Reactionaries and Reformers

"I am not a reformer. I think there is entirely too much attempt at reforming in the world and that we pay too much attention to reformers. We have two kinds of reformers. Both are nuisances. The man who calls himself a reformer wants to smash things. He is the sort of man who would tear up a whole shirt because the collar button did not fir the buttonhole. It would never occur to him to enlarge the buttonhole. This sort of reformer never under any circumstances knows what he is doing. Experience and reform do not go together. A reformer cannot keep his zeal at white heat in the presence of a fact. He must discard all facts.

...On the other hand, we have a different kind of reformer who never calls himself one. He is singularly like the radical reformer. The radical has had no experience and does not want it. The other class of reformer has had plenty of experience but it does him no good. I refer to the reactionary -- who will be surprised to find himself put in exactly the same class as the Bolshevist. He wants to go back to some previous condition, not because it was the best condition, but because he thinks he knows about that condition.

The one crowd wants to smash up the whole world in order to make a better one. The other holds the world as so good that it might well be let stand as it is -- and decay. The second notion arises as does the first -- out of not using the eyes to see with. It is perfectly possible to smash this world, but it is not possible to build a new one. It is possible to prevent the world from going forward, but it is not possible then to prevent it from going back -- from decaying. OR, should everything be petrified, that thereby six percent solution, interest may be paid. The trouble is that reformers and reactionaries alike get away from the realities -- from the primary functions.

One of the counsels of caution is to be very certain that we do not mistake a reactionary turn for a return of common sense. We have passed through a period of fireworks of every description, and the making of a great many idealistic maps of progress. We did not get anywhere. It was a convention, not a match. Lovely things were said, but when we got home we found the furnace out. Reactionaries have frequently taken advantage of the recoil from such a period, and they have promised 'the good old times' -- which usually means the bad old abuses -- and because they are perfectly void of vision they are sometimes regarded as 'practical men.' Their return to power is often hailed as the return of common sense."

Henry Frod
My Life And Work

Another Voice of Reason

The Importance of Public Libraries

"From fearing Mrs. Ruffner I soon learned to look upon her as one of my best friends. When she found that she could trust me she did so implicitly. During the one or two winters that at I was with her she gave me an opportunity to go to school for an hour in the day during a portion of the winter months, but most of my studying was done at night, sometimes alone, sometimes under some one whom I could hire to teach me. Mrs. Ruffner always encouraged and sympathized with me in all my efforts to get an education. It was while living with her that I began to get together my first library. I secured a dry-goods box, knocked out one side of it, put some shelves in it, and began putting into it every kind of book that I could get my hands upon, and called it my 'library.'"

Booker T. Washington
Up From Slavery



"Many years before author Richard Wright achieved international acclaim for his classic novel, Native Son, he lived in Memphis and worked for an optical company where he swept floors and ran errands for his white employers. It was 1926, and the 18-year-old Wright loved to read; but he could not afford to buy any books and as a black man, he was not allowed into the public library.

Fortunately, Wright worked for a generous man named Jim Falk. Falk cared more about Richard Wright's intelligence and his desire to learn than he did about the color of his skin. Falk lent the young black man his library card and Wright began checking out books for himself, all the while telling the librarian that the books were for Mr. Falk. The world of literature was suddenly opened and in all-night reading sprees Wright devoured the masterworks of Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, Stephan Crane, and other writers. His life would never be the same again.

Richard Wright himself wrote about this episode in his autobiography, Black Boy. Here, Gregory Christie's illustrations of the young man and his life in Memphis are personal and touching, and make Wright's hunger for words almost palpable. William Miller manages to retain all the power of the original story even as he makes it accessible to younger readers. Between the illustrations and the story, what certainly comes through is the injustice of ignorance and the power and hope education can provide."

On William Miller's Book Richard Wright and the Library Card

Thomas Sowell: Free Market Flip Flopper

"During the first 30 years of my life, I had no health insurance. Neither did a lot of other people, back in those days. During those 30 years, I had a broken arm, a broken jaw, a badly injured shoulder, and miscellaneous other medical problems. To say that my income was below average during those years would be a euphemism.

How did I manage? The same way everybody else managed: I went to doctors and I paid them directly, instead of paying indirectly through taxes. This was all before politicians gave us the idea that the things we could not afford individually we could somehow afford collectively through the magic of government."

Thomas Sowell
Capitalism Magazine



"Most important of all, he took me one day to a kind of place where I had never been before and knew nothing about -- a public library. Impressed but puzzled as to why we were in a building with so many books, when I had no money to buy books, I found it all difficult to understand at first, as Eddie patiently explained to me how a public library worked. Unknown to me at the time, it was a turning point in my life, for I then developed the habit of reading books."

Thomas Sowell
A Personal Odyssey (p. 16)

(Evidently Sowell for got about the importance of public funded libraries when he wrote the piece for Capitalism Magazine.)

Tough Choices: Who to Believe Fox News? or Dr. Bil?

After a short journey over to the internet blog swamp we fondly refer to as ontheborderline.nut.
I came upon a post by blog genius "Flashy" aka. Dr.bil. He has an MBA from the UW-System you know, just check out his vanity press bio. His genius is beyond the comprehension of the intellectually inferior Senator Obama, graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School.... But I digress.




















