The atbl BIG WORD

We've all heard the saying "Nobody likes a wise guy", but did you ever stop
to think if that's really true? Maybe the people who don't like wise guys are
just jeolous because they want to be wise guys but lack the word power for the job.
At least one anonymous commenter on this site really likes OTBL because
"Your arch-nemesis site uses words, which can be hard to understand...."
Well we have to admit that we here at ATBL tend to agree with Confucius who said, one picture is worth 1000 big words. But then again there are those who earnestly believe that he who useth the biggest word is the "most rightest". (Yeah I know it's poor English so don't bother commenting ).
But we will not shy away from a chanllege. We can use big words that can be hard
to understand just like OTBL and we'll even try really hard to understand them.
So we are introducing the First ATBL BIG WORD (that can be hard to understand) and
that word is "Ontology" (insert sound of game show bell here.)











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Meet The OTBL Benchwarmers

Official OTBL Monographed Crying Towels Available With Purchase Of Any Pack Of OTBL Pork Whines

Town Crybaby Forgets Meds - Gets 3 Cornered Hat & Tights in Bundle

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Don't Do It Jack Bauer!

We see the local media elites at the New Richmond News have dug deep into their vast corporate treasure chest and are now offering four Minnesota Twins tickets to anyone who comes up with the actual name of the OTBL'ers anonymous blogger, the forever flatulent Jack Bauer. Our mole embedded into the NR News organization tells us that no expense was spared on the thickets. Since they are "knot hole"day tickets, I think our mole meant no expense was incurred.

Here at ATBL, we believe in the power of anonymous blooging. In fact we believe so deeper in this time-honored principle, we are upping the ante to encourage Jack Bauer not to leave his outhouse on anonymity and take the filthy lucre of the NR News. Our offer to Jack Bauer are free tickets to the next Minnesota Viking Superbowl Post Game Party. All Jack Bauer has to do is to remain anonymous and contact us one week prior to the next Viking Super Bowl victory.

At your own risk, check out the Vikings Super Bowl Site.

In The Grip Of The Famous Viking Fan Choke Hold, Jack Bauer Contemplates His Options

Don't Let Skunks Ruin The Weekend

It can happen to anyone. You're enjoying good times with family and friends and unwelcome visitors stop by. You try your best to politely get rid of them but they just don't seem to take a hint. When they finally do leave then the question on everyone's mind is. "How do I get rid of the odor".


When we recently had Skunks drop by for an unexpected visit we went looking for advice from the experts.








We called the Orkin man, but he couldn't make it till after the holiday.
So we searched further.
The first question was why is the stench so bad?

Making Sense of the Research
"It's obvious that some smells are stronger than others? But why? As it turns out, the key lies not only in the nature of the odor itself, but also in our ability to detect it.

Thiols, the compounds that make skunk odor so... er, distinctive, are chemicals to which our noses are super-sensitive. We can detect thiols at the level of parts per billion. In other words, if thiols make up just a few billionths of the volume of air and other gases in a room, we can smell them."

So what do you do to get rid of the smell?

"Over the years, we must have tried every method of skunk odor removal known to man before we stumbled onto this fantastic formula. We tried tomato juice (what a joke and a mess that was), vinegar (much too weak), typical store-bought remedies (only partially effective), feminine douche (yup, you read that right), dry-cleaning fluid, borax, vanilla extract, and more. In every case, they never got the job done properly.

After so many frustrating attempts, not to mention the several horrid shades of pink fur we had to endure (tomato juice stains more than your rugs permanently!), we'd almost given up until the day we tried this wonderful formula. No harsh chemicals or namby-pamby all-natural methods that just don't work. Best all, its easily made up from everyday items found in most homes."

Another Fine Product

"Do you have a Panic Skunk Emergency??? If you have an emergency and need product right now and cant wait for ship time….. go to your local PETCO Store and buy the Skunk Odor remover. They do not carry the bags but you can make a bag by pouring the granules into the leg of a pantyhose and tying it off."

Call us if you have questions. 800 Skunks R Us.

Have a Happy Fourth of July Weekend, and keep it Skunk Free.

Accept No Substitutes

Accept no substitutes. We are the only ATBL1 licenced
vendor of Jack Bauer Wanted Tees.(TM )
Counterfeits abound on the internet, made in sweatshops
by 12 year olds.

