Photo Shop Politics: William The Youth

Must not be too much to do in New Mexico...

Outgoing New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is mulling whether to grant a pardon to Billy the Kid, the outlaw convicted of murdering a sheriff in 1878. The potential pardon has ignited a debate on this chapter of frontier history, with supporters saying state authorities reneged on a deal struck with Billy the Kid -- also known as William H. Bonney -- and opponents arguing that a pardon would sully the memories of the lawmen who tracked him down.

An unofficial poll set up by the governor's office found public support for the pardon, according to the Associated Press, with 430 respondents in favor and 379 opposed.

Pardons are a traditional goodwill gesture from departing governors but few involve convicts who died more than a century ago. Richardson, a Western history buff, first started considering a pardon for Bonney after receiving a petition from Albuquerque attorney Randi McGinn this month, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Billy the Kid was convicted of killing Lincoln County Sheriff William Brady in 1878 but the territorial governor of New Mexico, Lew Wallace, offered him a pardon if he testified in a separate murder case. The Kid agreed but was never pardoned. He escaped from prison in 1881 and killed two deputies before he was tracked down and killed on July 14, 1881.

McGinn told the Times her petition was "only to enforce one promise the governor made."

Wallace's great grandson, however, opposes the pardon. William N. Wallace said a pardon would portray the former governor as a "dishonorable liar."

Richardson has until Friday night to make up his mind. His successor, Susana Martinez, says she has better things to do with her time than argue about frontier-era outlaws.

Is Mother Earth Losing Her Balance?

"We live in a democracy and policies represent our collective will. We cannot blame others. If we allow the planet to pass tipping points...it will be hard to explain our role to our children. We cannot claim...that 'we didn’t know.'"

Jim Hansen
Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies



"...Taxes do two things. First and most obviously, they fund the operations of government. But far more importantly, taxes have been used since the founding of this country to encourage behaviors that we deem good for the nation and to discourage behaviors we consider bad..."

"...In Denmark gasoline is taxed heavily and costs nearly $10 per gallon because the government—with the consent of its citizens, the result of a public information campaign that wasn’t drowned out because there is no domestic oil industry to speak of—realized it was picking up about $3 per gallon of the real cost of gasoline.
Cars and trucks produce exhaust, which deteriorates buildings and statues, causes cancers and asthmas, and, when rain catches it on the way down, pollutes waterways and crops, with those poisons ending up in the food chain. With a national health-care system in addition to other public services, taxpayers in Denmark are picking up the cost of cleaning public areas and historic sites, treating the cancers and the asthmas, cleaning waterways, and restoring farmland that’s been polluted by gas additives, like lead and MTBE (methyl tertbutyl ether).

So they decided to recover those “externalized costs” from gasoline with an increased gas tax..."

Thom Hartmann
Cool Our Fever

The Chamber Pot Is Full Of Fraud...

On this date in 1973...

The Chamber of Commerce of Akron, OH, terminated its association with the All-American Soap Box Derby. It was stated that the race had become "a victim of cheating and fraud."

Evidently, the Chamber has had a change of heart. Now it endorses cheating and fraud, as long as it is being done by big business.

TEA Party: Return To The Bad Old Days

On December 28, 1869...

The (Noble and Holy Order of the) Knights of Labor, a labor union formed by tailors in Philadelphia, held the first Labor Day ceremonies in American history. Led by Uriah S. Stephens, they advocated and end to child and convict labor, equal pay for women, a progressive income tax and cooperative ownership of mines and factories by management and workers. They organized among the growing mass of industrial workers, their motto, “An Injury to One Is the Concern of All.”

On January 3, 2011...

Wisconsin GovenorScott Walker and the new Republican Legislature declare war on working people. They intend to abolish public employee unions and turn Wisconsin into a so-called right-to-work state, meaning no more union shops and no more dues from anyone who objects. This also means no more pressure from anywhere to keep wages at a livable level for anyone, union or not.

It’s all under the guise of cutting the state’s $3 billion budget deficit and creating 250,000 jobs. Sound familiar? Since the Reagan era, Republicans and corporate Democrats have pushed the big lie that tax cuts for the rich, deregulation, and busting unions would bring jobs and prosperity. Instead we got the Great Recession. And now the people of Wisconsin have voted to cure the disease with more disease and turn our state into an economic dictatorship...