Flashy is attempting to convince the cadre freedom fighters at who regularly frequent .nut blogs like OTBL that Presidential Candidate Barack Obama is delighted to have received the endorsement of the Black Panthers.
This race baiting clown (aka. Dr.Bil ) goes on to claim Obama to be an advocate of Black Nationalism ...
blah blah blah. ( go read it for yourself if you dare soil you web browser http://www.ontheborderline.net/?p=5391).

Who'd have thunk that the brilliant minds at OTBL would have been contradicting another more well known
right wing tool, FOX NEWS? (see Fox article)
What a dilemma, who to believe, OTBL or Fox News?

"What kind of society isn't structured on greed? The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm; capitalism is that kind of a system."

Milton Friedman



"It is no longer OK to be in a black box. There will be a lot more honesty from us as an industry, and it is painfully obvious this will be the biggest change."

Erin Callan
CFO Lehman Brothers
3/18/2008



"Selfishness is the only real atheism; aspiration, unselfishness, the only real religion."

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Get Your Own!

“A few men or a few families own the country and run it for their personal benefit. There are no schools, hospitals, nurses, doctors, or medicines for the masses. The elite of those countries are intelligent and well educated. They have, however, no program for the people. Babies are born in miserable villages that do not have even outhouses. Filth piles high. Mothers do not know the secret of boiling water or pasteurizing milk or screening against flies. Children hardly every know laughter; they are old when they reach the teens and walk wearily through life. Their substance is perhaps a meal a day. A few villages have schools through the fourth grade; but they are for boys only. Even those who learn to read have no books. Their houses have no floors; their feet, no shoes; their rooms, no light. These villages are without aspirin, not to mention quinine; penicillin is nonexistent; so are surgeons to remove an appendix or drain a mastoid.

This picture of the village fits South America and Africa, as well as Asia. It is universal; it has not been changed by the billions we sent abroad. The perquisites of education, medical care, sanitary housing, and three meals a day were for the few at the top.”

Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
Democracy’s Manifesto: A Counter Plan for the Free Society
Published 1962

The Credibility Gap

Like Water And Grain

"The slogan of 'less government in business and more business in government' is a very good one, not mainly on account of business or government, but on account of the people. Business is not the reason why the United States was founded. The Declaration of Independence is not a business charter, nor is the Constitution of the United States a commercial schedule. The United States - its land, people, government, and business - are but methods by which the life of the people is made worth while. The government is a servant and never should be anything but a servant. The moment the people become adjuncts to government, then the law of retribution begins to work, for such a relation is unnatural, immoral and inhuman. We cannot live without business and we cannot live without government. Business and government are necessary servants, like water and grain; as masters they overturn the natural order."

Henry Ford

My Life And Work

Stupid ontheborderline.net Questions

Currently, the local blog known as www.ontheborderline.net, aka, Brain Death Inc., has a couple of interesting questions to ask. Here they are:

Q1: If any white-skinned sitting United States Senator purposefully walked into a seminar or sermon given by David Duke (let alone attended regular speeches), do you honestly think said Senator would have a snowball’s chance in hell to be elected as President of the United States?

A1: It doesn't appear that Ron Paul has a snowball's chance in hell of getting elected President. David Duke calls ron Paul "our God."



Q2. What then is the difference between Barak Obamanation, sitting Sunday after Sunday in the presence of Reverend White, with his wife and his two young children, listening to the hate America first, nation of islam loving, anti-semitic, mystic vitriol and any such white-skinned Senator coming out of a David Duke gathering?

A: It depends on which end of the rope you are on. Some of the statements I've heard Reverend White say make me crinch. Considering the history of the United States, the truth should make us crinch.

Obama in His Own Words

Thoughts From The Tower Of Babble

"I like the idea of people running for office. There's a positive effect when you run for office. Maybe some will run for office and say, vote fore me, I look forward to blowing up America. I don't know, I don't know if that will be their platform or not. But it's -- I don't think so, I think people who generally run for office say, vote fore me, I'm looking forward to fixing your potholes,, or making sure you got bread on the table."

President George W. Bush

"Smell My Lips!"

Obama Gains Wisconsin Superdeligate

Wisconsin Superdelegate Endorses Barack Obama for President

Chicago, IL – Today Wisconsin superdelegate Melissa Schroeder endorsed Barack Obama for president, citing his unique ability to stand up to the special interests and unite all Americans to bring about real, meaningful change.

Melissa Schroeder said: “After much consideration, I have decided to endorse Senator Barack Obama. My decision came down to electability and who I felt would do a better job of unifying this country for a common purpose. Obama's message of hope and change has touched millions of voters in a way that I haven't seen since the late 1960's. People from every walk of life, young and the not so young, Democrats, Independents and some Republicans, are all rallying around a belief that change can happen if we want it bad enough. With Obama as our nominee, I am confident that this November we will increase our majority in the House and Senate and elect a Democrat to the White House.”

Melissa Schroeder is Wisconsin’s 7th District Democratic Party Secretary.

