1930 Duesenberg Model J Torpedo Phaeton

 

ESTIMATE: $850,000 - $1,000,000

Fred and August Duesenberg were already renowned race car and engine builders when they founded the Duesenberg Motor Company in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1913. After relocating to a larger facility in New Jersey in 1917, the Duesenbergs built a special 16-cylinder engine to propel a Land Speed Record car to an amazing 158 MPH at Daytona Beach.

The following year they designed and built a Bugatti-inspired 180 CI inline-8 engine using a single overhead camshaft and three valves per cylinder, which in 1921 powered the only American car ever to win the French Grand Prix. Duesenberg racers won the Indianapolis 500 three times in a four-year period ending in 1927, by which time the company had been purchased by E.L. Cord. Cord’s plan for his new acquisition was to capitalize on the Duesenberg brand and engineering acumen to produce “The World’s Finest Motor Car.” That grand goal was realized when the new Duesenberg J was unveiled at the 1928 New York Auto Show.

More @ MECUM

The Name is All That They Wanted

 

Northern animosity against Charleston in general as the “hotbed of secession” and against Fort Sumter in particular was intense. “Doom hangs over wicked Charleston,” wrote the New York Tribune, “If there is any city deserving of holocaustic infamy, it is Charleston.”  Fort Sumter’s garrison never surrendered to Northern forces, it was occupied only after evacuation in February 1865.

Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman

North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission

"Unsurpassed Valor, Courage and Devotion to Liberty"

www.ncwbts150.com

"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"

The Name is All That They Wanted

“We want it for the name of the thing,” are the significant words of the correspondent of a Northern journal,” as he closes a long list of reasons for the reduction of Fort Sumter.  “We want it for the name of the thing.”  That is the keynote of the great charivari, the monster cat-concert, which the North has kept up with increasing spirit from the days of the First Revolution down to the present time. 

“Going to war for an idea” is an unfortunate expression of the Emperor of the French, an expression for which he has to encounter no little ridicule or unmeasured obloquy . . . “Going to war for a name” is a “Yankee notion” worthy of a people worthy of a people unrivaled for emptiness and impudence.

  

There has never been a period in their history when a catchword was not a great reality . . . To them a nickname is a nugget, a phrase of fortune, and the happy turn of a period of far more importance than a happy turn of events.

Every general has his sobriquet; every State has its flash name; every political creed has a condensed confession of faith compressed into a single sentence.  Once stigmatized with the names of Butternut and Rebels, the Southrons were disposed of in the Yankee mind, and it is only now and then in their rare “flashes of silence” that they reflect for a moment how hard these Butternuts are to crack, how difficult these Rebels to quell. 

It was for the name of the thing that they unfurled the stars and stripes in every State of the “so-called” Confederacy; for the name of the thing that they took every little village on the Florida coast; for the name of the thing that they opened the Mississippi; for the name of the thing that erected a new State of West Virginia; confirmed Maryland in her loyalty by the mild agency of Hicks and Schenck, and held elections in Alexandria, Norfolk and the Eastern Shore.

No one was deceived by these names of things – nobody supposed that every rebellious State was subjugated, that Florida was completely under Yankee control, that the Mississippi was actually free to traffic, that the new State of West Virginia was anything but a territorial sham, that Maryland was heart and soul with the North, that those sections of Eastern Virginia, which are occupied by the Federal armies, had returned their allegiance.

But the Yankees cared nothing for the reality.  The name is all that they wanted, a paragraph for the situation article in the New York Herald, a period for their President’s message, a point for the orations of Lincoln’s stump-speakers. 

But at one or two points we have been absolutely rude. They doubtless want Richmond merely for the name of the thing, but we have repelled their advances with the utmost coolness, or with the utmost warmth – And now they want Charleston, for the name of the thing, and we will not let them have it.  “How unkind,” they say . . . “the city, half consumed by one conflagration, will soon be wholly consumed by our Greek fire.  Give it up. You do not want it.  We do.  [We] could make capital and capitals out of the capture. Think of it. Tremendous Triumph of the Union Unicorn! Crushing the Cradle of Secession! Charleston Chewed Up! The Rebels Radically Routed! . . . “

Alas, they speak to deaf ears.  It is not merely for the name of the thing that the “heroic garrison” of Fort Sumter – now no idle appellation – hold the trust committed to their charge. They care as little for paragraphs as they care for projectiles, and they stand firm, have stood firm thus far, because duty and honor require it.”

But the Yankees, if foiled here, will get up some other excitement “for the name of the thing,” and continue the invention of sensational lies to the end of time, or until their national life is exhausted, and over their worn-out carcass is written the worn-out quotation, “Nominis Umbra.”

(Soldier and Scholar, Basil L. Gildersleeve and the Civil War, Ward W. Briggs, editor, University Press of Virginia, 1998, pp 146- 151)

North Carolina Ends Teacher Tenure

 

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!