When Adolf Hitler outlawed “trade unions, collective bargaining and the right to strike, the German worker in the Third Reich became an industrial serf, bound to his master, the employer, much as medieval peasants had been bound to the lord of the manor,” writes William Shirer in his classic, “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.” This was done “democratically” when Germany’s parliament passed the 1934 Charter of Labor, which “put the worker in his place and raised the employer to his old position of absolute master.”

Read more...

Bring Back The "Savages" and "Spear Chuckers" To The "Hood"

A Republican lawmaker wants to undo a new state law aimed at eliminating Indian mascots and other race-based team names and logos in Wisconsin public schools.

Rep. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, has drafted legislation to repeal the law, which allows any school district resident to file a complaint with the local school board over the use of offensive nicknames, logos or mascots. The state school superintendent can then order districts to stop using such symbols if they promote discrimination, harassment or stereotyping.

Read more...




On this day 1946...

The University of Tennessee refused to play Duquesne University, because they might have used a black player, Chuck Cooper, in the basketball game. Cooper went on to be the first black player drafted by the Boston Celtics, playing his first NBA game on the same day as the debut of head coach Red Auerbach, guard Bob Cousy, and center “Easy” Ed Macauley.

Those Little Red, White and Blue Lies

"We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue. And then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."

George Orwell

Quote of Note

"Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states 'Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.' But this noble pronouncement runs smack up against the gospel of capitalism: 'Everyone has the right to a free-market economy.' The problem is, free markets don't have consciences, corporations can't really police themselves, and so loss of human life has become an acceptable by-product of business as usual.

Orion Magazine editorial in the May/June 2005 issue

The Roots of Socialized Medicine

Pen & Ink Jambs

For Local Capitalists Speaking only "eesti keel"

Eesti keel, the official language of Estonia.








For some interesting facts about where the OTBL server is located and how it was surreptitiously setup, go to http://whois.domaintools.com/ontheborderline.net. Send Mikhail our regards by phone or email. He's supposedly living in Moscow.

Local "Brilliant" Capitalists Go Broke

Point your browsers to http://www.ontheborderline.net/?lang=en
I think this says all that needs to be said!

Obama says "I'm a fighter!"

"A long political fight that carried over into next year might have been good politics, but it would be a bad deal for the economy and it would be a bad deal for the American people."

President Obama
12/7/2010 News Conference



Talk is cheap and Obama is certianly not a fighter. He's a bi-racial guy who grew up learning to get along in different worlds. He's more likely a bridge builder. Too bad he is living in a time when politics is overstaffed with demonolition experts and wrecking ball operators.

Let's face it, Obama didn't get were he is today by bitch-slapping ganstas in the 'hood. He got there by doing his homework, getting good grades and putting on his Baskin-Robbins uniform and serving up 31 different flavors of ice cream.

He ain't the big boss man...He ain't big, he's just tall. He's stuck in the middle of doing a political tap dance trying to avoid being drowned in the pissing match between the wingnuts on the right and left.

He's a political animal in a game that requires a seemly rare commodity called "compromise."

High Speed Rail Questioned in California

"The lack of a clear financial plan is a critical concern. There is an air of unreality about a plan that includes $17 (billion) to $19 billion in 'free' federal funding from programs that do not yet exist."

Report on California High Speed Rail



"As California prepares to start construction on its $43 billion high-speed railroad, another group of experts has cast doubt on whether the project can succeed.

The California High-Speed Rail Peer Review Group, which the Legislature and voters created to scrutinize the project, said in its first report released last week that the state's largest project suffers from the "absence of a credible financial plan."

The study -- now the fifth of its kind issued by objective analysts this year, all stinging rebukes of the project -- calls for a "thorough reassessment" of several engineering, financial and managerial issues.

The group of transportation and financial engineers and managers headed by former Caltrans chief Will Kempton said the state's plan to attract funds from both the public and private sectors seems unlikely. Bullet train planners are gambling they're wrong, and voted last week to spend $4.15 billion to start construction in the Central Valley in 2012 while hoping to secure an additional $30 billion this decade to complete the full line..."



Read Experts criticize high-speed rail financial plan@ Mercury News.

Ronald Reagan: "Facts are stupid things."

