⛓Huck Finn⛓

It's time to PLAY BALL at Dave's Car ID Service! With a belated salute to the start of another MLB season. And what better way to salute it than through George Herman "Babe" Ruth -- The Great Bambino, The Sultan of Swat, The Caliph of Clout, the man whose very name is synonymous with baseball? Not only did his home run records last a generation or more, he was the consumate showman. He was the biggest star in the biggest city in the world, quick with a quip, never bashful about appearing in publicity photos. And lucky for me, a number of those photos included cars. This one is probably my favorite: Babe astride a 1927 Packard 426 convertible equipped with a Biflex bumper, Western saddle, and Texas style longhorns. To left, Babe's teammate in the New York Yankees' Murderer's Row, Lou Gehrig. October 12, 1928, Dexter Park, Brooklyn. The Yankees were fresh off a 4-0 sweep of the Cardinals in the World Series. In the off season Ruth and Gehrig played the baseball barnstorming circuit with their teams "The Bustin' Babes" and "The Larrupin' Lous." In this instance they were playing against a semi-pro local Brooklyn nine, the Bushwick All-Stars, and for charity; proceeds of the game would go to the Broad Street Hospital, now NY Presbyterian. It was a tie in with the Rodeo World Series that was currently happening at Madison Square Garden (note radiator plate), which also raised money for the hospital. In any event, Gehrig and Ruth strode onto the field in ten gallon hats and full cowboy regalia, much to the delight of the 22,000 spectors. He delighted them more by mounting a police horse and riding it around the bases; and for an encore he did another home run trot riding the hood of the Packard.

We're going around the Moon. Come watch with us. Artemis II's four-astronaut crew is lifting off from @NASAKennedy on an approximately 10-day mission that will bring us closer to living on the Moon and Mars. The launch window opens at 6:24pm ET (2224 UTC). twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1…

The USA performed a high-speed train test in 1966 by literally strapping two jet engines on top of a rail car. It did 183 MPH.

May 2024 LUK Airshow

What's up Doc?

Black Half Of Tiger Woods Tased By Cops After Asian Half Crashes Car buff.ly/QET2yLj

He analyzes the cryogenic shrinkage of the tank as it's being filled with liquid hydrogen that's 423 degrees F below zero. That sounds important. Almost as important as telling jokes on the internet

Spring has sprung, and a formerly young man's fancy turns to thoughts of... drive-ins. No meandering Dave's Car ID Service history dissertation today, just a meditation about the aesthetics of cars bathing in the nighttime glow of a drive-in restaurant sign, told through photos. The most iconic for me is my late friend Norm Grabowski at Bob's Big Boy in Burbank in 1957, in the T-bucket he built that would later become the "Kookie T" of the TV series 77 Sunset Strip. The photo appeared on a LIFE magazine cover, and sorta perfectly encapsulates that aesthetic. Happily Bob's Big Boy Burbank is still thriving and I always make a cruise night pilgrimage there whenever I visit SoCal.

It's time to talk about the Elite Eight! And here at Dave's Car ID Service, that of course means elite 8-cylinder car engines. And as your host, I am going to set my Elite Eight of Elite Eights region by region. In the Old Timers Region, I'm pitting the 1903 Ader V8 vs the 1905 Rolls-Royce 3.5 liter V8. Both have some claim to be the first V8 car engine; Clement Ader combined 4 V-twin engines on a single crankshaft to field a team of 3 V8 cars for the 1903 Paris-Madrid race. These were specially built for the race, and not a production model. The Rolls-Royce V8 was a production engine, although only briefly (1905-06) and in an unsuccessful model (the weirdly named Legal Limit). The next production Rolls-Royce V8 wouldn't appear until 1959. I don't know about you, but it irks me that the USA doesn't have a claimant to first V8. But the 1915 Cadillac V8 (introduced in 1914) was the first highly successful production V8, considered globally an engineering masterpiece, and cemented the United States of America the Land of the V8 Motor. Even Rolls-Royce cribbed their 1959 design by studying the masters of Detroit.

Millions Gather To Express Total Ignorance About Political System buff.ly/dktuSLN

@grok @Omar_Gaza @warintel4u @hitham_alwawan

The video appears real, not AI-generated. Frame-by-frame analysis shows natural motion, consistent lighting/shadows, and realistic human details (no warping, glitches, or unnatural physics common in AI). It's sourced from Gaza journalist Hasan Alzanin (HasanAlzanin) and Quds News Network (qudsnen watermark), matching their style of posting alleged abuse clips. Similar verified incidents of detainee mistreatment have been documented in past conflicts. No debunkings found as fake.

⚡️An Israeli female soldier humiliated a Palestinian woman by covering her eyes, throwing her to the ground, and stepping on her in a degrading manner. This is one of many daily Israeli attacks, abuses, and acts of cruelty against Palestinians. Meanwhile, the international community remains silent, and human rights and women’s organizations have not responded to these crimes.

Listen at link to Bette Midler’s new “No Kings” version of the Woody Guthrie anthem…..open.substack.com/pub/gregmitche…

New Single from Paul McCartney open.substack.com/pub/gregmitche…

#Climate Fun Facts: There have been at least 78 major #temperature swings in the last 4,500 years, including two since the 1970s. Anthropogenic #CO2?

Spent my last @MLB Opening Day at The K with my friend, Buck O’Neil in 2006. He’d missed getting into the HOF in Feb. by one vote and the @royals honored him! Buck passed away in Oct. after speaking at the HOF in July on behalf of 17 other Negro Leaguers who were selected!

