Ann Coulter goes down on John Edwards

Ann swallows a hard one...



...after using the "faggot" word.

A Positive Light Shines In New Richmond

"You know the bozos I’m talking about. These Hudson bloggers have invaded your fair city a few times. Their goal is the destruction of public education. When you say “Go Tigers!” they say “Go Away Tigers!”'

Bob "Mudslinger" Muchlinski

(An excellent letter was published in the New Richmond News this week. The letter writer demonstrated that the concerned for, and dedication to, the education of our kids can reach beyond the boundaries of the local school district. It's nice to see some position encouragement from outside the New Richmond community. The New Richmond school district and members of the community have been smeared repeatedly by a group of anti-education bloggers oozing out of Hudson who specialize in misinformation and slander.)

To the Editor:

How encouraging to see Superintendent Veilleux and the New Richmond School Board take the bull by the horns, complete a thorough review of your K-12 space needs, and propose a comprehensive plan for referendum.

I’m very envious. I’ve been asking the Hudson School Board and superintendent to do the exact same thing. But they don’t have the guts. They’re afraid of a few anti-school bloggers in Hudson.

You know the bozos I’m talking about. These Hudson bloggers have invaded your fair city a few times. Their goal is the destruction of public education. When you say “Go Tigers!” they say “Go Away Tigers!”

I’m glad New Richmond citizens care more about your schools, students and teachers than you do about the vile intimidation of a few miscreants in Hudson.

And what a pleasant surprise to read in the newspaper that Mr. Bob Ziller has promised the superintendent he would put a “Vote Yes” sign in his yard! For too long, Mr. Ziller has aligned himself with the Hudson bloggers. But now he is putting New Richmond first - telling the bloggers to stay away, and vocally supporting the referendum.

Mr. Ziller will be pressured by the Hudson bloggers to change his mind, but I’m sure that Mr. Ziller will be a man of his word. He’ll put up that Vote Yes sign. He’ll tell his friends and neighbors to vote yes. And he’ll proudly vote yes in the voting booth.

When your new high school opens in 2010, I’m going to take a tour. I’ll be green with envy, knowing that Hudson desperately needs the same thing.

New Richmond has what it takes. You know the strength of your city goes hand-in-hand with the strength of your schools. You are ready to invest in what your city needs.

Go Tigers!

Robert Muchlinski

Hudson

Take your stand...

As my entire Regiment forms a part of the expedition and I am the senior officer of the regiment on duty in this department, I respectfully but most earnestly request that while not allowed to go in command of the expedition I may be permitted to serve with my regiment in the field.


I appeal to you as a soldier to spare me the humiliation of seeing my regiment march to meet the enemy and I not share its dangers.


I would be willing, yes glad, to see a battle every day during my life.


My purpose is to make my narrative as truthful as possible.


There are not enough Indians in the world to defeat the Seventh Cavalry.


You ask me if I will not be glad when the last battle is fought, so far as the country is concerned I, of course, must wish for peace, and will be glad when the war is ended, but if I answer for myself alone, I must say that I shall regret to see the war end.

George Armstrong Custer

The 10 Worst Presidents

It's too soon to judge the current one, but for past leaders, the verdict is in
By Jay Tolson
US News & World Report

George W. Bush's presidency shaping up to be one of the worst in U.S. history? You hear the question being asked more and more these days. And more and more, you hear the same answer. With Iraq a shambles and trust in the administration declining, it is probably not surprising that 54 percent of respondents in a recent USA Today/Gallup survey said that history would judge Bush a below-average or poor president, more than twice the number who gave such a rating to any of the five preceding occupants of the White House, including Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.

Public opinion is a notoriously fickle beast, of course, which is why historians and other custodians of the long view prefer to reserve judgment until they can speak of their subjects in the past tense. But clearly something about Bush ii has inspired many historians to abandon their usual caution. Meena Bose, a Hofstra University political scientist who has written about presidential ratings, says that the scholars' rush to rank the current president comes out of an acute awareness of the long-term consequences of his policies. "Since it's hard to see how Iraq will work out for the better,'' Bose says, " it's hard not to pass judgments."

Read more about the worst Presidents.

The Republican Road to Perdition

Domenici Called About U.S. Attorney Four Times

At least four recently fired U.S. attorneys who've been issued subpoenas are to testify before the House and Senate judiciary committees Tuesday. The panels are probing allegations that eight federal prosecutors were dismissed by the Justice Department in December for political reasons.

Now a senior Republican senator says he regrets a phone call he made to one of the fired attorneys.

On his last day as U.S. attorney in New Mexico last week, fired federal prosecutor David Iglesias told local reporters that he had been contacted by two congressional Republicans shortly before the November elections.