(Report sweatshop abuse to: Sweatshopwatch.org.)

Jack Bauer Wanted Tees are made in America by Union Labor.
Get yours today at the official site for Jack Bauer Discovery Ware (TM)
Call after midnight if you have Jack Bauers home phone number and
be sure to talk really loud cause he's hard of hearing.
or order online at
TheyRgoing2pay4whattheydid.com

For more formal occasions, you'll want to show off you good
fashion sense with our latest design of Skunk-Ware (TM)
























Get 20% discount when you join Skunk Hunters, the only Western Wisconsin
Non-Profit dedicated to eradicating internet skunks. Join today.

On myths and legends...

“Myths and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men's reality. Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of ''the rat race'' is not yet final.”
-- Hunter S. Thompson

The Fable of The Beavers and The Skunks

There once was a small town in WI where Beavers congregated and said. "Let's work hard together to build a good school for our little one's that they may be even more productive than us. It was agreed and the Beavers worked hard and shared part of the fruits of their labor to build a Great School.






The little ones thrived in the new school, so much so that after their studies they worked together to start a marching band. The marching band was bold and proud so the called themselves "The Marching Tigers".Word of their marching band spread throughout the land, so much so that they were asked to play when a new President was inagurated. The Tigers were the pride of this small town and everyone was eager to support them. Years past and the Tigers grew up and went on to become workers and parents. They didn't seem to notice that the school was starting to need repair and there were more and more little ones that wanted to go there. They were too busy working to build bigger castles with hottubs and jacuzzis.
Some of the Tigers got together and said, "Our parents worked liked Beavers but pooled some of the friuts of their labors together, so that we could become Tigers and raise our own little ones in this land of plenty. We should be like our ancestors.
They agreed, and said YES, we need to build a new school.




But down the road, lived a coven of Skunks. They were newcomers to that town, and brought the wealth they plundered from a neighboring state with them and built even bigger castles and with bigger jacuzzis than those in Tiger Town.
The Skunks got bored with their jacuzzis and needed a new hobby. So they took up the little known sport of "School Board Harassment". They went to meetings and complained again and again that "You are stealing the fruits of our labor to teach the little ones." When that failed they chose one of their own to run for the school board, but he lost. Then they chose 2 (one with a bigger mouth and he lost). On their final attempt they chose the smartest among them and erected signs with rockets to plead their case. They even went to meetings dressed like clowns with with Duct tape over their mouths to make their point.
The towns-folk only thought them fools. Their last attempt to get on the board failed miserably. They lost to four other good citizens yet still claimed victory.
The Skunks said to themselves, "We will never win in this town." Let's go to
Tigerville and stink up their town. One skunk in Tiger town said "Yes come on down."

The skunks had great fun stinking up Tiger Town, they traveled there often
even though they had no little ones in those schools. They only wanted to spray their noxious odor and play their libertarian parlor game of "Let's harass the government schools". On one trip they even unknowingly shared cookies with undercover socialist blogger spy.
But that's another fable.
The Tigers got upset, and the Tiger that ran the local Tiger Messenger said.
Let's find the local Skunk who upsets our town with his secret identity blogging and run him out.
To encourage the other Tigers he even posted a bounty.
To this day, nobody knows how this fable ends but we still learn great lessons from it.








The moral of this fable is. If you smell skunks run them out of town by calling the
good people together and voting them out and stand up against their threats and
name calling. Write letters to the editor and make bumper stickers that say
Support Our Schools.

But if your town is the town they run to...........
Call the Orkin man.








The End.

Aesop

Click here to send a birthday message to President Bush (July 6)...forget the GOP donation.

Thoughts On The Rich and Poor

Affluence creates poverty.
~Marshall McLuhan

Poverty is like punishment for a crime you didn't commit.
~Eli Khamarov, Lives of the Cognoscenti

The poor are poor because the rich are rich.
~Author Unknown

There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
~Mahatma Gandhi

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.
~Virginia Woolf

Poverty is not a mortgage on the labor of others -- misfortune is not a mortgage on schievement -- failure is not a mortgage on success -- suffering is not a claim check, and its relief is not the goal of existence -- man is not a sacrificial animal on anyone's alter nor for anyone's cause -- life is not one huge hospital.
~Ayn Rand

Aesop's Fable: The Thieves and the Cock

Some thieves broke into a house and found nothing but a Cock, whom they stole, and got off as fast as they could. Upon arriving at home they prepared to kill the Cock, who thus pleaded for his life: "Pray spare me; I am very serviceable to men. I wake them up in the night to their work." "That is the very reason why we must the more kill you," they replied; "for when you wake your neighbors, you entirely put an end to our business."

