Today marks the start of this year’s Syracuse Nationals, which is the largest Hot Rod and Vintage car show on this side of the continent (this side of the Rockies, I think). Not only does that mean 7,000 tricked-out cars and trucks and some 80,000 visitors will be in town, but this year you can go out and meet the Fonz and Shirley Feeney (that’d be Henry Winkler and Cindy Williams, for you younger folks)!
I don’t generally go to the show, but, for the next few days, our streets will be filled with some of the coolest looking vehicles you’ll ever get a chance to see. A lot of the folks stay at the Econo-Lodge a block down the road, and the street behind my house (which was once the Erie Canal, but is now Erie Boulevard) is a divided six lane road where the cars traditionally love to strut their stuff (with enough nice straight stretches in between traffic lights to do a little drag racing, which of course is discouraged by the local Carabinieri).
Oh, I know. Cars burning gas and dumping CO2 into the atmosphere is bad for the planet and contributes to global warming and all that, but, well, these cars are pretty cool, and a lot of fun to watch. So, screw it. It’s gonna be in the 90’s today anyway; might as well go for 100.
Have a good ‘un.
One time at band camp, a guy fell out of the sky and landed on my head!
http://tinyurl.com/6prdrg
:omg:
PJ, if you were to look at a map, you would find that Red Hook, Brooklyn, is home to the Erie Basin, which was the terminus of the Erie Canal. We have an old wooden barge anchored at the entrance to the basin that once traveled the canal. It is now home to a family and doubles as a performance site.
Friday
Reminder
Gov. Don Siegelman at Netroots Nation via AirAmerica
interviewed by Slamming Sam Sneder
By SEDER
UPDATE : This conversation will be streaming live exclusively at AirAmerica.com today at will air 11:30am est to 12:45. Watch it live and on demand immediately following the interview HERE
Of course, that is 11:30 EDT, 8:30 Pacific, It is probably so hot in Austin Sammy thinks he’s in Arizona.
:bow: :love: Dr. DeBakey :love: :priest: :sdavid: :yinyang: :jesus: :peace: :pent: :om: /|\ :gate:
pj- We were driving through Spencerport last night on our way to a family get-together. They’re having a “Canal Days (erie) celebration this weekend and the town was full of dozens of old cars and hot-rods. Brought back lots of memories of better days…., or maybe I was just high on leaded gas.
Here’s the link to the “ContemptforRove” petition.
http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/5180/t/3541/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=2248
Yeah, it was actually the Erie Canal that made NYC the major city it became in the pre-railroad days. It was a relatively minor port (Philly was the big port at the time), but with the Erie Canal connecting the Hudson to Lake Erie, goods could be shipped quickly and cheaply from NYC to the western frontier (Ohio, Michigan, and even as far as Duluth, MN).
Close to my house there’s a stretch of the Canal that runs from here 40 miles to Utica. A great bike trip (nice and flat). Probably a lot better than when it was a working canal, since the barges were pulled by mules and, well, a mule’s gottoa do what a mule’s gotta do. From what I’ve read, it was kind of a stinky cesspool. If you read the old papers around here (and elsewhere, I’m sure), there were lots of deaths from people drowning in the canal (both the Erie, and the Oswego, which connected Syracuse to the port of Oswego on Lake Onatrio (and to Canada and the St. Lawrence Seaway out to Montreal, Quebec, and the Atlantic Ocean).
It was debated whether the canal should go through Auburn or Syracuse, and Syracuse won due to its salt trade. They were both roughly the same size, but with the canal, Syracuse grew considerably. It stagnated when the canal gave way to the railroads, and in fact there are about the same number of people here now as there were back in the 1850’s.
Which is fine with me. There are too goddamn many people here as it is.
A leading cyber-security expert and former adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) says he has fresh evidence regarding election fraud on Diebold electronic voting machines during the 2002 Georgia gubernatorial and senatorial elections.
snip
Some critics of electronic voting raised questions about the 2002 Georgia race even at the time. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, who was five percentage points ahead of Republican challenger Saxby Chambliss in polls taken a week before the vote, lost 53% to 46%. Incumbent Democratic Governor Roy Barnes, who led challenger Sonny Perdue in the polls by eleven points, lost 51% to 46%. However, because the Diebold machines used throughout the state provided no paper trail, it was impossible to ask for a recount in either case.
http://rawstory.com//news/2008/Cybersecurity_expert_raises_allegations_of_2004_0717.html
Here’s Brave New Films’ Send Karl Rove to Jail petition:
http://sendkarlrovetojail.com/?utm_source=rgemail
2d Life Haunts :reaper: Boo….. :doh: … :pirate: :tap: A!I!V!