Yale Dean Says: "Less Atlas - More Frank Capra"

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, CEO of the Leadership Institute at Yale University, said executives who take refuge in the capitalist utopia of Atlas Shrugged are "reading themselves into a trance of defensive self-delusion."

He says great American industrialists were in fact community-minded, going back to the pioneer frontiersmen who circled their wagons and built barns together. The philosophy of Atlas Shrugged does not explain successful CEOs such as Milton Hershey, who during the Depression provided employees of his chocolate company with free medical care and paid off the mortgages of every church in town, Sonnenfeld says.

Rand should have written fewer screenplays and "watched more Frank Capra to better understand the real values of her new adopted country," Sonnenfeld says.
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"For FIFTY YEARS scientists have known about global warming. This exerpt is from the well known educational documentary "Unchained Goddess" produced by Frank Capra for Bell Labs for their television program "The Bell Telephone Hour." It was so well made, that it went on to live a continued life in middle school science classrooms across the nation for decades. "



















Capra was most famous for his classic film "It's a wonderful Life"

Finger Pickin' Good

In case you feel like singing along.

There’s blog group who’s sure all their words are gold
As they soak in their hot tub called heaven.
When you get there, you know because their minds are all closed
With no word you can make sense of.
Ooh, ooh and they soak in their hot tub called heaven.

There’s a peanut in that tub that we like to rub
Cause his egotistical words have no rational meaning.
A dead tree by the brook, there’s no songbirds to sing
His free market poisons our valley with drivel
Ooh, it makes North Hudson wonder,
Ooh, it makes Hudson wonder.

There's a feeling you get when you look at his blog,
And your lunch it starts to heaving.
In his eyes are dollar signs on the backs of the poor,
And the helpless people so sore.
Ooh, it makes New Richmond wonder,
Ooh, it really makes Hudson wonder.

And it's whispered that soon he’ll duct tape the moon
Then Mr. Peanut will lead them to treason.
And a dark night will set for those who dare disagree
And their phone calls will echo with hatred.

If there's a bustle in your backyard, do be alarmed now,
It's probably him trying to scare you with his law suit thing.
No, there is only one path you can go by, or your socialist scum
He’ll waste no time on 20 questions, because his road is right on.
And it makes St. Croix county wonder.

If your head is empty and black and white are the colors you know,
Than Mr. Peanut is calling you to join him,
Dear friend, can you hear his empty ideas blow, and did you know
When he talks don’t be caught down wind.

And as he whines on his blog
He comments with F-words rhyming with "shucks."
There walks a peanut vendor we all know
Who calls late at night and wants to know
Why everything he touches is fools gold.

And if you listen very hard
You’ll understand why he’s always last.
Yes he is the one ignored by all
but you won't see his name on the pukatorium wall.

And he’s alone in his hot tub in heaven.

Mstislav Rostropovich: 1927 - 2007

His charismatic intensity and flawless play made him famous; his defense of fellow Soviet dissidents made him a hero.

"Explain to me, please why in our literature and art so often people absolutely incompetent in this field have the final word. Every man must have the right fearlessly to think independently and express his opinion about what he knows, what he has personally thought about and experienced, and not merely to express with slightly different variations the opinion which has been inculcated in him."

Mstislav Rostropovich

I Solemnly Swear

"Each person killed by Uncle Sam's terrible swift sword has had family and friends, and they are not happy. Decade after decade, the federal government's enemies have accumulated, and today they surely number in the hundreds of millions."

Richard Maybury

Taxcuts Keep Working

Dollar at record low against euro:

The US economy grew at its weakest pace for four years during the first quarter of 2007, figures from the US Commerce Department show.

More Republican "Family Values" sponsored by Jeffy Lube Gannon

To Be Perfect

According to Buddhism for a man to be perfect there are two qualities that he should develop equally: compassion on one side, and wisdom on the other. Here compassion represents love, charity, kindness, tolerance and such noble qualities on the emotional side, or qualities of the heart, while wisdom would stand for the intellectual side or the qualities of the mind. If one develops only the emotional neglecting the intellectual, one may become a good-hearted fool; while to develop only the intellectual side neglecting the emotional may turn one into a hardhearted intellect without feelings for others. Therefore, to be perfect one has to develop both equally. That is the aim of the Buddhist way of life: in it wisdom and compassion are inseparably linked together.

