A moment of time changing the history of employment, the horsedrawn fire engine in route to the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire

found on http://edwardianera.tumblr.com/page/7

Link roundup

1. "A 10,000 square kilometer (3,861 sq. mile) island sank beneath the waves long ago, in the frigid waters of the Atlantic north of Scotland."

2. Last chance to enter my iPad game giveaway. I'll pick a winner tonight.

3. Smog miniature-painting contest announced.

4. This is a positive review of Captain America: Super Soldier, and it's still only a 6.5 out of 10. You know, when I was a kid, we really didn't know any better. There was no internet, and Gamepro was brand new. Mostly, you bought a game based on the packaging and then realized your mistake almost as soon as you turned on the NES. But now, with games costing $60 each, and online reviews being so quick and easy to find, how do video game publishers keep getting away with selling garbage?

Link roundup

1. Art box giveaway.

2. Really interesting article about the economy.

3. The new Captain America: Super Solider video game is apparently barely worth a day rental: "The game (which runs to a stingy six hours at best) is sparsely populated by instantly-forgettable enemies."

4. io9 reviews the Warren Ellis/Berg comic SVK ($32 for 40 lackluster pages).

The Great Daylight 1972 Fireball

Wikipedia:

The Great Daylight 1972 Fireball was an Earth-grazing meteoroid which passed within 57 kilometres (35.4 miles) of the surface of the Earth at 20:29 UTC on August 10, 1972. It entered the Earth's atmosphere in daylight over Utah, United States (14:30 local time) and passed northwards leaving the atmosphere over Alberta, Canada. It was seen by many people and recorded on film and by space-borne sensors.

More at Astronomy Pic of the Day. Via.

1934, the all the west coast longshoremen, teamsters, and seamen unions went on strike and the national guard was called in

The nationwide labor upsurge of 1934 reached its peak in San Francisco. On May 9, 1934, leaders of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) called a strike of all West Coast dockworkers, demanding a wage scale of the 6-day, 30-hour week at a minimum rate of $1 per hour, a “closed shop” (union membership as a requirement of employment), and union-administered hiring halls.

On May 15 teamsters, boilermakers and machinists voted a sympathy strike along with sailors and marine firemen’s union, involving 4,000 men, and 700 marine cooks and stewards took similar action the next day. Ferry boatmen, masters, mates and pilots, and marine engineers first struck against several companies for higher wages and a closed-shop contract, and subsequently the entire local was called out in a body. Not a single freighter left a Pacific coast port “for the first time in history.”

Enraged employers, backed by a sympathetic mayor and police chief, used every means available to open the waterfront and protect strikebreakers, whom they imported in large numbers. Working closely with local politicians and the press, the employers set out to convince the public that the strike was controlled by “Reds” intent on overthrowing the government.

These scare tactics led to an investigation of employer actions by a Senate subcommittee. The flagrant destruction of many of the records of the Industrial Association, described in this report, effectively prevented the Committee from obtaining full documentary evidence on the activities of the association. Violations of Free Speech and Rights of Labor, the subcommittee’s 1942 report, described the concerted efforts of the Industrial Association, the newspapers, and the San Francisco police to discredit the strike.

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5134/ for the entire report

Didn't see that in your American History book did you. Just one case in a long history of corporate greed versus workers and unions, and just one example of the people with the money fdoing anything at all to make more money and the people with power abusing it. Both the money and the power calling the shots and forcing the cops and national guard to shoot the strikers. No kidding.
Photos from http://www.johngutmann.org/

A deep south speedtrap so bad, it was national news, and the state govenor had warning signs installed on the town limits, Ludowici Georgia

TWO large roadside billboards just inside the county lines north and south of town used to guard the approach to Ludowici. Placed there by Governor Lester Maddox, they warned approaching motorists of "speed traps" and "clip joints" in large black letters on a white background

The county seat, and location of all three of the county's newspapers. It was also one of the best-known little nowheres in the country. Sitting astride the junction of federal highways 301, 25 and 82, Ludowici commanded the traditional north-south highway to Florida; 1,000,000 motorists drive through town each year. But in 1975 the Interstate 95 diverted traffic around it.

During the '50s it became known as the site of a treacherous stop light that trapped motorists by changing from green to red without warning, after which the travelers were ticketed by a waiting policeman. Since 1960 when the light was replaced, Ludowici's speed traps have bilked motorists of a rumored $100,000 annually. Said Governor Maddox: "The place is lousy, rotten, corrupt, nasty and no good."

Ludowici has nevertheless defied the efforts of three Governors to shut down the speed traps. For years some of the local gas stations also conducted a profitable con game. When an unsuspecting motorist stopped to have his oil checked, the attendant would disable the car by tinkering with the generator or pouring water in the crankcase oil, then suggest that the customer move his crippled vehicle to a nearby garage for repair. Fittingly enough, the repair shop was called "Billy Swindel's."

The man behind the speed trap, and behind everything else in Ludowici, was the county's colorful political boss, Ralph Dawson, a back-country lawyer who ran Long County since 1932, he headed a political machine that never lost an election at the county or city level.

from a Time magazine article in 1970
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,909123,00.html