"Shoot, I must have lived such a doggoned sheltered life as a normal, independent American up there in the Last Frontier, schooled with only public education and a lowly state university degree, because obviously I haven't learned enough to dismiss common sense."
Sarah Palin

"We need to uptick our image with everyone, including one-armed midgets."
Michael Steele

"You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test."
George W. Bush

"Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn't even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas."
Rep. Michelle Bachmann

"When I see a 9/11 victim family on television, or whatever, I'm just like, 'Oh shut up' I'm so sick of them because they're always complaining."
Glenn Beck

"If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president."
Ann Coulter

"The only way to reduce the number of nuclear weapons is to use them."
Rush Limbaugh

Jesus - Sermon on the Mount

Where was Ayn Rand when Jesus needed her philosophical guidance?



I find the Gospel of Matthew contains some of the core principles of the teachings of Jesus. Below are a few verses I find helpful in guiding my path through life and helping me view the things that go on in the world around me. Please don't look to me for religious guidance. I'm only human and, like the rest of you, I just working to get through life the best I can. I'm not bible scholar and don't pretent to be...

What can I say...the beatitudes:

And seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated, His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.


You can't take it with you...

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Who you going to serve...

No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

Who am I to judge...

Judge not, that you be not judged. for with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.

The Art of Politics: Thomas Hart Benton

The Strike (1933)

Thomas Hart Benton was born on April 15, 1889 in Neosho, Missouri. He spent most of his childhood in boarding schools and in Washington, D.C. and landed his first job as a cartoonist for the Joplin American in Missouri. Benton studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, resided briefly in Paris and New York City, then settled in Kansas City, working as an instructor of drawing/painting at the Kansas City Art Institute. His most famous pupil was the Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock; his well known Nebraska students at the Institute were Aaron Pyle and Bill Hammond.
Benton was part of the Regionalist movement and is well known for his mural paintings that depict commmon everyday scenes of Midwestern life. The figures in his works often appear cartoon-like through the way he distorts the bone and muscular structure of their faces. His most famous murals are located in the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City and in the Truman Library in Independence. Benton died January 19, 1975 in his studio.

The Global Economy Explained

Progressive Heroes: Fighting Bob La Follette

You've heard the term "progressive" used in combination with politics, but maybe you don't know how deeply that progressive roots are in Wisconsin and national politics. A major force behind getting the term "progressive" tattooed onto the lips of today's political rhetoric service was Wisconsin native Robert La Follotte. The conservative, wing-right echo chamber is busy trying to make words like "progressive" and "liberal" dirty, shameful words.

If you are looking to improve the future, you better understand the past and know what got us this far. Take a few minutes to learn more about Fighting Bob! You will learn he was part of a determined group of individuals who fought against the interest of the robber barons to help the masses improve their lives and livelihood. What the Progressives fought for 100 years ago is what the neo-cons and bloggers like our neighbors at www.ontheborderline.net are fighting to undone today. The OTBL'ers dream of returning to a fantasy world of 100 years ago that never existed.

Robert Marion LaFollette, (1855-1925), American political leader. A founder of the Progressive Movement, he was a spearhead for political reform in Wisconsin and the nation for 25 years. Unwilling to compromise on principle, "Fighting Bob" LaFollette earned the deep admiration of his supporters and the hatred of many foes.

LaFollette was born in Primrose, Wis., on June 14, 1855. A farmer's son, he graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1879 and practiced law in Madison. In 1880 he defied a local political leader to win the office of district attorney. He then served (1885-1891) as a Republican in the US House of Representatives.

Wisconsin Governor: 1900-1906
Wisconsin's U.S. Senator: 1906-1925
Progressive Party Presidential Candidate: 1924

For more detail on La Follotte's life and legacy, click here or
click here.

Books to checkout:

LaFollette, Robert M., LaFollette's Autobiography (Univ. of Wis. Press 1960)
Thelen, David P., Robert M. LaFollette and the Insurgent Spirit (Univ. of Wis. Press 1986)
Young, Donald, ed., Adventure in Politics (Holt 1970)

US Health Care: Twice The Cost; Same Results

Let's the US spends twice as much on health care and gets the same results as other countries with national health care coverage...

Need a hip replacement?


The "average" US cost of a hip replacemtn is $34,454. That's twice what it costs in Germany, three times what it costs in France, and six times what it costs in Switzerland. WTF?

This goes a long way toward explaining why hip replacements are so popular in the United States: they're a huge profit center for doctors and hospitals.

