America Takes "Moral High Ground"?

Former US Army intelligence officer Speaks Out against Bush Administration.



















"I never thought I would live to see the day when my government, implicitly or explicitly, would turn its back on agreements we have honored for decades; agreements which reflect the values on which our county was founded and which are contained in the U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights and US law which recognizes the Geneva Conventions. Unfortunately, this is happening now as the so-called “compromise” between the Bush Administration and John McCain, Lindsay Graham and John Warner, continues to permit violations of international human rights law as President Bush retains the discretion to authorize torture of prisoners.

I simply cannot understand why President Bush insists on US interrogators being permitted to employ techniques which are recognized worldwide as torture and which we would absolutely condemn if they were used by an enemy on US prisoners. It is sufficient that they are immoral and beneath us as Americans. In addition, intelligence personnel universally reject them as effective means of obtaining valid information from prisoners."


"The author was a US Army intelligence officer from 1961 to 1983. The genesis of the letter is General Kimmon’s recent presentation of the Army's new field manual on interrogation, which pointedly referred to the Geneva Conventions. At that time, General Kimmons emphasized that "No good intelligence is going to come from abusive interrogation practices.""

Read more @ General Wesley Clark's Community Network.

In an embarrassment to the White House, Colin Powell Colin Powell — Bush's first secretary of state — announced his opposition to his old boss' plan, saying it would hurt the country.
Powell's Letter to Sen. McCain.










Thirty One other Retired Military Leaders
Oppose Bushes reinterpretation of the
Geneva Convention.

GENERAL JOSEPH HOAR, USMC (RET.)
GENERAL JOHN SHALIKASHVILI, USA (RET.)
ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER, USN (RET.)
LIEUTENANT GENERAL ROBERT G. GARD, JR., USA (RET.)
VICE ADMIRAL LEE F. GUNN, USN (RET.)
LIEUTENANT GENERAL CLAUDIA J. KENNEDY, USA (RET.)
VICE ADMIRAL ALBERT H. KONETZNI JR., USN (RET.)
LIEUTENANT GENERAL CHARLES OTSTOTT, USA (RET.)
VICE ADMIRAL JACK SHANAHAN, USN (RET.)
MAJOR GENERAL JOHN BATISTE, USA (RET.)
MAJOR GENERAL EUGENE FOX, USA (RET.)
MAJOR GENERAL JOHN L. FUGH, USA (RET.)
REAR ADMIRAL DON GUTER, USN (RET.)
MAJOR GENERAL FRED E. HAYNES, USMC (RET.)
REAR ADMIRAL JOHN D. HUTSON, USN (RET.)
MAJOR GENERAL MELVYN MONTANO, ANG (RET.)
MAJOR GENERAL GERALD T. SAJER, USA (RET.)
BRIGADIER GENERAL DAVID M. BRAHMS, USMC (RET.)
BRIGADIER GENERAL JAMES P. CULLEN, USA (RET.)
BRIGADIER GENERAL EVELYN P. FOOTE, USA (RET.)
BRIGADIER GENERAL DAVID R. IRVINE, USA (RET.)
BRIGADIER GENERAL JOHN H. JOHNS, USA (RET.)
BRIGADIER GENERAL RICHARD O’MEARA, USA (RET.)
BRIGADIER GENERAL MURRAY G. SAGSVEEN, USA (RET.)
BRIGADIER GENERAL ANTHONY VERRENGIA, USAF (RET.)
BRIGADIER GENERAL STEPHEN N. XENAKIS, USA (RET.)
AMBASSADOR PETE PETERSON, USAF (RET.)
COLONEL LAWRENCE B. WILKERSON, USA (RET.)
HONORABLE WILLIAM H. TAFT IV
















See Generals Letter to Senate Armed Services Committee:

Bush & His "Visionary" Thang

A golden energy vision that's not hooked on oil
Froma Harrop
Syndicated columnist

President Bush recently invited a few columnists (not me) to the White House and showcased his "visionary" thinking. He asked the columnists, reported one who was there, "to think about what the world could look like 50 years from now, with Islamic radicals either controlling the world's oil supply or not."