Bush Sings Farewell Song

That Damn Accordian: Musical Intercourse

Mr. Clean Is Washed Up

Real Patriots Have Bumper Stickers

Letters from Ely - Sickening

by Duane Behrens
Saturday, March 08, 2008

This morning, a fan of mine sent the following e-mail: "Your columns sicken me. If you don't like what Bush is doing to protect the Homeland you should move to Iran or some other place where your communistic crap will be appreciated. You and all your [expletive deleted] friends are traitors to our troops and to our nation. Your agenda stinks. Take it somewhere else." [Name withheld]

After thinking about this for awhile, I penned the following response:

Funny. Your post made me think of pagers. You know, those little beepy things we carried before cell phones? I was the first in my high school to have one, after the principal got tired of looking for me whenever Dad went down.

See, Dad had been over at Guadalcanal in the summer and fall of 1942 during World War II - a war I believe absolutely had to be fought. Grandma told me he'd been a high school over-achiever before he left - a tall, strong, good looking farm kid who could really make the girls laugh. Funny how after the war, she always spoke of him in the past tense.

Not sure what changed him over there. Maybe it was those pieces of metal in his left lobe, although most of it stopped moving eventually. Maybe it was those months of having to step over the corpses of his buddies in the middle of the night to steal rice and fish heads from enemy supply caches. (They'd had to do this to survive, you see. The American supply ships had hauled ass out of there without unloading, after three of their escort ships were blown out of the water by the Japanese.) Or, maybe it was the electro-shock "therapy" he and his buddies got at the VA upon their return that turned him.

Whatever. He eventually found work as a high school janitor in that small Minnesota town where I grew up. When my pager went off, I'd have to leave history class or football practice to sit with him in a classroom or in a corridor. I mostly remember all the sweat that poured off his face as the seizure put him on an invisible torture rack . . . contorting his body into impossible angles as all those devils from two decades past came by for their twice-monthly visit.

Sometimes class would let out as I held him there. I never looked up as my classmates went to and from their lockers. It's not that I was embarrassed. But I'd often have tears in my eyes and I didn't want them to see.

Funny, though. Dad never cried, and he never moaned and he never screamed. He just took it. And when each seizure ended, he'd get up, and I'd get up, and we'd carry on as if it never happened.

Dad's gone now. Before the funeral service started, I held his hand as I stood by his casket, glad he'd found relief from 40 years of reliving one helluva six-month stint. And I quietly thank him and everyone like him every time I stand at his headstone. As a grown man, I find it odd that those tears still come whenever I'm there by his grave. Conditioned reflex, maybe.

Well. Listen to me, going on. My apologies, for having the gall to suggest that wars that kill kids should only be fought for a damned good reason. If I can find a picture of a flag somewhere, I'll be sure to tape one onto my bumper. Thanks to all our veterans - I hope you'll be okay.

But mostly, thanks to Dad - for teaching me why hateful insults from false patriots should always and only be given the same consideration as a wispy phart in a Minnesota snowstorm.

Ferraro Resigns from Hillary Campaign

Ferraro said Illinois senator was succeeding because he was black

Another Obama Win- Old Feminist Makes Racist Comments

Clinton's 3am girl says the answer is Obama

So who do you want answering the phone at 3am? For Casey Knowles, it's got to be Barack Obama.

Casey is the little girl shown asleep in the controversial Hillary Clinton advert that aired in Texas before last week's primary, playing on fears about Mr Obama's relative lack of experience in foreign policy matters.

The advert shows the exterior of a Colonial-style home and old stock footage of Knowles sleeping in bed. A narrator describes a phone ringing in the White House: “It’s 3am and your children are safely asleep. Who do you want answering the phone?”

But she is not too happy about the advert itself. “What I don’t like about the ad is its fear-mongering,” she said. “I think it’s a cheap hit to take. I really prefer Obama’s message of looking forward to a bright future.”

Ms Knowles, a high school senior in Washington state, has been campaigning for Mr Obama and attended his rally at Seattle’s KeyArena on February 8, crying and trembling after shaking his hand.

The next day, she was a Democratic precinct captain for the state’s caucuses and she could yet be chosen to go to the national convention – although she will end up voting for whichever candidate the party chooses in November's election.

Before then Ms Knowles she might feature in another advert. She has already suggested to the Obama campaign that she team up with the candidate for an anti-Hillary ad. “They thought that was really funny. They actually might take me up on it,” she said.

Are You Getting Wet Yet?

“From 1946 to 1961 we thought in terms of dollars rather than of people. We thought in terms of gross national product rather than in terms of gross national product one that Herbert Hoover employed in 1930. By pouring in money on the top, we hoped that some would reach the bottom. But in feudal societies the few at the top kept practically all of it. Millions were stolen and banked aboard. What was not stolen was used to entrench those who already owned and controlled the nation.”

Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
Democracy’s Manifesto: A Counter Plan for the Free Society
Published 1962

The complete lack of evidence is the surest sign that the conspiracy is working

“Society is one vast conspiracy for carving one into the kind of statue it likes, and then placing it in the most convenient niche it has.”

Randolph Bourne



"All political theories assume, of course, that most individuals are very ignorant. Those who plead for liberty differ from the rest in that they include among the ignorant themselves as well as the wisest."

F. A. Hayek

Who Is Dorian Gray?

"In this job you've got a lot on your plate on a regular basis; you don't have much time to sit around and wander, lonely, in the Oval Office, kind of asking different portraits, 'How do you think my standing will be?'"

