McGruff Suspects Foul Play in Mascot Case

OTBL wasted no time in getting McGruff the Crime Dog hot on the
trail of the evil doers in the "Mascot" case. McGruff, arrived in town this morning interupting a 30 city tour of Wal-Mart Stores to join the Mascot investigation.


















McGruff's second stop after OTBL Stone Pine headquarters, was the Sheriff's Dept. There McGruff hatched a secret plan to infiltrate the government schools in order to ferret out the perpetrator of Mascot's untimely demise.
One theory speculates that a government school student was dropping doggie treats out the bus window to distract Mascot from the school bus' sudden stops. McGruff suspects students in the 3rd Grade Socialist Studies Class of being indotrinated by the government school curriculum and then plotting to erradicate the wealth creating class of Hudson entrepenuers. (Keep this under your crime hat.... but little Johnny in the blue shirt on the left is a "person of interest".)


















Stay tuned to OTBL-TV for Breaking News updates as they happen.
Your #1 legitimate source for local news.

The Spirit of Ignorance

The Spirit of Ignorance
from Ontheborderline.nut

"I personally can’t recall any great advancement that the Hmong culture has bestowed upon mankind which would require more than a passing footnote in some obscure social studies book."

























The Truth of History:


After the Geneva Conference established Laotian neutrality, North Vietnamese forces continued to operate in southeastern Laos. North Vietnam established the Ho Chi Minh trail on Laotian territory and supported an indigenous communuist rebellion the Pathet Lao to help secure it. The Ho Chi Minh trail was designed for North Vietnamese troops to infiltrate the Republic of Vietnam and to aid the National Liberation Front.

To disrupt these operations without direct military involvement, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) responded by training a force of some thirty thousand Laotians, mostly local Hmong tribesmen along with the Mien and Khmer, led by General Vang Pao, a Hmong military leader. This army, supported by the CIA contract airline Air America, Thailand and the Royal Lao Air Force, fought PAVN, the NLF, and their Pathet Lao allies to a standstill, greatly aiding U.S. interests in the war in Vietnam.

Here's a newsflash for YOU Spirit of BS.

The Hmong fought real Communists in the jungles of Laos.
You fight imaginary communists behind your basement keyboard in your skivies .

Prime Minister Putin contacts Governor Doyle on proposed smoking ban

Russian Mental Health Improves as Country Embraces Capitalism

Russia`s turbulent transition to a capitalist society caused a sharp deterioration in the country’s mental health, a leading psychiatrist said on Monday, the Reuters news agency reported.

Russia has the world’s second highest suicide rate after ex-Soviet Lithuania, according to figures from the World Health Organization (WHO).

WHO figures give the number of suicides per 100,000 people in Russia as 70.6 for men and 11.9 for women. By comparison, in Germany the male suicide rate is 20.2. Lithuania leads the league table with 75.6 male suicides.

However, psychological disorders have started to level off in the past few years — a period that coincided with greater political and economic stability under President Vladimir Putin.

Read more!

Deadeye Dick's Disney World

See more original toons @ oggtoons.

Russia makes stride in education reform

"Critics have also argued that the proposed changes do not help students develop their critical thinking skills and only train them to memorize facts and dates. "

...smells like No Child Left Behind.

MOSCOW, January 26 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's parliament passed in a final reading Friday a bill introducing a common exam system for high school graduates, authorizing a major shift from Soviet-era to Western-style educational standards.

The new system, which has already been applied in some regions on an experimental basis, is expected to curb corruption at university entrance exams, making education more accessible and improving its quality.

Final-year students in high schools across the country will take common state exams, whose results could subsequently be filed with colleges and universities. Under the bill, the new requirements will become generally binding by 2009

Some universities, however, would be allowed to require additional specialized exams as a concession to critics who have said multiple-choice tests used in the single-exam system are not a proper assessment tool for disciplines in the humanities, which do not lend themselves to definitive answers to questions.

Critics have also argued that the proposed changes do not help students develop their critical thinking skills and only train them to memorize facts and dates.

