Trump fans, you got taken

Safety glass was invented in the early 1920s and made available in autos. I drove a 34 Ford Pick up for several years and it had safety glass. I look at mandating in this context more like standardizing. When I was in Germany in 1962-4, their cars were banned from the USA unless they were retrofitted with safety glass and our type of headlamps. A buddy of mine bought a new MBZ and it took the factory a bit longer to Americanize the car. He wanted his to be shipped to the USA. The sealed beam was a lot better headlamp than the bulb type though later vast improvements were made to even bulbs.

At the time I was doing heavy construction, all around the jobs wore the safety helmet. We did not wear the safety glasses. I frankly would not have liked the glasses at all. i never got my eyes hurt but one time at a Tire factory where some of the crwe was welding using arc welders and I got my eyes flash burned by the welders. I had the idea by glancing away my eyes were safe. I learned the hard way welding glasses were a must.

Workers should be protected from damage. How could unions when they bargain on contreacts get better safety? By putting it into contracts. Our safety hats were mandated by somebody since the company did not allow workers to risk injury by not wearing them. At the Oakland Coliseum job that I drove piling on I got my hard hat severely damaged by the steel core that was hanging beneath the hammer and got a new hat issued by the job superintendent. He was seriously alarmed my hat was demolished and told me to not put my head in danger as I had done. If one put himself into direct danger, some of the foreman or job superintendents would lay you off since they did not want men hurt.

The site of the Coliseum.

 

It highlights that the process is actually far more complex than Democrats want to admit.

I am not clear why you don't like Heritage. I realize what you called it. But as a former Democrat, now Republican, the republicans though flawed are closer to liberty than are Democrats.

Liberty for me is a huge issue.

A clear sign of the Democrats is their answer always is more regulations and laws and bureaucrats making more rules.

The EPA no longer is helpful, it is draconian. They are SOBS of the first magnitude.

A quick example is here locally, some new luxury homes were built in the 90s. Turns out that on the side of the hills, what appeared to be a dry stream that was just a trickle in size. It was very small to say the least. EPA is not just at expected places, Their rules are all over the place. One of the dozer operators accidently put a bit of dirt on the "stream that was dry" so the inspector on the job, called EPA due to the law and the contractor paid a fine that was so serious it was news in the newspaper.

I knew the city engineer and asked him to comment to me and he told me the entire story. And he agreed it was crazy and he was ashamed he played any part in it. But he was forced to by law.

Avalon is the location.

http://www.avalon94539.com/



One example of a home there



Different home

 

Cool photo!

When we look at improvements in auto safety, from safety glass to ABS, we find a constant: they first appear as optional equipment (often only on top-of-the-line models). The option gradually spreads across the model line, and finally is made mandatory on all models. I'm of two minds about this process. It's logical to introduce any novelty on only a portion of the fleet, so as to be sure that it's a good thing before generalization. But too often, it means that safety is just for the wealthy... which disgusts me.

Personal safety equipment has improved greatly since the 60s... and its effective usage has become much stricter. In my experience, union input to this evolution has been primarily in helping to define priorities for spending whatever money management is willing to invest in safety. Management has gradually increased the safety envelope... but my personal impression is that that progress has been largely due to pressure from government inspectors.

Hard hats are a good example. Like you said, there was a time, not all that long ago, when nobody bothered. Nowadays, safety inspectors ensure that the plastic helmets are not in service after their expiration date (the plastic degrades over time.) All the companies I worked with (I was a consultant) did their best to skimp on safety gear.

 

I hear your story about the little stream. It isn't reasonable. On the other hand... I prefer clean streams to polluted streams.

Do you remember when the Cuyahoga River caught fire? I do not believe for a single second that the companies that dumped so much cr*p into that river would have ever have ceased if not forced to do so. Companies pollute. Period. Industrial processes generate waste, which must be disposed of. That disposal is a cost. Management is paid to limit costs. (Management is not paid to protect the environment, or workers, or customers. Management is paid to maximize shareholder benefits. Period.) So management will naturally resort to the cheapest means of disposal. If "dump the sh!t in the river" is an available option, management will do that.

I am not "against business". Nor am I "against gravity". Both gravity and business are... what they are. We learn to control the negative aspects of gravity because we know we can't change gravity's nature. Likewise, we're never going to change business's nature. Business will pollute if allowed to do so. That is as certain as gravity. It's up to everyone to find effective means for preventing business from polluting.

EPA is far from perfect. But I would not like to see the Cuyahoga catch fire again.

 

If you mean the fire in 1969, as it was way back then, and since I live in CA, at that time I was less interested in distant rivers on fire. I then owned a machine shop that I was very busy keeping 4 workers going.

But I have read up on it and there are claims it was more myth than fact.

https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/63#.WLtNPTvyvcs

I can't pass my own independent judgement on it but do not accept fires created by waste or pollution dumped in with no thought of the damage going on. It is inhuman to do that to any river.

