Saturday, April 20, 2024

Archaeologists in Antwerp Belgium have unearthed a century-old train carriage, unfortunately there’s very little left of the relic, as it disintegrated while being excavated.


Nobody knows how the rare model ended up underground in the metropolis of Antwerp, 500 miles from the rail company’s English headquarters.

The old train car was found during excavations of a 19th-century fortress known as the Northern Citadel, according to a statement from LNER. Made of wood and painted dark red with yellow lettering, the wagon is a “removals” car, used for moving people’s belongings from residence to residence.


Stuart Thomas, LNER’s communications director, in a statement. “Just last year, we celebrated 100 years since the LNER came into being in 1923. In our 101st year, it is incredible to discover more of LNER history has been buried in a field in Belgium for so many decades.”

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/rare-lner-train-carriage-found-buried-in-belgium-180984149

Because I went out on errands yesterday, I saw these...

this great old bug with 1967 or 68 Plates has cobwebs growing under it, it's not moved in a while

this poor neglected Miata hasn't moved in a year or two

I think this is a Savoy... crazy to see that getting hauled into San Diego down the 805 in the early afternoon

Phil worked with this super nice nurse. One day she said something about her Pantera... WHOA! (thank you Phil ! )




thank you Phil!

The only mention of Shirley I could find online was this clipping from 1962 

and one clipping in the May 1970 New York Times of her club, the "Wheel and Dash" club

a Russian engineer was arguing with a Lockheed Martin engineer on some video game forum about some military simulator War Thunder

 and leaked classified information on the cross section of the Russian fighter jet SU 57

It is hardly the first time that gamers have shared details about classified military hardware. It was two years ago information about the British Army’s Challenger 2 main battle tanks (MBTs) was posted to the forums, while just six months later manuals for the French Leclerc Série 2 MBT were also shared.

In both cases, operators of the tanks had attempted to dispute the game’s depiction of the respective vehicles and to win arguments with other players.

Just last Jan, 2023, manuals for the McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle and General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon were posted also on the game’s forums for similar reasons, and so too were key attributions of the Su-57. According to reports, just days after the F-15E and F-16 details were posted to the forum, gamers also shared a classified document regarding the Russian aircraft’s radar cross-section, while additional information shed light onto the Su-57’s airframe.

https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/10hjri6/su57_leak_su57_leak/?rdt=55828

I was surprised to see San Diego's parking enforcement cops driving Mustang Mach E yesterday. Does a parked car need to be chased in a 4 seat Mustang? Nope.


San Diego is upgraded from the small, traditional “meter maid” carts of parking enforcement in favor of larger Ford Mustang Mach-E’s. 


 The city began to switch from carts to EVs over the last few months, following the purchase of 22 new Mach-E’s and three Ford Lightning trucks — 18 of which will be given to the San Diego Police Department for parking enforcement.

Friday, April 19, 2024

the 1979 Porsche 924 Sebring was built to commemorate the victories at Sebring with a car that regular people could buy, so they took the absolute slowest car they sold and slapped a few stripes and stickers on it



and it was powered with an AMC Gremlin engine. 

The Porsche 924 Sebring 79 is, essentially, the base-model 924, powered by the VW-designed EA831 four-cylinder, 2-liter engine that was also used in such performance luminaries as VW LT delivery vans and trucks, the 1979 DJ-series Postal Jeeps, the Audi 100, and, yes, the AMC Gremlin.

and it was built with VW parts bins stuff... 


I'd have posted more today, like yesterdays plethora of great stuff, but I had to focus on job applications

 on the last couple of days, I got tips and so I felt able to post more, but today there were no tips (and that's ok!) but I feel safely distracted by posting when I've got a days pay in tips, and when I'm back to being freaked out about not having a job and a way to pay bills I can't post on the blog without mental anguish that I'm being self destructive and NOT doing the right thing, getting a new job. 

But when I'm busy working, I don't have much time for blogging, and in those rare times when I am job hunting, I don't have the money to get me by

So, it's quite a catch 22... I've so thoroughly enjoyed myself blogging, as doing this blog is the result of enjoying myself learning about vehicular things, but, it's not a productive use of time when I must focus on job hunting

Singaporean firm whose ship took down the Baltimore bridge just cited an 1851 maritime law to cap liability at $44 million

The companies filed under a pre-Civil War provision of an 1851 maritime law that allows them to seek to limit their liability to the value of the vessel’s remains after a casualty. It’s a mechanism that has been employed as a defense in many of the most notable maritime disasters, said James Mercante, a New York City-based attorney with over 30 years of experience in maritime law.

A report from credit rating agency Morningstar DBRS predicts the bridge collapse could become the most expensive marine insured loss in history, $2 billion to $4 billion.

Cases like this typically take years to completely resolve, said Martin Davies, director of Tulane University Law School’s Maritime Law Center.   


A woman was escorted off a Delta Air Lines flight for not wearing a bra. She was wearing a shirt. WTF Delta?

the employee told her that her outfit was "offensive" and "revealing." 

"I wore the same clothing any man might wear. I also have a chest smaller than many men on that flight. Where does Delta draw the line?"

The incident was in January and she now has legal representation from attorney Gloria Allred


she was flying from Salt Lake City, so, maybe the flight crew was overly Mormon religous? 

KHP ordered to pay plaintiffs $2.3 million for unconstitutional ‘Kansas two-step’ traffic policy

A U.S. District Court judge ordered the Kansas Highway Patrol to pay $2.34 million in attorney fees and other costs following a successful challenge to constitutionality of the state law enforcement agency’s practice of detaining motorists and searching vehicles without establishing reasonable suspicion.

KHP attorneys argued detaining motorists with the “two-step” maneuver was a legal and appropriate action in the war on illegal drugs.

U.S. District Court Judge Kathryn Vratil, following jury trials in which verdicts were returned against KHP, issued a permanent injunction in November forbidding the agency from continuing to rely on policies that unconstitutionally transformed basic traffic stops into lengthy vehicle searches by drug-sniffing dogs.

Somehow NO ONE in Kansas Law Enforcement, the Kansas Police Union, the Sheriff's departments, the many city police departments, the Kansas district attorneys, the Kansas Capitol Police, the state Attorney General, the university law professors, the law students, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, the Kansas Commission on Peace Officers' Standards and Training, the Kansas Department of Transportation, Kansas Association of Chiefs of Police,  Kansas Sheriff’s Association,  Kansas County and District Attorneys Association,  Kansas Peace Officers Association,  Kansas Fraternal Order of Police,  Kansas Crime Stoppers Association, nor any of the other 371 law enforcement agencies employing 7,450 sworn police officers, about 266 for each 100,000 residents, had enough courage or integrity to take the matter up and denounce the unconstitutional policy of the highway patrol violating the civil rights of the people, and BREAKING the HIGHEST LAW which is the constitution, and their oaths of office. 

Shame on them all for standing by while bullies in badges committed the civil rights violation of their families, neighbors, classmates, co-workers, and fellow Americans. 

actor Robert Stack used to race at El Mirage! and at 16-years old he and he his brother won the International Outboard Motor Championships in Italy! (thank you George!)


Here he is pictured at 19-years old in 1938. He is working on his model-a roadster and preparing it for a dry lakes run. Later that day, he set a record at 115 mph.

I'd never heard of him, despite his long list of Hollywood roles on IMDB, but recall the name from the "Unsolved Mysteries" commercials