Iglesias said the two lawmakers, whose names he did not reveal, wanted him to speed up a probe into alleged corruption by a prominent local Democrat.

When the Associated Press asked New Mexico Republican Sen. Pete Domenici, last week about Iglesias' allegations, Domenici was quoted as saying he had no idea what Iglesias was talking about.

But over the weekend, Domenici did an about-face. He issued a statement acknowledging having called the fired U.S. attorney late last year. Domenici said he asked Iglesias about the ongoing investigation and wanted a timeframe on it. He also said that in retrospect, he regretted making the call, and he apologized.

The Justice Department has disclosed that Domenici called U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales four times over the past year and a half to raise questions about Iglesias. A Justice Department spokesman did not respond to repeated requests for further comment.

Domenici's call concerning a case Iglesias was involved has raised ethical concerns. The Senate ethics manual says senators should not communicate with agencies involved in ongoing investigative matters.

What few know about the Patriot Act:

From Law.com

"Recent fallout from the firing of seven U.S. Attorneys revealed that senators last year -- some knowingly and others unknowingly -- waived their advise and consent power by giving the attorney general the sole authority to appoint interim U.S. Attorneys to serve indefinitely when vacancies occurred.

The change in the process came at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice and was inserted into the renewal of the USA Patriot Act that was subsequently adopted by both chambers of Congress. The proverbial "sleeping giant" awakened in the ensuing controversy surrounding the unexplained requests for the resignations of U.S. Attorneys in Arizona, Arkansas, Nevada, New Mexico, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle."

One more step on toward more Executive Power.
One more step down the road to perdition.

A judge's thoughts on judges and the Constitution

(Note: From time-to-time we get the arm-chair Constitutionalists giving their indoctrinated observations about what the US Constitution is and isn't. My guess, like most of us, their experience with the court system is a traffic ticket, divorce proceedings or some other minor infraction. Nothing that would actually provide any fiber into the intellectual stuffing of their arm-chair conjectures. Such cardboard bantering reminds of the little kids who are all pumped up to see Santa Claus and then clam up when they meet him face-to-face. I found the quote below an interesting observation of a real judge on the workings of the highest court of our land.)

"Justice Douglas, you must remember one thing. At the constitutional level where we work, ninety percent of any decision is emotional. The rational part of us supplies the reasons for supporting our predilections."

Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes


"I thought of the law in the terms of Moses -- principles chiseled in granite. I knew judges had predilections. I knew that their moods as well as their minds were ingredients of their decisions. But I had never been willing to admit to myself that the 'gut' reaction of a judge at the level of constitutional adjudications, dealing with the vagaries of due process, freedom of speech, and the like, was the main ingredient of his decision. The admission of it destroyed in my mind some of the reverence for the immutable principles. But they were supplied the Constitutions written by people in conventions, not by judges. Judges are, after all, not creative figures; they represent ideological schools of thought that are highly competitive. No judge at the level I speak of was neutral. The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people, and no wiser man than Hughes ever sat on our (US Supreme) Court. I say that although his predilections, drawn from a different age, were not always mine. I never, for example, could envision (Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans) Hughes in a boxcar filled with Wobblies (IWWs) roaring across the dusty plains of Washington State at night, but it was not difficult to picture Hugo Black, Wiley Rutedge, Felix Frankfurter and Frank Murphy there. I could, however, imagine Hughes as an advocate pleading our cause or as a judge putting imperishable words the tolerance which governments show even the most lowly of us."

William O. Douglas
US Spreme Court Justice (1939-1975)
from The Court Years

Bush budget cuts veterans health care in 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration's budget assumes cuts to veterans' health care two years from now -- even as badly wounded troops returning from Iraq could overwhelm the system.

Bush is using the cuts, critics say, to help fulfill his pledge to balance the budget by 2012. But even administration allies say the numbers are not real and are being used to make the overall budget picture look better.

See CNN Story:

3/1/1991: "Vietnam Syndrome" declared over!

"By God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all!"

President George H W Bush

President made this statement in a euphoric victory statement at the end of the Gulf War, suggesting the extent to which Vietnam continued to prey on the American psyche more than fifteen years after the fall of Saigon. Indeed the Vietnam War was by far the most convulsive and traumatic of America's three wars in Asia in the 50 years since Pearl Harbor. It set the U.S. economy on a downward spiral. It left America's foreign policy at least temporarily in disarray, discrediting the postwar policy of containment and undermining the consensus that supported it. It divided the American people as no other event since their own Civil War a century earlier. It battered their collective soul.