Read more!

OTBL's Watchdog "Mascot" Fatally Injured in School Bus Tragedy

Bloggers blame government schools.
























Internationally renowned Blog Dog "Mascot" died Friday. in a tragic School Bus accident. Witnesses say, Mascot was chasing the bus, as he did everyday, when suddenly, the bus stopped to pick up passengers and Mascot slipped on the icy road and slammed into the rear of the bus causing Mascot's fatal head injury.
An OTBL spokesperson, who would only identify himself as "Junkyard" said... "Yeah, we trained Mascot to chase the government school bus, but we never thought it would lead to this. We blame the government schools,"
Police say, icy road conditions contributed to the tragedy, but thankfully no children were injured.
Other OTBL members, refusing to be interviewed on camera for this report claimed.. "This was no accident. We will prove that the conspiratorial School Board, Police Dept. and Hudson Star Observer are behind this.















"We've enlisted the private services of Colombo and McGruff, the crime dog to investigate the
circumstances of this incident and we will not rest until it's perpetrators
are caught and punished."



















Memorial Services for "Mascot" will be held at Dick's Bar.
Mascot will be laid to rest in the OTBL Pet Cemetery.

The family asks that memorials be made as gifts to the
Von Mises Institute.

If Borderline turkeys had wings...

Two men dressed in pilots' uniforms walk up the aisle of the airplane. Both are wearing duct tape across their eyes, one is using a guide dog named Mascot, and the other is tapping his way along the aisle with a cane much like the one used by Mr. Peanut. Nervous laughter spread like chunky peanut butter one white bread through the cabin, but the men enter the cockpit, the door closes, and the engines start up.

The passengers begin glancing nervously around, searching for some sign that this is just a little practical joke. None is forthcoming. The plane moves faster and faster down the runway, and the people sitting in the window seats realize they're headed straight for the water at the end of the airport territory. As it begins to look as though the plane will plow into the water, panicked screams fill the cabin.

At that moment, the plane lifts smoothly into the air. The passengers relax and laugh a little sheepishly, and soon all retreat into their magazines, secure in the knowledge that the plane is in good hands.

In the cockpit, one of the duct-tape blind pilots turns to the other and says, "You know Curt, one of these days, they're gonna scream too late and we're all gonna die."

The other replied, “Yea Bill, if Milton Freidman hadn’t come up with that idea about deregulating the airlines, guys like us would still be unqualified to drive government schools.”

After a moment, Bill replied, “Curt, you fly for a while. I got to get my laptop out and start a blog post on this topic. I bet you I can crank out a 30,000 word post by the time we get to Phoenix.”

“Hey Bill,” replied Curt, “did you see the socialist scum babe with the big hooters? She’s got capitalist assets!”

“Curt, how could you see anything with your eyes duct taped?”

“Well Bill, by now you should know that, not only do I know all, but I see all.”

01/26/07: Ben prefers turkey over eagle

In a letter to his daughter dated January 26, 1784, Benjamin Franklin expressed unhappiness over the choice of the eagle as the symbol of America, and expressed his own preference the turkey.

Franklin didn't mention if either bird tastes like chicken.

...and now, a talking Quayle

"People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history."

--Dan Quayle

...and something about a bird in the Bush

OTBL Uniform(ity)

Bush Proposes New School Lunch Program

"The most effective answer to this leadership vacuum would be a new era of political activism by ordinary citizens. The biggest, most far-reaching changes of the past century — the labor movement, the civil rights movement, the women’s movement — were not primarily the result of elective politics, but rather the hard work of committed citizen-activists fed up with the status quo. It’s time for thoughtful citizens to turn off their TVs and step into the public arena. Protest. Attend meetings. Circulate petitions. Run for office. I suspect the public right now is way ahead of the politicians when it comes to ideas about creating a more peaceful, more equitable, more intelligent society."

Bob Herbert
New York Times columnist
(Source: The New York Times, 1/25/07)

Oh, SURE, They Don't. They've Never SEEN This Picture

See more original toons @ oggtoons.