Here's a counter-vision: How about a world 50 years from now in which no one gives a damn who controls the oil supply? How about a world in which Islamic terrorists, al Qaida-funding sheiks and Venezuelan fruitcakes have to work for a living, because the West has slashed its demand for the oil that gushes from their ground?

Read more: Seattle Times.

Hey Lutefisk Eater! America, Love It Or Leave For Sweden!

Quote of Note

"Those who delight in the failure of the Soviet Union have no heart, and those who want to establish the Soviet Union as it was have no head."

Vladimir Putin

Darwin Evolves Into Hitler

“To put it simply, no Darwin, no Hitler. Hitler tried to speed up evolution, to help it along, and millions suffered and died in unspeakable ways because of it.”

Dr. D. James Kennedy
Host of Darwin’s Deadly Legacy

(Admin note: If I'm reading the quote correctly, Dr. Kennedy is actually stating he believes in the theory of evolution.)

Read more of the Gospel According to D. James.

Those Freedom Marchers Weren't Young Republicans

If you had any doubt about the size of the Republican Party's "Big Tent," listen to this commercial from the National Black Republican Association: Radio Commercial. To paraphrase Paul Harvey, on now for only have the story. I don't think those White college kids coming down from the North to fight for civil rights for the Blacks were Young Republicans.

Coulter Big Draw at Georgia Christian Coalition

by Bob Allen
Conservative author and television pundit Ann Coulter helped the Christian Coalition of Georgia raise $150,000 at a weekend fund-raiser, according to a report in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.


The Saturday evening affair, described as one of the hottest tickets of the year for the state's conservatives, was billed beforehand as "business/cocktail attire." Its purpose was to raise funds to pay for this year's voter guides, designed for distribution in churches.

Coulter reportedly spoke mostly about the long court battle over abortion. Afterward a long line formed for a book signing of her new book. Though apparently not a regular churchgoer herself, Coulter has become a popular speaker for the Religious Right since release of her newest book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism. She promoted the book in an interview on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "700 Club" in July.

In August D. James Kennedy's Coral Ridge Ministries featured her in a controversial documentary that compared Charles Darwin to Hitler.

Coulter is also a featured speaker at a Sept. 22-24 "Washington Briefing" sponsored by the Family Research Council. Other confirmed speakers include Sen. George Allen, Bill Bennett, James Dobson, Newt Gingrich, Jerry Falwell and Mitt Romney. Southern Baptist leaders Richard Land, Kenyn Cureton and Dwight McKissic are also listed on the program.

Read more @ Ethics Daily.com.

OTBL Bloggers Prepare For Battle

HUDSON, WI. - If you're in Hudson this Saturday, you will be able to watch the www.ontheborderline.net bloggers of the St. Croix Valley defend their unchallenged supremacy as the biggest fruitcakes in the St. Croix River valley.

Blogger N. Ononimous and his OTBL friends will be launching projectiles using their catapults built based on a designs popular around 1776. They will once again try to defend their unchallenged title in the OTBL Fruitcake Follies.

Nonimous, who won the Follies the last two years, and other member of his team of anti-community whiners plan to set up as many as seven launchers starting at noon Saturday at the government soccer fields. This time, instead of fruitcakes, they'll be chucking balls made out of discarded duct tape. This Saturday's event is just for demonstration purposes. The official event is next February when the OTBL'ers will use their real medium of choice -- a mix of bullshit, slander, personal attacks held together with a blend superiority complex, egomania and skunk scent.

"Last spring at the Follies it was so cold a lot of people were unwilling to come out and they missed a lot of fun," Ononimous said. "So we want people to see how powerful and beautiful these machines are. This will gives us a chance to prove how well our message goes over in public."

When reminded that they OTBL'ers were the only ones who showed up to compete and the total crowd of specators was made up of two guys named Bob drinking coffee, Nonimous turned red and accussed the reporter of being part of a socialist conspiracy.

Nonimous will bring four of his trebuchets, including "Gladius von Mises," which can sling projectiles the size of a peanut more than 666 feet.

The 5th annual OTBL Fruitcake Follies are slated for the third Saturday in February.

When asked if he would be attending this year's event, on local resident who only gave his name as Bob said, "It can get pretty cold in February. If it gets cold enough to freeze over hell, I'll be there."

