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Saturday, March 26, 2016

Alexandria trams, Egypt

built by Ganz Mavag

no trams here, but this is one of the city's icons, the Kait Bey Citadel

Midan Saad Zagloul

Ramleh station

ex-Copenhagen tram

The Alexandria tramway network consists of 20 lines operating on 32 km (20 miles) of route, serving 140 stops. It began operating in 1863 and was electrified in 1902.

It is one of only 3 non-heritage tram systems in the world that use double-deck cars; the others are Blackpool in the UK and Hong Kong. The system is standard gauge.

More info and pics

traffic on Los Angeles Freeways, late 1950s

No sound on either video.

Scotland: Muslim shopkeeper is stabbed to death by another Muslim after wishing his ‘beloved Christian nation’ a happy Easter

This event says three things:

1. Not all Muslims are bad.
2. Many of them are.
3. A major newspaper is able to report that everyone currently involved in the investigation is a Muslim following the arrest of a man aged 32 -- without being censured by authorities as would happen in Merkel's Germany and in Sweden.

Daily Mail (UK) article

Update

The murder was praised by the Imam of Scotland's biggest mosque. Will the Scottish government do anything about that? Of course not.

"The spiritual leader of Scotland's biggest mosque has praised an Islamist assassin amid fresh concerns about the threat of radicalism at the Muslim centre of worship."

Full story

1934 Chevrolet Sedan

Friday, March 25, 2016

Los Angeles is ranked the world's 10th most traffic congested city

This year's Tom Tom group survey ranking of the world's 174 most congested cities is here.

It's no surprise L.A. features near the top. Moscow and St Petersburg in Russia have got slightly better, and Istanbul significantly better. Chinese cities fill 12 of the top 30 slots.

Port of L.A. helped pay for cleaner China Shipping vessels -- which later stopped docking in L.A.

The Port of Los Angeles paid a Chinese government-owned shipping company $5 million in 2005 to equip cargo vessels to plug into electric shore power while at dock to keep their massive diesel engines from polluting neighborhoods near the harbor.

The company, China Shipping, used the money to upgrade 17 ships, but the city didn't get all the promised environmental benefits. Most of the vessels stopped traveling to Los Angeles in 2010, a Times review of shipping industry data showed.

The ships that took their place on the Asia-to-Los Angeles route were not all equipped for shore power. From 2010 to 2013, a period in which residents were promised that virtually every vessel docked at the terminal would plug in, half left their engines running, port records show. In 2012, 88% left their engines running.

L.A. Times story