The summary victory over Iraq was hailed by no less a figure than President Bush as a once-and-for-all elimination of the 'Vietnam syndrome' -- which shows how powerful was the memory of that defeat even 15 years after the fall of Saigon. Addresses three questions (1) why the USA invested so much in contesting communism in Vietnam (2) why its efforts failed -- even today, US explanations tend to assume that it could have been 'done right', overlooking now as then the formidable disadvantages facing US policy (3) the economic and political consequences of the defeat for the USA.

Read more in Foreign Affairs.

02/28/2007: McCain Says U.S. Lives 'Wasted' in Iraq

"Americans are very frustrated, and they have every right to be. We've wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives."

John McCain

(Barack Obama recently drew headlines when he described the more than 3,000 Americans killed in Iraq since 2003 as wasted lives. He subsequently apologized.)

Republican presidential contender John McCain, a staunch backer of the Iraq war but critic of how President Bush has waged it, said U.S. lives had been "wasted" in the four-year-old conflict. Democrats demand the Arizona senator apologize for the comment as Sen. Barack Obama did when the Democratic White House hopeful recently made the same observation.


"Americans are very frustrated, and they have every right to be," McCain said Wednesday on CBS'"Late Show With David Letterman.""We've wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives."


McCain, who repeated his assertion that U.S. troops must remain in Iraq rather than withdrawing early, made the "wasted" remark after confirming to Letterman what has been clear for at least a year or more — that he's in the running for the 2008 Republican nomination.


"I am announcing that I will be a candidate for president of the United States," he said — and added that he would officially enter the race by giving a formal announcement speech to that effect in April after a visit to Iraq.

Read more...

Like I Didn't See That Coming

General Conspiracy Marshalls His Minions For Battle

Would Reagan Get Elected Today?

Mythical icon was "wrong" on most of today's Republican issues

Abortion? He was for abortion rights before he was against them.

Taxes? He raised them as governor, and raised them several times as president after his big 1981 tax cuts.

Immigration? He signed the law that Republicans now call amnesty for illegals.

Foreign policy? He negotiated with the head of the "Evil Empire."

Of course, people are entitled to their fantasies.

Read more...

"Harsh Reality" aims to cultivate a kinder culture

Students at Monticello High School were confronted with the consequences of gossip, bullying, back-biting, name-calling and their own self images Tuesday, Jan. 30, while attending a performance of "Harsh Reality," a staged production performed by teenage actors.

The performers are members of the Homeward Bound Theatre Company, an outreach group that uses drama to deal with various pressures and challenges teens face in today's world. The company, a nonprofit organization based out of Chanhassen, dedicates its efforts to helping teens with issues of self-esteem in the hope that a strong self-concept will help them to cope with negative pressures they face on a daily basis. Homeward Bound's Teens to Teens outreach program employs young actors to play in various sketches that deal with topics including premarital sex, teen pregnancy, violence, drugs, peer pressure and family life.

Read more...

For School Kids Self-Mutilation Ain't About Vanity

ROCHESTER, MN -- They are teenagers and even middle-schoolers. Children who cannot handle the pressure life throws at them. Over the last decade kids, starting at the middle school level are increasingly coping with their problems in very self-destructive ways. And if you think it's not a big deal, then think again.

In researching this story I was shocked to hear the number of girls right here in our schools who do this. Melissa says, "I was thinking that I couldn't be as good as everyone else.And so I thought I had to punish myself when i wasn't as good."

Melissa Kerlin's problems weren't really any different from almost every girl in middle and high school. But her way of coping with the stress and the depression that followed during her sophomore year is becoming a rapidly popular way of dealing with emotional pain.

Read more...

Official charged in Darfur massacre

CAIRO -- International prosecutors Tuesday charged a well-connected Sudanese government minister and a militia leader with crimes against humanity for organizing scorched-earth attacks on unprotected villages in Darfur.Ahmad Harun, former Darfur security chief, bragged in 2003 that he had "all the power and authority to kill or forgive whoever in Darfur for the sake of peace and security," prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Check out Shelia Harsdorf's move to divest state funds from Darfur

Radical, Furitcake Bloggers Force Local GOP TO Join Democrats

Expect a phone call late at night...

Filed under: Politics Local --- Tiger @ 17:76 am
__________________________________________________
I have learned through N. Onimous sources that the St. Croix County Republicans and Democrats have decided to merge! After looking at the local candidates from both parties it was decided that none can slither on their belly like an ontheborderline.net endorsed candidate. Both parties have decide to call the new party the Rinocrats.

