Lincoln

At this moment, I’m outside on my back porch, I’ve got some scraps of lumber, cut end pieces from a house in I am repairing. The fire is crackling, it’s not too cold to be warmed today. My wife and I just returned from seeing Lincoln. I must say there were a few parts of the movie that made me wish I had studied history more and knew it better. Lots of little details in this movie. Lincoln is unquestionably the most moving and fantastic movie about historical events that I have ever seen. I can tell you without hesitation that Sally Field (plays Mary Todd Lincoln) will be receiving every award assignable for her part in this movie. She nearly ran away with it from her first scene. Daniel Day Lewis did complete justice to the unassailable character of Abraham Lincoln an will without a doubt be decorated as well. Every actor in the film pulls off their parts to perfection. It is as if you are there with Lincoln rooting for the end of slavery, pulling for the 13th amendment. I felt complete immersion in the story.

What a horrible scourge on our country to have ever given into the evil of slavery. It’s a savage, evil an unethical practice. I was in part angered then saddened as to today’s state of affairs where Lincoln’s role, a Republican congress & house is minimized. How curious it is that Lincoln was a republican, he had full republican support and had to fight bribe and threaten the Democrats at every turn to clean this filth from our country’s future. History’s greatest Republican gave the full measure of himself. How did we get from there to where we are today?

Lincoln is a stunning experience. Those that love freedom and the fundamental ideals that gave us freedom will struggle as I did to keep a dry eye. Highly recommended, although it would be nice if more than the choir went to see it. Some ideals are worth struggling for, worth fighting for as we still do and I trust you do as well. Let freedom ring!

Dave Thacker
Radical RC

Internet Movie Database: Lincoln

Thirteenth Amendment: Wiki Page

Thirteenth Amendment: See Actual Document

News In History Blog Site with: newspaper reports from the era.

Fredrick Douglas Repuplican on historic voting record of congress and other facts: Did You Know?<\a>

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Ironic & True, Words Carry Many Meanings

Life is full of victory and disappointment. From the small things like considering how well a garden plant will grow, to considering how a model may (or may not) perform to personal relationships – some that develop fruitfully – others not so much, to outcomes of career choices and even to how we impact our country and world. I have noticed in our language, we have a word. A word that is always applied in supportive, positive and confident tones. It could be used in place of words like “faith”, “Knowledge” or “Confidence” in many of the same discussions and thoughts. Listeners would get the idea, because of the broad way in which we apply words in the English language. However, we don’t use it in place of those words. We won’t use it that way ever. In fact, using it in place of these words might even impugn or insult the reputation of someone. It suggests an undesired yet accepted likely outcome of failure.

Let me give you an example. John is faced with a difficult decision. On one hand he can choose “A” to benefit himself at the expense of another’s rights and property. On the other hand, at expense to himself he could choose “B” for which we would all agree is the honorable thing. We know John well and we know his character is above reproach. He’s trustworthy in the extreme, even when unobserved. If someone asked us what John will do, we can all confidently describe our prediction of his action. We might say things like, “We know he will do the right thing, he will choose B.” We might say, “We have faith (or confidence) John will make the right call, He’ll choose B.” These words carry with them our relative sureness of future events and the strength we see in John.

We use our subject word in another way however. Certainly you use it this way, yet I would suggest you might not have considered fully what you mean when you say it. When the reality of a situation is such that history, the facts, logic, your experience or the probabilities predict an unpleasant or unwanted result. We use another word to describe our desire for things to turn out favorably when consciously or subconsciously we know the result is likely to be unfavorable. Poor John, if all you can say for him is “I hope he will do the right thing.” Sad for your work if you hope to survive the layoffs. Sad for your business if you only hope to make a profit this quarter. Sad for everyone of us when all that is left is hope. Hope is a word of last resort, a salve, a word used to comfort us in advance of expected failure. It’s also a word of resignation, it always acknowledges lack of will to control or lack of control of a situation.

It’s not unlike the word “wish”. In fact, I’m not certain you could ever say it had any different meaning. I remember a lesson my late father would often repeat as I was growing up. When I was hoping or wishing out loud he’d ask me “If you put hope (or wishes) in one hand and shit in the other, what would you get?” Though the lesson seems crass outwardly, It doesn’t take too much thought to understand this lesson, it contains an important truth about life. That lesson was about replacing hope and wishes with action. If you want to avoid getting only a bunch of shit, forget about the hope and wishes, get out there and make your dreams come true, make it happen, do something about it.

