.15 million in compensation for trademark infringement.
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