The safeguards of virtue are hateful to those with evil intentions.

Read more of Aesop's Fables.

Aesop's Fable: The Salt Merchant and His Ass

A Merchant took his Ass to the shore to buy salt. On the way home the Ass tripped and fell into a stream. On rising, the load of the Ass was lightened because some of the salt had dissolved. The Merchant returned to the shore to replenish the salt and, on returning, this time the Ass fell into the stream on purpose to lighten the load. Again, the Merchant returned to the shore, but this time, knowing what the Ass would do, loaded the Ass down with sponges. On returning home the Ass again fell into the stream but this time the sponges filled with water and doubled his load.

Read more Aesop's Fables.

Fable: The Ant and the Grasshopper

There's below some discusion in the Painting Ayn Rand On Velvet post that mentions the Ant and the Grasshopper fable. Here's three versions of the fable and a little background history.




Here's the Ant & the Grasshopper Fable:

The Ant works hard in the heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the Ant is warm and well fed. The Grasshopper has no food or shelter so he either dies out in the cold, or begs and receives humiliating charity from the ant he teased.

Historical background of the fable:

That fable from the sixth century B.C. has been retold in a variety of ways. In the middle of the spectrum are versions that end with a flat moral tag, pointing out that when he became winter-hungry, "the grasshopper knew it was best to prepare for the days of necessity."At the twentieth-century end of the spectrum, the ants are said to take pity on the grasshopper and keep him warm and well-fed so that he is fit to fiddle all winter for the comfort of the children of a consumer society.
At the seventeenth-century end, the ants tend toward the sarcastic: "Since you sang all summer, you may as well dance all winter to the tune you sang all summer."

The libertarian version of the fable:

When winter comes, the shivering Grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the Ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. CBS, NBC and ABC show up and provide pictures of the shivering Grasshopper next to a film of the Ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can it be that, in a country of such wealth, this poor Grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Bill and Hillary Clinton make a special guest appearance on the CBS Evening News and tell a concerned Dan Rather that they will do everything they can for the Grasshopper who has been denied the prosperity he deserves by those who benefited unfairly during the "Era of Greed." Richard Gephardt exclaims in an interview with Peter Jennings that the Ant has gotten rich off the "back of the Grasshopper," and calls for an immediate tax hike on the Ant to make him pay his "fair share."

The Ant sues, but loses the case.

The story ends as we see the Grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while he lives in a government house. The Ant has disappeared in the snow. And on the TV they are showing Bill Clinton standing before a wildly applauding audience announcing that a new era of "Fairness" has dawned in America.

Now here's Al Date's critique of this parody.
A proper government should not confiscate the hard- earned fruits of anyone's labor, whatever color they may be.
But then, neither should the government encourage theft, or evil of any kind. Specifically, it should not empower certain citizens to confiscate the hard-earned fruits of other people's labor.

But that is exactly what a title-deed to land does: it allows land-lords to take un-earned income off of land-less tenants.

Libertarians don't seem to object to this aspect of our economic system. Perhaps they should reconsider the Ant & Grasshopper parable.

The lesson that is taught here--and which is also taught in the parable of the "Little Red Hen,"--is that if you DO WORK, you prosper [I have no problem promoting that!]; and that if you don't work, you don't prosper [ah, but I wish it were so].

Let's change the parable only slightly. Let's assume that the lazy grasshopper holds a title deed to the ant's land, and that the ant (or some other worker-ant) must pay him rent to live there.

If the location is in a booming area, the grasshopper can raise the rent on the ant until he actually has more food than the ant--doing no work other than sending out notices of rent-increases!

Is a land-lord required to improve the property before he or she sends out rent-increases? No. Well doesn't this amount to unearned income? Isn't this a form of coercion on those beings whose economic survival is inherently dependent on using land? This applies to humans as well as to ants.