When I worked for Foundation Constructors from California, we were working at the Richmond, CA oil refinery. We had to pull out some piling and replace them with new piling along with repairs to the docks there. Piledrivers do that due to union rules.

We were all told to ensure nothing from the job, got into the San Francisco Bay. If you accidently put a piece of the dock, made of wood, the size of a baseball bat or smaller into the bay, it would cause the company to pay a fine of then $10,000. That was in 1980. A fine that large for a tiny bit of wood is extravagant in my view. But safe to say, the company did care and we did not allow wood to stay in the water. It was not possible given it was heavy construction not to get a bit in the water time to time.

I never saw a river on fire nor do i want one to be on fire.

 

To give you an idea, for a normal tract home gutters by the street, They have a lot more water flowing in a mild rain than did the so called stream at Avalon. The main issue was the fine at the time was around $15,000 as I recall. Dick said the fix was super easy and should never have caused a fine at all. Dick was then the City engineer here.

 

Your newspaper article is excellent. I was unaware tbat the river had had previous, more serious fires. That the 1969 fire was the last of several, and that the fact that it was the last was proof of the success of anti-pollution actions.

Thanks for the information.

 

I am super pleased to add to what you already knew. I was in the dark until you brought it up. I noticed they a ship fire in 1952 as well. We need some way to get ships off the water since they cause fires.

 

I was living in point richmond in 1980.

 

I drove by that going to and leaving the job. We entered a gate and drove all over the refinery until reaching the road leading to the dock. From the Richmond San Rafael bridge you can see the dock we repaired. Tankers dock there as do several tugboats.

My son loves a restaurant at Point Richmond. I never went there yet but might stop when next pass that area if I don't forget.

I believe it is the Hotel Mac Restaurant. He knows a super wealthy man who made maybe over a billion dollars who also goes to model train events. And this guy refuses to let any of the people at the table with him pay for a meal or wine, etc. Since they know each other well, my son who is 58 manages to have quite the meals. And my son is no user.He would be willing to pick up the tab but the guy won't allow it. If forget what he did but it might be he was one of the founders of pay pal.

 

clearly you havent read up on it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Izc9t_Hhc88

 

I went there once or twice, but that was a long time ago. There's really not much to do there, to be honest. Cross the train tracks and you end up in richmond proper, and you don't want to end up in richmond proper.

Just interesting how small the world is.

 

Richmond or bust if you plan to die. Still, my son speaks highly of that restaurant.

 

I keep reading posts like this and thinking. Why aren't Americans demanding more from their politicians?

 

I think they do demand but they're ignored. Here's a link to an article on the Princeton study that found the US is an oligarchy and the majority's wishes have almost zero effect on political policy, Bird:

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

 

Apparently to get the Sessions controversy off the front page, Trump decided to start another controversy. Inexplicably, he tweeted Thursday morning, "Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!"

This was followed by another incomprehensible tweet. "Is it legal for a sitting President to be "wire tapping" a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!"

And still another, "How low has President Obama gone to tapp [sic] my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!"

He offered no evidence to the surreal claim and told no one where he got the information. It took a full 24 hours for the White House to react to Trump's allegations, and it did so with still another odd twist. The New Yorker reports, "Trump asked Congress to investigate his own seemingly baseless allegation that President Obama ordered a wiretap on him in the run up to the 2016 election, despite the fact that the White House is refusing to provide any evidence that such a wiretap even happened. Press Secretary Sean Spicer, in a statement released Sunday morning, instead insisted that 'reports concerning potentially politically motivated investigations immediately ahead of the 2016 election are very troubling,' though he, like Trump, did not cite any sources for that claim."

It is shameful that a sitting President would accuse his predecessor of wrongdoing without a shred of evidence then call him a "bad (or sick) guy!" Is our President a well man?

What are the ramifications of all this? That is the strange part. The White House does not order wire taps. Law enforcement agencies, like the FBI, do, and they must obtain a warrant. Did Trump just admit to the whole world that a member or members of his staff were under investigation by the FBI? Or was he lying? Those are the only two choices.

A Breitbart article told its readers about a Mark Levin statement. Levin is a conservative radio talk show host. He said, "The evidence is overwhelming. This is not about President Trump’s tweeting. This is about the Obama administration spying, and the question is not whether it spied. We know they went to the FISA court twice. The question is who they did spy on and the extent of the spying that is the Trump campaign, the Trump transition, Trump surrogates.”

This is further indication that Trump let it out that his staff was under investigation by the FBI. At the very least it means, the basis for Trump's astonishing tweets were the comments of an entertainer.

As the chief law enforcement officer in the land, it is perfectly ludicrous for Trump to ask Congress to investigate wiretaps. Ultimately, he is in charge of the FBI, CIA, and the other fifteen law enforcement agencies. He can simply order them to disclose any relevant wiretaps.

This whole episode was designed by Trump to get the media to turn the page on Sessions. In that sense, it worked. He may have gotten rid of the Sessions controversy by creating a bigger controversy. Allow me to ask, how bright was that?