balthazar

Railroad design class? Cool! Don't think so- RR used vertical concrete mile markers long before even 1948 and this doesn't line up- one still stands about a third of a mile farther down the track (doesn't quite show in my pic). It's certainly not 3 anything from anywhere, either. I could see if it was 3 vertical hashes and we were dealing with Roman numerals... Could be right... but I walked over a mile in either direction from that point and there were no other marks, similar or otherwise. It seems almost convinient that the stone wall was there as a canvas. I have other pics of the track layout that was there from 1908 - 1950s; no switches lined up with these marks. Regardless, those switches are long gone and there's nothing electrical there, either..... That the RR would be the only entity bothered to repaint them seems logical..... but what the hell do they signify ?? Going over to the RR board to see if anyone has any ideas..... Slow over there as usual- no replies yet.

smallchevy- the marks changed picture to pic- they are not natural. All the stone in that wall is solid dark grey stone... granite-esque; no variations at all. However, I didn't investigate the marks up close. Was it a quarry mark?? Possibly, tho the track was laid in 1857 and I'm certain this wall dates to that far back, so if it was painted, I would think the paint would be long gone by 1948... and why anyone whould repaint it is a mystery to me. The color shot cannot zoom in anymore due to the rez, and the B&W pic does not offer anymore detail when enlarged. Unfortunately, I won't get back up there to check it out up close until early next summer. usonia- intriquing idea, but not only is the general area not one for hobos and I doubt it ever was, the immediate area does not lend itself to finding any handouts due to the remoteness. I would also doubt that a hobo marking would remain a constant over 60 yrs, but it's not a circle I move in. There was a small station about 400' from that spot at least as late as '48 - hobos technically could have debarked there, tho in my experience in the area over the last few decades : the train primarily runs in the other direction... ie: the hobos would've been on the other side of the station when the freight ran thru. If anything I could see the 'nothing doing here' symbol... Cool retrospect about mom- the world is in short supply of her character these days.

This here pic is one I spliced together. The B&W shot to the left was taken in 1948, the color shot- this past weekend. I didn't notice either mark until I got home and downloaded my pics and compared them to the older shots, or I would have investigated it close up. It's the same location and the same stone block, right in the middle of nowhere. Kinda spooky- I could see if the fresh marks were in '48, but vice-versa; IDK. Must mean something.

Same guy who built the drag '34 Ford above built the 'Quad Al'. You think 27 liters of Packard/ Merlin is impressive (BTW- an Alison V-12 is 28 liters)- try 112 liters : Here's a build pic of the Merlin in the '55 Chevy: Engine alone supposedly weighs 2000 lbs.

Ahh; "The Thrill of Driving EMO" - got it. That 'family truckster' in the video looks as POS-y as it sounds, and it sounds like a 40-yr old dryer with 2 pairs of sneakers on 'tumble'. Are those 6 trans Am fender vents? Wow. Not sure what it is with these UK guys- they're doing a completely off-the-charts project, yet they start with a very ugly British car and just make more of it. The earlier 'Beast' : The car I was referring to was built by Paul Jameson and was a 6-wheeler (dual axles to the rear). I searched for it via google but apparently there's no pics online.... so from the Balthazar Archives I bring you : Smaller pic looks like a model, perhaps no body was actually built...

I have no idea what "Evo" is, so I don't know if this is the same vehicle, but a 'chap' in England built a Merlin-engined custom car in the late '70s- the vehicle was completely scratch built and bore an uncanny resemblence to the Pinin-Farina Modulo (crossed with El Camino proportions), if anyone remembers that design. There have been numerous V-12 aircraft-engined cars over the years. This drag car ran low 9s at 160+ in the mid '60s with a 1710 CI Allison V-12.

>>"I wonder if these yahoos were funded by the RNC or some Southern fundie Christian organisation. "<< I wonder if the Black Liberation Theologists or the DNC isn't behind it to drum up some last minute 'white guilt' votes in the swing states. Could've really played it big if they had managed to work a threat of lynching in there somewhere, and maybe named the suspects Jethro and Billy-Bob (or maybe just George & Dick)....

Didn't the 1st version of the miata shamble on for like 12 years (then get a 'Chinese-knock-off' redo to boot)? Cannot the Solstice do likewise? If there is no money for a replacement, continue the current car with a minor refresh.

"hardened piston rings" ??? "rebored new cam shaft" ???

