"It's hogwash, I'm still alive."
Sen. Roger Breske, D-Eland
A former bar owner and president of the Wisconsin Tavern League, the 69-year-old Breske recalled working in a bar that was heavy with smoke when he was a child.
Breske also refuted the main argument made by supporters of the ban, that secondhand smoke was harmful to employees and patrons in bars and restaurants who have to breathe it.
In The Beginning...
I think, I think I am, therefore I am, I think.
Pretty files of your forefather's fruit and now to suit...our great computer,
You're magnetic ink. I'm more than that, I know I am, at least, I think I must be.
There you go man, keep as cool as you can...Face piles...And piles Of trials With smiles...It riles them to believe that you perceive the web they weave...
And keep on thinking free...
The Moody Blues
“The intellectual, political and social ferment associated with the 1960s were already underway, though there was not yet the galvanizing issue of the Vietnam war. People were beginning to praise a new drug called L.S.D. for its ‘mind-expanding’ qualities, though the only evidence that their minds had expanded was their own belief that it had – a belief that some ordinary drunks have also had, at least until they sobered up and realized that they had just been making damn fools of themselves.”
Thomas Sowell
A Personal Odyssey
(p. 152)
Slumlord defender v. Wal-Mart board of director
"I do think that for example the 1980 election was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing."
Barack Obama
"Hillary and I will always remember President Ronald Reagan for the way he personified the indomitable optimism of the American people, and for keeping America at the forefront of the fight for freedom for people everywhere...We will always remember his tremendous capacity to inspire and comfort us in times of tragedy, ...and we can rest assured that, as joyous a place as Heaven is, his wit and sunny disposition are making it an even brighter place to be."
President Bill Clinton
"I think it's fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10-15 years in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom."
Barack Obama
“When he (Reagan) had those big tax cuts and they went too far, he oversaw the largest tax increase. He could call the Soviet Union the Evil Empire and then negotiate arms-control agreements. He played the balance and the music beautifully.”
Hillary Clinton
“What I said was is that Ronald Reagan was a transformative political figure because he was able to get Democrats to vote against their economic interests to form a majority to push through their agenda, an agenda that I objected to.”
Barack Obama
"The conditions which surround us best justify our cooperation; we meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the Legislatures, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench. The people are demoralized; most of the States have been compelled to isolate the voters at the polling places to prevent universal intimidation and bribery. The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion silenced, business prostrated, homes covered with mortgages, labor impoverished, and the land concentrating in the hands of capitalists. The urban workmen are denied the right to organize for self-protection, imported pauperized labor beats down their wages, a hireling standing army, unrecognized by our laws, is established to shoot them down, and they are rapidly degenerating into European conditions. The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind and the possessors of these, in turn, despise the Republic and endanger liberty. From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great classes-tramps and millionaires. . ."
Populist Party Platform, 1892
Read more...
PREDICTION: Giuliani will be the next to go...
Former senator Fred Thompson (Tenn.) dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination today, following months of lackluster campaigning and chaos within his campaign organization.
"Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States," Thompson said in a terse statement. "I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people."
Go take your nap Fred...
Rereading Booker T. Washington's autobiography, Up From Slavery, I found an interesting passage the compares slavery and freedom. Up From Slavery is one of the more powerful biographies I've ever read.
"For some minutes there was great rejoicing, and thanksgiving, and wild scenes of ecstasy. But there was no feeling of bitterness. In fact, there was pity among the slaves for our former owners. The wild rejoicing on the part of the emancipated coloured people lasted but for a brief period, for I noticed that by the time they returned to their cabins there was a change in their feelings. The great responsibility of being free, of having charge of themselves, of having to think and plan for themselves and their children, seemed to take possession of them. It was very much like suddenly turning a youth of ten or twelve years out into the world to provide for himself. In a few hours the great questions with which the Anglo-Saxon race had been grappling for centuries had been thrown upon these people to be solved. These were the questions of a home, a living, the rearing of children, education, citizenship, and the establishment and support of churches. Was it any wonder that within a few hours the wild rejoicing ceased and a feeling of deep gloom seemed to pervade the slave quarters? To some it seemed that, now that they were in actual possession of it, freedom was a more serious thing than they had expected to find it. Some of the slaves were seventy or eighty years old; their best days were gone. They had no strength with which to earn a living in a strange place and among strange people, even if they had been sure where to find a new place of abode. To this class the problem seemed especially hard. Besides, deep down in their hearts there was a strange and peculiar attachment to "old Marster" and "old Missus," and to their children, which they found it hard to think of breaking off. With these they had spent in some cases nearly a half-century, and it was no light thing to think of parting. Gradually, one by one, stealthily at first, the older slaves began to wander from the slave quarters back to the "big house" to have a whispered conversation with their former owners as to the future."
