Wooden Wheels on Cars before 1925 or 1930

OLD WOODEN SPOKE WHEEL

You just don't see many like this anymore. My father talked about his father having wheels like this on their touring car while traveling from Texas to California. There were no paved roads between Texas and California except in large cities. He said going across the desert they broke a spoke on a wooden wheel and put the spare wheel on. So they had spare tubes so they wouldn't get stuck without a tire and a tire pump and an extra wooden wheel in case a rut in the road broke the wheel or too big a rock or a combination broke the wheel or punctured a tire. When it rained it wasn't usually a good idea to travel unless you were on a graveled or rocked road because you would get stuck. This was about 1915 and probably before to 1925 when my Grandfather rode on Wood spoke wheels. Somewhere around Arizona they broke a front spoke wheel so my Grandad stopped to put a new wheel on that was tied onto the trunk of the car. The dogs rode on the running boards (they tied them on) so they wouldn't mess in the car back then because they were outdoor dogs and mostly to hunt with so were not housebroken. My Uncle was 4 years old and went and stood over  on a large red ant hill and his screams when they bit him all over drew everyone to save him. Where they lived in Oregon and Washington and Texas I don't think they had the large red ants that will attack humans sort of like bees if you are near their hives. I myself, when I was 4 had this same experience in El Cajon, near San Diego, because they didn't have ants like this in Seattle where I had come from either. It is so painful that it only takes one time to learn the lesson of the large red ants of California and Arizona and possible a couple of other areas as well. My father said that the alkali dust roads were so bad that only the driver wasn't crying from eye irratation and it also created sores in your mouth from the dust that it took about a month for all the sores in your mouth to heal from all the dust. Only the driver, my Granda who had goggles on didn't have eyes watering from the alkali roads. And everyone had the mouth sores for over a month after they reached California likely in the early 1920s. I found this wood spoke wheel in Big Sur on the coast of California next to the rest room. It is near the Shell Station($5.99 a gallon for premium) today in between the River Inn and the Post Ranch and Ventana Ranch. If you want to see more wooden spoke wheels go to google images and type in: 'Wooden Spoke wheels'.

Later: I was talking with my son about wooden spoke wheels on cars and trucks. They were a natural outgrowth of mostly wooden wagon wheels. On very rough roads wooden wheels absorb more concussions at slow speeds than light enough metal to build with could in the early 1900s. Also, my father told me that no one drove over 25 mph ever on the rough roads over most of the country because if you did it would completely destroy your vehicle. So, all metal wheels that you started to see likely in the early to late 1920s on the more expensive cars were not usually driven over bad dirt roads because it would destroy the vehicle. So, even if you were going across the country you needed a more truck like vehicle to survive the terrible mostly unpaved roads outside of the cities. So, most vehicles that people did this with resembled more the SUV's of now more than anything else. However, 4 wheel drives were not very common back then except maybe in some trucks.

                                                                                                                                                                   
CIRCA 1920 NASH QUAD 4 FIRE TRUCK
This was a four wheel drive truck from: http://www.ci.chippewa-falls.wi.us/Departments/Fire%20Emergency/History.htm

 So, the touring car that my Grandfather drove from Texas to California was likely a big Dodge that could hold his wife and three or 4 kids (there were eventually 5) and their two hunting dogs (on the running boards) and whatever clothes and goods they brought along that they didn't ship by railroad. In emergencies a group of men would go to rescue people or put out fires by getting 4 or 5 men on each running board and heading off at 10 to 25 mph in emergencies. Also, if one rode the running boards while going through fence gates he or she could open the gate so no animals got out, let the vehicle through and then close the gate and then hop on the running board until the next gate so the cattle or other herds didn't get out past the fences.

Also, most places didn't have ambulances back then and a doctor might be 50 miles away for many many people. So, unless you could take care of yourself and anybody else around sometimes you just didn't survive at all. Under those circumstances a snake bite, a broken arm or having a baby might be fatal as often as 50 percent of the time if you were that remote. And also, in 1900 only 1 person in 12 lived to be 60 years old. And this was an average  that included the whole the U.S. The larger black 6 passenger (or more) vehicles among those below with wooden spoke wheels likely is what my grandparents and father drove from Texas to California and eventually to Oregon and Washington in. The top 4 are from 1917 and the bottom 4 are from 1924. I found wooden spoke wheels on some Dodge vehicles in pictures up to about 1927 or more recent.

