Friday, November 30, 2018
the 1910 Wellington avalanche, the worst in U.S. history, was the deadliest because two trains were stuck in it's path. It was proceeded by 9 days of blizzard, a half-foot of snow per hour. 12 feet of snow a day, 9 straight days.
Two trains, a passenger train and a mail train, both bound from Spokane to Seattle, were trapped in the depot in Wellington for 6 days
Late on February 28, the snow stopped and was replaced by rain and a warm wind. Just after 1 a.m. on March 1, as a result of a lightning strike, a slab of snow broke loose from the side of Windy Mountain during a violent thunderstorm. A ten-foot high mass of snow, half a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide, fell toward the town. A forest fire had recently ravaged the slopes above the town, leaving very little to impede the avalanche.
the best way to visualize the area is the following photo showing the avalanche area is now covered by snow sheds over the tracks
The avalanche missed the Bailets Hotel (which also housed the town's general store and post office), but hit the railroad depot. Most of the passengers and crew were asleep aboard their trains. The impact threw the trains 150 feet downhill and into the Tye River valley. Ninety six people were killed, including 35 passengers, 58 Great Northern employees on the trains, and three railroad employees in the depot.
Twenty-three people survived; they were pulled from the wreckage by railroad employees who immediately rushed from the hotel and other buildings where they had been staying. However, the work was then abandoned, because of the adverse weather conditions, and it was not until 21 weeks later, during late July, that the last of the bodies were retrieved.
the full and complete story https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/topic/the-welling-avalanche-disaster-written-by-john-robert-coy-january-2012?reply=27897396787392531
This was not the only avalanche in the region that winter. Three days later, 63 railroad workers were killed in an avalanche nearby in British Columbia. http://michaelliauws.blogspot.com/p/avalance.html
These days Wellington, or what's left of it, is the eastern end of the Iron Goat Trail, a decades-long effort by Volunteers for Outdoor Washington and other groups to turn the long-abandoned railbed of the Great Northern Railway into a pathway. They've done an excellent job, creating a trail that combines mountain scenery, the glory of steam railroading, a tragic story and more step-for-step history than almost any forest walk in the Pacific Northwest.
The trail, on the national forest and in the Stevens Pass Historic District, is off U.S. 2 about 53 miles east of Seattle -- an easy break on a road trip or a worthwhile destination for a day of exploring.
full gallery at http://yousense.info/746865/the-wellington-avalanche.html
http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/faith/ci_14367913#gallery-carousel-446996
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington,_Washington
https://www.amazon.com/White-Cascade-Northern-Deadliest-Avalanche/dp/0805083294
Thanks David!
Chicago issued more vehicle violations per adult in 2016 than New York City or Los Angeles, raising $264 million in the process. (thank you Marc!)
As the number of tickets issued, licenses suspended, and fines imposed have swelled, so has citizen debt. Chicago leads the country in Chapter 13 bankruptcy filings.
Here is an example of just how quick you can lose your car, through no fault of your own, and I'm not making this up.
Because this is an administrative hearing, not criminal proceedings, you have no right to an attorney. It's presided over by a licensed attorney hired by the city as an independent contractor, given the authority of an administrative law judge.
A police officer pulled over a silver Dodge Caravan belonging to Dominique Bush on December 4, 2017. The driver had a suspended license.Here is an example of just how quick you can lose your car, through no fault of your own, and I'm not making this up.
Because this is an administrative hearing, not criminal proceedings, you have no right to an attorney. It's presided over by a licensed attorney hired by the city as an independent contractor, given the authority of an administrative law judge.
After the cop testifies and the prosecutor enters the accompanying police reports into evidence, it's Bush's turn. She says she dropped her van off at a mechanic to get it fixed. A couple days later, she got a call from the police saying it had been impounded.
"Unfortunately, that's not a defense," the judge tells Bush. "If you had a theft report, that would be a different matter."
Claiming one's car was stolen is one of the only three viable defenses in a Chicago impound case, but it requires filing a theft report with the Chicago police within 24 hours, something no one has told Bush until this very moment.
A theft report—might have saved her vehicle. But now she says she's stuck with a harsher penalty than the man who was driving her car: "His case was thrown out. There was no probable cause to stop him."
The judge hands her a sheet of paper notifying her she has been found liable for allowing her silver Dodge Caravan to be driven on a suspended license, and has been assessed fines, as well as towing and storage fees.