Booker T. Washington
Up From Slavery
"When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn't like it. I didn't inhale and never tried it again."
Bill Clinton
"Watkins asked whether I'd ever used illegal drugs, the same question that had ostensibly short-circuited Doug Ginsburg's confirmation in 1987. I said that I didn't recall ever having done so. It was an uncharacteristically cautious reply, but I'd been a heavy drinker in college and had often been around people smoked marijuana and hashish. I was telling the truth: I didn't remember using such drugs. I'd been afraid of them. For me illegal drugs were yet another problem I didn't need to add to my already long list. On the other hand, it occurred to me that I might possibly have tried them once or twice while I was drunk, and I knew that a flat denial might put me at risk of being contradicted, so in the end, in order to put the issue to rest, I said that I had experimented with marijuana."
Clarence Thomas
My Grandfather's Son (pp 220-221)
"It depends on what the meaning of the words 'is' is."
Bill Clinton
"And marijuana - I think it's tragic what's happening today in the drug war. Since the early '70s we've spent maybe $200 to $300 billion on the drug war. That's not been any good. This whole effort on the drug war doesn't make any sense at all to me."
Ron Paul
From The Office of Liberty Dr. Bill- POS Author
Red Alert.
Agents from the secret death squads of ontheborerline.net have been made aware of that a sinister Socialist plot has been concocted by the Hudson branch of the Communist Party to infiltrate GOP headquarters. You may be approached by a seemingly innoquouse question like.."Are you a real Republican or are you a RINO?"
If you see this man, do not approach him. Do not be deceived. Flee immediately. He is armed
with altruism and considered extremely dangerous. Contact the ontheborderline.net authorities
immediately in order to bring this heinous criminal to justice.
We now return to our regularly scheduled blogging.
"It was around this time that I read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. Rand preached a philosophy of radical individualism that she called Objectivism. While I didn't fully accept its tenets, her vision of the world made more sense to me than that of my left-wing friends. "Do your own thing" was their motto, but now I saw that the individualism implicit in that phrase was both was going too far for a black man to do his thing by breaking with radical politics, which was what I now longed to do. I never went along with the militant separatism of the Black Muslims, but I their discipline and dignity. That was Daddy's way. He knew that to be truly free and participate fully in American life, poor blacks had to have the tools to do for themselves. This was the direction in which my political thinking was moving as my time at Holy Cross drew to an end. I went without saying that I was an individual: we are all individuals. The question was how much courage for everyone -- the government, the racists, the activists, the students, even Daddy -- to leave me alone so that I could finally start thinking for myself..."
Clarence Thomas (around 1968)
"...For lighter fare I treated myself to the western novels of Louis L'Amour, and I also reread The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, whose scathing criticisms of the dangers of centralized government impressed me even more after working in Washington."
Clarence Thomas (around 1982)
My Grandfather's Son
Ontheborderline.net blogger Dr. Bil has been discovered as the true source of the "mark of the beast." The discover was made by Pinko Floyd, the official barber of the borderline brown stars, while Dr. Bil was in for his regualr haricut...
Why will those who take the mark be damned?
I think it's because God made Silver and Gold as honest weights and measures to be used as money! Money is NOT paper (which is a promise), not electronic credits, not chips, not a mark, nor a number!
"In the spring of 1970, I was one of several BSU (Black Student Union) members who went to Boston to take part in an antiwar rally. Holy Cross had previously loaned the BSU a station wagon, since few black students owned cars and thus were unable to travel to other schools to participate in academic or social events, but they never imagined that we would use it to attend an out-of-town demonstration. Nor did any of us suppose that there would be more to this one than the usual inflammatory speeches -- but we were wrong. Once the organizers of the rally had gotten the crowd sufficiently worked up, they urged us to march to Harvard Square to protest the treatment of America's domestic political prisoners. Off we went, chanting "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh" and demanding freedom for Angela Davis, Erica Huggins, and anyone else we could think of. When we came to a liquor store, the owner, fearing we would smash it up, gave some of us wine we wanted for free. From there we drank our way to Harvard Square, where our disorderly parade deteriorated into a full-scale riot. The police fired rounds of tear gas into the crowd, but that didn't deter us, and we kept on rioting well into the night."