Neighbors of Luke The OTBL Blogger Report Suspicious Package Delivery

CSI, Survivor, and Flat Daddy, Beat out Shuttle Landing as News:

Why is it that as an American I have to watch the BBC to get real
American News? Shortly after 6:00 A.M. this morning the AMERICAN
Space shuttle Atlantis landed. The British Broadcasting Company, a state owned and operated news gathering operation devoted 5-7 min of live television coverage to the AMERICAN space shuttle landing.











Flipping back to CBS and other AMERICAN networks
I discovered the following headlines. Flat Daddy, Survivor, CSI, and American Idol:
10 secs. devoted to the AMERICAN space shuttle landing.
Is it any wonder we have the inept political leaders we do with an entertainment brainwashed American electorate controlled by an overly consolatdated News-O-Tainment media industry in this country? The only ideas in the "marketplace" of ideas are the ideas
that can earn that industry a buck.

New Richmond's Football Great: Johnny "Blood" McNally

I ran across this interesting article about football legend Johnny "Blood" McNally. He played with the Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers. Coach at St. John's and used to drink beer at the Shamrock in New Richmond. My old neighbor who passed away 15 years grew up with him in New Richmond and used to tell me some interesting stories about Johnny Blood. Evidently he had to exit through more than one second story window when a certain city fathers would return home unexpectedly. Anyway, that borders on idle gossip and we'll leave that for Jack Bauer at www.ontheborderline.net.
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Finally, the glory of Johnny Blood
By DougMoe
IN THESE dark days for Packer Nation, there emerges a glimmer of light. No, strike that. Not a glimmer. A full meteor shower.

In a column five years ago about a colorful former Packer great named John McNally, I wrote the following: "John McNally would have made Brett Favre seem like an introverted librarian. He was also a truly great football player, among the first class of 17 inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963."

In the column I noted that it was high time for someone to "liberate NcNally from the dusty locker room of history. As far as I can tell there has been no biography written, while Favre plays in an era when an athlete publishes his autobiography before hitting 30. Too bad. McNally's worth remembering."

Read more @The Capital Times.

OTBL Bloggers Mourn Death Of Major Inspiration

L. William McNutt Jr., who built a global mail-order fruitcake business. His family-owned Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana, Texas, makes 1.5 million fruitcakes each year, shipping berry-red tins to more than 190 nations. Mr. McNutt was a pioneer in direct-mail marketing, sending out 11.5 million promotional mailings a year. Some 70% of orders come from repeat customers. He also assured his own supply of some fruitcake ingredients by starting a pecan-shelling plant in Corsicana and a pineapple farm in Costa Rica. Died Sept. 1 at age 81.

An unconfirmed rumour in the St. Croix Valley holds that the bloggers at www.ontheborderline.net, who are often compared to McNutt's fruitcakes, have actually lined the wall of the secret bunker with tins of McNutt's fruitcakes sealed protectively in duct tape. World on the street is that duct tape will protect those fruitcakes until July 4 2076. On that date, according to the Gospel of Luke, Adam Smith will ascend from atop of the of the Bank of Ayn Rand and land on the top of the Hudson school administration building and free the skunks.

Towncrybaby's Parting Tantrum

Famous for his tantrums over public employee benefits, Towncrybaby succumbed today to an ocean of tears produced during a recent OTBL tirade. The flood of whine was said to have been provoked by city officials rejecting a bid by Health Care Insurer Sihide of Bombay, India to provide bargain basement health care to City of Hudson employees. Sources close to Towncrybaby hinted that he had recently become despondent over never having a job for most of his adult life. He is survived by his blogmates N. Onimous and SpiritofBSofus. The family asks that in leiu of flowers mourners show their respect for Towncrybaby by patronizing ontheborderline web blog advertisers.
Read Towncrybaby's parting tirade: http://www.ontheborderline.net/?p=3892

This Memorial Sponsored by:

I Want My Nanny: Hey What's So Bad About Socialism?

Swedes at the crossroads
Election pits free-market theorists against defenders of the nanny state.
BY KARL RITTER
Associated Press
STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Times are good in Sweden, but voters might boot the ruling party from power anyway in elections this weekend. One reason: The longstanding opposition doesn't really plan to overhaul Sweden's fabled economic model.