North Carolina has become the latest state to overhaul its teacher tenure rules, directing school administrators to offer four-year contracts to top performers but one- or two-year contracts to everybody else.

Previously, all North Carolina teachers with five years of experience were eligible for tenure, which granted them a right to due process before dismissal. Now, longer-term job security will be limited to the 25 percent of teachers who are ranked most effective, based on yet-to-be-determined criteria.

Republican lawmakers who pushed for the tenure changes said the old system allowed too many ineffective teachers to remain in classrooms.

“We need to move to a situation where we provide the best teachers the security of multi-year contracts” and provide principals the means to remove ineffective teachers from classrooms, Senate leader Phil Berger, a Republican, told The News & Observer of Raleigh earlier this month.

More @ PEW

My Take on the NSA Fallout

 

I hardly want to open this can of worms but I’ve been asked by a few people for my opinion.  We know what opinions are like, and that everybody has one.  Here’s mine.

(Let me preface:  One thing I won’t do is parrot any classified information already available online.  If the military community learned anything from the Manning leaks, it’s that just because the information is on the open web doesn’t mean it’s not still classified.  You can say that the classification is now a moot point but your future prison sentence isn’t on the line.)

Okay, on one hand we have GEN Keith Alexander who has now given two ‘transparency’ speeches to the hacker/info security community.  One where he was dressed casually, and spoke to attendees at last year’s Def Con.  More recently, he spoke to attendees of Black Hat USA 2013.

For some context, the NSA’s stated mission is grounded in foreign signals intelligence.  They discover, and then, in conjunction with other agencies and organizations, deter or disrupt foreign plots against our national security.  We know because of the USA PATRIOT Act, the NSA is able to use tools like PRISM that wind up connecting US citizens with foreign-based known or suspected terrorists; and domestic terrorists communicating with US citizens abroad.  As long as there’s a foreign connection and a court order, I believe that they can do whatever they please when it comes to electronic and digital surveillance.

More @ Guerrilla America

US Unemployment Rate Is Really 14.3 Percent

 

Government statistics are hiding the true unemployment rate.

While the Bureau Labor Statistics says the unemployment rate has been around 7.5 or 7.6 percent in recent months, it's really 14.3 percent.

Why the difference? The commonly cited unemployment number ignores people who want to work but are no longer actively seeking jobs and counts part-time workers as employed even if they'd prefer full-time jobs.

The government statistic called U-6, however, does take into account those groups, people the government calls "marginally attached" to the labor force.

In June the U-6 was 14.3 percent, unemployment worse than in Italy and Ireland, notes the International Business Times. It's almost 3 percentage points higher than the European Union's unemployment rate.

More @ Money News

1969 Ford Mustang Boss 429 Fastback Original and Unrestored with 902 Actual Miles

Mileage is mind boggling.

ESTIMATE: $600,000 - $750,000 
 

Get ready to be astounded. This 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 429 is an unrestored and original car with 902 documented miles on the odometer. Its originality is evident in every detail of its present condition, from the trunk-mounted Autolite battery placed there by the factory to the plastic wrap that remains on the seat belts, steering wheel and passenger seat. Bob Perkins, founder of Perkins Restoration, former MCA national head judge and presently MCA Authenticity head judge knows this car well, having first seen it in 1981. Its existence had been a consistent rumor at early MCA national meets before being confirmed by Ford dealer and collector Jacky Jones, who visited the owner and examined the car on his way to Carlisle in the fall of 1981. On Jones’ advice, Perkins immediately went to see the car and arranged its purchase on the spot. Perkins gave the car “a minor detailing on the bare metal parts,” then displayed it in his showroom until selling it to a private collector in 1993. It was shown publicly only once at the 2007 Forge Invitational, before being purchased by well-known high performance Mustang and Shelby collector/vendor Richard Ellis.

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Museum of the Confederacy's future threatened by de-consolidation plans

 

The Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond holds the world's finest collection of Confederate art and artifacts; it's future is in serious doubt. If rumored changes come to pass the MOC's collection as well as the historic White House of the Confederacy which it owns and manages, may simply cease to exist.  

 

Right now, some in the MOC leadership have cooked up a plan to distribute the MOC's incredible collection among several different Richmond-area groups. Included in that list are the Virginia Historical Society and the historic site at Tredegar Iron Works. Neither of these can be considered Confederate-friendly. 

 

The Museum of the Confederacy holds an important trust as the repository of the world's finest collection of Confederate memorabilia. Recent reports from well-informed sources indicate that the museum's leadership is rapidly moving forward with a plan which, in addition to dispersing the collection, will also sell its building in downtown Richmond.  

 

Once the collection is relocated and the building sold, the now-nearby White House of the Confederacy will be isolated in an urban canyon surrounded by the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine and virtually lost to tourist traffic. To think that it will be bale to sustain itself financially in that condition is difficult to imagine.  