Below is a copy of an original 1920 Dodge Brochure for sales of this Dodge. It is free to  print out from the "Old Car Manual Project" at:http://www.oldcarbrochures.com/static/NA/Dodge/1920_Dodge_Brothers/1920%20Dodge%20Brothers.html

50 percent of U.S. will be Hurt or worse if Obamcare fails

I was looking realistically about Obamacare and what it might mean to the U.S. should it succeed through the Supreme Court or not. And the first thought is how many thousands will die without it just within the next year alone. And then I thought about how many because they wouldn't have insurance were going to cost the government thousands of dollars each because of no health care when it might have mattered to keep them healthy. But then I thought about the precedent of Individual Mandate and wondered what else the Congresses of the next several hundred years might make us as U.S. Citizens buy as well. And then I also realized that this country might go bankrupt if Obamacare doesn't pass as a nation because of just how fast to true cost of health care is rising. And then I thought, "Well. If all the people with curable diseases die because they don't have any healthcare won't that make the U.S. genetically stronger. But then I thought about how cruel such a system would be and won't that make those super specimens cruel like the NAZI's during world war II? And then I felt sick to my stomach about the whole thing because no matter whether Obamacare passes or not, the future is becoming more polarized both right and left and polarization only leads eventually to Fascism which tends to create dictatorships. And then I wondered whether the U.S. will ever stop being so extremely polarized. And then I thought that extreme change (as in Global Climate change, Tsunamis in Japan change, Tornadoes starting in January now, etc. etc. etc. really is freaking people out to the point of panic and that is why they are just so very polarized nationwide. So, what is the solution? I don't know. I only know the solution for me and my family. I don't really know how to solve the world's problems and no one else does either. So I guess we are in for it as a nation no matter what happens.

Airline Pilots on Mood Altering Drugs

I was reading a report of how 231 pilots died in accidents in a 2006 study were using mood altering drugs and the term mood altering drugs refers to a class of drugs like Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa, or Lexapro and their generic equivalents. So when Captain Osbon got erratic part of the problem was his mood altering drug which likely means he was just going onto it, coming off of it or having dosage problems with his mood altering drug which made him delusional. And part of the problem of mood altering drugs is that under certain conditions with some people that they become delusional or suicidal or both. In other words they lose complete touch with reality. For me, personally, that is why I would never use mood altering drugs because as a counselor for Emotionally disturbed teenagers in the 1990s I saw up close and personal just how bad things could get while they were on mood altering drugs.

And from my point of view I don't think having an airline pilot or flight attendant on mood altering drugs is okay. From my point of view a very low dose of LSD might have similar effects in some circumstances, especially just starting a mood altering drug treatment or coming off of a treatment or forgetting to regularly take their medicine. Any one of these times extreme complications sometimes occur. However, all this is just my personal opinion because I don't consider any mood altering drugs actually safe. Instead I see them as a way to avoid the expense of counseling. To me, it would be like getting shot by a gun and instead of removing the bullet just putting a piece of duct tape over it. But this is just my personal opinion.

Begin quote from nytimes.com

Advertise on NYTimes.com

Fracas Aloft on JetBlue Flight Shows Gap in Screening

By JAD MOUAWAD

Published: March 28, 2012

 

• 
  

Reuters

Clayton Osbon, a JetBlue pilot, was removed from the plane after it was diverted to Texas.

On Tuesday, a JetBlue pilot who was behaving erratically was physically restrained by passengers after his co-pilot locked him out of the cockpit. With chaos in the cabin, the plane, flying from New York to Las Vegas, was forced to make an emergency landing in Amarillo, Tex.

While the airline has said only that the pilot, Clayton Osbon, was suffering from a “medical condition,” the incident highlighted the delicate subject of how airlines screen pilots for fitness to fly.

Pilots are required to have annual medical checkups. But these exams, performed by general medical practitioners, are not always thorough, some pilots say, and do not typically include psychological evaluations. The airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration rely on pilots to voluntarily disclose any physical or mental health problems they may have or medication they are taking.

Captain Osbon has been employed by JetBlue since June 2000, four months after the airline started operations.

David Barger, the company’s chief executive and president, quickly took to the airwaves Wednesday, declaring that Captain Osbon was a “consummate professional” with no earlier problems. He also was a senior pilot who taught and evaluated standard operating procedures on the Airbus A320, the airline said.