Bob “PT Barnum” Ziller and the ultra-liberal, conservative communist with a bent for Buddhist meditation and hillbilly music, from New Richmond have been negotiating the exact wording in meetings open to the public. Even though everyone in the universe has stopped by to provide input, the local ontheborderline.net bloggers have been suspiciously absence.
Word has it that the OTBL’ers are starting there own political party. Rumor has in that it will be a cross between the John Birch Society and a scene from the movie Deliverance. The fledgling party is still working on slogans that capture their message. Below are the slogans under consideration:

1. If silence were gold, we’d live a life of poverty.
2. The good news is the shit is only up to our ankles. The bad news is we are in it head first.
3. You didn't get the round mouth from eating peanuts all day.
4. Did you checkout the 1/2 price sale at the Left Of Center?

The entire committee includes Luke, O. Iamapuss, Citizen Joe Blow, Spiritinyourrectum, Mr. Jiffy and e-baloney. A formal announcement will be shot up the Stovepipe at the Holy Sacred Oracle, once the OTBL’ers get the shit eating grin off their face. Stay tuned for details.

Study: Vanity on the rise among college students

NEW YORK (AP) -- Today's college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors, according to a comprehensive new study by five psychologists who worry that the trend could be harmful to personal relationships and American society.

"We need to stop endlessly repeating 'You're special' and having children repeat that back," said the study's lead author, Professor Jean Twenge of San Diego State University. "Kids are self-centered enough already."

Twenge and her colleagues, in findings to be presented at a workshop Tuesday in San Diego on the generation gap, examined the responses of 16,475 college students nationwide who completed an evaluation called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory between 1982 and 2006.

The standardized inventory, known as the NPI, asks for responses to such statements as "If I ruled the world, it would be a better place," "I think I am a special person" and "I can live my life any way I want to."

The researchers describe their study as the largest ever of its type and say students' NPI scores have risen steadily since the current test was introduced in 1982. By 2006, they said, two-thirds of the students had above-average scores, 30 percent more than in 1982.

Narcissism can have benefits, said study co-author W. Keith Campbell of the University of Georgia, suggesting it could be useful in meeting new people "or auditioning on 'American Idol."'

Read more on the rise of vanity.

High school test scores declining over time

(I ran across this story about lower standardized test scores and higher GPA's. You would naturally expect these two measurements to have a positive correlation: one goes up, the other goes up. I talked to a local business owner last week who told me hear daughter in high school spells "school" "skool." When the daughter was told that its important to spell properly, the daughter said with spell checking you don't have to know how to spell. The same business owner total me they ran a 15 percent off sale and the clerk, a high schooler now in college, was totally confused as how to figure out 15 percent off. She total him to just take off 10 percent, divide that number by two and add them together to get the amount to reduce the price. The store owner said the clerk said that was way too confusing.

I'd heard similar versions of this story over the past couple of years. I wonder if this seems odd to me because I have 52 years of life experiences compared to a kid with 16 years of life experiences. Maybe I've had more practical application of my education? Maybe it doesn't matter? Maybe I'm expecting too much when I'd expected college-bound high schoolers to be able to spell "school" and do simple, practical math.)---


Two reports released last week reveal that students may be learning less than students who were in school 15 years ago, raising concerns about high school curriculum reform by the U.S. Department of Education.

Margaret Spellings, U.S. Secretary of Education, said in a written statement that students are taking more rigorous coursework and earning higher GPAs but aren't performing better on standardized tests. The two reports looked at standardized test scores and analysis of transcripts from seniors who graduated in 2005.

One of the reports, called The Nations Report Card: 12th-Grade Reading and Mathematics 2005, showed a decline in the average scores in 2005 compared with scores in 1992. However, the second, The Nations Report Card: America's High School Graduates, showed students were earning about three more credits than students in 1990 and had an increase of a third of a letter grade higher in their GPA.

Read more on test scores.

Almost St. Patty's Day

Kurt O'Weasel hoisted his beer and said, "Here's to spending the rest of me life between the legs of me wife!"

That won him the top prize at the pub for the best toast of the night!

He went home and told his wife, Marion, "I won the prize for the best toast of the night"

She said, "Aye, did ye now. And what was your toast?"

Kurt said, "Here's to spending the rest of me life, sitting in church beside me wife."

"Oh, that is very nice indeed, Kurt!" Marion said.

The next day, Marion ran into one of Kurt's drinking buddies on the street corner.

The man chuckled leeringly and said, "Kurt won the prize the other night at the pub with a toast about you, Marion.”

She said, "Aye, he told me, and I was a bit surprised myself. You know, he's only been there twice in the last four years. Once he fell asleep, and the other time I had to pull him by the ears to make him come."