Http://twentyfeetfromstardom.com/

Thank the volunteers.

To any of you who have yet to vote today, I hope that before you leave your polling place you will take a moment to thank the volunteers who help to make the process possible.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/RJmz7UJK_CY?feature=player_detailpage

Fontella Bass, seen here on the show “Shindig” in 1965 singing her hit song “Rescue Me”, died on December 26. We listened back today to an interview Terry did with Bass in 1995.

Story of cities #29: Los Angeles and the 'great American streetcar scandal'

The last train on the last line of greater Los Angeles’ Pacific Electric streetcar network made its last run on April 9, 1961.

Between 1938 and 1950, one company purchased and took over the transit systems of more than 25 American cities. 

Their name, National City Lines, sounded innocuous enough, but the list of their investors included General Motors, the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum, Mack Trucks, and other companies who stood to benefit much more from a future running on gasoline and rubber than on electricity and rails. 

National City Lines acquired the Los Angeles Railway in 1945, and within 20 years diesel buses – or indeed private automobiles – would carry all the yellow cars’ former passengers. Does that strike you as a coincidence?

Read the full story.

Photographs: AP (top); Paul Popper/Popperfoto/Getty Images (middle); Dan Chung for the Guardian (bottom)

Copiers are full of your secrets!

Copiers are full of secrets.

Did you know that modern copiers have a hard drive that digitally retains every (or nearly every) document copied on that machine and the vast majority of those machines are without any mechanism to erase or encrypt the data.  As a result when you sell or trade in a copier you are probably sending all kinds of private information that identity thieves can then get their hands on.

In addition, lawyers conducting discovery should be aware that an individual's copier or a company's copier may be a source of information relevant to an on going law suit.

One law firm I spoke with purchased what was represented as brand new copier and its hard drive was full of documents from and accounting firm. 

For a brief primer check out this video from CBS News that aired in 2010.  

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6412572n

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When I was a very little guy my father woke me one night and sat me in front of the TV during the Jack Parr show.  When I asked why he said, "Jonathan Winters is coming on next and I want you to see the funniest man in the world."

I lost my dad many years ago and today we all lost the funniest man in the world.

Not all terrorist acts are created eqaully according to Donald and Steve.

I saw a post earlier today in which the person making the post included a photo of  Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon Bombers.  The posters mocked those opposing the ban on refugees from Muslim majority countries.  Reminding readers that these two were refugees.

What wasn’t said in the post is that these two murderers were from the RUSSIAN REPUBLIC of Chechnya, a cauldron and exporter of radical Islam.

Somehow, there are no bans on refugees from Russia.  Would that cause the Vladimir not to like the the Donald and the Steve?  Would it impair the Donald’s business deals in Russia?  

While we’re at it, how is it that the ban does not include Saudi Arabia, the country of origin for most of the 9/11 attackers?