Bought a set of non-ripped white buckets out of a '66 Catalina in a yard for $50 and turned them around for $325. Scored a good 'squirrel cage' for the blower motor of my B-59 (out of a '63 Riviera) for $5.

Loads of 'home built charm' in that Italian coachwork... as usual. 2 thumbs down on the ground on the design.

Not junkyard-sourced, but : I had my '73 Charger Rallye 440 for a short while. While driving around, I spotted a same-era Satellite a rescue company had off to the side to practice using the jaws of life on. After asking politely, I got a solid battery tray, good horns and a host of other miscellaneous for nothing but my time. A short while later, a guy in my apartment complex had a beat-to-S Charger on a trailer- I believe he was going to build a drag car out of it. For a single bottle of beer, I grabbed pristine black vinyl upper door panels and another armload of miscellaneous for my car. This is the same car that came with a good $10 of change thruout it, including sprinkled over the engine compartment. Good karma with that car. I sold it to a MoPar nut / drunk for his son. This was a very solid car with only half-dollar sized rot hole in the rear quarters, a triple black car with the Powerdome hood and the original 4-speed in the trunk. 2 years later I stopped by and the completely stripped carcass was half on a trailer headed for the scrapman. "Too rotted," the jackass explained.

So many of these suggestions fly in the face of criticisms made far & wide & repeatedly. GMC is criticised as 'badge-engineered' & redundant, ignoring the steady fat profit the division makes. Instead, as GM's finances were as in 1968, keeping the Ram truck line is heralded as a potential good move when they share nothing whatsoever. In a period where the truck market is sliding steadily, 'we're' in favor of dropping a successful platform mate & truck line dating back to 1900 to replace it with a completely autonomous line from another company ?? Am I reading this correctly ??? Frankly, I would prefer the GMC name to continue but absorb the Dodge truck in it's next redesign (and the 'GMC' design language go over to Chevy).... but I doubt the money is there to run 2 autonomous truck lines at once these days.

Guys- what they did is NOTHING a '60s MoPar can't handle, driving tru tall grass & some powerslides, sheesh; I was expecting jumps and mowing over saplings. Sure, it could be spending a quiet afternoon getting polished in the driveway, but that's a waste of a 440, IMO. Did you catch that it was squealing the tires on DIRT? Real nice car, even tho 'lesser' than the earlier lettercars, still some real nice coupes up thru '70.

>>"It just reinforces my desire to get a bit farther from the "madding crowd"."<< You find a place where this sort of thing DOESN'T happen, let the rest of us know, k ?

Get this- my brother has been dating a woman older than him for many years. Clearly she was older, but he never volunteered her age & I never asked. After all the genealogoy stuff I've done over that same time period, I just looked her up via the internet last month. He's now 35. She's 62. They get along very well, seem happy, she's a very nice person. She doesn't seem any older than, say, 52 (!), but wow. I couldn't get past that, myself. Over time, I've upped the 'ceiling' for what I've considered 'datable' material (I'm married- this is all hypothetical); the upper range keeps pace with my age or slightly past it, but the younger limit never rises. :wink:

>>"When I 1st started at GM in Arlington, TX. I was told all Impalas were built there from the early 60's."<< Holy crap- I hope this was told to you by the security guard, as opposed to someone with any influence on running GM. '68 Chevies (other than the 'vair, 'maro & 'vette) were built in 17 different plants across the country. No way Arlington alone could have been able to supply even a major fraction of the demand for Impalas in the '60s.

>>"Wonder what the actual plumbers make per year?"<< Going rate a plumber charges in Jersey is $75-85/hr. 2080 hrs/yr x 80 = $166K gross. Now, plumbers have a lot of overhead/expenses, plus by nature- downtime during a normal day (ie- many jobs are NOT 8-hr, involving unpaid travel time). As parts/materials are extra (& commonly marked up 10%), a guy who works hard, tosses in overtime / some weekend jobs and manages to land a longer-term, really lucrative job and it's entirely possible he could clear $250K. Most do NOT, even in this market; downtime, scumbags who don't pay, and business costs eat a huge chunk of that up.