The combination of massive taxes and generous welfare benefits has confounded free-market thinkers for years. How can a system that seems such a sure recipe for economic sclerosis create such prosperity?

For economists on the right, the affluence is illusory: Beneath touched-up economic statistics, they say, you'll find a failing state that encourages people to milk the system and will soon be in deep trouble as competition from China and India gathers pace.

To the left, Sweden is the closest you get to paradise on earth. There's little poverty, education is free and health care is universal. Six-week vacations and 16 months of paid parental leave allow workers to combine jobs and family life.

Both sides can cite plenty of studies to prove their point.

Read more @ St. Paul Pioneer Press.

Learn More About Steve Milloy & The Brothel Of Corporate Junk Science Prostitutes

Here's is an interesting article that provides the facts and links of many giant corporate polluters and the "scientists" they hire to add legitimacy to attacks on the environment.

The denial industry

The oil giant ExxonMobil gives money to scores of organisations that claim the science on global warming is inconclusive - which it isn't. It's a strategy that has set back action on climate change by a decade, and it involves the same people who insist that passive smoking is harmless, reveals George Monbiot in the first of three extracts from his new book

ExxonMobil is the world's most profitable corporation. Its sales now amount to more than $1 billion a day. It makes most of this money from oil, and has more to lose than any other company from efforts to tackle climate change. To safeguard its profits, ExxonMobil needs to sow doubt about whether serious action needs to be taken on climate change. But there are difficulties: it must confront a scientific consensus as strong as that which maintains that smoking causes lung cancer or that HIV causes Aids. So what's its strategy?

Find out @ The Guardian.




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Quotes to Ponder: Rosalyn Sussman

"We still live in a world in which a significant fraction of people, including women, believe that a woman belongs and wants to belong exclusively in the home."

Read more: Nobel Prize.org

Free Market Migration: Sometimes You Just Got To Move

It's interesting to note how often the phrase "nation of immigrants" gets uttered concerning the foreigners coming into our country. However, we often forget that there are internal migrations going on in the form of relocation to were the jobs are. It's not just retirees moving down South. I've heard Rush Limbaugh say this numerous times "You have to move to were the jobs are. It's that simple." The OTBL bloggers would tell us this is how free market economics works. He buddy, you get no guarantees...

Here's an interesting story about displaced auto workers moving from Michigan to Wyoming where jobs are plentiful in the current oil, gas and coal boom. Hopefully this citizen migrants know the boom and bust economy of Wyoming. This story centers around Gillette, Wyo., a town that was booming when I went through there in 1979 and a town that was busted when I went through again in 1984.
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Wyoming jobs lure workers

Labor-starved state recruits Michigan residents, who are happy to be free of auto-industry woes.

by Kirk Johnson / New York Times

GILLETTE, Wyo . -- Houston Mellentine, 10, held up the rattlesnake tail he kept in a box. "Killed it right over there," he said, pointing to the edge of his family's dirt front yard.

His mother, Melissa, sat in a folding chair as the sun set one recent evening, eying the snake's tail in her son's hand. "They don't have rattlesnakes in Michigan," she said somewhat longingly, at least not in her old front yard.

But then, Michigan has few of the types of jobs that brought the Mellentines here.

Labor-starved Wyoming, with its energy boom in coal, oil and natural gas, is vigorously courting the workers of the Rust Belt -- in particular, those in Michigan's struggling auto industry. And the workers are responding, and adjusting to a very different life in the West.

Wyoming economic development officials and company representatives are planning their third recruiting trip this year, visiting job fairs next month in Flint, Lansing and Grand Rapids. A billboard depicting a lush Wyoming will go up on the highway outside Flint on Sept. 20 and be seen by an estimated 65,000 people a day.

"Michigan has been very good for us," said Ruth Benson, the director of the Campbell County Economic Development Corp., who has twice led recruiting expeditions to depressed cities in Michigan.

So far, about 1,500 Michigan residents have signed up to receive job postings through the Wyoming work force Web site, and at least several hundred, employers and recruiters say, have moved to the state.

Read more @ the Detroit News.