George W. Bush

Yo Da Man

"I think that if John is the nominee, he has got some convincing to do to convince people that he is a solid conservative and I'll be glad to help him if he is the nominee...I'm sure that you can find quotes from people running for office that sound like they're at odds with me. But the point—what really matters in a campaign is, what are the basic beliefs?"

President Bush
Endorsing John McCain

Why Exxon Didn't Sponsor the International Conference on Climate Change

"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."

Daniel Patrick Moynihan





Under the headline "A Smashing Success," the www.ontherborderline.net bootlickers of anything label "free mareket," have a current post trumpeting the just-concluded The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change. Sponsored by the Heartland Institute, the conference ran from March 2 - March 4 and was held at the Marriott New York Marquis Times Square Hotel in New York City.

What is the International Conference on Climate Change?

It's sponsored by the Heartland Institute. What is the Heartland Institute?

According to Exxon Secrets.com, Heartland was founded in the early 1990s, Heartland Institute claims to apply "cutting-edge research to state and local public policy issues." Additionally, Heartland bills itself as "the marketing arm of the free-market movement."

The Heartland Institute created a website in the Spring of 2007, www.globalwarmingheartland.org, which asserts there is no scientific consensus on global warming and features a list of experts and a list of like-minded think tanks, many of whom have received funding from ExxonMobil and other polluters.

The Heartland Institute networks heavily with other conservative policy organizations, and is part of the State Policy Network, a member of the Cooler Heads Coalition (as of 4/04), and co-sponsored the 2001 Fly In for Freedom with the Wise Use umbrella group, Alliance for America. Heartland also co-sponsored a New York state Conference on Property Rights, hosted by the Property Rights Foundation of America. The Institute puts out several publications, including "Environment & Climate News" which frequently features anti-environmentalist and climate skeptic writing. They also published "Earth Day '96," a compilation of articles on environmental topics. The publication, distributed on college campuses, featured "Adventures in the Ozone Layer" by S. Fred Singer, and "the Cold Facts on Global Warming" by Sallie Baliunas. The articles denied the serious nature of ozone depletion and global warming.

Walter F. Buchholtz, an ExxonMobil executive, serves as Heartland's Government Relations Advisor.

The Heartland Institute formerly sponsored and hosted www.climatesearch.org, a web page ostensibly dedicated to objective research on global warming, but at the same time presenting heavily biased research by organizations such as the American Petroleum Institute as an FAQ section.

Conference host Joseph L. Bast is the president of the Heartland Institute and he gave the opening address. According to Exxon Secrets Bast was Heartland's first employee. He is a prolific writer on a range of subjects, including the environment and global warming. He is a co-author of "Eco-Sanity--A Common Sense Guide to Environmentalism" which argues, among other things, that global warming is not a problem. Bast "studied economics at the University of Chicago."

Note that Bast is an economist...

Heartland Institute, sponsor of the conference, has received $791,500 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

Who co-sponsored the conference?

Americans for Tax Reform:
Does the name Grover Norquist ring a bell?

Americans for Tax Reform opposes all income tax increases on principle, and urges lawmakers to sign a pledge that they will not raise taxes. ATR claims that since 1986 hundreds of U.S. House members, dozen of U.S. Senators, President G.W. Bush and more than 1200 state legislators have signed its pledge not to increase taxes. ATR supports a flat tax. ATR is a member of the Cooler Heads Coalition. ( 9/03) ATR runs an affiliated 501c3 organization, Americans for Tax Reform Foundation.

Business & Media Institute:
Dan Gainor, The Boone Pickens Free Market Fellow and the Director of the Business & Media Institute, is a veteran editor with two decades’ experience in print and online media. He has served as an editor at several newspapers including The Washington Times and The Baltimore News-American.

Gainor also has extensive experience in online publishing – holding the position of managing editor for CQ.com, the Web site of Congressional Quarterly, and executive editor for ChangeWave, published by Phillips International. He has worked in financial publishing in his last two positions, launching new services for ChangeWave and Agora Inc. Mr. Gainor holds an MBA from the University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business and a master’s in publications design from the University of Baltimore.

As an undergraduate, he majored in political science and history at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Mr. Gainor lives in Alexandria, Va., and volunteers as a media and issues speaker with the Close-Up Foundation. Gainor has made hundreds of radio and TV appearances including appearances on: Fox News’ “Hannity & Colmes” and “Fox & Friends.” He has appeared on local or national shows in every state including: the Jerry Doyle Show, the Chuck Harder Show, Battleline with Alan Nathan, The Right Balance, Janet Parshall’s America, the Thom Hartmann Show, Money & More, the Gordon Liddy Show, America at Night, Dateline Washington, the Lars Larson Show, the Jim Bohannon Show, Home Talk USA, The Weekend, Money Dots on Main Street USA, American Family Radio, and Entertainment USA.

He has been published in a wide variety of conservative publications, including: Investor’s Business Daily, The Washington Times, the Orange County Register, the New York Post, the Baltimore Examiner, Canada’s National Post's Financial Post & FP Investing, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Augusta Free Press, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the Houghton Daily Mining Gazette, the Port Clinton, Ohio Beacon, Contacto Magazine, the Caribbean Voice, the Newtown Bee, the Frederick News-Post, The High Point Enterprise, the Easton Star Democrat, the Midland Daily News, the Findlay, OH, Courier, and the Simi Valley, Calif., Acorn.