This whole campaign, running unprecedentally long, really has me wearied. BO is going to get in based on fluff and turning a blind eye to whomever he may be, and McCain is NOT my choice, either (even tho I do feel he definately has more credibility than BO). I never stumped for JM on this board (or any other), so your automatic assumption that it's nothing but 'us vs. them' or 'you vs. me' is off; the hope that I'm going to get in a snit over these much looser connections that you dismiss with a wave of the hand as completely unimportant in BO's case... ain't gonna happen. If you feel it's meaningless for BO, you must believe they're meaningless for JM, if you are approaching this entire matter levelly (tho I'm not saying that's the case). According to all I've read, BO is far too untested, unproven & undocumented to be 'running the country', and the liberal mainstream media is nothing but a propaganda machine anymore, desperate for ratings in a shrinking market, so you certainly aren't going to see real investigative journalism from any of them. That's why this stuff needs to get out. If BO had a mainstream political background instead of a closely shielded one with a long roster of crazies & radicals, he's already have a monster lead instead of barely squeeking by with only a few weeks left. I don't give a sh!t if he black or white or what his family situation is, but I do value his life experiences and influences, because they tell me far more about what he might do in different situations that the complete bullsh!t spewed out on the trail. Most of those experiences he's kept completely under wraps or has been brazenly obscure on, and the rest that's come out is certainly not reassuring. I value these things far more than the superfluous, but that's all we really have. It sucks- this could've been the country's Neo in reality, instead it's just a carefully crafted illusion. RE: the pic- It should be obvious that sitting in an ACORN meeting 1 day and having your picture taken is world's away from training hundreds recruiters in questionable tactics and defending the organization in numerous lawsuits over a period of years... but you won't agree on that, I know. What the F am I going to do in the booth on the 4th ??

Is that a guess, PCS, or did you get the VIN PM'ed to you? 7th VIN character would be an 'R' if it was Arlington assembled.

OK; then refrain from every other posting urge you have, because that's about the frequency I find your posts to be annoying (& distastefully self-righteous, BTW). You have been so informed. Now conform to my standards of manners & decency, or I'll have to put you on my ignore list. Seriously, someone in this thread stated some good advice: >>'...show the self-restraint to stay out of the threads you cannot handle.'<< Thank you for your support.

Croc ->>"What are you talking about? You've found out quite a bit about Obama...."<< I knew all that and I didn't learn it here or on wikipedia {insert obligatory at wiki mention as reliable information source}. I'm not referring to his personal family past, but his credentials-for-the-job past. You listed just one single thing that has any real bearing on his intended future job; community organizer, everything else is superfluous fluff. and he has never defined what being a C.O. entailed. Why? >>"ACORN doesn't have a monopoly on community organizing."<< Nor does it have a monopoly on fraudulent voter registration. But if BO feels being identified as an ACORN community organizer is to the point it needs to be debunked as a 'smear', then why did BO mention being 'in the smack dab middle' with ACORN and thank them for their work? No denouncement? Can't you see this is at odds with itself? >>"Obama did Project Vote in 1992, yet your "evidence" citing a contradiction is for a 1993 partnership. Did you misread, or are you trying to obfuscate the facts?"<< Did you think the NVRAIP only took a few months to design, organize, lobby, draw up & vote in, or were you purposely being obtuse? Olds ->>"I'm just curious Balthy.... if McCain were involved with ACORN, would you heap the same scorn on him for it? "<< Of course; the practices & events were dishonest & illegal in some instances. Facts are facts, cheating is cheating, being a grabass opportunist is being a grabass opportunist. Why would I not condemn McCain.... ahhhhh: you are assuming I support him. If so, you likewise seem to be assuming I would excuse any & every potentially damaging incident & damning accusation in order to see my candidate get in, right ? :wink: SoCal CTS ->>"The thing about ACORN is that all of the questionable registrations have been caught in advance."<< Then how come there were multiple indictments for registration fraud ? Why is the FBI currently involved in an investigation if everything was caught "beforehand"? How did 1 man register 72 times? Why are there efforts to pull their federal funding? You & Croc are reading an ACORN spin doctor PR piece; of course they are going to fein outrage and lie thru their teeth to protect their $$. siegen ->>"What is so critical that you need to know about him that you can't find? If you can't find it on the Internet already, then it's probably something ridiculously irrelevant."<< What- it's not possible that hidden information could be ridiculously damaging ? I give you two quotes: "I did not have sex with that woman." "In fact I DID have sex with Miss Lewinsky." Dirt is admitted to when it's revealed and no sooner in the political world. I point you to Edwards locking himself in the hotel bathroom from reporters at 2AM. They all have dirt, some have a few tons of it. They deny & deny as long as possible. Some have alledged that BO is using a few new tactics, such as the race card, to avoid serious scrutiny. He obviosuly has shielded details about his past, because we still know only bits-n-pieces 3 weeks from the election. What would I like to know? Thanks for asking, I hope you can provide the answers : I'd like to know what he studied in the colleges, under who and what grades he recieved. His professional background is so skimpy, we are forced to consider schooling experience in the measure of the man. I'd like to know details about his 'community organizer' years- with whom, under what organizations, what programs he worked on and what he accomplished. I'd like to see a list of his clients and their case overviews that he handled as a lawyer. I'd like to know even a little bit about his political allies and the Woods Fund's activities. The man is a ghost. -- -- -- -- -- Let me ask you guys this: in all honesty, is there ANYTHING about Barack Obama and his bid for president that you are able to question? Is there even ONE THING you wish was somehow different, or wish was clarified for your sake, nevermind 'the opposition's' ? An icy finger of doubt anywhere ?