“I’ve known the captain personally for a long period of time and there’s been no indication of this at all,” Mr. Barger said in an early-morning appearance on NBC’s “Today” program.

Mr. Osbon, 49, was charged by federal authorities on Wednesday with interfering with a flight crew. Under federal law, a conviction could carry a maximum sentence of 20 years. Mr. Osbon remained under medical evaluation.

An F.B.I. affidavit filed Wednesday in Federal District Court in Northern Texas said that Mr. Osbon had told the plane’s first officer that “we’re not going to Vegas.” The co-pilot “became really worried when Osbon said, ‘We need to take a leap of faith,’ ” the court document said. It described a chaotic situation on the plane, with Mr. Osbon acting erratically, running in the cabin, banging loudly on the cockpit door after being locked out by the co-pilot and shouting jumbled comments about “Jesus, September 11th, Iraq, Iran and terrorists.”

The issue of pilot health, which can also include fatigue, is longstanding. Pilots are screened for medical or psychological problems before being hired, and are randomly tested afterward for drug and alcohol use. They must undergo medical examinations once or twice a year, depending on their age, to keep their certification with the F.A.A. 

Pilots are supposed to disclose all physical and psychological conditions and medications or face significant fines, which can reach $250,000, if they are found to have falsified information, the F.A.A. said. 

But some pilots may be reluctant to disclose such information, for fear of losing their jobs, industry analysts and retired pilots said Wednesday. Many airlines also have anonymous phone lines for crew members to report suspicious behavior to professional standards committees.

Otherwise, airlines rely on the collaborative nature of the business, which provides constant checks and balances, said Robert W. Mann Jr., an airline industry analyst and a former executive with major airlines.

“Airlines have ways of monitoring the psychology of their employees because crew members typically can say, ‘I do not want to fly with Bob, he’s a jerk,’ ” Mr. Mann said. “If half of the first officers in the fleet do not want to fly with Bob, flight operation officers would know.”

Two years ago, the F.A.A. relaxed its longstanding ban on psychiatric medications for pilots, saying that new drugs for depression had fewer side effects than older drugs. The agency now grants waivers allowing pilots to fly while taking Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa or Lexapro, and their generic equivalents.

The F.A.A.’s administrator at the time, J. Randolph Babbitt, said the agency was relaxing its ban because it was concerned that some pilots with depression were not being treated, or were being secretive about it. “We need to change the culture and remove the stigma associate with depression,” Mr. Babbitt said then. 

• 1
• 2

Next Page »

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: March 28, 2012

An earlier version of this story, using information provided by the F.A.A., misstated the percentage of pilots with a first-class medical certificate who had been granted a waiver to fly while taking certain psychiatric medications. It is 0.016 percent, not 0.00016.

end quote from:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/29/business/jetblue-incident-raises-questions-about-screening-pilots.html

U.S. Losing Hacker War

 

• TECHNOLOGY
• Updated March 28, 2012, 10:31 a.m. ET

U.S. Outgunned in Hacker War

By DEVLIN BARRETT

WASHINGTON—The Federal Bureau of Investigation's top cyber cop offered a grim appraisal of the nation's efforts to keep computer hackers from plundering corporate data networks: "We're not winning," he said.

WSJ's Devlin Barrett reports the FBI is struggling to combat cyberattacks by hackers. "We're not winning," FBI executive assistant director Shawn Henry said. AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari

Shawn Henry, who is preparing to leave the FBI after more than two decades with the bureau, said in an interview that the current public and private approach to fending off hackers is "unsustainable.'' Computer criminals are simply too talented and defensive measures too weak to stop them, he said.
His comments weren't directed at specific legislation but came as Congress considers two competing measures designed to buttress the networks for critical U.S. infrastructure, such as electrical-power plants and nuclear reactors. Though few cybersecurity experts disagree on the need for security improvements, business advocates have argued that the new regulations called for in one of the bills aren't likely to better protect computer networks.
Mr. Henry, who is leaving government to take a cybersecurity job with an undisclosed firm in Washington, said companies need to make major changes in the way they use computer networks to avoid further damage to national security and the economy. Too many companies, from major multinationals to small start-ups, fail to recognize the financial and legal risks they are taking—or the costs they may have already suffered unknowingly—by operating vulnerable networks, he said.