Read IFHP Survey of Medical Costs By Unit...

It Ain't 'Bout Da Facts Jack

"Republicans, who are masters of deceptive marketing, seized on Obama's most appealing qualities and turned them upside down. Their propaganda cast him not as soft but as a power-mad (black) leftist, destroying democracy with socialist schemes. The portrait was so ludicrous and mendacious, the president's party hardly bothered to respond. Egged on by the Republican Party and Fox News, right-wing frothers conjured sicko fantasies and extreme accusations: the president is not only a black man (bad enough for the party of the white South); he is not even American. The vindictive GOP strategy is racial McCarthyism, demonizing this honorable man as an alien threat, just as cold war Republicans depicted left-liberal Democrats as commie sympathizers."

William Grieder

A Nation Of Immigrants...Germany?

Racists breed like rats...

"Tennessee state Rep. Curry Todd, from right here in the Memphis area, continues to come under fire from an ungodly bunch of illegal aliens and their advocates, homosexuals, Judeo-Christians, black radicals, and liberal whites. Even Tennessee’s Head Liberal In Charge, Governor Phil Bredesen, has denounced Rep. Todd for his remarks about illegals being encouraged to multiply like rats when we not only give them free prenatal care, but pass laws saying welfare workers can’t even ask them if they’re in the country legally.

First off, when did liberals suddenly get so excited about what they normally refer to as “fetal tissue”, or a “fetus”? The black welfare worker Rep. Todd made the remark to used the term “unborn babies” and Gov. Bredesen calls them “children.” So when liberals are encouraging white Americans to get abortions, it’s “fetal tissue”, but when illegal aliens are breeding like rats on the taxpayer’s dime it’s an “unborn baby.”

Let’s hope Rep. Todd continues to defy the the mounting pressure to grovel to our invaders and issue an apology..."

James Edwards
Anti-rat breeding, conservative, radio talk show host

---
"Many loyalist supporters of the Tea Party Movement harbor troubling biases against Blacks, Latinos, immigrants, & gay people..."

Read Tea Party Loyalists Biased Against Blacks, Latinos, Immigrants, & Gays @ AlertNet



"...Good immigrants and bad, how many and of what kind are all worrying Germany just now. A book claiming that Muslim immigrants and the underclass were bringing about Germany’s downfall by breeding too fast had a print run of over a million by the end of September (and cost its author, Thilo Sarrazin, his job on the Bundesbank board). Seeing its success, politicians abandoned political correctness. Further immigration from Turkey or Arabia is no longer welcome, said Horst Seehofer, Bavaria’s premier and head of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian arm of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. The CSU asked that immigrants embrace the Leitkultur (dominant culture). Even Mrs Merkel joined in. Multiculturalism—the idea that immigrants can recreate their culture in Germany—has “utterly failed,” she said last month. New polls confirm Germans’ hostility towards immigrants, especially Muslims...

...Some 15m people in Germany have a “migration background” (ie, immigrants or their offspring), second only to America. Some 4m are ethnic Germans from the former communist block. But many others came as guest workers in the 1950s and 1960s, especially from Turkey. On indicators of social and economic health, these migrants lag. In Bremen, where more than half the young children are from migrant stock, they are less likely to go to kindergarten than native Germans. Just 8% of foreign teenagers are in vocational training, compared with 37% of Germans. In a city struggling to recover from a slump in shipbuilding, 16.4% of migrants were unemployed in 2008, against 7.5% of native Germans. More than 40% live below the poverty line, three times the rate for non-migrants.

It is no surprise that joining the German mainstream is hard for children of manual labourers who were once expected to return home. In big cities they crowd together and go to schools from which native German children have fled, making it harder to integrate, says Stefan Luft, a scholar at the University of Bremen. Turks are especially prone to living in a parallel world because there are so many of them. For too many immigrants the dole is an acceptable alternative to work. Islam can be an additional barrier, but only for Muslims who choose to make it one. One study estimated that 10-12% of Muslims have radical Islamist leanings, and a quarter of Muslim teenagers are hostile to Christians and Jews or to democracy..."

Read Multikulturell? Wir? @ The Economist

Libertarian Party Founder Dies

David Nolan, 66, founder of the Libertarian Party died earlier this week. I ran across his obituary in the New York Times. In addition to founding the Libertarian Party, he also developed what became know as the Nolan Chart (see below).