A General comment...

"Obedience to lawful authority is the foundation of manly character."

-- Robert E. Lee

OTBL Still Fighting Civil War

If you've followed the ravings of our arch enemy blog, ontheborderline.nut long enough surely you've encountered verbal and visual references the south.
There's something about being southern that just kinda goes with being a public school hater. I could never quite put the pieces of this puzzle together until today. In a documentary following Oprah Winfrey tracing her genealogy there was a section that described how one of her ancestors had attended an integrated public school shortly after the civil war. The narrator commented how this period was unusual for blacks and short lived as shortly after the war southerners realized that if blacks had become educated, the plantation owners source of cheap labor would soon evaporate.
And we come to today where the brain trust at OTBL makes many of the same arguments against public education as southerners shortly after the civil war.
A strange coincidence?



EDUCATION IN THE SOUTHERN COLONIES

In the 1840's, the growth of state funded public education was blossoming in states from Connecticut to Illinois (see also "Normal Schools" in the Common School section of this web page). However, the Southern states did not have a tradition of public education to build on, as the North did, and in fact, it was well after the Civil War before the South legislated for state supported schools. This occurred for several different reasons.

First and foremost, Southerners believed that education was a private matter and not a concern for the state. They were quick to point out that in all traditional societies the most important training a child receives is in the home where he/she is inducted into the values of the society he/she is about to enter. If the family fails in this endeavor, then how can the schools be more successful? They felt a priority should be placed upon creating a college-bred elite, if their traditions and way of life were to be successfully transferred to successive generations. This system helped to perpetuate the sharply defined social-class structure which existed in the South. There were planters (plantation owners) and there were slaves; no middle-class existed in the South to bridge the gap between upper and lower classes, and as such, there was no demand for services beyond that provided for those who could afford to pay. Another reason that public education did not flourish in the South was that the population was more dispersed than it was in the North, making it difficult to find enough children in one area to justify a school. Also, the Anglican religion of the South did not put quite as much emphasis on religious indoctrination through schooling as did Puritan New England. The final reason was the South's feeling about slavery, which will be mentioned below.


"Knowledge is Power" and as events conspired to bring the Civil War ever closer, the Southerner asked, "Who should be entrusted with this power?" Certainly not a slave. Southern colonies began passing laws to make it a crime to teach slaves to read and write. Only the Catholics and Friends (Quakers) continued their efforts to educate the black people in the South, and they were few in number. The North, with its Puritan heritage, had for many decades supported education as a means of providing religious training to its children. In the South, where the religious emphasis was Anglican (Church of England), the religious leaders supported the slave owners by providing oral (not written) religious training for the slaves. One minister commented that instead of reading the Bible, literate slaves would soon be reading documents filtering down from the North inciting rebellion, and pose a threat to the Southern family. Supporting slavery as an institution became the patriotic thing to do.


Reconstruction and Its Aftermath

During the years after the war, black and white teachers from the North and South, missionary organizations, churches and schools worked tirelessly to give the emancipated population the opportunity to learn. Former slaves of every age took advantage of the opportunity to become literate. Grandfathers and their grandchildren sat together in classrooms seeking to obtain the tools of freedom.

After the Civil War, with the protection of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, African Americans enjoyed a period when they were allowed to vote, actively participate in the political process, acquire the land of former owners, seek their own employment, and use public accommodations. Opponents of this progress, however, soon rallied against the former slaves' freedom and began to find means for eroding the gains for which many had shed their blood.

The right-wing, anti-global warming spin...

"Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views on global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate...The scientific debate is closing (against us) but not yet closed. There is still a small window of opportunity to challenge the science...unnecessary environmental regulation hurts moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas."

Frank Luntz
Republican pollster
(I think he forgot about the kids?)

Read Lutz's talking points memo.



Luntz flip-flops in 2006:

Luntz: "It's now 2006. I think most people would conclude that there is global warming taking place and that the behavior of humans are (sic) affecting the climate."

BBC: "But the administration has continued taking your advice. They're still questioning the science."