Some would say, isn't this "just the way of the free market?"

It was John Locke who first stated the idea that humans are entitled to keep the fruits of their labour, as they had absolute rights to the "property" of their own bodies. This was the property-basis of the market-system.

Locke wisely noted that land is not MADE by any person; that it is provided by "God or nature." So by what right does a land-lord exercise absolute dominion over land, in the manner of kings and dukes?

Locke said that land-ownership could only rightly come with due consideration of the right of all other humans to use some equivalent land. According to Locke, the right to monopolize land-- with no regard for the community--is an infringement on the rights of other human beings to survive. Locke's adherents, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, advocated taxation on land as the ONLY valid form of public revenue.

But a hundred years later, land-profiteering had driven out land-taxation, and the tyranny of land-monopolization had re-emerged in the supposed "land of the free." "Company towns" had sprung up, where corporate bosses exercised as much economic power over common people as did the age-old aristocrats.

This was witnessed, among others, by Henry George, who wrote the most successful tax-reform book in history, Progress and Poverty.

The only solution was for the people to pay the land rent to themselves, to the community, as implied by Locke and Jefferson. This was partly accomplished in the Progressive Era, which made local land-taxation universal--and led to massive investments in infrastructure and financing for public health and education.

History has borne out Locke's vision. The monopolization of land is antithetical to a free market.

But libertarians don't seem to mind this situation, because it "does not involve any state intervention in the free market economy." I, and John Locke, must disagree. The ability to privately hold more land than you can personally use, and collect rent from your fellow humans because you have a "title deed" IS a political intervention; resulting in an ongoing redistribution of wealth to the land-rich which keeps the land-less down.

If libertarians truly seek to allow people to keep the fruits of their labour, as they often aver in parables such as these, they need to first clean up their own backyard, and call for the end of the state-granted privileges of land-lords.

Here's the rebuttal to the libertarian parody version:

The ants work hard all summer, producing products and services, such as in manufacturing, farming, and transportation. Grasshoppers laugh and dance and play all summer, without producing anything.

Come winter though, the productive ants are hungry and shivering, while the unproductive grasshoppers are warm and well-fed! How did this happen?

Easy: the grasshoppers own the land the hardworking ants live and work on. The grasshoppers collect land taxes from the ants, but call it land "rent". Since the grasshoppers did not produce the land, these land taxes (land "rent" payments) are really welfare payments to grasshoppers.

Some grasshoppers are somewhat productive, providing building maintenance for their tenants. But the part of the "rent" that is simply a payment for using the land, which the grasshoppers did not make, is simply a land tax, used for welfare payments to grasshopper- landlords.

Some grasshoppers used to make the mistake of calling these land payments by what they are: land taxes. But then libertarians raised a fuss, since they're against taxes. So, the grasshoppers changed the name, and started calling the land payments land "rent". Then the libertarians said "Oh, that's different. Go right ahead and collect these land payments from the ants." And they did. And they still do.

Read more at the Progress Report.

Quote of Note: Booker T. Washington

"I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed. Out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race."

Booker T. Washington

Progressive Heroes: Booker T. Washington

While rummaging through the books in a Good Will store some 25 years ago, I picked up a paperback titled "Three Negro Classics." The book contains: Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington; The Souls of Black Folks by W.E.B. DuBois; The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson. All the writings are among some of the most moving, insightful and inspiring that I've every read. However, Up From Slavery is one of the most inspiring stories I've read and reread in my life.

For decades, Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) was the major African-American spokesman in the eyes of white America. Born a slave in Virginia, Washington was educated at Hampton Institute, Norfolk, Virginia. He began to work at the Tuskegee Institute in 1881 and built it into a center of learning and industrial and agricultural training.

If I was in charge of high school education in the world, I would make EVERY student read Up From Slavery. It would provide them with an important role model who climb from the bottom of life's barrel to do very great things.

"Think about it: We went into slavery pagans; we came out Christians. We went into slavery pieces of property; we came out American citizens. We went into slavery with chains clanking about our wrists; we came out with the American ballot in our hands... Notwithstanding the cruelty and moral wrong of slavery, we are in a stronger and more hopeful condition, materially, intellectually, morally, and religiously, than is true of an equal number of black people in any other portion of the globe." ... from Up From Slavery

If you're not familiar with the story of Booker T. Washington, check out these links:

Link#1 and

Link #2.