The obituary mentions that Nolan was influenced by the individualist fiction of Robert A. Heinlein and the novels of Ayn Rand. I find it interesting that people develop a political ideology that has it's roots in science fiction. The TEA Party has embraced much of the Libertarian platform, especially the fiscal side of it. The social side has a long to to go to get accepted by the likes of the TEA Party.

I suppose the libertarians have a relative in scientology, a religion based on the science fiction writings of L. Ron Hubbard.

Nolan was so smitten by Ayn Rand, that he went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the idea of being an uncompromising architect like Howard Roark, the hero of Rand’s “Fountainhead.” My take on Howard Roark is that he didn't understand that he was a replaceable hireling. He was a wage slave working for the man. If he wanted to be the total individualist, he would have paid for the building himself. Dynamiting the building, to me, represented the work of a spoiled brat who didn't get his own way.

I suppose I can understand how people like Nolan get hooked on a piece of fiction. I remember reading S.E. Hinton's "The Outsiders" in eighth grade and it made we want to become a juvenile delinquent. That was the first book a read in one night and the only book I re-read immediately after I finished the first read.

I suspect there's more than a little science fiction rolled into the Bible. Likewise, I believe there is a touch of fiction and fantasy contained in our Constitution.

Maybe there are more than a few who have staken their worldview on science fiction. Oh who knows, maybe if you close your eyes and click your heels, you might end up in Kansas with a girl named Dorothy.

Right or Left -- It Must Be A Vast Conspiracy...and I'm Stuck In The Middle With You.

"I'm suggesting there's a left-wing syndicate. That's for sure, we've documented it. These people are all hooked up. The same people that went after George W. Bush have just changed their focus onto me. They are running ads, they are raising money. This is pretty serious stuff,"
Tom DeLay
FOX News' Tony Snow Radio Show
Sept. 27,2005




"...this vast right-wing conspiracy conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for President. A few journalists have kind of caught on to it and explained it, but it has not yet been fully revealed to the American public." ~

Hillary Clinton
NBC's "Today Show"
January 27, 1998

Free enterprise: Still A Cuban Crime of Passion...Sort of...

"...Cubans can now legally work for themselves as a clown, a button sewer or a fancy-dress dancer (in the costume of a 1940s Cuban crooner, Beny Moré, the list bizarrely specifies). Repairing furniture is allowed; selling it is not. But the list also includes more conventional trades such as building and plumbing. State media have stressed that self-employment should from now on be considered an acceptable way of life, and those that choose it will no longer be “stigmatised”. Even so, the guidelines insist that the self-employed will not be allowed to 'accumulate property'..."

Read Trying to make the sums add up @ The Economist (11/13/2010)

Can Communism Save Capitalism?

"...Chinese firms are going global for the usual reasons: to acquire raw materials, get technical know-how and gain access to foreign markets. But they are under the guidance of a state that many countries consider a strategic competitor, not an ally. Once bought, natural-resource firms can become captive suppliers of the Middle Kingdom. Some believe China Inc can be more sinister than that: For example, America thinks that Chinese telecoms-equipment firms pose a threat to its national security.

Private companies have played a big part in delivering the benefits of globalization. They span the planet, allocating resources as they see fit and competing to win customers. The idea that an opaque government might come to dominate global capitalism is unappealing. Australia and Canada, once open markets for takeovers, are creating hurdles for China's state-backed firms, particularly in natural resources, and it is easy to see other countries becoming less welcoming too..."

Read China sets out to buy up the world @ the Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Q: What Happens When Loners Join The TEA Party

A: Hate crimes go down 15 percent in 2009

"Hate crimes reported last year by police agencies nationwide -- nearly half of which were motivated by racial bias -- were down by 15 percent compared to 2008, the FBI said Monday.

In a report released by the bureau's Uniform Crime Reporting Program, the FBI said 6,604 criminal incidents involving 7,789 offenses were reported in 2009 as a result of bias toward a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity/national origin, or physical or mental disability.

The 2009 overall total is the lowest since 1994. In the District, the number of reported incidents of hate crimes dropped from 42 to 36; Virginia dropped from 263 to 150; and Maryland rose from 100 to 102.