My name is Dave Thacker, and I’m doing something about it.

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Running out of fuel…..

wayne reece
Wayne as a young man
While on a recent trip to visit with friends in Flint Michigan, I had some time to listen to the radio. I discovered a facinating story telling show on PBS.

The show is called “The Moth”, the website where you can download many of these stories is www.themonth.com.

The moving short story I heard was told by Wayne Reece from episode 1207. To hear the story, follow the link to Wayne Reece / The Moth) where you’ll find a clickable player.

Radio Moth Hour Podcast Site
The Moth Homepage & Blog Site

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Edmund Burke – “All that is….”

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Edmund Burke

How common is it that the good people outnumber those with evil (selfish) intent and yet evil prevails? Your part may be a small, however, it is an important part of good winning. Step up and speak up when evil is seeking a foothold. You cannot lay aside your responsibility to act or step by step your rights slip away.

I recently was compelled to speak at a public zoning meeting where the City of Riverside was was attempting to use predatory zoning practices under the sweet sounding name of “Urban Compact” in an attempt to force citizens in my neighborhood to pay for a conversion of our properties into an office/shopping/residential complex at the home owners expense. They wanted to require any home that was sold to be brought up to a modern design and zoning standard before it could be reoccupied by it’s new owner. Silly things like selling your home or replacing the siding with siding that has specific vertical groove spacing, building shields to hide any AC units. Shielding any antenna’s from public view. Selling your home or making any repairs in excess of $5000 would trigger the “must update or destroy (refusal of occupancy permit)” zoning clause. Imagine a limb falls and damages your roof or the wind blows and you need a new roof and that the cost is over $5000. What if you have a small kitchen fire and wish to repair it? Now you have to bring your home up to the new standard or sell it to somebody willing to tear it down or make the updates to the new community shopping/office standard. The new zoning rules even included the phrase “no current building will be encouraged to continue”. Clearly, the “Urban Compact” zoning scheme was designed to bring the clinking of bulldozer tracks to me and my neighbors.

The city has made several attempts to clear out the neighborhood for development over the years. This attempt lead to so many people showing up for the zoning board meeting that it had to be moved the city garage. Good people can stand up and defend themselves, their way of life, their country and their property rights.

Don’t lay down for it, get out there and stand up for yourself and your country.

The city’s prior attempt including declaring an entire block of properties including my own as “Blighted”. Mine it was claimed should be turned over to city ownership because it had an area of cracked paint, a crack in the parking lot with a puddle after it rained. Of course they hired an “impartial” service to provide the exact report they wanted for every home and building in the block. This attempt to push people out of their homes was foiled by supreme court rulings before the city’s plan and the citizens rights could be executed.

At this same meeting, I learned of a law passed a year ago banning all signs. Even political ones. In the prior meeting minutes that were read, evidentaly the city attourny had been on hand explaining the problem of denying people free speech. Yes, it required somebody with a law degree to explain it to them.

Those that purport to be public servants over time can become arrogant and lose sight of what being a servant of the citizens is. It is required for citizens to stand up and re-adjust these attitudes from time to time. This is what elections and counsel meetings are all about. Anytime you hear a public official justifying stripping Americans of their rights for the “greater good” you know you have encountered this arrogance (or possibly worse). I can tell you absolutely without any reservation that I won’t lay down for it. Politicians responsible for these kinds of activities should be replaced regardless of party affiliations.

It might shock you to learn that I am of course in favor of the neighborhood developing. However, the right way is for the city to purchase the properties one by one and do with them what they wish. Not to use the mechanics of beurocracy to beat citizens out.

Edmund Burke Quote Page

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If it’s Dark Matter, Flush It Down

A collision of galaxy clusters about 3.5 billion light years away.
I’ve got no business commenting on something I know so little about, but here goes nothing…..

From the moment I heard this theory that 80% of the universe was made from an as of yet un-discovered “dark mattter” it reeked of another “scientific hoax” or perhaps just some high level silliness. Apparently, for current gravity theories to be correct, it is required that there be a 400% increase in the amount of matter in the universe. So, to save this theory, the theory of “dark matter” was created. Alternatively maybe the purpose is to keep scientists funded, get funding for the Large Hadron Collider and etc….