Enlarge Image

Associated Press

'You never get ahead, never become secure, never have a reasonable expectation of privacy or security,' says Shawn Henry, executive assistant director of the FBI.

"I don't see how we ever come out of this without changes in technology or changes in behavior, because with the status quo, it's an unsustainable model. Unsustainable in that you never get ahead, never become secure, never have a reasonable expectation of privacy or security,'' Mr. Henry said.

end quote from:

 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304177104577307773326180032.html

I have often wondered about this too. Where does it all end? If I am logical there are more billions of people who might earn a living hacking around the world than any other group. Because of this potentially, as long as networks are global in actuality no matter what others might say, protecting information, privacy and even money in various banks appears to just be more and more problematic worldwide every day.

For example, it is a well known quoted fact that American businesses presently (not tomorrow, now!) lose about 1 trillion dollars a year to hackers from around the world right now! This means that you and I pay more for everything because who in the end pays for this hacking directly? That's right. You and I as consumers pay in everything we buy in the U.S. So who pays that 1 trillion dollar loss per year? American consumers do in everything they buy! So, one either considers this the true cost of doing business or we junk the internet for Business?

Health

I was thinking today what allowed me and others to still be alive at 63 and older? The first thing is genetics, a country with a good government and good food growing base, intellectual and intuitive intelligence, not drinking alcohol at all or very seldom, not smoking anything, understanding that fast foods kill in the long run if eaten every day, understanding that red meat every day reduces normal lifespans 13% of the time, understanding that life cannot be predicted at all in some ways and just accepting that fact always and not worrying about it, etc.

In my specific case it was good genetics and coming from on my father's side pioneers who had been in the U.S. since 1725 when they sailed up the Philadelphia River from England. Since then they spread to Ohio, Michigan, and my particular strain, to Kansas and then my Grandfather moved to the west coast of Washington, Oregon, Arizona and finally bought a house in Seattle. On the other side of my family though both of my grandparents were born in the U.S. both had to go back to Scotland to grow up, one because the family home in Philadelphia burned down, and the other went back to grow up because his father died when he was 8. Both met in Scotland and returned to the land of their births.

Then my father who decided to become a vegetarian for health reasons in 1934 because he was studying with Paul Bragg, (Jack LaLanne's teacher) stayed a lacto-ovo vegetarian his whole life and raised me this way too. So, I was a 100% Lacto-ovo vegetarian until age 32 when I started studying with Tibetan Lamas. They thought I needed to eat meat because they all live above 8000 feet and vegetarians cannot usually survive under those conditions, although they do well in warmer less severe climates and in places where there is good indoor heating which wasn't what Tibet was like in 1980.

A love of nature and wilderness and of mountain climbing and of traveling in general kept me generally out of jobs that left me stranded in offices which made me more healthy because I was away from smog and unhealthy city living generally after I was about 21 and finished growing up in the Los Angeles Suburbs. Believing in God was very helpful to my living this long as well. And even though being spiritually gifted and an intuitive almost took my life up until about age 23 it slowly became one of the most important things that kept me alive after I got used to being that way as an adult because I was constantly protected in many different ways and often knew most dangers even before they arose for both me and my family and this had a form of unlimited protection inherent for me and my family and encouraged positive behavior for all of us in a way that kept us all healthy and alive. So, all of these factors combined to make sure that I am still alive at age 63. However, it is important to note that until I was diagnosed with a hypothyroid condition at age 58 I didn't expect to live to be over 65. Now since I was diagnosed and started to use Armour Thyroid from Canada by a doctor's prescription I could now live to 100 or more under the right conditions.

Here is a Koan that I was given in regard to long life:

"If you want to live forever you might die right now. But if you are ready to die right now you may live forever!"

This just appears to be exactly the way life really is.

Dramatic Precipitation changes in 2011

Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog

Wettest year on record in Philadelphia; 2011 sets record for wet/dry extremes in U.S.

Posted by: JeffMasters, 3:00 PM GMT on December 12, 2011

+19

This year is now the wettest year in nearly 200 years of record keeping in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A large, wet low pressure system soaked the Northeast U.S. on Wednesday and early Thursday, bringing 2.31 inches of rain to the City of Brotherly Love, bringing this year's precipitation total in Philly to 62.26 inches. This breaks the old yearly precipitation record of 61.20 inches, set in 1867. In a normal year, Philadelphia receives about 40 inches. According to wunderground's weather historian Christopher C. Burt, this is one of the most difficult U.S. city records to break, since rainfall records in Philadelphia go back to 1820. The only other sites with a longer continuous precipitation record in the U.S. are Charleston, SC (1738 -) and New Bedford, MA (1816 -).