Cascade Policy Institute

Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise has received $230,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

Alan Gottlieb, a former tax felon, founded CDFE in 1974 along with two gun groups: Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and the Second Amendment Foundation. Other Gottlieb ventures include the Free Enterprise Press (book publisher), American Press Syndicate, and American Broadcasting Network. CDFE's Free Enterprise Press has published several books by CDFE executive vice president Ron Arnold, including Ecology Wars (1987) which includes a chapter "Defeating Environmentalism" and Ecoterror: The Violent Agenda to Save Nature, the World of the Unabomber (1997).

Ron Arnold is considered originator of the term "Wise Use," and Arnold has credited himself with starting the back-lash campaign against environmentalists. In 1991 Arnold told the New York Times, "We [CDFE] created a sector of public opinion that didn't used to exist. No one was aware that environmentalism was a problem until we came along."

Arnold, a former Dow Chemical consultant, was also head of Washington State chapter of the American Freedom Coalition, the political arm of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church from 1989-91 (Western States Center fact sheet). CDFE organized the first Multiple Use Strategy Conference (now Wise Use Leadership Conference) in Reno, NV in 1988 which led to the twenty-five point "Wise Use Agenda."

Included in the agenda was "Immediate wise development of the petroleum resources of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge" and "Passage of the Global Warming Prevention Act to convert in a systematic manner all decaying and oxygen using forest growth on the National Forests into young stands of oxygen producing, carbon dioxide-absorbing trees to help ameliorate the rate of global warming." CDFE executive veep Ron Arnold has since been quoted saying "There isn't any such thing" as global warming (CLEAR fact sheet).

The CDFE website features categories such as "EPA-probe" and "co-imperialism" and the latest headlines from the bastion of right-wing journalism, Fox News. CDFE runs two other websites: Undue Influence - "racking the environmental movement, money, power, and harm" (http://www.undueinfluence.com/), and the anti-Rainforest Action Network site "RANamuck" where they talk about Rainforest Action Network's ties to other radical groups and "their anti-capitalist ideology, and their lawless and dangerous activities."

Among other things, the site features a link to send email to the Turner Foundation asking it to stop funding RAN. Known funders have included the Coors Foundation, Georgia Pacific, Louisiana-Pacific, MacMillan Bloedel, Pacific Lumber, ExxonMobil Education Foundation, DuPont, Agricultural Products Division, Boise Cascade, Seneca Sawmills, Sun Studs, Burkland Lumber and the F.M. Kirby Foundation.

Citizens Alliance for Responsible Energy:
The Citizens' Alliance for Responsible Energy was founded by Mark E. Mathis, its executive director, a former TV anchor, a radio talk show host and a consultant to the Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico. A disclosure statement with an opinion column stated that "Citizens' Alliance for Responsible Energy is funded by more than 250 members including New Mexico oil and gas producers." In March 2006 Mathis was a co-signatory on a letter, initiated by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, in support of an expansion of oil drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge.

Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow has received $542,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.
CFACT is a free-market policy organization, was created to offer a "new voice" on consumer and environmental issues. CFACT, established in 1985, is a member and organizer of the Cooler Heads Coalition and the National Consumer Coalition. According to its website "CFACT is...working to promote free-market and safe technological solutions to such growing concerns as energy production, waste-management, food production and processing, air and water quality, wildlife protection and much more." The free market think tank focuses on campus organizing and getting their message to the public through research, media exposure, and a national radio commentary called "Just the Facts" that is broadcast on 300 stations daily.

CFACT's Board of Academic and Scientific Advisors is a who's who of climate skeptics and industry-funded scientists. Their semi-monthly newsletter, "Citizen Outlook," includes an update on news from the environmental movement called "From the Dark Side," a title indicative of the contempt CFACT's members have for all facets of environmentalism. CFACT's President and Executive Director, David Rothbard and Craig Rucker "are two of the primary voices seeking to provide a positive alternative to major environmental groups like Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and Friends of the Earth." according to the CFACT website. CFACT received $710, 000 between 1991 and 2002 from Richard Mellon Scaife controlled foundations, the Carthage Foundation and the Sarah Scaife Foundation.

Competitive Enterprise Institute...has received $2,005,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

CEI was founded in 1984, CEI is a Washington - based conservative think tank "whose research on public policy reflects the principles of free enterprise, individual liberty and limited government." CEI is at the center of the global warming misinformation campaign.

CEI has tackled tough and contentious scientific issues such as global warming, carbon dioxide and fuel-economy standards, most recently expanding into the politics of food. It has become the go-to think tank in the fight against excessive federal government regulations, supporters say. (Beyond the Theories: Think Tank Debunks Popular Myths; Audrey Hudson, May 18, 2004, Washington Times)

The organization mixes free-market ideas with the anti-regulation and environmental movements, but unlike most institutes that are content just to think and speak, the CEI does not shy away from forcing action through the courts or the legislative process.

