[Satan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3JbKimTdMg

[atsonicpark]

ngod?

[davenotdead]

today/last night was fun. i love america.

[ann ashtray]

I wonder how the bats are feelin' about the fireworks.

[Lamont Cranston]

The Fourth of July is famous for other reasons, but today also is the 150th anniversary of the first run of the first street railway on the Pacific Coast - a two-car steam train that ran up San Francisco's Market Street.

The Market Street Railroad, which ran from Third and Market out to Valencia Street and then to 16th Street, was dirty, noisy and ultimately a financial flop, but it was the start of something big.

Rail cars have run on or under Market Street ever since, and the first rail line turned Market Street from an unpaved and undeveloped cow path through towering sand dunes into the city's main stem.

Surveyor Jasper O'Farrell had laid out Market as a grand boulevard in the 1850s, but the infant San Francisco grew up around Portsmouth Square not far from Telegraph Hill. If San Francisco had a main street it was Montgomery, where all the best businesses were located.

Emiliano Echeverria, who has co-written eight books on San Francisco transit, said that in 1860 Market Street had nothing but potential.

It was "off the beaten path," he said. It petered out around Third Street, and west of Third there were only a few houses, and a number of sand hills, some 50 to 60 feet high.

The only public transportation conveyances in the city were horse-drawn omnibuses, which could seat 10 or 12 passengers, jolting along potholed and muddy streets. The omnibuses charged what the traffic would bear - at first the fare was $1 a ride, which was a fortune in those days.

The route of the pioneering Market Street rail line went through "wild country, the middle of nowhere," Echeverria said.

The rail line changed all that. "It set the wheels in motion, if you'll pardon the expression," Echeverria said.

The Market Street train wasn't much - a steam engine that was part locomotive and part passenger car, and a trailer car. If the cars were crowded, passengers could ride on the roof. There was a single track down the middle of Market and up Valencia.

In a couple of years, there were new houses rising on Market Street extending west out to about 12th Street, and the Mission District started to build up. By then, the city had outgrown the two-car steam trains, which were noisy and dirty and took three men to operate.

By 1867, the steam trains were replaced with a new invention: rail cars drawn by horses. Then came a building boom and horse-car lines were built out Valencia, out Hayes, Haight, McAllister and Castro streets. All lines fed into Market.

By 1883, the horse-car lines were converted to cable cars, with a cable slot down the middle. Old-timers used to call everything on the other side of Market Street "South of the Slot."

The cables ran on tight headways; by the turn of the 20th century, a cable car was at the Ferry Building at rush hour every 15 seconds, transit historians say.

The 1906 earthquake and fire finished the Market Street cables, replaced by electric streetcars - on four tracks. The cars made so much noise that "The Roar of the Four" could be heard for miles.

BART built a subway later, and then came the Municipal Railway's Muni Metro system. On a weekday, there are close to 290,000 boardings on the Market Street subway, bus and streetcar systems, the equivalent of the entire population of Buffalo, N.Y.

"Market Street has had rail transit on its surface longer than any other main street in America," says Rick Laubscher, president of the nonprofit Market Street Railway, a partner of the Muni system that operates a streetcar museum at Mission Street and the Embarcadero. It will offer a free exhibit on the old steam railroad starting July 15.

well there we go

[EVOLghost]

Originally Posted by Satan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3JbKimTdMg

this was played for the finale of the fireworks show hosted at my friends house.

[jon boy]

what is wrong with americans?

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

 

[Rob Instigator]

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government.
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

[Rob Instigator]

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
google_protectAndRun("ads_core.google_render_ad", google_handleError, google_render_ad);For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

[Keeping It Simple]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

 

Have you read the band's wikipedia entry?

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&sou...0 9yWMM4Yv5rw

[!@#$%!]

 

i had a nice 4th. i hope all gringos did too.

[ink.]

best america birthday ever!

[Bytor Peltor]

SO - who is doing what over the Holiday weekend?

I've been off the past three days and return to work tonight. However, tomorrow we are kicking it backyard style at my Aunt's house who just had a new in-ground pool installed.

The grill will be fired up with enough burgers and hot dogs for all to enjoy! My wife is going grocery shopping later today and will be making her world famous sopapilla cheesecake with homemade whipped cream.

The Interstate Ten traffic was crazy yesterday afternoon as many have already started their long weekend. I'm sure it will be more so this evening, so please be careful if you are hitting the roads.

If you can, try and see some Fireworks and celebrate our Freedom!

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Bytor Peltor

SO - who is doing what over the Holiday weekend?

watching the world cup and otherwise staying away from people

locking the gates

reading books

shooting guns (wabbit, stay out of my basil)

drinking beer that tastes of blueberries

waiting for the rain to come

[Rob Instigator]

Does playing Skyrim for 12 hours straight count?

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

Does playing Skyrim for 12 hours straight count?

ive never played that.

is it any good? and does it have a standalone mode?

[Bytor Peltor]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

drinking beer that tastes of blueberries

Funny you should mention this as my cousins husband loves this Louisiana strawberry beer and it's very tasty.

 

Don't recall seeing a blueberry brewed beer?

[Bytor Peltor]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

Does playing Skyrim for 12 hours straight count?

To be completely honest, I had to look that up.

So if you are willing to play for twelve hours tomorrow, but must be pretty good? Does Mrs. Instigator play?

Just make sure you have some good eats......

[Rob Instigator]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

ive never played that.

is it any good? and does it have a standalone mode?

it is ONLY standalone. No co-op. Just you, a massive world, and endless possibilities.

It is a role playing game for sword and fantasy types, but so free form and open ended you feel like you are living in a movie or something.