W & Ted: Chickenhawks Cozy In The Coop

"Just keep doing what you're doing. Don't think that we don't know what you're up to out there. Stay the course."
President Goerge W. Bush
as quoted by fellow chickenhawk Ted Nugent

"Our failure has been not to Nagasaki them."
Ted Nugent on Iraq policy

Don't let the flag-draped rhetoric fool you. The Tedster doesn't stand alone in the Republican chickhawk coup. Head chicken in the coop is President Bush, who went AWOL while serving in the Air National Guard. Also listed are Vice President Cheney, presidential adviser Karl Rove and Paul Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the Iraq War. There are some other notables in the coop, including right-wing blabbermouth Rush Limbaugh, Fox's Bill O'Reilly, Tom DeLay and a host of others who love the war in Iraq, but somehow managed to avoid Vietnam.

There's talk about the Motor City Madman getting into politics. Here's a fine background article on Nugent's history.

Skid marks on the borderline

...wear it with anonymous pride!


Sold by stay-at-home entrepreneurs on the borderline near you. For examples of the shades of community disdain available, visit www.OTBLnutcase.net. Or call 666-1776 to get yelled at by an operator now. If no answer, keep calling back...our operators might not be back from attending their court-ordered anger management classes.

Drug Limbaugh:Limp Dick Detained On The Borderline

"Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. And the laws are good because we know what happens to people in societies and neighborhoods which become consumed by them. And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up."

Rush Limbaugh. October 5, 1995 show transcript.
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PALM BEACH, Fla., June 27 (UPI) -- Conservative U.S. talk show host Rush Limbaugh was detained at a Florida airport after a Viagra prescription for someone else was found in his luggage.

The 55-year-old arrived at Palm Beach (Fla.) International Airport Monday afternoon from the Dominican Republic with three other people on a private jet and underwent a routine U.S. Customs and Border Protection Service check.

The Viagra bottles found had been prescribed to a Florida doctor and customs agents called in the sheriff's office to investigate, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.

Limbaugh's attorney, Roy Black, issued a statement saying Limbaugh's physician had deliberately avoided using the celebrity's name on the prescription "for privacy purposes."

Read more: Washington Times.

Republican Led Congress Helps Working Poor Retain Their Poverty Status

June 13, 2006 CNN Reports:

Proving that Compassionate Conservatism isn't a collective figment of our nation's imagination, the Republican led Congress recently blocked legislation that would have given minimum wage workers what fear most, a pay raise.

"Republicans said a minimum wage increase would wind up hurting the
low-wage workers that Democrats said they want to help"

The Senate vote marked the ninth time
since 1997 that Democrats there have
proposed -- and Republicans have blocked
-- a stand-alone increase in the minimum
wage. The debate fell along predictable
lines.
Write you Congressman and thank them for helping the working poor retain their current status.

In a related story: Fox News Reports

June 21, 2006:
To prove their sincerity, Congress instead took pay raise burden from the working poor and
gave the dreaded pay increase to THEMSELVES! An overwelming gesture of generosity indeed.

"WASHINGTON: Despite record low approval ratings, House lawmakers Tuesday allowed a $3,300 pay raise that will increase their salaries to $168,500."

"The 2 percent cost-of-living raise would be the seventh straight for members of the House and Senate."
Way to go Congress. That's doing "The People's" business.

Who says we don't have the best Congress money can buy?

Episode 1 of the Ted & Ann Show

Staring Ted Nugent and Ann Clouter!

Theme song please!
(Sung to the theme from the Patty Duke Show)

Meet Ted, who's killed most everything,
From butterflies to grizzly bears.
But Ann's only seen the sins
A valley girl can see with cigarettes and gin --
What a crazy pair!

But they're cousins,
Identical nuts for those who can't think.
With assholes for mouth holes,
They poop where most people drink.

Where Ted adores a dead Rino,
The bullet belt, and gopher suzette,
Our Ann loves to barf and hack,
A bitch dog lying on her back--
What a wild duet!