Bush looks at the sheet of paper the judge handed her. She now owes the city of Chicago $4,400 in fines and storage fees, the latter of which will keep accruing at $35 a day unless she pays up or relinquishes her car. She doesn't have it.
https://reason.com/archives/2018/04/25/chicago-debt-impound-cars-innocent
Thursday, November 29, 2018
there was a bad fire at a great junk yard, the day after Thanksgiving in Pepperell, Mass. Fire departments from 17 local towns assisted first responders battling a thick smoky fire that resulted in the business becoming a complete loss after going to eight alarms
the closest water supply was a half mile away, so water was shuttled with a tanker for 8 hours
Investigators have determined that the fire was caused by employees who were welding inside.
“It was workers doing their work —welding, cutting metal and some fuel caught fire,” Town Administrator Andrew MacLean told reporters at a Friday night news conference. “It all goes up. Tires, fuel, oil, anything you would imagine at an auto salvage yard is going to be flammable.”
Company officials said they have more than 2,000 used cars on the property, which has been in business since 1954.
A woman who owns the shop with her family told NBC10 Boston that they will rebuild.
https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/8-Alarm-Junkyard-Blaze-in-Pepperell-Mass-501147102.html http://www.unionleader.com/news/safety/nh-firefighters-help-battle--alarm-blaze-at-mass-auto/article_a851fd60-bec9-5826-bd75-7bc092f19ba3.html
thanks Ron!
wow, THIS is a great tractor/banner photo, by Paul Cyr
https://www.facebook.com/Paul-Cyr-Photography-508977902608242/
some other cool photos by this expert photographer:
tip of the hat to https://catchmeifyoucan427.tumblr.com/post/179796156232#notes
nice to find that the guys who post cool stuff have posted mine, even when they aren't cool enough to give me the credit for taking the photo
notice their watermark in the upper left hand corner?
http://cncenginedynamics.tumblr.com/post/180213424548/the-old-timer-geezers-have-some-real-gems-in
here are the original photos I took at El Mirage in 2011 of the Bean Bandit belly tanker
https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2011/05/bean-bandit-crew-brought-belly-tanker.html
just once I'd like to see someone post my stuff and give me credit for the photo.
cncenginedynamics1@gmail.com is their email, I found, so I emailed them, and will keep you posted if they respond, per the code of ethics they posted, numbers 6 and 7
found on https://catchmeifyoucan427.tumblr.com/post/180214046172/cncenginedynamics-the-old-timer-geezers-have#notes
a truck that was transporting flammable substances wasn't driven by an attentive trucker, collided with stopped traffic, and exploded with enough force to blow a hole into the freeway on a highway near the airport on the outskirts of Bologna, Italy,
and that is why fuel tankers are driven by people that are FAR MORE careful about how much space they WILL KEEP in front of them, and drive slow, so they NEVER crash into anything.
10,000 gallons, for example, of flammable liquid, weighs 80,000 pounds, roughly. Brakes are not going to slow down that truck, not 40 tons of it, in an emergency
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/08/06/two-dead-in-massive-gas-truck-explosion-in-italy/
right now, the Supreme Court is hearing a case about "civil asset forfeiture" aka cops seizing cars used when a drug sale occurs. Indiana's top prosecutor, the Solicitor General by title, and Thomas Fisher by name, states that the state of Indiana can seize your car for going 5 mph over the speed limit. Yes, I wrote that corretly
There you have it. The state govt, and coincidentally the federal, have stated on record that they have the power and authority to legally seize your car, your property, legally.
And you don't have a damn thing to say or do about it.
However, the Supreme Court isn't on the law enforcement side of the issue, they are on the bill of rights being examined and interpreted correctly so the citizens of the USA aren't screwed over by law enforcement, you know, the guys with guns and badges who take your stuff and handcuff you, search your sphincter for drugs, repeatedly by force, and then jail you without a lawyer or a trial for 2 years (yes, that happened in Arizona's Maricopa county, and I posted about it).
Tyson Timbs, the plaintiff in the case before the Supreme Court, was arrested in 2015 after selling heroin to undercover police officers. He pleaded guilty to one count of dealing a controlled substance and one count of conspiracy to commit theft, and he was sentenced to one year of house arrest followed by five years of probation. He was not sent to prison, and that is something I want you to notice. It would cost the state 40 thousand dollars a year to have him in jail, or prison... so, net loss to the state, see? Instead, they stole his Land Rover, and they got money for it at auction. Net gain, see?
