Tuesday, July 31, 2007

No Worse Heresy

There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.

-- Lord Acton (10 January 1834 - 19 June 1902), English historian, Letter to Mandell Creighton, April 5, 1887

Monday, July 30, 2007

Not The First

You'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them -- if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry.

-- J. D. Salinger in The Catcher in the Rye

Friday, July 27, 2007

Homeland

The word "homeland," which resonates sinisterly like das Vaterland in German or rodina in Russian, was virtually unused before 9/11, and despite its relentless repetition by the Bush administration (to include the name of a cabinet agency), it has thus far refused to lodge itself in colloquial American English. ... Indeed, while Vaterland or rodina have non-ideological colloquial roots and were expropriated by Hitler and Stalin, "homeland" is a purely ideological construct of the Bush
administration.

-- Werther, a Northern Virginia-based defense analyst

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Nothing So Obvious

There is nothing so obvious that it's obvious.

-- Academy Award winning documentary filmmaker Errol Morris in his essay on truth and photographs, on his New York Times blog, July 10, 2007


http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/10/pictures-are-supposed-to-be-worth-a-thousand-words/

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Attack Like A Fool

I did not know the climbs so I attacked like a fool.

-- Barloworld cyclist Juan Mauricio Soler of Columbia, after winning the 9th stage of the Tour de France by attacking on the out-of-category climb up the Col du Galibier, July 17, 2007

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

One Word

If there is one word I would use to sum up the atmosphere in Iraq -- on the streets, in the countryside, in the neighborhoods, and at the national level -- that word would be fear.

-- Ryan C. Crocker, American ambassador to Iraq, New York Times, July 20, 2007

Monday, July 23, 2007

The Terrorists Cannot

Americans think their danger is terrorists. They don't understand the terrorists cannot take away habeas corpus, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution. ... The terrorists are not anything like the threat that we face to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution from our own government in the name of fighting terrorism. Americans just aren't able to perceive that.

-- Paul Craig Roberts, journalist, economist, and former Reagan Administration official, July 2007

Friday, July 20, 2007

SiCKO

This week, for the first time since I started work at NEXVU Technologies over 3 1/2 years ago, I missed a full day of work due to illness (Tuesday and Wednesday).

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Absurd

Why shouldn't things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are so, and we are so, and they and we go very well together.

-- George Santayana

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

People Who Cannot Find Time

People who cannot find time for recreation are obliged sooner or later to find time for illness.

-- John Wannamaker

Monday, July 16, 2007

Life, Love, And Death

Life is eternal; and love is immortal;
And death is only a horizon;
And a horizon is nothing
Save the limit of our sight.

-- Rossiter Worthington Raymond

Friday, July 13, 2007

RIP Deb Zoller-Fisher

I was working at Chanute AFB near Rantoul, IL, and I dropped DZD a pnote commenting on the heavy system load (something like 900 on-system, on the way to a peak around 1200 users). Her reply ...?

* zoller-dykema / o / cerl 8/21/80 7:50 am *

munch a bunch a crunch a bunch a munch a bunch a
USERS!

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Our Death Is Not An End

Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us; our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life.

-- Albert Einstein

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Life

Life -- a culmination of the past, an awareness of the present, an indication of a future beyond knowledge, the quality that gives a touch of divinity to matter.

-- Charles Lindbergh

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Your Tax $s At Work, Killing People

A new estimate of the financial cost of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars shows expenditures of about $12B per month. If 90% of that cost is incurred in Iraq, that works out to an average of $250,000 per minute for our efforts there.

Monday, July 09, 2007

Coincidence

The attorney of record for Marc Rich when pardoned by President Bill Clinton was I. Lewis Libby.

-- "It's All Politics" radio program

Thursday, July 05, 2007

Consequences

It's just interesting to think about unintended consequences, since those seem to be the only kind of consequences we ever see.

-- Scott Adams, "The Dilbert Blog", 6/28/07

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Petraeus On Progress In Iraq

18 months after entering Iraq, I see tangible progress. Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt from the ground up.

The institutions that oversee them are being reestablished from the top down. And Iraqi leaders are stepping forward, leading their country and their security forces courageously in the face of an enemy that has shown a willingness to do anything to disrupt the establishment of the new Iraq. ...

Equipment is being delivered. Training is on track and increasing in capacity. Infrastructure is being repaired. Command and control structures and institutions are being reestablished.

Most important, Iraqi security forces are in the fight.

-- General David H. Petraeus, "Battling for Iraq," washingtonpost.com, September 26, 2004

Monday, July 02, 2007

Presidential Scholars

We do not want America to represent torture. We urge you to do all in your power to stop violations of the human rights of detainees, to cease illegal renditions, and to apply the Geneva Convention to all detainees, including those designated enemy combatants.

-- Excerpt from a letter signed by 50 Presidential Scholars, presented to President George W. Bush, June 25, 2007