Luntz: "That's up to the administration. I'm not the administration. What they want to do is their business. It has nothing to do with what I write. It has nothing to do with what I believe."


There are 4 stages of global warming denial:

1. Global Warming doesn't exist. It's not happening.

2. Okay, it's happening, but humans are not causing it.

3. Okay, humans are causing it, but there's nothing we can do about it, we can't go back to the stone age, it would ruin our economy, it's worse to act than not to act, etc.

4. Okay, it is possible with technology, efficiency/conservation and smart planning to do something about it, but it's going to hurt the bottom line of "dirty" corporations.

Now checkout the scientific facts.
---

It's interesting to see how the right-wing sping machine is cranking up the heat on the global warming issue. I noticed a post of the local blog uncommon insights that uses the phrase "man-made global warming." I did a little Googling on that phrase and came up with some interesting results.

I actually found that the full phrase was:

"I do not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype."

Check of this Google blog search link to the results of that phrase. You will find a whole array of right wing blog sites all doing posts on this phrase over the past couple of days. Ultra-conservative websites like the John Birch Society. Check out some of these sites and see where the links go...FOX News, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, etc.

Another interesting phrase that I encountered was:

“Billions of dollars of grant money are flowing into the pockets of [scientists] on the man-made global warming bandwagon.”

Here's a Google blog search link. This phrase will also bring up some of the same sites as the above link and even a link to David Duke of KKK frame. It's a site with an interesting name: White Civil Rights.

Below is an interesting graph with the temperature patterns for the last 1,000 years. It looks like the temperature is spiking upward. You can believe what you want, but done tell me there's no global warming.



Here's a good, historic overview of temperature trends from the American Institute of Physics.

The pendulum of common sense might be starting to swing in the favor of starting to take the challenges of global warming seriously. Executives of major corporations are starting to beat the drum to put stricter standards in place to combat global warming. Here's a sample of the recent headlines:

CEOs plead for mandatory emissions caps
Xcel CEO calls for greenhouse gas limits

Editorial: Bush joins the green parade

If you don't think our world is changing and changing fast, read about what's happening to the glaciers:

Experts: Alps glaciers will melt by 2050
Himalayan glaciers will vanish between 2030 and 2050.

Here are a few more reasons why you need to act now.

Do it for the children and grandchildren and great grandchildren and great, great grandchildren...

Bush promises to bring a surge in participants to ontheborderline.net!

"Our children are turning into blathering idiots."

--spiritofpublicus
www.ontheborderline.net

(Commenting on tonight's State of the Union address -- which he says he didn't watch. And just think, in 2004 he had quality seats for the President's visit to Hudson, Wisconsin.)

---
Definitions of blathering:

talking idly or incoherently; "blithering (or blathering) idiot"; "jabbering children"; "gabbling housewives"; "a babbling hospital inmate"
---

It's my humble observation that "blathering" would fit 99 percent of the posts done by spiritofpublicus. One of his blog buddies told that "spirit" is a super intelligent guy. He writes some very intellectual pieces. However, spirit's fellow blogger added, I don't know if I've every figured out what he's talking about so I rarely finish what he's written.

As you can see below, there is still hope for idiots in the free market...

Drawbacks To Having A PUNK In The White House

See more original toos @ oggtoons.

Fragging Hillary: Dick Morris's Appeal

Persons on Republican mailing lists this week received an appeal for funds from Dick Morris, President Bill Clinton's political strategist in 1995-1996, asking for a contribution between $25 and $100 or more to finance a critical film documentary of Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Signing the letter as "Former Clinton Adviser," Morris wrote: "If you liked how the Swift Boat Veterans turned the tide against John Kerry, you understand how a top Clinton aide can turn the tables and stop a Clinton-style liberal from becoming the next president of the United States."

Morris's appeal was made through The Presidential Coalition, run by conservative activist Dave Bossie. The letter described Morris as dedicated to electing presidents like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Since 1996, Morris has been an author, columnist and television commentator.

The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.