>>"The demonizing of Obama as being some radical Arab that has been going on shows how paranoid our country has become since 9/11. His name doesn't end in Smith or Johnson, so he must be a radical Muslim. His skin is black, so he must have some hidden anti-American agenda."<< Everything I heard from those against Obama's fundamentals never seriously mentions him being a muslim OR black, but there are rampant concerns about his radical ideals. He has, of course, increasingly moved toward the right during the course of the campaign, but that's not a reliable picture, it's playing to the voters. The fear is --with his heavily shrouded past-- that even the earilest view of the man is majorly 'toned down' from reality.

>>"anything from 1983 and older is accepted (next year will include 1984 vehicles). "<< I understand why this is done, but I can never get behind it. No matter how much time passses, this era can never hold a candle any earlier decade. They will never be interesting to me. Nice shots. You must've really been drooling over that '57 Suburban pick-up, right ?? The LeSabre was there... {slams hand sledge into temple}. I'll forgive myself eventually for not going.... To top my misery off, I deduced the 'gear noise' I have been hearing is a worn set of tires. {another well-aimed hand sledge swing begins it's violent arc...}

ACORN describes itself as a “non-partisan” group devoted to helping the poor and to registering millions to vote. The organization has at least 350,000 dues-paying member families, and more than 850 chapters spread among at least 104 U.S. cities. Selectively adding millions of Democratic names to the voter rolls remains one of ACORN’s most lucrative activities, for which this organization has been given millions of dollars by organized labor, non-profit foundations, and Democratic-controlled government agencies. “Instead of trying to overturn ‘the system — to blow it up, as Wiley (one of ACORN's original New Leftist founders) wanted to do, ACORN burrows deep within the system,” wrote Manhattan Institute scholar Sol Stern, adding, “taking over its power and using its institutions for its own purposes, like a political ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers.’” -- -- -- -- -- Critics & law enforcement (FBI included) accuse ACORN of involvement vote fraud, voter intimidation, shakedowns against businesses, and the promotion of socialist class hatred and class warfare. ACORN has a public record of highly-publicized voter fraud allegations lodged against it :: OH ('04), WI ('04), FL ('04), NM ('04), CO ('05), MO ('06), WA (2007), IN ('08), MI ('08), NV ('08), MO ('08), plus numerous other instances, numerous cases resulting in indictments and convictions. Recent news stories have reported 1 man was bribed with cigarettes & cash, to the tune of regsitering 72 times. A dog and the lineup of the Dallas Cowboys are just some of the 4 million voters that ACORN’s Project Vote claims to have helped register nationwide. And although Acorn is supposedly a "non-partisan" entity, they have participated in every Democratic Convention since '80 with members elected as delegates, and ACORN Votes -ACORN's national Political Action Committee- , endorsed Obama during the '08 Democratic Presidential Primary. Let's see why: Obama was the Illinois director of ACORN’s controversial voter registration operation, and he trained the group’s leaders in the ways of radical, confrontational politics. He also paid ACORN affiliates during his recent Democratic primary contest. Leading up to the '08 OH Democratic Primary, Obama’s campaign paid Citizens Services, Inc. (a subsidiary of ACORN) $832,598 between Feb. 25 & March 17. Obama was its lawyer in several pivotal ACORN cases & funded a number of its activities, as well. When he sat on the board of the prestigious Woods Fund for Chicago alongside former Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers, he oversaw and approved many grants for ACORN. The Fund’s "non-ideological" public image "enabled the Trustees to make grants to organizations that use confrontational tactics against the business and government ‘establishments’ without undue risk of being accused of partisanship." --Woods Fund Committee Report -- -- -- -- -- Obama’s mysterious, shrouded past as a “community organizer” is closely tied to ACORN, but apparently worried by the connection, his campaign has put claims of his ties to ACORN as a leading 'denial' item on its “Fight The Smears” Web site — a site the Obama campaign created to counter what they claim are partisan lies made up against their candidate. Unfortunately for the candidate's credibility, his campaign's own websites are bathed in self-hypocrisy ~ >>"• Fact: Barack was never an ACORN community organizer."