CEI, among many other statements denying the seriousness of global warming, has argued that climate change would create a "milder, greener, more prosperous world" and that "Kyoto was a power grab based on deception and fear" (R. Brunet, "It Just Ain't So, Say These Reputable Scientists" Alberta Report, 10 November, v.24(48) 1997 p20-21). In addition to leading the campaign to convince the public that global warming is uncertain, CEI has weighed in on pesticide risk and endocrine disrupting chemicals - both of which pose no threat to human health, in CEI's view - and has supported regulatory "takings" measures.

CEI supports eventual elimination of the Superfund and has advocated the complete privatization of the Endangered Species Act, arguing that species protection would meet the level of "demand," based on how much citizens are willing to pay for habitat preservation (CLEAR fact sheet). CEI has a long anti-environmental pedigree. CEI is a member of the State Policy Network and the Cooler Heads Coalition. CEI was a sponsor of the first Wise Use conference in 1988 and has had membership in the Get Government Off Our Backs coalition, the wise use umbrella group. CEI is also a network member of The Heritage Foundation, Alliance for America, and the anti-Endangered Species Act group, Grassroots ESA Coalition. CEI was also a co-sponsor of the 1998 NY State Property Rights Conference.

With more than a $3 million annual budget, CEI is supported by both conservative foundations and corporate funding. Known corporate funders in addition to ExxonMobil include the American Petroleum Institute, Cigna Corporation, Dow Chemical, EBCO Corp, General Motors, and IBM. One of CEI's prominent funders is conservative Richard Scaife who has provided money through the Carthage and Sara Scaife Foundations. CEI is also heavily supported by the various Koch brother foundations. (http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute

Congress of Racial Equality...has received $275000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

Frontiers of Freedom Institute...has received $1,037,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

FoF calls itself the "antithesis" of the green movement. In 1996, former Senator Malcolm Wallop (R-WY) started Frontiers of Freedom to fight environmental regulations, particularly the Endangered Species Act and any law seen as infringing on "property rights." But increasingly, it has focussed on the issue of global warming.

After a $100,000 grant from ExxonMobil in 2002, FoF set up the Center for Science and Public Policy in 2003 (ff.org/centers/csspp/misc/index.html) . The CSPP concentrates on two areas: trashing global warming science, and also questioning the scientific evidence on the dangers of mercury emitted from coal-fired power plants.

FoF also runs The Center for Free Market Environmentalism and Conservation (ff.org/centers/cfmec.html) both of these centers are forums for the promotion of industry-friendly "sound science."

FoF operates several associated websites, including OpinionEditorials.com and SpinFreeNews.com, which it describes as "one-stop-shopping for daily news about lawsuit abuse, energy, the environment, and other topics that too often end up on the cutting room floor of traditional media."

Myron Ebell joined Wallop at FoF in 1996. Previously, Ebell had worked for the staunchly "wise use" American Land Rights Association. Ebell left FoF in 1999 and is now Director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Ebell currently chairs the Cooler Heads Coalition, of which FoF is a member.

In addition to grants from conservative foundations, Frontiers of Freedom receives money from tobacco and oil companies, including Philip Morris, ExxonMobil and RJ Reynolds Tobacco. According to the New York Times: "Frontiers of Freedom, which has about a $700,000 annual budget". George Landrith, President of FoF told the New York Times, says of its funders: 'They've determined that we are effective at what we do'" (J. Lee, "Exxon Backs Groups That Question Global Warming," The New York Times, 28 May 2003).

FoF has strong ties to the western "wise use" movement, and is part of the Alliance for America Network and the Grassroots ESA Coalition.

George C. Marshall Institute...has received $715,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

Founded in 1984, The George Marshall Institute primarily focused on defense issues, advocating funding for Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative and Star Wars. GMI has since branched out and is one of the leading think tanks trying to debunk climate change.

GMI works on a range of issues, including civic environmentalism, climate change, national defense, bioterrorism, and missile defense. GMI publishes papers and holds "roundtables." Many of these roundtables have featured climate change skeptics such as Roger Bate, Willie Soon, Margo Thorning, and GMI's own Sallie Baliunas.

In 1989, the Marshall Institute released a report arguing that "cyclical variations in the intensity of the sun would offset any climate change associated with elevated greenhouse gases." Although it was refuted by the IPCC, the report was used by the Bush Sr. Administration to argue for a more lenient climate change policy. GMI has since published numerous reports and articles attacking the Kyoto protocol and undermining the climate science. GMI is a former member of the Cooler Heads Coalition.

GMI used to restrict its funding sources to private foundations and individual donars to avoid conflict of interest, but in the late nineties, then GMI President Jeffrey Salmon wrote, "when the Institute turned its attention to the science of global warming, it decided it would appeal successfully to industry for financial support." This fall, the Institute received its first-ever grant from a corporate foundation-- the Exxon Education Foundation. (http://web.archive.org/web/20020913050409/http://www.marshall.org/funding.htm)

According to Media Transparency.org, the Institute received $5,757,803 since 1985 from conservative foundations including the Castle Rock Foundation (Coors), Earhart Foundation, John M. Olin Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and the Carthage Foundation.

Conservative Independent Institute...has received $70,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

Founded in 1985, The conservative Independent Institute is "a non-profit, non-politicized, scholarly research and educational organization which sponsors comprehensive studies of major economic, social and environmental problems."