-- Frank Zappa

01/23/1832: Edouard Manet born

Manet's "Dejeuner sur l'herbe" scandalized the critics but won him the enthusiasm of a group of young painters who became the forerunners of the Impressionists.



A painter and printmaker who in his own work accomplished the transition from the realism of Gustave Courbet to Impressionism. Manet broke new ground in choosing subjects from the events and appearances of his own time and in stressing the definition of painting as the arrangement of paint areas on a canvas over and above its function as representation. Exhibited in 1863 at the Salon des Refusés, his Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe ("Luncheon on the Grass") aroused the hostility of the critics and the enthusiasm of a group of young painters who later formed the nucleus of the Impressionists. His other notable works include Olympia (1863) and A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882).

View more of Manet's work at
Web Museum.

Lenin Dies (01/21/1924)

...and so do another 61 million more because of him.



Probably 61,911,000 people, 54,769,000 of them citizens, have been murdered by the Communist Party--the government--of the Soviet Union. This is about 178 people for each letter, comma, period, digit, and other characters in this book.
Old and young, healthy and sick, men and women, and even infants and infirm, were killed in cold-blood. They were not combatants in civil war or rebellions, they were not criminals. Indeed, nearly all were guilty of ... nothing.

Some were from the wrong class--bourgeoisie, land owners, aristocrats, kulaks. Some were from the wrong nation or race-- Ukrainians, Black Sea Greeks, Kalmyks, Volga Germans. Some were from the wrong political faction--Trotskyites, Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries. Or some were just their sons and daughters, wives and husbands, or mothers and fathers. And some were those occupied by the Red Army--Balts, Germans, Poles, Hungarians, Rumanians. Then some were simply in the way of social progress, like the mass of peasants or religious believers. Or some were eliminated because of their potential opposition, such as writers, teachers, churchmen; or the military high command; or even high and low Communist Party members themselves.

Learn more...




Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (April 22, 1870 – January 21, 1924), was a Russian revolutionary, a communist politician, the main leader of the October Revolution, the first head of Soviet Russia, and the primary theorist of the ideology that has come to be called Leninism, which is a variant of Marxism.

Lenin biographical information.

---
Man-made famines and millions of deaths by starvation.

The first man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine 1921-1923. Much has been written in recent years about the man-made famine that ravaged Ukraine in 1932-1933 and caused the deaths of 7 million to 10 million people. This is in stark contrast to the largely ignored famine of 1921-1923 - the first of three famines that Ukraine's population has suffered under the Soviet Communist regime, and a famine that, contrary to popular belief, was not caused by drought and crop failures, but by the policies of the Soviet state.

Learn more!

Propaganda - Animated Soviet Propaganda (2 mins)

From 1924 to perestroika the USSR produced more than 4 dozen animated propaganda films. They weren't for export. Their target was the new nation and their goal was to win over the hearts and minds of the Soviet people. Anti American, Anti Capitalist, Anti Fascist (Anti Hitler), some of these films are as artistically beautiful as the great political posters made after the 1917 revolution. A unique series. With a unique perspective. Includes commentary by a leading Soviet film scholar.

Kitty sends a message to ontheborderline.net bloggers

Make plans now for the Badger Blog Alliance Boob Fest

"McCarthyism" means pointing out positions taken by liberals that are unpopular with the American people. As former President Bush said, "Liberals do not like me talking about liberals." The reason they sob about the dark night of fascism under McCarthy is to prevent Americans from ever noticing that liberals consistently attack their own country."
-- Ann Coulter



"The portrayal of Senator Joe McCarthy as a wild-eyed demagogue destroying innocent lives is sheer liberal hobgoblinism. Liberals weren't cowering in fear during the McCarthy era. They were systematically undermining the nation's ability to defend itself while waging a bellicose campaign of lies to blacken McCarthy's name. Everything you think you know about McCarthy is a hegemonic lie. Liberals denounced McCarthy because they were afraid of getting caught, so they fought back like animals to hide their own collaboration with a regime as evil as the Nazis."
-- Ann Coulter