Still, they're idiots,
Identical idiots and you'll find,
They hate alike, they insult alike,
At times they even sound alike --
Obviously they've lost their mind,
When wing nuts are two of a kind
---

Sometimes You Look Pretty Stupid Dancing With Them That Brung Ya...

"Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer."
Ludwig von Mises

"Can you smell money?!?!?!"
Jack Abramoff

"I am the federal government."
Tom DeLay

"Let me put it to you bluntly. In a changing world, we want more people to have control over your own life."
George W. Bush

"Recession means that people's incomes, at the employer level, are going down, basically, relative to costs, people are getting laid off."
George W. Bush

Is Ann Clouter The Daughter Of The American Nazi Party?

I've been reading the book Hate by William H. Schmatlz of Stillwater. The book is a biography of George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party he founded. Rockwell was a major figure in the US hate group scene, rising to prominence in the 1950s and 60s. He was assassinated by one of his former followers in 1967.

With all the hype and talked about how vicious the speech of Ann Clouter is, I couldn't help but notice some parallels between Clouter and Rockwell. Here's an interesting quote from the Hate book on a stop Rockwell make in Appleton, Wisconsin in 1952:

"In 1952 Rockwell, still a naval officer, received orders to report to Norfolk, Virginia for further assignment. The family packed up the Nash and headed east, taking their time driving across the United States, camping in national parks, taking in the sights. He choose a northerly route so he could make a pilgrimage to Appleton, Wisconsin -- Joe McCarthy's hometown."

Check out this picture of Ann Clouter taken in a cemetery in Appleton, Wisconsin:


Notice the name on the headstone?

The similarities don't stop with the picture. There are many quotes by the two that ring a similar, often times, hateful note. Here's a couple such quotes:

"We must have a foreign policy which is based only on the long-term interests of our race, not on the interest of other races or on economic considerations or anything else."
-- George Lincoln Rockwell

"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war."
-- Ann Coulter

I'm not sure the Rockwell would appreciate Clouter's comments about Hitler, but I'm sure he heartily agree with the implications.

I find in very disturbing that the rhetoric being pitched by the high profile spokespeople for the current day conservative movement is so vicious. If Barry Goldwater were alive today Clouter and Rush Limbaugh would be calling Goldwater a lefty and a RINO.

OTBL Bloggers Implicated In Quack Ring

Progressive Students Fight For Living Wage on Christian Campus

Baylor University

Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas, Waco-based Baylor University is the oldest university in Texas and the largest Baptist university in the world.

Just when you think the entire next generation will be an army of Ayn Rand disciples with MBAs, there is a glimmer of hope that todays students won't turn into OTBL Dr.s Of Liberty.

"In 2004, Baylor Students for Social Justice founded the 1 John 3 Campaign as a response to social injustices it said were occurring at Baylor. The movement has a threefold mission: increase wages of Baylor employees to $10.29 an hour, provide employees with full medical benefits and allow employees to work a 40-hour week."


"Across the nation, campuses such as Stanford University and Harvard University are taking a stand against poverty. Baylor Students for Social Justice members said they believe that as a Christian university, Baylor has a moral duty to challenge social injustice."

Read more about what Progressives students or doing on Campus. The Baylor Lariate

Cato Testifies!!

OTBL Boobster Days Police

Concerned that the Hudson Police Department would provide inadequate security for the OTBL Anti-Community Boobster Days Parade, OTBL has hired its own private police force.

After the parade, the Boobster Days Police will also be providing security at Hudson School Board meetings.

Thoughts For The Weekend

"To succeed in the world, it is much more necessary to possess the penetration to discover who is a fool than to discover who is a clever man."
Cato

"An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea."
Buddha

"An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it."
Mohandas Gandhi

"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin."
Mother Teresa

"What good fortune for governments that the people do not think."
Adolf Hitler
---
Look at ya
Yeah, take a look in the mirror now tell me what you see
Another satisfied customer in the front of the line for the American dream
I remember when we was both out on the boulevard
Talkin' revolution and singin' the blues
Nowadays it's letters to the editor and cheatin' on our taxes
Is the best that we can do
Come on

Steve Earle
Amerika v. 6.0 (The Best We Can Do)

Return of the Chickenhawk Turdblossom

Shot:

"They may be with you for the first few bullets but they won't be there for the last tough battles."