The Institute has sponsored climate skeptic Fred Singer and has been a member of the Cooler Heads Coalition. The Institute's Web site quotes praise from many luminaries, including Ronald Reagan, Edwin Meese, and William Niskanen of the Cato Institute. In 1999, the Independent Institute came under fire for being not so independent. A 18 September New York Times piece outlined how the Independent Institute put out full paged newspaper ads bank-rolled by Microsoft. The ads supported Microsoft's claim of innocence in the face of federal anti-trust charges. According to The New York Times, Microsoft paid for the ads and was also the largest individual donor to the organization that year (David Callahan, "The Think Tank as Flack," Washington Monthly, November 1999).

International Climate Science Coalition

International Policy Network...has received $390,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

Established in 2001, the North American branch of the UK-based International Policy Network works closely with groups such as the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, and Competitive Enterprise Institute.

IPN maintains a network of free-market think tanks around the world and supports the development of new organizations. Roger Bate and Julian Morris, IPN's directors, both work for the Institute for Economic Affairs in London. Bate is also a fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), where another IPN staff member, Kendra Okonski used to work. Disinfopedia reports that in 2003 the address and phone number for CEI and the US office of the IPN were identical. IPN has apparently moved down the hall to Suite 1032 and acquired its own phone number. (http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=International_Policy_Network)

National Center for Policy Analysis...has received $465,900 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine

Science and Environmental Policy Project...has received $20,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

Science and Public Policy Institute: Executive director, Bob Ferguson set up the Center for Science and Public Policy in early 2003, after a $100,000 grant from ExxonMobil in 2002 - specifically tagged for the center. Exxon has continued to fund the Center each year since then, to the tune of at least $50,000 a year. The Center's chief scientific researcher is sceptic Willie Soon.

Ferguson spent years working for various Republicans on the Hill, most recently as chief of staff for congressman John Peterson (R-PA). Peterson is a global warming denier, and is on the board of the National Center for Public Policy Research.

Sovereignty International:
Henry Lamb is the chairman and co-founder of Sovereignty International. Lamb is a central figure in the spread of United Nations conspiracy theories throughout the anti-environmental movement. Lamb has testified before congress and regularly has articles posted on World Net Daily and other right-leaning websites. Lamb does not believe global warming is a problem. Lamb, along with John Bircher Michael Coffman, founded Sovereignty International in March, 1997, to promote concern over the perceived erosion of US. sovereignty at the hands of United Nations environmental policies.

Most of the financial and background information for this post came from Exxon Secrets. The site is maintained by Greenpeace.

The Great Debate

Vermont Hopers Go Big For Barack!

Paid for by the committee to elect John McCain and Condi Rice as the people you want answering the White House phone at 3 a.m.




… last night's elections weren't your cup of tea, it could be worse:

From the March 5th Writer's Almanac:

It was on this day in 1933 that the Nazi Party won 44 percent of the vote in German parliamentary elections, enabling it to join with the Nationalists to gain a slight majority in the Reichstag. The Nazi Party capitalized on the economic depression of 1929, as well as the heavy reparations Germany was made to pay for World War I, and they became a powerful force in Germany. In 1932, Hitler ran for president of Germany, but lost. The next year, he became the chancellor. Just before the parliamentary elections in 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire, which led to the Reichstag Fire Decree, which rescinded habeas corpus and other protective laws. The following week, March 5, 1933, the Nazi Party won a slight majority in the elections. Within three weeks, the Nazi-dominated Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, which gave Hitler dictatorial powers and ended the Weimar Republic in Germany.

Aquanut On The Borderline

Sitting at your basement blogger bench --
attacking successful women with two names.
Duct tape covering his nose --
greasy fingers grabbing more moldy peanuts.
Hiding from the cold sun --
Watching as the successful candidates run.
Feeling like a dead dick --
tearing off pieces of hair implants.

Pink headband cold --
a jogging man wandering lonely.
Marking time
the only way he knows.
Ego hurting bad,
as he ignores his dog's turds --
he goes down to the blog
and warms his nuts.

Feeling alone --
the deputy's up the road
an escort out the door and
duct tape on the face.
Mr. Peanut my friend --
you whine away so easy
you poor wing nut, you see, it's only me.

Do you still remember
the mustard that is me --
when the ice that
clings on to your heart in
John Birch agony.
And you type your rambling idiocracy
with rotted plywood sounds,
and the school board elections bring
madness in the spring.

You Might Be A Redneck If....

"The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue."

Emma Goldman



"I try to exist in a world where there is freedom of opinion, where you're allowed to make jokes. I don't want to live in some PC world where no-one's allowed to say anything."

Boy George

Moving Forward From 1968...

“…1968, the year that broke open the nation and shattered the Democratic Party; the year that conservative populism replaced progressive populism as the dominant political force in our nation; the year that law and order and strength became associated with chaos, weakness, and out-of-touch, self-indulgent elites; the year that led to Nixon, then Reagan, then Gingrich, then George W. Bush. The middle-class backlash would shape and distort American politics for the rest of the century. The new conservatism would be shaken by Watergate, but not destroyed. Its public support would be weakened, as right-wing ideologues promoted economic inequality, environmental destruction, and social division, but not destroyed. When threatened by its own excesses, the conservative movement would promise to be ‘kinder and gentler’ or more ‘compassionate,’ all the while ripping the hide off Democrats for alleged weakness of values, character, and will. And it would be enough to provoke the painfully predictable, almost Pavlovian reaction among enough white middle-class voters to carry the day. Of course it was more complicated that that. Sometimes conservatives’ criticisms of the Democrats had validity, and there were always moderate Republicans and conservative of goodwill who worked with Democrats to make positive changes.