Now, if the crime isn't heinous enough to send someone to jail, what the fuck are they doing stealing his car?
The state of Indiana seized his 2012 Land Rover—which he had purchased with money received from his late father's life insurance payout, not with the proceeds of drug sales—on the ground that it had been used to commit a crime. He actually committed a crime, and they did not seize him. So, clearly, asset seizure isn't a punishment for a crime, or they would take your liberty and freedom and put you in jail, or prison. No, it's to add to the police budget. That's what it's always been about, and the police have enjoyed taking money from people too... and I posted about that too
The Supreme Court left little doubt (today) Wednesday that it would rule that the Constitution’s ban on excessive fines applies to the states, and will limit, or eliminate the confiscation by local law enforcement of property belonging to someone suspected of a crime.
Justice Neil Gorsuch was incredulous that Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher was urging the justices to rule that states should not be held to the same standard.
“Here we are in 2018 still litigating incorporation of the Bill of Rights. Really? Come on, general,” Gorsuch said to Fisher
Justice Stephen Breyer said under Fisher’s reading police could take the car of a driver caught going 5 mph (8 kph) above the speed limit.
Indiana’s solicitor general was already trying to defend confiscating a $42,000 Land Rover taken from Tyson Timbs, who sold less than $400 worth of drugs. Before the day was through though, Solicitor General Thomas Fisher found himself arguing that the Constitution would let him forfeit luxury cars caught going five miles over the speed limit.
Fisher responded that “there is no excessive fines issue” for in rem civil forfeitures, and were completely outside the protection of the Eighth Amendment’s ban on excessive fines constitutional safeguard.
In the Timbs oral argument on Wednesday, Justice Neil Gorsuch pointed out that the ban on excessive fines has a “pretty deep history,” with “guarantees against them go[ing] back to Magna Carta and 1225, the English Bill of Rights, the Virginia Declaration of Rights.”
Strong Supreme Court precedent presented another obstacle to Indiana’s arguments. More than 25 years ago, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Austin v. United States that civil forfeitures could be considered fines under the Excessive Fines Clause, if they served, at least in part, as punishment. As an amicus brief filed by multiple Eighth Amendment scholars noted, “the terms ‘fines’ and ‘forfeitures’ were used interchangeably” in colonial laws and during the Founding era. And in the Timbs case, the state even conceded that the forfeiture statute used was partly punitive.
Little surprise then that Wesley Hottot, the Institute for Justice senior attorney who argued on behalf of Timbs, called the case “constitutional housekeeping” with a “straightforward answer.”
Timbs is only the fifth Excessive Fines Clause the Supreme Court has heard in its entire history; its first ruling on the Clause wasn’t until 1989.
In 2013, Timbs was arrested after he sold a few grams of heroin (valued at under $400) to undercover officers. Timbs was sentenced to five years’ probation and one year of house arrest. But the state also wanted his car, and filed a motion to forfeit it.
Both an Indiana trial court and appeals court ruled in favor of Timbs, and rejected the forfeiture as unconstitutional under the Excessive Fines Clause. Forfeiting the $42,000 Land Rover would be more than four times as high as the maximum $10,000 fine that could have been imposed on Timbs. It would also have been roughly 35 times as much as the $1,200 Timbs actually paid in court costs and fees.
But in November 2017, the Indiana Supreme Court reversed those decisions and upheld the forfeiture, ruling that Indiana and other states simply were not bound by the Excessive Fines Clause. “The United States Supreme Court has never enforced the Excessive Fines Clause against the States,” the Indiana Supreme Court ruled, “and we opt not to do so here.”
With its decision, the Hoosier High Court further widened a split in the legal community. The highest courts in 14 states, as well as two federal appeals courts, have all ruled that the Excessive Fines Clause does bind the states
left-leaning municipal organizations, including the National Association of Counties, National League of Cities, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, jointly filed the only amicus brief agreeing with Indiana’s position.
(Notably, while law enforcement lobbies have been some of the loudest opponents of civil forfeiture reform, groups like the Fraternal Order of Police and the National District Attorneys Association decided to stay out of this Supreme Court battle, and not show just how clearly they want to maintain the status quo of boosting their budgets and seizing sports cars they can use for drag racing, flat screens they want for the break room, etc.)