Why does this theory sound silly? Simple, we have samples of the Moon, Mars, Comets, Asteroids and etc. We have the entire earth, we’ve been in space for a very long time gathering information and materials to study (think of the money that is costing) and you’re telling me we’ve not been lucky enough to come across a material that science theorizes makes up 80% of the universe? Holly Shit Batman! How could we be so unlucky? It’s like saying there is a society on the earth that has never discovered water. It’s silly that something so common should be so hard to find. Perhaps if we keep funding the study and they look long enough they’ll find the Dark Matter. It’s obvious isn’t it?

Let me take a swag at the gravity problem: Maybe the gravity forces in the universe reaches out 4x as far as previously thought or perhaps it reaches on into infinity. Perhaps there is no distance as which you could travel from the earth where the gravity of the earth would not have some effect on you even perhaps an effect too small to be measured by current methods. Perhaps the 400% increase in matter required is just all the mass of the universe in the background all being added together. Or maybe the universe is just bigger than they currently imagine and the mass it there, just at greater distances. By looking through telescopes we look back in time because of the time it takes like to reach the telescope. We can currently look back billions of years. This is assumed to be the edge of the universe. Maybe there are objects even further out that haven’t been seen yet because the light has not reached us yet. Please consider my pet theory to be worth about what you paid for it.

To me it seems a little more likely that Scientists are people also and they want to have an ongoing successful careers. It’s about securing study money to keep the train rolling. You don’t get to study anything if you can’t keep your lab funded. This is probably the underlying reason for many of history’s scientific hoaxes.

Never forget the science of the 70’s: We are running out of oil!
Before that: We’re slipping into an ice age!
Yesterday: The sea is going to rise and drown our cities, the world is boiling over it’s Global Warming!!!!
Today: Global warming has been so discredited to the point they now call it “Climate Change”!!! Yikes, the weather is changing!!!

If I turn out to be wrong, well, I didn’t know much about it anyway. It’s just setting off my stink-o-meter as another theory soon to go down in history as pure bullshit.

My name is Dave Thacker and I’m doing something about it.

Other Related Reading:
Listverse: Top 10 Scientific Frauds & Hoaxes

Documentary video’s:

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This Weeks “Too Stupid” is Awarded to a City and it’s State

Since 2001 there have been 2000 American deaths in Afghanistan. Up to the election in 2008 there was quite a lot of grumbling from some about being involved in any kind of war or action. As if there is anybody that expects that war should be a popular thing to begin with. Since the election, we haven’t heard much about it from the anti-war, anti-self defense crowd. Isn’t it weird how it’s ok when they are in power but not when they are not in power? Amazingly during that same period there have been 5000 deaths in Chicago. We don’t hear much about Chicago and it’s enormous murder rate. It’s a wonder such a tragedy could be occurring on our own soil but it is seemingly ignored. Do those that hate our participation in any war really give a damn about American deaths? Is it the flexing of American muscle they really hate? Is it pretend concern for political gain? They ignore Chicago, one city with 2.5 X as many deaths. Isn’t it obvious the overriding concern is not American deaths?

I am a strong unapologetic believer in your (our) right to self defense. Thankfully those rights are spelled out in our constitution. I make no apologies for our constitution and I hope you are likewise and proud of America. It’s a terrible tragedy that so many people are dying in Chicago Illinois. Illinois is a non-free, non-constitutional state in the union we call America. In Illinois, you’re prevented from owning a handgun by which to protect yourself from a thug with a “handgun”. Is our country really a union of like minded people when we allow some citizens to be brutalized by politicians who think they have the right to pick and choose which constitutional rights their citizens can enjoy and which they cannot? Chicago, the most famous gun free zone forced on Americans turns into a killing zone.

Shame on you Illinois, shame on Chicago. The leaders of this state and city that continue to deny honest people the right to defend themselves are confederates in these crimes. These accessories to the crime should at the very least be charged and tried for manslaughter if not murder itself with each and every death of a citizen who was denied his right to self defense. The rights they deny have predictably made Chicago one of the most dangerous places in America to live and visit. A city more dangerous than Afghanistan. Any force that urges rejection of our constitution and constitutional rights of Americans, is a force for harm to mankind. I reject the wolves that wish our country or our individual citizens to become weak “sheeple”.

Wherever guns are banned there is a huge increase in violence. They will never learn. Where there are defenseless citizens, there will be criminals feeding on them. Isn’t it insane that people think the next gun law will be the one the criminals obey? Listen to lefties talk and try to blame everything but government weakened defenseless citizens

Chicago’s Killing Fields

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The Value of Money

What is the value of money based on? Listen with care. This is a highlight of a series of 100 podcasts which I’ve been working my way through.