Nevertheless, the deeply embedded nightmares of 1968 formed the arena in which I and all other progressive politicians had to struggle over our entire careers. Perhaps if Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy had lived, things would have been different. Perhaps if Humphrey had used the information about Nixon’s interference with the Paris peace talks, things would have been different. Perhaps not. Regardless, those of us who believed that the good in the 1960s outweighed the bad would fight on, still fired by the heroes and dreams of our youth.”

Bill Clinton
My Life (pp. 144-145)

Fear Mongers Democratic Style

Obama Response

Happy Birthday Jack

"Can you smell money?"

Jack Abramoff
Former lobbyist & Indicted embezzler
Born 2/28/1959

A Word Of Silence...

A man and his ever-nagging wife went on vacation to Jerusalem. While they were there, the wife passed away. The undertaker told the husband, "You can have her shipped home for $5,000, or you can bury her here, in the Holy Land, for $150." The man thought about it and told him he would just have her shipped home.

The undertaker asked, "Why would you spend $5,000 to ship your wife home, when it would be wonderful to be buried here and you would spend only $150?"

The man replied, "Long ago a man died here, was buried here, and three days later he rose from the dead. I just can't take that chance."

Obama The Commie?

Perhaps our neighbors over at ontheborderline.net can provide us some additional background on the latest commie sighting on the fruitcake fringe of the always paranoid and seldom informed right wingers. After all, they were the inspiration for a recent letter in the Hudson Star Observer. Below is a paragraph cut from that letter:

Currently the ontheborderline.net blog has a post calling John McCain a communist. When did McCain become a communist? Was it when he was tortured in a Communist prison camp in North Vietnam?

Apparently, McCain isn't the only Communist in the 2008 Presidential election. A few posts below is a picture of the Hillary Commie t-shirts available. Now we have Obama the Commie.

Lisa Schiffren discusses Obama's political origins in one of her recent columns of The Corner in the National Review Online. Here's a taste of Schiffren's myth making:

I don't know how Barak Obama's parents met. But the Kincaid article referenced above makes a very convincing case that Obama's family, later, (mid 1970s) in Hawaii, had close relations with a known black Communist intellectual. And, according to what Obama wrote in his first autobiography, the man in question — Frank Marshall Davis — appears to have been Barack's own mentor, and even a father figure. Of course, since the Soviet Union itself no longer exists, it's an open question what it means practically to have been politically mentored by an official Communist. Ideologically, the implications are clearer...

It was, of course, an explicit tactic of the Communist party to stir up discontent among American blacks, with an eye toward using them as the leading edge of the revolution. To be sure, there was much to be discontented about, for black Americans, prior to the civil-rights revolution. To their credit, of course, most black Americans didn't buy the commie line — and showed more faith in the possibilities of democratic change than in radical politics, and the results on display in Moscow.

Read more...

Who is Lisa Schiffren? Remember Murphy Brown? Rick Santorum? Dan Quayle? She would be one of Clarence Thomas's women and an avowed Hillary hater. Find out more...

From The Top

"The Bob Jones policy on interracial dating...I spoke against that. I spoke out against interracial dating. I support the policy of interracial dating."

President George W. Bush
On CBS News 2/25/2000

Even A Blind Nut Finds A Squirrel

Report from the BBC

View Video Here:

Bill Kristol joins Hillary's Advisory Team

More Fruitcake advice from Fox News Advertisers:

Every Picture Tells A Story II

Doctor Smiley Face Will See You Now!

Wal-Mart expanding in-store health clinics.
By The Associated Press

Wal-Mart Stores will open its first in-store medical clinics under its own brand name after leasing space in dozens of stores to outside companies that operate the quick-service health stops.

The world's largest retailer said last week it will open The Clinic at Wal-Mart as a joint venture with local hospital systems in Atlanta, Dallas and Little Rock, Ark., starting in April.

Wal-Mart is among several supermarket and drugstore chains that in the past couple of years have begun opening store-based health clinics, which are staffed mostly by nurse practitioners or physician assistants and offer quick service for routine conditions from colds and bladder infections to sunburns.

About 7% of Americans have tried a clinic at least once, according to an estimate by the Convenient Care Association, an industry trade group formed in 2006.

Full story:

Every Picture Tells A Story

Is McCain Being "Swiftboated"?

NY Times Article:

Sermon On Mount Fruitcake

Obama Wins Wisconsin!

"Civil Wrongs"

"...the sincerity and intentions of some civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mr. James Farmer, and others, who are known to have left-wing associations. It is very obvious that the Communists, as they do in all parts of the world, are taking advantage of a tense situation in our land, and are exploiting every incident to bring about violence and bloodshed."

The Reverend Jerry Falwell
from "Ministers and Marchers"
a 1964 sermon