"The Excessive Fines Clause is a critical check on the government's power to punish people and take their property," is how Wesley Hottot, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, which is representing Timbs, describes the case. "Without it, state and local law enforcement could confiscate everything a person owns based on a minor crime or—using civil forfeiture—no crime at all."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-weighs-constitutional-case-on-excessive-fines/2018/11/28/0d4ca200-f2d1-11e8-99c2-cfca6fcf610c_story.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicksibilla/2018/11/29/at-u-s-supreme-court-argument-indiana-claims-it-can-forfeit-cars-for-speeding-minor-drug-crimes/#67cb00b92406
https://reason.com/blog/2018/11/28/breyer-destroyed-civil-asset-forfeiture
The shipwreck of Manasoo was discovered earlier this month at the bottom of Lake Huron. Within the wreckage, shipwreck hunters also discovered something unusual - 1927 Chevrolet AA Capitol 2-door Coupe.
The Manasoo sank in September of 1928 while it tried to navigate through a storm and ultimately took on water while the crew searched for the closest shore. It took only three minutes to sink, and in that short time period, it took the lives of sixteen people along with 115 cattle. Only five people survived the wreck including the captain, three sailors, and just one passenger. The passenger was Donald Wallace, the owner of the 1927 Chevy two-door coupe.
https://www.powernationtv.com/post/1927-chevy-coupe-found-in-90-year-old-ship-wreck-in-lake-huron
The commander of the Vermont Air National Guard was forced to resign after his boss learned he’d been seducing a female army colonel and flew to meet her in the governments F-16, at taxpayer expense
In January 2015, Col. Thomas (callsign "Snatch") Jackman (who was married at the time) was slated to join a conference at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington.
Col. Jackman had been exchanging flirtatious emails with an unidentified female Army colonel who worked at the Pentagon for two months, and after learning that he flew to Washington, D.C., in an F-16 jet to combine a work conference with a hotel visit to that female Army colonel, he was ordered home on a commercial flight, another pilot retrieved the jet.
Jackman overcame all manner of adversity to reach his lady love. According to emails he wrote her, his plane broke down as he was scheduled to take off and the ground crew had to prepare another for him to use; a ferocious snowstorm shut down the runway at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, where he had originally planned to land. His last email indicated he would fly to Langley and drive the rest of the way – 200 miles in a snowstorm.
Jackman, the commander of the 158th Fighter Wing, used his authority to fly an F-16 nearly 500 miles from Burlington Vermont to Andrews Air Force Base, located just outside Washington D.C.
The hourly operating cost of the F-16 is about $8,000, according to the Department of Defense. It was not immediately clear if Jackman was required to reimburse the Guard for flying the plane.
In a statement to the website, 1st Lt. Mikel Arcovitch, the Guard’s media spokesman, said it’s “not common practice” for pilots to fly fighter jets to work conferences.
Jackman, whose 32-year military career included two tours each in Iraq and Afghanistan, was pressed to step down and given advanced notice so he could retire with full benefits, the report said.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/colonel-fired-for-flying-f-16-to-see-woman-who-told-him-he-made-her-tingle
https://www.foxnews.com/us/vermont-colonel-was-forced-to-resign-after-flying-f-16-to-meet-woman-in-washington-d-c
https://www.rt.com/usa/445114-airforce-commander-fired-tryst/
The takeaway on this entire story? His callsign is snatch, and he was kicked out for flying a fighter jet to get laid. Ummm, that's the entire reason guys went officer and became pilots! They watched the movie Top Gun and simply figured it out.
I kid you not, this Firebird is a woman's daily driver here in San Diego
... she drives to work about the same time I do, for about 10 miles of the same route, into La Mesa on the same exit I take, and I've been looking forward to snapping a couple photos to share.
It is really amazing to me that this ol Firebird is a daily driver. On one hand, I get it that once a car is paid for, there's not much point in buying another... and once you've found your "forever car" you never part with it. But, ponder for a moment, just how many daily driver 77 Firebirds can there possibly be heading to work today? I submit that this is likely the only one.
Gary finally found his dad's original FM3 Moulin Rouge 1970 Road Runner convertible, which his dad raced and beat on for a year, but told stories about for a lifetime
by 1976 it was in a junkyard, hacked on to get the engine out through the radiator core support area, and when some guy saw it there, he saved it by buying it and putting it in his barn where it just sat waiting out the years. 39 of them. Nothing was ever done to the car after getting it out of the junkyard.
https://www.hotrod.com/articles/son-gets-fathers-pink-road-runner-convertible-back-40-years/
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