<< --fightthesmears.com >>"When Obama met with ACORN leaders in November, he reminded them of his history with ACORN & his beginnings in IL as a Project Vote organizer, a nonprofit focused on voter rights & education. Obama said, ‘I come out of a grassroots organizing background. That's what I did for three and half years before I went to law school. That's the reason I moved to Chicago was to organize. So this is something that I know personally, the work you do, the importance of it. I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.” --Obama's website >>"• Fact: ACORN never hired Obama as a trainer, organizer, or any type of employee."<< --fightthesmears.com >>"Obama Trained Registrars And Ran Media Saturation Campaign. Chicago Magazine reported, “Within a few months, Obama, a tall, affable workaholic, had recruited staff and volunteers from black churches, community groups, and politicians. He helped train 700 deputy registrars, out of a total of 11,000 citywide. And he began a saturation media campaign with the help of black-owned Brainstorm Communications.” --Chicago Magazine, 1/93"<< --fightthesmears.com >>"• Fact: ACORN was not part of Project Vote, the successful voter registration drive Barack ran in 1992."<< --fightthesmears.com >>"Project Vote often coordinates voter registration campaigns with local chapters of ACORN..."<< -- wikipedia >>"The National Voter Registration Act (of 1993) Implementation Project—a partnership between Project Vote, ACORN and Demos—aims to improve voter registration services at public assistance agencies."<< -- projectvote.org >>"Project Vote! is nonpartisan, strictly nonpartisan." -- Chicago Magazine, 1/93"<< --fightthesmears.com >>"“Voting experts at the DNC point to surging registration in several big cities, such as Detroit, Chicago and Philadelphia. Most of that work has been done by the nonpartisan Project Vote. Its director, Sandy Newman, says his group has helped to register 150,000 new voters, almost all of them black, in Pennsylvania; 110,000 in Chicago; 70,000 in Michigan; 40,000 in Ohio; and 160,000 (with the help of the New York Public Interest Research Group) in New York City. ...most of these voters will cast their ballots for Mr. Clinton.” --Wall Street Journal, 10/92"<< --fightthesmears.com Fact is, even tho they possibly may not have been legally linked, ACORN & Project Vote not only worked side by side & repeatedly, they were of the same ideology and involved a lot of the same people, and Obama unquestionably was involved in the practices & results both operation's utilized. -- -- -- -- -- Because Obama had worked closely with Madeline Talbott in 1995 (one of ACORN's leaders), she specifically sought out this radical young lawyer to help craft its lawsuit to impose President Clinton’s '93 National Voter Registration Act, nicknamed “Motor Voter,” according to Chicago ACORN leader Toni Foulkes. Obama’s ACORN lawsuit won, thereby slapping aside state officials who resisted Motor Voter because of what it soon proved to be: a 12-lane superhighway to massive voter fraud. The Motor Voter law required bureaucrats at welfare offices, the Department of Motor Vehicles & other government offices to register as voters those who used their services. “Examiners were under orders not to ask anyone for identification or proof of citizenship. States also had to permit mail-in voter registrations, which allowed anyone to register without any personal contact with a registrar or election official.” --Wall Street Journal reporter John Fund in his book “Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy.” As a completely unrelated sidebar, "at least 6 of the 19 Sept 11th terrorists were registered voters." -- Newsmax.com -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- This is a hugely-complicated issue (there's a lot more to it that the above), but hard data has, as usual, been consistantly sparse and/or lacking, but -oh boy!- the stink is there. I have been asking for details of BO's background throughout '08, as have untold others. Even here I have asked this predominantly Democratic-supporting body of members for details, yet no one bothered to answer even 1 inquiry. I know why- you don't know either. What I don't know is- why don't you care? All the rotten & criminal associations and back-room deals- it's ONLY and ALWAYS about money & power - Obama is no GDamned different in the LEAST. More of the same, just more subversive this time around. NO change, NO hope.