Figure 1. Departure of precipitation from average for 2011, as of December 6, 2011. Image credit: NOAA/HPC.

20+ inches above average precipitation in Ohio Valley, Northeast
Philadelphia is not alone in setting a wettest year in recorded history mark in 2011. Over a dozen major cities in the Ohio Valley and Northeast have set a new wettest year record, or are close to doing so. Thanks to rains associated with this year's tremendous tornado outbreaks in April in May, plus exceptionally heavy summer thunderstorm rains, combined with rains from Tropical Storm Lee and Hurricane Irene, portions of at least twelve states have seen rains more than twenty inches above average during 2011.



The fraction of the country covered by extremely wet conditions (top 10% historically) was 32% during the period January through November, ranking as the 2nd highest such coverage in the past 100 years. And if you weren't washing away in a flood, you were baking in a drought in 2011--portions of sixteen states had precipitation more than twenty inches below average (Figure 1.) The fraction of the country covered by extremely dry conditions (top 10% historically) was 22% during the period January through November, ranking as the 8th highest in the past 100 years. The combined fraction of the country experiencing either severe drought or extremely wet conditions was 56% averaged over the January - November period--the highest in a century of record keeping. Climate change science predicts that if the Earth continues to warm as expected, wet areas will tend to get wetter, and dry areas will tend to get drier--so this year's side-by-side extremes of very wet and very dry conditions should grow increasingly common in the coming decades.


Figure 2. Percentage of the contiguous U.S. either in severe or greater drought (top 10% dryness) or extremely wet (top 10% wetness) during the period January - November, as computed using NOAA's Climate Extremes Index. Remarkably, more than half of the country (56%) experienced either a top-ten driest or top-ten wettest year, a new record. Image credit: NOAA/NCDC.

Unofficial state yearly precipitation record set in Ohio
The Wilmington, Ohio NWS office announced last week that three stations in Southwest Ohio had unofficially broken the 140-year old state yearly precipitation record. Cheviot, Miamitown, and Fernbank have recorded 73.81", 71.89", and 70.85", respectively so far in 2011, beating the old record of 70.82" set at Little Mountain in 1870. According to wunderground's weather historian Christopher C. Burt, the old record should be 72.08” at Mt. Healthy, Ohio in 1880.

Wunderground's weather historian Christopher C. Burt summarizes the global weather extremes in November in his latest post.

Jeff Masters

() end quote from: http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2001

So, if you look at the drought which tends to be the most damaging you can see the worst of the drought was in Texas and in the Southwest and South east which was the worst over the largest amounts of areas. Though too much rain might bring flash floods or floods in the end droughts tend to damage areas sometimes for years (5, 10, or more).

Toobin and Reid on Supreme Court Ruling

Mr. Toobin who is a lawyer and who watches the Supreme Court Proceedings for CNN TV says he thinks the individual mandate is in trouble from what he saw today. Harry Reid Majority Democratic Leader of the Senate says in regard to his own experiences with supreme courts in States and Federal Cases that often Supreme court Justices don't telegraph their final votes in his long experience. Who is right we will have to wait until June to find out their final opinions. However, if Obamacare does pass I now believe it likely won't be an 8 to 1 passage but more likely a 5 to 4 passage if it does.

The nytimes.com has a 2 hour presentation that you can listen to of them discussing all this live from the Supreme Court. I found it interesting the kinds of questions from Justices like: paraphrased: "What about making all U.S. citizens pay for their funerals when they are young so society doesn't have to do it? Or what about having everyone join an exercise gym so their health problems would be less? I found these two questions valid and I too, have some reservations about giving congress literally infinite power to enter "Every citizen into required business contracts for life."

Even if you fully agree with Obamacare on every level, the precedent of this Law might create more and more required economic encumbrances for every U.S. Citizen created by future Congresses. So, the Supreme Court HAS to look beyond the good or ill created of Obamacare forward 100, 200, or 300 years and what the precedents of passing Obamacare as a Supreme Court could or will create. They don't want a slippery slope that infinitely encumbers all citizens into a Governmental Corporate economic snare ongoing that potentially could infinitely expand  economically through time.