The FBI report noted that of 6,598 single-bias incidents, 48.5 percent were motivated by a racial bias, 19.7 percent by religious bias, 18.5 percent by sexual-orientation bias, 11.8 percent by ethnicity/national origin bias and bias against a disability accounted for 1.5 percent of single-bias incidents..."

Read more @ Washington Times.

Psuedo-science v. Science v. Religion v. Facts v. the Bible: Intelligent Design v. Theory of Evolution

I've been reading some interesting articles on the debate of "intelligent design" v. Darwin's theory of evolution. Court battles are pending. School boards are being forced to waste resources on a topic that keeps changing its name. The ethics, honesty and intellegence of the teaching and scientific community are once again being challenge by religious fundamentalists.

What you should pay attention to in this debate is how it is protrayed in the media. The current issue of Columbia Journalism Review has an excellent article detailing how this debate is being handled in the media -- nationally and locally. The article, Undoing Darwin, does a through job of discussing the "debate" and provides citations of sources to explore for more detail.

The August 22, 2005 issue of the New Republic has an article, The Case Against Intelligent Design, that pulls no punches on what is behind this debate.

Some scientific and education-related associations with useful discussion and points of view include:

National Center for Science Education
Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
The Textbook League

The The Pew Forum has some interesting research relating to this and other education topics.

Of course, if you find youself at a hot tub party with your friends at www.ontheborderline.net, you might want to read up on what The American Thinker has to say about the debate. This is a source of information sited regularly by the OTBL'ers and it has an article titled Why intelligent design theory ought to be taught.

On this topic, I've often thought that where we came from isn't as important as where we are going. Personally, I more concerned with my life on Earth than what comes after. This is an issue where ignorance plays a giant role in confusing the facts of science with the stories of the Bible. The "flat Earth society" is alive and well and trying to get its foot (feet) in our public school house doors. If you want to teach a class in comparative religions in public school, I'll vote for that. If you want to hook-winked the uninformed masses into replaying the Scopes' Monkey trail over and over again, I'm against that.

Where do you stand on the issue?

Has The Eagle Landed?

"...What's missing with this president is power—a strong grasp of the powers he possesses and the willingness to govern the country with them. During the past two years, this missing quality has been consistently obvious in his rhetoric and substantive policy positions. There is a cloying Boy Scout quality in his style of leadership—the troop leader urging boys to work together on their merit badges—and none of the pigheaded stubbornness of his "I am the decider" predecessor, nor the hard steel of Lyndon Johnson or the guile of Richard Nixon.

Obama has patience and the self-confidence not to insist that his solution is the best and only one. On many vital questions, he went so far as to not even say what his solution was. Such a governing style is too nice for real-life politics, where Boy Scouts get their heads handed to them..."

William Grieder
Obama Without Tears
The Nation

TSA Body Scanner Conspiracy Uncovered...

...by Glenn Beck and The John Birch Society.

Forget the irradiated fruit in the supermarket, they want to radiate your junk at the airport. Find out the shocking truth about who is behind it all...


"With all the commotion over the invasiveness of the naked body scanners used by the United States Transportation Security Administration (TSA), one question that has been ignored is who is profiting from TSA’s use of the body scanners? Mark Hemingway and Tim Carney at The Examiner discovered the shameful answer: George Soros, Michael Chertoff, and a number of lobbyists.

Both Soros and Chertoff are profiting from the naked body scanners by way of the company Rapiscan, whose contract is worth $173 million. Lobbyists for this company include Susan Carr, a former senior legislative aide to Rep. David Price (D-N.C.) who is coincidentally chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee..."

The New American
(The John Birch Society)
Getting Rich from the TSA Naked Body Scanners

TEA Party Calling...

Ayn Rand: Goddess of the Great Recession

Why Christians should be wary of the late pop philosopher and her disciples.

"Whereas traditional conservatism emphasized duties, responsibilities, and social interconnectedness, at the core of the right-wing ideology that Rand spearheaded was a rejection of moral obligations to others."

Jennifer Burns
Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right

Read more @ Christianity Today

The GOTea Party & Ayn Rand - Sermon on the Amount

Ayn Rand is a favorite author of GOTea Partiers and Wisconsin's newly elected Senator Ron Johnson. Those keepers of family values no doubt could Rand's book "The Virtue of Selfishness" in their list of favorites.

I find it very curious how the "big thinkers" on the TEA Party side of the borderline can push the self-righteous, philosophy of Ayn Rand and, at the same time, embrace the teachings of Jesus. Then again, I don't pretend to be judge and jury. That ain't my job.