-- Karl Rove, on John Kerry and John Murtha, Reuters, 6/13




Returned fire:

"Unfortunately for the American military, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and their merry band of draft-dodgers won't be with you for the first few bullets, the last tough battles, or anywhere along the way."

-- Christy Setzer, Communications Director, Senate Majority Project.

GOP Vision Of Efficient Government

.

Mark Green: Bought and Sold by the Special Interests

Mark Green … whose congressional office repeatedly requested and received skybox ticket freebies from convicted GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who has admitted to bribing members of Congress in exchange for official acts.

Mark Green … who continues to claim ignorance of the caucus scandal, when documents show Green as Caucus Chair of the Assembly Republicans and his staff both benefited from and were involved in the illegal campaign work done by state employees.

Mark Green … who destroyed all of his state electronic files and the files of an aide named in the caucus scandal when he left office in 1998.

Mark Green … who has stood by convicted former Assembly GOP Speaker Scott Jensen, even taking four tries to finally get the right answer on whether he’d pardon Jensen.

And Mark Green … who has spent a career taking campaign cash from the special interests – and giving them his votes in return.

Time and again, Mark Green has stood with the special interests – and against middle class and working families. Here’s just the tip of the iceberg:

MARK GREEN: BOUGHT AND SOLD BY BIG OIL:

Mark Green has taken $43,850 from Big Oil, including:

$3,500 from the Petroleum Marketers Association
$3,000 from the Society of Independent Gas Marketers
$2,500 from Koch Industries
$1,000 from Phillips Petroleum
$1,000 from Exxon Mobile
$1,000 from Valero Energy
$500 from Enron
$500 from BP
$500 from Occidental Petroleum
[Source: Center for Responsive Politics, http://www.opensecrets.org/]

Mark Green’s Votes for Big Oil:

·Stood with Big Oil, voting for a $500 million subsidy for the oil and gas companies [Source: HR5427, Vote 201, 5/24/06]

·Stood with Big Oil, voting for $5 billion in tax breaks, subsidies, and giveaways for Big Oil companies from tax bill [Source: HR4297, Vote #109, 4/27/06]

·Stood with Big Oil, voting to give billions to oil companies [Source: HR6, Vote #445, 7/28/05]

·Stood with Big Oil, voting against $15.5 million for energy efficiency [Source: HR2419, Vote #207, 5/24/05]

·Stood with Big Oil, voting repeatedly to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska [Source: HR5429, Vote 209, 5/25/06]

·Stood with Big Oil, voting against cracking down on gas price gouging [Source: HR6, Vote #118, 4/20/05]

·Stood with Big Oil, voting to give $13 billion in tax breaks and spending to oil companies, voted for drilling in ANWR, and voted to promote offshore drilling [Source: HR4, Vote #320, 8/1/01]

MARK GREEN: BOUGHT AND SOLD BY THE BIG DRUG COMPANIES:

Mark Green has taken $22,000 from the pharmaceutical companies, including:
$500 from Aventis Pharmaceutical, Inc.
$9,000 from GlaxoSmithKline
$7,000 from Pfizer, Inc.
$5,500 from Eli Lilly & Co.
[Source: Center for Responsive Politics, http://www.opensecrets.org/]

Mark Green’s Votes for the Big Drug Companies:

·Stood with the Big Drug Companies, voting repeatedly against reimporting safe, affordable prescription drugs from Canada [Sources: HR2427, Vote 445, 7/25/03; HR1, Vote 668, 11/22/03]

·Stood with the Big Drug companies, voting to give away more $200 billion to the drug companies and HMOs [Sources: HR1, Vote 332, 6/27/03; HR1, Vote 669, 11/22/03]

·Stood with the Big Drug companies, voting against allowing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate lower prescription drug prices, against allowing drug reimportation, and against increased coverage for low-income seniors [Source: HR 1, Vote #668, 11/22/03]

·Stood with the Big Drug companies, voting against ensuring Medicare prescription drug coverage in rural areas [Source: HR 1, Vote #524, 9/30/03]

Cato Speaks!!

Sign Spotted On The Way To The Bank To Cash My Wealth Creation Voucher

Painting Ayn Rand On Velvet

"Ayn Rand is the Thomas Kinkade of radical individualism, and radical individualism is as true to the way things are as a painting of Elvis on velvet."Gideon Strauss

Who's Thomas Kincade?