It begins: “There’s a famous moment in the play of “Peter Pan”, when he asks the audience to save Tinkerbell by joining him in believing in fairies……”

A History of the World in 100 Objects: 072 Ming Bank Note Podcast.

Series Title and link to home page with RSS feed; The History of the World in 100 Objects

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Don’t Mess Around With Old Men

These two stupid perps pick the wrong cafe. 71 year old Samuel Williams, resident of the free state of Florida and permit holding gun owner takes care of business. I’m thinking those .380 rounds probably stung a little bit. There is an assumed risk when you go around robbing people. Not everyone is a good sheeple that just lays back and takes it. Lays back waiting for others to provide their defense. Once in a while, you find a Samuel Williams. Watch as these cowardly perps make tracks for less prickly pastures. Maybe this little shot of reality will have a targeted impact on their future decisions. Don’t mess with armed citizens if you want to avoid being down range.

I am without doubt, reservation or apology: 100% for your right of self defense. Never let anybody get away with questioning your full citizenship and full right to self defense. Anybody that wants you to be weak and defenseless probably has some very good selfish reasons. Don’t bend to that nonsense no matter what kind of language or “greater good” wacko-ism nonsense they try to spew at you. Be strong, proud of your citizenship, freedoms and rights of self defense!

Fox News Story and Video

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Remember Back In The Day & Fructose

Pepsi Deposit Bottles
(Warning, the following post weirdly isn’t sure if it’s about green politics, recycling or man made sugars.)

Back in the day, before the anti-capitolists hijacked the movement (they call it green now), we actually did recycling. Almost everybody participated. Do you remember? One of my first jobs (1978?) was sorting a nearly continuious flow of bottles at the Little Farm Market in West Carrolton Ohio.

Photo’s of historic Woodies Market and Little Farm Market:
Rusty Cans Feb 2011
UrbanOhio.com

I remember, you could recycle metal, newspapers, oil, about anything. We paid our dues to the local boyscout club by collecting paper for recycling. Maybe it was 200lbs every 3 months or something similar. Been going on a long time hasn’t it?

1978 was before HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup). That product started to be pumped into america’s diet in the middle 80’s. According to Wiki’s High Fructose Corn Syrup page “Soft drink makers such as Coca-cola and Pepsi use sugar in other nations, but switched to HFCS in the U.S. and Canada in 1984.” I don’t remember so many people having diabetes back in the day before High Fructose Corn Syrup.

According to many, including DiabetesHealth.com – “However, fructose does not stimulate insulin secretion or require insulin to be transported into cells, as do other carbohydrates.”

According to the Wiki page, Type II Diabetes “is a metabolic disorder that is characterized by high blood glucose in the context of insulin resistance and relative insulin deficiency.”

I try to keep beverages and other products that use HFCS out of my diet. There are many claims that Diabetes has risen in lock step with the increased use and consumption of High Fructose Corn Syrup. I like being able to enjoy real sweets and real sugars too much to risk becoming a diabetic over soda pop. I’ll have water please.

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Spam Email Turns Out True

I get so many “forward this to everybody” emails. When you investigate the outragous claims, almost without exception they are false. A great site for this is Snopes.com. I’m reprinting this here, I enjoyed the follow on history lesson and there are some good links on investigating internt rumors that I use and you may enjoy.

Photo and statement follow:

Theodore Roosevelt 1907 Speech
Theodore Roosevelt 1907 Speech

‘In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided

allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag… We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language.. And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.’
Theodore Roosevelt 1907

When I Google’d “Snopes 1907 Roosevelt Photo”, the link came up snopes.com: Theodore Roosevelt on Immigration.

There you will find a nice little history lesson on Theodore Roosevelt and his views on Immagration. Many speech’s he made talking about these important issues. I thought the debate on immigration, hyphenated Americans and what language we speak was only something that has happened during my lifetime. Turns out forces have been pushing these issues for at least the last 100 years.

A couple of other sites that deal with email claims of this nature also attribute the words to Teddy actually came from a 1919 letter yet agree the email is true. Even thought the originator may attribute this to the wrong date, it seems clear these views were emblimatic of Theodore Roosevelt during his time in and after the Whitehouse. Snoopes site above is the best read on the subject.

Other useful sites for investigating internet rumors (Roosevelt links within the sites)
TruthOrFiction.com
UrbanLegends.com

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