Walpola Rahula
What the Buddha Taught

Republican Family Values Alert

Bush Official Linked to Call-Girl Probe

WASHINGTON - Randall Tobias, head of the Bush administration's foreign aid programs, abruptly resigned Friday after his name surfaced in an investigation into a high-priced call-girl ring, said two people in a position to know the circumstances of his departure.

It was Tobias' own decision to resign, according to one of the people, who said the issue came up only in the past day or so. The people spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the investigation is still under way.

Tobias submitted his resignation a day after he was interviewed by ABC News for an upcoming program about an alleged prostitution service run by the so-called D.C. Madam.

Read more...

Jihadists Having Second Thoughts

Much to the jihadists surprise, the virgins waiting for them in Heaven where not quite what they expected.

Congratulations Bob!

Darkness Falls On North Hudson

Q: How many On The Border Line bloggers does it take to change a light bulb?



A: Candle light was good enough for their George Mason and it's good enough for them! Besides, in a free market, a light bulb should be able to change itself -- if it truly wants to change. Only socialist light bulbs need someone to change them, because that requires a handout.

Take Backs Are Hell

The World According to Anonymous: Part 1

In order to better understand the world according to Anonymous, it is best to crack the shell our favorite commenter's insights and consume them in bite-sized chunks, i.e. one peanut at a time. Below is our first installment of the World According to Anonymous. In the comment section, feel free to debate and discuss your take on Mr. Anonymous's worldview in the comments section.

"What was wrong with the leftists' worldview in the 1990s and today? Essentially it is this: they see society as unworkable by itself. They believe it has fundamental flaws and deep-rooted conflicts that keep it in some sort of structural imbalance. All these conflicts and disequilibria cry out for government fixes, for leftists are certain that there is no social problem that a good dose of power can't solve. "

It's Official - ATBL Declared a..........

What Is "Compassionate conservatism?"

"Conservatives are very upset at the idea of single-mom families. But they do their best to create a lot of them by sending American men off to war to be killed."

Harry Browne

David Halberstam: 1934-2007

"The crueler the war gets, the crueler the attacks get on anybody who doesn't salute or play the game. And then one day, the people who are doing the attacking look around, and they've used up their credibility."

David Halberstam

Read more about the life of Halberstam, who was killed in a car accident on Monday.

Gay Talese talks about friend Halberstam.

Yea! What Lew Say Dude!!!

"Not 1 in 10,000 Republican conservatives has an inkling of the most basic insights of the old liberal faith in freedom, to say nothing of the founders' fears of government power. For most of them, the proper political philosophy amounts to nothing more than power lust backed by chauvinism."

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

Mr. Peanut On Plywood...

...Not Exactly Elvis On Velvet

Thoughts On Wacky Tobacky...

We Are All Interconnected

"The universe that we inhabit and our shared perception of it are the results of a common karma. Likewise, the places that we will experience in future rebirths will be the outcome of the karma that we share with the other beings living there. The actions of each of us, human or nonhuman, have contributed to the world in which we live. We all have a common responsibility for our world and are connected with everything in it."

The Dalai Lama
A Flash of Lightning in the Dark of Night

Clark, the Canadian Hockey Goalie

Wanted: Faux Scientists

See Full Cartoon:

“As a scientist, I like to think that facts will prevail, and they do eventually,” said Dr. James McCarthy, Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography at Harvard University and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s working group on climate change impacts. “It’s shameful that ExxonMobil has sought to obscure the facts for so long when the future of our planet depends on the steps we take now and in the coming years.”
Get the Facts:

More Smoke and Mirrors Science:

Virginia: Conceal and Carry Exposed

So Called "Friends of Science"

Anti-global warming $nakeoil that'$ heavy on the oil

The Friends of Science Society (FoS) is a Canadian non-profit group based in Calgary, Alberta, that is "made up of active and retired engineers, earth scientists and other professionals, as well as many concerned Canadians, who believe the science behind the Kyoto Protocol is questionable."