"Rebellion is like witchcraft. That's what it is, it's like witchcraft."
-- Missouri State Rep. Jean Dixon

"It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."
-- Pat Robertson

"I think she's a clown or a witch."
-- A 45-year-old Lawrence, Kansas man commenting on Ann Clouter's visit to KU

"In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me - and by that time no one was left to speak up."
-- Pastor Martin Niemoller, Dachau, 1944

Congratulations! Bob Ziller!!! On The Road To Borderline Infamy

Although it's early in the year, members of the ATBL staff have unanimously decided that it will be impossible to top Bob Ziller. Our premature speculation has thrust of Bob Hope Award on Mr. Z. Once again, Mr. Ziller has been trashed by his fellow blog mates at www.ontheborderline.net for exercising his rights to free speech in the currently edition of the New Richmond News. Ziller is being slapped down by the OTBL high priests of hypocrisy for coming out in favor of a new policy adopted by the New Richmond that restricts participation in the open forum portion of the district school board meetings to members of the school district.

In his letter, Bob Z. wrote the following:

"What I like about this is that it keeps outside agitators and those who think they know how to better run a school district...Let them come in and help pay for the schools for the right to the open forum."

Read Ziller's complete letter.

OTBL posterchild, Playswithhistoy Roy, curtly blogged about Ziller that he is "one of the most conflicted individuals residing in the St. Croix Valley. It is obvious that this rule applies to certain individuals from Hudson who have taken the opportunity to speak at some of the New Richmond meetings...Get a grip Bob. If you’d spend a little less time going to lunch with the superintendents and a little more time being concerned about freedom and liberty you’d be a lot better off."

Spiritofbigproboscis, in his weizen condition, pays Ziller a tremendous compliment, when he scribbles, "If you and the other residents of New Richmond are willing to bear all costs for your government schools, then the rest of us will gladly shut-up. I know James p. Nelson has attempted to use other identities when writing; I have to wonder if Ziller is not really Nelson."

Of course, this is not the first time Ziller's "fellow" bloggers have compared him to greatness. In a post on 9/17/2006 titled "Will The Real Bob Ziller Please Stand Up," poster Clueless wrote of Ziller, "How on earth could this be the same person? Either Jeff Holmquist is impersonating Bob in the paper or the Marxist Blogger is impersonating Bob on this blog."

Ziller is good, but he ain't that good. Ziller is quite a cat, but he's no James P. Nelson. Before posting this, I checked and noboby attempts to "use other identities when writing" on these local blogs. I know I certainly don't.

You go Bob!!!

Ethanol + NAFTA + record-high corn prices = more illegal immigrants

Mexico has shed nearly 30 percent of its farm employment since NAFTA was implemented. Many of the jobs belonged to subsistence farmers who fled to the United States. Some rural advocates have said another wave of migrants will be headed north next year, when all remaining tariffs and quotas on agricultural products are lifted as part of the NAFTA agreement.

Add more fiber to your corny political arguments!

Available at free markets every where. Just ask the minimum-wage-single-mother-of-three-working-two-jobs-since-her-husband-deserted-her clerk for directions for the aisle with the fruit cakes and nuts.

Republican Chairman Calls for Bipartisanship

WASHINGTON -- Republican Chairman Ken Mehlman on Thursday challenged his GOP brethren to work with Democrats and independents to defeat terrorism and solve the country's problems, a call for bipartisanship at a time of intense political polarization.

Read more!



"Let's work to put aside our differences on other issues and march together to defeat this common enemy, who threatens our common values - values that aren't red or blue, but red, white and blue."

Ken Mehlman
Republican Chairman

"Go along to get along. Find the common ground. The world is not black and white, it is gray. Compromise. Be moderate. We have heard all these phrases before. Well I think a moderate is nothing more than someone who does not understand or is too afraid to stand up for what they believe in. So how do we find middle ground? We can’t."

Redux
ontheborderline.net

"Beware those who compromise—for any reason! There is no middle ground in either social or fiscal responsibility."

Choosing Life
ontheborderline.net
---