Is the browser giving you any warnings?
(Press CTRL+SHIFT+J or F12 to open the error console.)

The only thing I can see wrong there - aside from #stopbeinganoyinglists not having a body in the last two examples, which I am assuming is a typo - is that there is neither a <border> nor a <boarder> element in HTML (You use both in your first selector). Or are you not using this on normal HTML? Some form of XML perhaps?

Did you mean to use a class?

.border, img { border-color:transparent; }