Stranger ingredients have been blended together to make a fruitcake philosophy that appeals to groups of individuals who do not know the facts and think for themselves -- regradless of which end of the political spectrum you hang your hat. Think lemmings...

Below are a few interesting quotes from the "The Virtue of Selfishness." This is a slim paperback that can be picked up cheap at most used bookstores. You can get a good idea about the single-mindness of Rand's philosophy by watching the movie "The Fountainhead." You can see her philosophy in words OnTheBorderLine blog site and in action at the Hudson school board meetings. I suggest, after you watch "Fountainhead," watch "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Ghandi."

The words of Ayn Rand...$$$$$$$$$

On faith:

Faith is a malignancy that no system can tolerate with impunity; and the man who succumbs to it, will call on it in precisely those issues where he needs his reason most. When one turns from reason to faith, when one rejects the absolutism of reality, one undercuts the absolutism of one's consciousness -- and one's mind becomes an organ one cannot trust any longer. It becomes what the mystics claim it to be: a tool of distortion.

On reality:

There is only one reality -- the reality knowable to reason. And if man does not choose to perceive it, there is nothing else for him to perceive; if it is not of this world that his is conscious, then he is not conscious at all.

On pride:

Pride is one's response to one's power to achieve values, the pleasure one takes in one's own efficacy. And it is this that mystics hold as evil.

Pride has to be earned; it is the reward of effort and achievement; but to gain the virtue of humility, one has only to abstain from thinking -- nothing else is demanded -- and one will feel humble quickly enough.

On humility:

Humility is, of necessity, the basic virtue of a mystical morality: it is the only virtue possible to men who have renounced the mind.

On sacrifice:

A sacrifice, it is necessary to remember, means the surrender of a higher value in favor of a lower value or of a nonvalue. If one gives up that which one does not value in order to obtain that which one does not value -- or if one gives up a lesser value in order to obtain a greater one -- this is not a sacrifice, but a gain...But if sacrifice is a virtue, it is not the neurotic but the rational man who must be "cured." He must learn to do violence to his own rational judgement -- to reverse the order of his value hierarchy -- to surrender that which his mind has choosen as the good -- to turn against and invalidate his own consciousness.

On selfishness:

The root of selfishness is man's right -- and need -- to act on his own judgement. If his judgement is to be an object of sacrifice -- what sort of efficacy, control, freedom from conflict, or serentiy of spirit will be possible to man?

Moving Toward Bi-Partisanship

“We’ll work with the administration when they agree with the people and confront it when they don’t,” Republican Senator Mitch McConnell said. McConnell recently said the No. 1 priority for Republicans is to ensure Obama is a one-term president.

Deer Hunting Within Sight

"State fish and wildlife agencies are pretty much funding themselves. They do a tremendous job on a shoestring budget, but that is very difficult without a reliable funding source. State agencies get the majority of their funding through hunting license."

Jodi Applegate

Feingold's Replacement Heads To Washington

Election Results Nov. 4, 1982

I find it interesting that Republicans, Democrats and the electorate in general think you have to go back to the Great Depression to find economic times and political conditions such as we have today. Go back to November 4, 1982 and see what happened in that year's election. Unemployment above 10 percent! The failed economic policies of a President in his second year in office.

Dems Gain, GOP Holds On In Election

GOTea Sniffs Out St. Croix County Voter Fraud

It's Election Day and members of the St. Croix county Wisconsin GOTea Party are fanning out to polling places, demanding proof of eligibility and generally raising a ruckus. The local GOTea website describes a plan to post challengers at Senate brags he will mount the largest “voter integrity program” in 15 years.

More troubling are new efforts by angry private citizens. Tea Party groups have hosted challenger training sessions in at least four townships. Local newspaper editorialist are urging vigilance. People can now report voters they deem suspicious with a new iPhone apps. Below is a copy of the app being used by the St. Croix Couty GOTea Party...



Why the big push for stop the rampant voter fraud in St. Croix Couty?

Chance of uncovering voter fruad in the US 1 in 6,985,596

Chance of dying from contact with hot tap water: 1 in 5,005,564

Chance of the President Obama wasn't born in the US 1 in 312,125,548

Remember only you can prevent forest fires!!!!!!