Clarence Thomas
My Grandfather's Son (p. 59)
"On the other hand, I didn't think it was a good idea to make poor blacks, or anyone else, more dependent on government. That would amount to a new kind of enslavement, one which ultimately relied on the generosity -- and the ever-changing self-interests -- of politicians and activists. It seemed to me that the dependency it fostered might ultimately prove as diabolical as segregation, permanently condemning poor people to the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder by cannibalizing the values without which they had no long-term hope of improving their lot. At the time, these ideas seemed to me a logical extension of my distrust of "the man," though in fact they were rooted in the lessons Daddy had taught me. I didn't yet know how heterodox they were, much less that they were about to lead me away from the radical politics in which I thought I believed."
Clarence Thomas
My Grandfather's Son
"Now I knew how he felt. Now I understood why he needed a drink when he came home from the humiliating task of getting his business license, when he received a traffic ticket for the fabricated violation of driving with too many clothes on, or when a white woman called him boy in front of Myers and me. Every southern black had known such moments, and felt the rage that threatened to burn through the masks of meekness and submission behind which we hid our true feelings. It was like a beast that lay in wait to devour us. Some fought it with drink, others with prayer. You can hear the struggle in the soulful wails of gospel and the passionate moans of blues singers."
Clarence Thomas
My Grandfather's Son
"Nowadays everyone seems to recognize and to be shocked at the insult and injury perpetrated against the IWW, the Socialist, and the conscientious objectors early in the century (1900). It was different to know it then. Our family was not only isolated for our stand against the war, but we were shot at, our books were rifled and burned in our front yard on Dayton Avenue in St. Paul, rocks with obscene messages were thrown through our windows. Organizers for the Non-Partisan League were beaten and tarred and feathered. Tar is very hard to get off. I spent days with victims of beatings trying to get the tar off the skin without taking the skin as well. Minnesota had a vigilante committee, a stat fascist organization with unlimited powers and headed by Governor Burnquist; it was called the Minnesota Commission of Public Safety."
Meridel Le Sueur
The Ancient People
Child Labor Slip$ Through The GAP
This story did not make for pleasant reading: children as young as ten, the UK’s Observer newspaper reported, were toiling in filth 16 hours a day for little or no pay, smocking and beading children’s clothing destined for Gap Kids stores in the west.
Gap is working hard to win back public trust after shocking child labour revelations tarnished its brand
Gap ended 2007 having to answer claims of child labour atrocities at supplier factories in India. This was territory the company must have thought it had left far behind. Despite recent lacklustre sales, Gap had done well to keep its reputation as an ethical sourcing leader until the bad news broke last October.
Read more at Ethical Corporation.
coalition of the willing and the judgmental
patricians, politicians, and the fundamentalists
you never have to tell them how the money's spent
you never have to tell them where their freedom went
homophobes in the high command
waitin' for the rapture like it's disneyland
hide all the bodies from out of view
channel all the treasure to the chosen few
Eliza Gilkyson
Man of God
"It's telling that a number of politicians have lately cited as their model on terrorism issues Jack Bauer, the counterterrorism agent on the TV hit "24," who routinely tortures the truth out of bad guys as the clock ticks toward catastrophe. It's not hard to understand the appeal. There's a certain atavistic attraction to the Jack Bauer method, an attraction that bypasses the head en route to the gut.
Too bad, because had the head been asked, it might have pointed out that Jack Bauer is a fictional character on a TV show not noted for its realism. Using him as a guide to terrorism makes about as much sense as using Barney Fife as a guide to law enforcement.
And the very fact that Jack Bauer is invoked in the most crucial policy debate of our time tells you something about the state of the union going on seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks. In a word: scared.
There is nothing new about being scared. Nor about abridging civil liberties in response. It happened in the civil rights movement, in the Red scare, happened when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, when the nation plunged into World War I, when the French offended John Adams.
But it's worth noting that, for all the illegal wiretapping, arrests, detention, blacklisting, censorship and loss of life this country has seen in the name of fear, only one major abridgement of civil liberties in time of national emergency - Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War - stands justified by hindsight.
The rest, we regard with a shamefaced fascination. We wonder what we were thinking, how we wandered so far afield from the principles that should make us great."
Leonard Pitts, Jr.
Read more...
"Going West" by artist Therese Desjardin.
"The man and woman moving behind the westering sun wanted room to think fast and big, invent, speak, plant land and children with freedom's plow. They wanted new ways of being together. They hankered after something beside death and taxes. They wanted to see straight and live on earth. Like the growth of scientific thought, the twin of democracy, they wanted to examine the humus, look at decay, the minutiae of soil and society, honor the lowest labor and growth. Hard-headed, they wanted their pie in the "here and now," every man under his tree, no man a servant. Horse sense or common sense was "commin doin's": they all had it together because without it they should not survive."
Meridel Le Sueur
The North Star