 

I'm writing to you because we need to act quickly. 

 

The SCV strongly opposes this plan and is actively urging the Museum of the Confederacy board to reconsider. While no doubt well-intentioned, this course of action will seriously jeopardize the integrity of this collection which is so important to our Southern heritage.  

 

Generations of Southerners, including many of the veterans themselves, contributed a king's ransom to the Museum of the Confederacy in the form of priceless antiques, family heirlooms, and relics of the Confederate cause of incalculable value. They made these contributions with the express intent that these antiquities would be carefully preserved and honorably displayed. That's how the Museum of the Confederacy's collection grew to be the trustee of the single largest collection of the treasures of the late Confederacy. To scatter these precious treasures across several venues and organizations will permanently diminish its importance.  

 

The Museum of the Confederacy is technically owned by the Confederate Memorial & Literary Society and is a private organization. They are under no obligation to listen to the SCV or to take advice from anyone. But, we believe they are reasonable people who by and large want to do the best they can under the circumstances. 

 

I have been calling everyone connected with the MOC but I would like for them to hear from you as well.

 

Please contact these folks today and POLITELY let them know how important it is that the Museum of the Confederacy's collection remain intact as a permanent tribute to those proud soldiers.  

 

Please urge your Compatriots and anyone who shares our view of this important issue to let their voices be heard so that the Museum of the Confederacy can return to being the home of the Confederacy's most important artifacts.

 

Michael Givens
Commander in Chief

 

Contact:

 

Mr. Matthew G. Thompson, Jr. (Chairman)
matt@cscleasing.com 

 

Mr. Carlton P. Moffatt, Jr.
cpmchm@comcast.net  

 

The Hon. Daniel T. Balfour
dbalfour@juridicalsolutions.com

Braindead Nancy Pelosi: Obama among the most ‘non-partisan’ presidents ever to serve in White House

Via avordvet

 

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi may have finally fallen completely off her rocker Tuesday as she commended the President and her fellow Democrats in Congress for propelling the Left into a “bipartisan, cooperative alternative” party.
 
The 73-year-old California Democrat seemed to fan-girl over President Obama during a meeting with USA Today’s editorial board Tuesday, calling him “one of the most practically non-partisans I have seen in the White House.” It seems the Commander-in-Chief has earned this special place in Pelosi’s heart by his apparent willingness to work with Republicans to thwart yet another upcoming fiscal crisis.

More @ Red Alert Politics

Orphans of the EU meltdown: How middle class parents in Greece are dumping their children in orphanages so they won't starve

Via Billy

 

No way, Jose.

Laughing children play in a pine-scented courtyard on a warm summer’s evening.
Excitement rises to fever pitch as a creamy chocolate gateau is sliced. It appears a timeless, idyllic scene – but in reality it is a very modern Greek tragedy.

For this cloistered red-brick building in a wealthy suburb of Athens is a children’s home. Yet many of those youngsters are not orphans or the products of dysfunctional families. 

Instead, they are forgotten victims of the Eurozone crisis, handed over by parents who can no longer afford to feed them.

The financial meltdown in Greece has caused pain and suffering throughout the country. But in a nation where the idea of family is central to everyday life, its youngest citizens are bearing some of the heaviest burdens of the crisis.
 
Scores of children have been put in orphanages and care homes for economic reasons; one charity said 80 of the 100 children in its residential centres were there because their families can no longer provide for them.

Ten per cent of Greek children are said to be at risk of hunger. Teachers talk of cancelling PE lessons because children are underfed and of seeing pupils pick through bins for food.

At the Zanneio Child Care Institution, I was proffered a piece of cake by nine-year-old Nicolas Eleftheriadou. When I asked him how he was, he replied with a shy grin: ‘I’m as tough as a walnut.’ 

His parents, Olga and Alexandros, had arrived to take their three oldest children home for the weekend; the children attend the unit from Monday to Friday. The friendly couple both lost jobs in catering two years ago; he delivered pizzas, she worked in a sandwich shop.

More @ Mail Online

Devious election plot bypasses Constitution: Strategy takes 36 states out of voting decision

The National Popular Vote effort, which could see only 14 states – those with the largest populations – decide the presidency for voters in all 50 states, is fully partnered with a George Soros-funded election group.

The group, the Center for Voting and Democracy, received original seed money in 1997 from the Joyce Foundation, a non-profit that boasted President Obama served on its board at the time of the grant. Obama was a board member from July 1994 until December 2002.

The National Popular Vote, or NPV, is run by individuals with a history of support for the Democratic Party, WND found.

Last week, the Washington Post reported NPV is “now halfway to its goal of electing future presidents via the popular vote, after Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee (D) made his state the latest to sign on.”

The Post story described NPV as a campaign seeking to “get states that comprise a majority of the 538 votes in the Electoral College –270, to be precise – to agree to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.”

More @ WND