According to Wikipedia, Thomas KinkadeThomas Kinkade (born January 19, 1958 in Sacramento, California) is an American painter most widely known for his mass-produced prints. He is marketed as the "Painter of Light", a phrase he has trademarked.

Kinkade claims to be placing emphasis on the value of simple pleasures and that his intent is to communicate inspirational, life-affirming messages through his work. A self-described "devout Christian" (all of his children have the middle name "Christian"[1]), Kinkade has said he gains his inspiration from his religious beliefs and that his work is intended to contain a larger moral dimension. Many pictures contain specific chapter-and-verse allusions to certain Bible passages. He has also depicted various Christian themes including the Christian cross and churches.

Ayn Rand [1905–1982] was an American writer born St. Petersburg, Russia. Her best-known novels include The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged and The Virtue of Selfishness. In For the New Intellectual she summarized her philosophy, which she called “objectivism.” She is also a favored writer of those participating at the ontheborderline.net blog. The mission statement at OTBL states:

We aim to encourage the study, debate, discussion, and appreciation of the ideas of such pro-liberty thinkers as our "Big Seven": John Locke, Thomas Jefferson and the American Founding Fathers, Ludwig Von Mises, Ayn Rand, Frederic Bastiat, Adam Smith, Aristotle - and others.

Ayn Rand developed a cult following that persists today. The OTBL'ers are cult members. In his essay, The Unlikeliest Cult In History, Michael Shermer details the flaws in the Randian cultist. He writes:

"The cultic flaw in Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism is not in the use of reason, or in the emphasis on individuality, or in the belief that humans are self motivated, or in the conviction that capitalism is the ideal system. The fallacy in Objectivism is the belief that absolute knowledge and final Truths are attainable through reason, and therefore there can be absolute right and wrong knowledge, and absolute moral and immoral thought and action. For Objectivists, once a principle has been discovered through reason to be True, that is the end of the discussion. If you disagree with the principle, then your reasoning is flawed. If your reasoning is flawed it can be corrected, but if it is not, you remain flawed and do not belong in the group. Excommunication is the final step for such unreformed heretics."

Read Shermer's complete essay published in 2Think.org.

Here are some quotes by Rand as to her feelings about God and religion:

"The good, say the mystics of spirit, is God, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive- a definition that invalidates man's consciousness and nullifies his concepts of existence...Man's mind, say the mystics of spirit, must be subordinated to the will of God... Man's standard of value, say the mystics of spirit, is the pleasure of God, whose standards are beyond man's power of comprehension and must be accepted on faith....The purpose of man's life...is to become an abject zombie who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is not to question."

Ayn Rand
For the New Intellectual
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"For centuries, the mystics of spirit had existed by running a protection racket - by making life on earth unbearable, then charging you for consolation and relief, by forbidding all the virtues that make existence possible, then riding on the shoulders of your guilt, by declaring production and joy to be sins, then collecting blackmail from the sinners."

Ayn Rand
For the New Intellectual---

Q: Playboy: Has no religion, in your estimation, ever offered anything of constructive value to human life?

A: Ayn Rand: Qua religion, no - in the sense of blind belief, belief unsupported by, or contrary to, the facts of reality and the conclusions of reason. Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life: it is the negation of reason. But you must remember that religion is an early form of philosophy, that the first attempts to explain the universe, to give a coherent frame of reference to man's life and a code of moral values, were made by religion, before men graduated or developed enough to have philosophy. And, as philosophies, some religions have very valuable moral points. They may have a good influence or proper principles to inculcate, but in a very contradictory context and, on a very - how should I say it? - dangerous or malevolent base: on the ground of faith.

Playboy interview with Ayn Rand---

"Faith is the worse curse of mankind, as the exact antithesis and enemy of thought."

Ayn Rand
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"God... a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive."

"Religion is a primitive form of philosophy, [the] attempt to offer a comprehensive view of reality."

Ayn Rand
The Objectivist
Feb 1966 WMail Issue #5

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Whatever they actually are -- or pretend to be -- over at the OTBL blog site, when they have those hot tub parties, there must be a mess of soggy fruitcake and abandoned nuts floating around the shallow end of the OTBL gene pool the morning after.