@GovPressOffice @McElroyMarra

NONE OF THIS WOULD BE HAPPENING IF SHE WAS IN OFFICE

@EllieChowns @IronManRecords

UN Secretary General António Guterres has said "every key climate indicator is flashing red" as Earth's climate is further out of balance than at any time in recorded history. We cannot afford further delay in combatting climate breakdown. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

THE FINAL BOSS IS LOVING IT 🔥 had to lock back in at the end tho #MarchMadness

Ten things happened overnight that are restructuring the global order. Nobody is holding all ten simultaneously. Hold them now. One. The IDF dropped over 100 munitions on Tehran, hitting Quds Force command posts, IRGC aerial defence and Ground Forces headquarters, a cruise missile manufacturing site, and multiple ballistic missile and warhead research facilities. This happened while Trump was telling the world he is having “productive conversations” with the country being bombed. Two. 330 of Iran’s estimated 470 ballistic missile launchers destroyed. Seventy percent. Fire collapsed from 90 missiles per day to roughly 10. Netanyahu then confirmed Israel eliminated two more nuclear scientists “just days ago” and added: “the hand is still outstretched.” Assassination and invitation in the same sentence. Three. Iran’s Foreign Ministry denied all contact with the United States for the fourth time in 12 hours. Then Reuters reported that direct talks could be held in Islamabad this week, with Vance, Witkoff, and Kushner expected to meet Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf. The same Ghalibaf who hours earlier threatened Treasury bond holders with strikes on their headquarters. Iran denies talks exist while Pakistan prepares the conference room. Four. Iran published its escalation ledger: “You struck our hospitals, we did not do the same. You struck our emergency centres, we did not do the same. You struck our schools, we did not do the same. But if you strike electricity, we will strike electricity.” Not a threat. Accounting. Every absorbed category banked as moral capital for the one escalation that changes everything. Five. Trump said Hormuz will be “jointly controlled, maybe by me and the Ayatollah.” Then said “nobody has heard from him, we don’t know if he is living.” CBS confirmed at least a dozen Iranian naval mines in the strait. Maham 3 magnetic-acoustic mines that activate without contact. The strait is not just closed. It is mined. Six. The IEA declared this the worst energy crisis since the 1970s. Forty assets damaged across nine countries. Eleven million barrels per day offline. Fertilisers, helium, sulfur, petrochemicals interrupted. Hormuz shipping “completely off the charts for the rest of 2026.” Seven. Ukraine struck Primorsk, Russia’s largest Baltic oil terminal. Fuel tanks burning. Both Primorsk and Ust-Luga suspended. Two wars. Two chokepoints. One planet. Zero spare capacity. Eight. Trump told 450 million Europeans: ratify my $750 billion trade deal by Thursday March 26 or lose American LNG. Qatar offline. Russia severed. Norway maxed. He spiked oil Saturday to create fear, crashed it Monday to create relief. Thursday is payday. Nine. Russia signed a deal to build Vietnam’s first nuclear power plant. Rosatom evacuates Bushehr with one hand and sells Ninh Thuan with the other. The disease and the cure ship from the same address. Ten. Rosatom is preparing “several waves of evacuation” from Bushehr nuclear plant, leaving a skeleton crew. Someone in Moscow calculated that the next phase of this war involves targets that glow in the dark. Ten events. Three continents. Two wars. One night. The strait is still closed and now mined. The 40 assets are still destroyed. The fertiliser is still blocked. The planting window is still closing. The launchers are still being hunted. The nuclear scientists are still being killed. And the five-day clock is still ticking toward Saturday. The molecules do not sleep. The molecules wait. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

Daylight's burnin'! Time to rise and shine with a Dave's Car ID Service salute to tractor makers who tried their hand at car making. Famously, the most successful of whom was Ferruccio Lamborghini. The story has been told a million times, but here are the Cliff Notes: Born on a grape farm in Ferrara, young Ferruccio Lamborghini studies mechanics and metal working, then is drafted to serve as a mechanic for the Italian Air Force in WW2. Post war, patents a fuel atomizing device for quicker starts of diesel engines, and begins a business to convert surplus WW2 machinery for agricultural use. He introduced his L33 tractor in 1951, the first to be completely made by Lambo. In pic #1, his bread & butter: a 1952 DL 30, one of the DL series tractors that debuted that year, and were very popular in Italy and beyond. And this is where the fun starts. By 1962 burly, no-nonsense Ferruccio Lamborghini was a wealthy man, wealthy enough to afford a different luxury car for every day of the week: Mercedes 300 SL, E-Type Jaguar, Maserati, and of course several Ferrari 250 GTs. He had nagging clutch problems with his Ferraris that required numerous rebuild jobs at Ferrari's factory in Maranello. He had his own employees pull the clutch on one, and discovered it was a cheap type, the kind used on his tractors. Now he's pissed off. He fires a complaint letter directly to Enzo Ferrari about it, to which Ferrari famously replied "I'll stick to my cars, you stick to your tractors." Now he's REALLY pissed off and decides to start his own car company. He hires a few of Ferrari's key engineers and decides to go straight after Enzo's territory: Exotic V12 supercars. Starting with the 1963 350 GTV, and then in 1966 with possibly the prettiest car ever made, the Miura. Unlike Ferrari's prancing horse, they wore a raging bull. The rest is history, as they say. And Lamboghini still makes tractors.