In an August 12, 2006, article The Globe and Mail revealed that the group had received significant funding via anonymous, indirect donations from the oil industry.
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Check out Source Watch to better understand where our local OTBL blog site is getting it's latest batch of anti-global warming Kool-aid from...


Here's an interesting, feature article titled: Mr. Cool: Nurturing doubt about climate change is big business. It ran in the Toronto Globe and Mail last August and provides details on the oil company links to Tim Ball, a former professor from the University of Winnipeg, who is busy using oil and fossil fuel funding to present his anti-Al Gore version of science.

Read Mr. Cool.

Here's a few interesting points from the article:

"Few in the audience have any idea that Prof. Ball hasn't published on climate science in any peer-reviewed scientific journal in more than 14 years. They do not know that he has been paid to speak to federal MPs by a public-relations company that works for energy firms. Nor are they aware that his travel expenses are covered by a group supported by donors from the Alberta oil patch."
...
"In February, the UN and the World Meteorological Society's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which brings together more than 2,000 scientists to review tens of thousands of peer-reviewed papers on climate science, will release its fourth report. The authors say it will contain a warning that human-caused global warming could drive the Earth's temperature to levels far higher than previously predicted."
...
"He (Ball) says stuff that is just plain wrong. But when you are talking to crowds, when you are talking on TV, there is no challenge, there is no peer review..."What Ball is doing is not about science. It is about politics."

Andrew Weaver
Canada Research Chair in Climate Modelling and Analysis at the University of Victoria, and a lead author of a chapter in the upcoming IPCC report.
...
In a now-infamous 2003 memo, U.S. pollster and consultant Frank Luntz advised Republican politicians to cultivate uncertainty when talking about climate change: "Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate ," wrote Mr. Luntz (the italics are his own).

A Chickenhawk Squawks

Spirit of Self-Defense



"As NRO's designated chickenhawk, let me be the one to ask: Where was the spirit of self-defense here? Setting aside the ludicrous campus ban on licensed conceals, why didn't anyone rush the guy? It's not like this was Rambo, hosing the place down with automatic weapons. He had two handguns for goodness' sake—one of them reportedly a .22.

At the very least, count the shots and jump him reloading or changing hands. Better yet, just jump him. Handguns aren't very accurate, even at close range. I shoot mine all the time at the range, and I still can't hit squat. I doubt this guy was any better than I am. And even if hit, a .22 needs to find something important to do real damage—your chances aren't bad.

Yes, yes, I know it's easy to say these things: but didn't the heroes of Flight 93 teach us anything? As the cliche goes—and like most cliches. It's true—none of us knows what he'd do in a dire situation like that. I hope, however, that if I thought I was going to die anyway, I'd at least take a run at the guy."

John Derbyshire
Nation Review Online

April is Celebrate Lunacy Month at OTBL

OTBL Wisdom:

"As a teacher or spouse of a teacher, they are not taxpayers, but rather the recipients of taxes paid by others. Whatever taxes they nominally fork over are simply a net result of the tax proceeds they have received in the form of wages and salary. It is self-evident that 100%of the income they obtain and keep is from the proceeds of taxation from others.

Denial of the right to vote to teachers and their spouses would serve to protect the taxpaying citizens of the Hudson School District from the predatory attacks of those who live off their taxes, and incessantly attempt to tax them more as time goes by."






















.

The Boat and the Shore

When you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine myriad things with a confused body and mind you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. When you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that nothing at all has unchanging self.

Zen Master Dogen
Moon in a Dewdrop
edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi

Read more @ Tricycle.

44 X 2 = 88

The African-American jazz pianist Fats Waller had a sentence he used to shout when his playing was absolutely brilliant and hilarious. This was it: "Somebody shoot me while I'm happy!"

That there are such devices as firearms, as easy to operate as cigarette lighters and as cheap as toasters, capable at anybody's whim of killing Father or Fats or Abraham Lincoln or John Lennon or Martin Luther King, Jr., or a woman pushing a baby carriage, should be proof enough for anybody that, to quote the old science fiction writer Kilgore Trout, "being alive is a crock of shit."

Kurt Vonnegut
Timequake