Find Something Strange

If you haven't found something strange during the day, it hasn't been much of a day.

-- John A. Wheeler, American theoretical physicist (1911-)

Dangerous Patriot

The dangerous patriot ... drifts into chauvinism and exhibits blind enthusiasm for military actions.

-- Colonel James A. Donovan, USMC

Too Much Reality

Humankind cannot stand very much reality.

-- T. S. Eliot

Sick In America

You can't just be sick. You have to be sick and be drowning in paperwork.

-- Ellen Mayer of Chester, NY, who has gastrointestinal cancer, New York Times, October 13, 2005

Manufacture Of Consent

The manufacture of consent ... was supposed to have died out with the appearance of democracy ... but it has not died out. It has, in fact, improved enormously in technique ... Under the impact of propaganda, it is no longer plausible to believe in the original dogma of democracy.

-- Walter Lippman

Very Nice

Oh, a sleeping drunkard
Up in Central Park,
And a lion-hunter
In the jungle dark,
And a Chinese dentist,
And a British queen --
All fit together
In the same machine.
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, nice, very nice --
So many different people
In the same device.

-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

What We Pretend To Be

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. "Mother Night" (1961)

Unquestioning Faith

Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.

-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. "Mother Night" (1961)

Please Notice

And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is."

-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. "Knowing What's Right", In These Times, 2003

Don't Be Reckless

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, And don't put up with people that are reckless with yours.

-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Liberal Or Conservative

Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.

-- Kurt Vonnegut, "Cold Turkey", In These Times, May 10, 2004

RIP Nipsey

The genius who created me only took care of my dashing good looks, my razor sharp wit, and my irresistible attraction to the wrong women.

-- Nipsey Russell (1924-2005) as the Tinman, in The Wiz

No Criticism

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

-- Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US President (1858-1919)

A New Population

When 25 percent of the population believe that the president should be impeached and 51 percent believe in UFOs, you may or may not need a new president, but you definitely need a new population.

-- Harry Reasoner (1923-1991), American journalist and news commentator

Repetition

Were it offered to my choice, I should have no objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the advantages authors have in a second edition to correct some faults in the first.

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American scientist, publisher, diplomat

Hot Lead

US Forced To Import Bullets From Israel As Troops Use 250,000 For Every Rebel Killed - Andrew Buncombe (Independent, September 25, 2005)

US forces have fired so many bullets in Iraq and Afghanistan -- an estimated 250,000 for every insurgent killed -- that American ammunition-makers cannot keep up with demand. As a result the US is having to import supplies from Israel.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article314944.ece

Saying What We Think

Saying what we think gives us a wider conversational range than saying what we know.

-- Cullen Hightower

Support The Troops

You can support the troops but not the president.

-- Representative Tom Delay (R-TX) on Clinton's actions in Bosnia

Swing Again

We will swing again in that place.

-- Kermit Ruffins, a trumpeter, on New Orleans, New York Times, Monday, September 26, 2005

RIP Don Adams

I may never get to play with the Philharmonic, but on the other hand, is Leonard Bernstein licensed to kill?

-- Don Adams (April 13, 1923 - September 25, 2005) as Agent Maxwell Smart, "Get Smart"

Hurricane

They said today that we should stock up on canned goods. So I went out and bought a case of beer.

-- John Gretchen III, preparing for a hurricane, 1984

Sharing Religious Views

People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.

-- Dave Barry, author and columnist (1947- )

Example Of Nonconformity

In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service.

-- John Stuart Mill, philosopher and economist (1806-1873)

Nuke Em

... In an article in the Asia Times, independent journalist Jim Lobe interviews Ivan Oelrich, of the Federation for American Scientists, who says one of the things that concerns him about the [draft Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations plan] is the way that it conflates several different levels of threats into one form of WMD threat.

"What we are seeing now is an effort to lay the foundations for the legitimacy of using nuclear weapons if [the administration] suspects another country might use chemical weapons against us," he said. "Iraq is a perfect example of how this doctrine might actually work; it was a country where we were engaged militarily and thought it would deploy chemical weapons against us."

Philip Giraldi, former CIA analyst and member of the Defense Intelligence Agency, wrote in The American Conservative last month that Vice President Dick Cheney's office has requested the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) to draw up a plan to respond to another "9/11 type attack on the US."

The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing--that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack--but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0914/dailyUpdate.html
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/policy/dod/jp3_12fc2.pdf

Taking Stock Of The Forever War

Instead of fighting the real war that was thrust upon us on that incomprehensible morning four years ago, we stubbornly insisted on fighting a war of the imagination, an ideological struggle that we defined not by frankly appraising the real enemy before us but by focusing on the mirror of our own obsessions. And we have finished -- as the escalating numbers of terrorist attacks, the grinding Iraq insurgency, the overstretched American military and the increasing political dissatisfaction at home show -- by fighting precisely the kind of war they wanted us to fight.

-- Mark Danner, Taking Stock of the Forever War, New York Times, September 11, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/magazine/11OSAMA.html

Morality

Morality, I suppose, is the wisdom that prevents sacrificing long-term happiness for short-term happiness.

-- Gerald M. Weinberg, Understanding the Professional Programmer, 1988

No Inevitability

There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening.

-- Marshall McLuhan

Expert

My definition of an expert in any field is a person who knows enough about what's really going on to be scared.

-- P.J. Plauger, Computer Language Magazine, March 1983

Paid For Our Suspicions

There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspect.

-- Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

For Every Credibility Gap

For every credibility gap, there is a gullibility fill.

-- Richard Clopton

A Modern Atlantis

Direct Hit in New Orleans Could Mean a Modern Atlantis

More than 1.2 million people in metropolitan New Orleans were warned to get out Tuesday as [the] 140-mph hurricane churned toward the Gulf coast, threatening to submerge this below-sea-level city in what could be the most disastrous storm to hit in nearly 40 years.

-- Headline & opening paragraph, USA Today, September 14, 2004 as Hurricane Ivan approached New Orleans


The evacuation of New Orleans in the face of [the] hurricane ... looked sinisterly like Strom Thurmond's version of the Rapture. Affluent white people fled the Big Easy in their SUVs, while the old and car-less -- mainly Black -- were left behind in their below-sea-level shotgun shacks and aging tenements to face the watery wrath.

-- Mike Davis, TomDispatch (www.tomdispatch.com), September, 2004

Misery & Ignorance

We live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance, and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the little corner he can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it was before he entered it.

-- Thomas Huxley (1825-1895)

Ragamuffin, Barefoot Irreverence

It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it.

-- Jacob Bronowski [The Ascent of Man] (1908-1974)

Never Despair

Never despair; but if you do, work on in despair.

-- Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

Nothing More Weak Than Water

In the world there is nothing more submissive and weak than water. Yet for attacking that which is hard and strong nothing can surpass it.

-- Lao Tzu

Growing Up

Growing up is giving up.

-- Graffitist Borf; cited in Libby Copeland, "The Mark of Borf: with Graffitist's Arrest, Police Put a Name to the Familiar Face" (Washington Post, July 14, 2005)

Examine The Service

If things are not going well with you, begin your effort at correcting the situation by carefully examining the service you are rendering, and especially the spirit in which you are rendering it.

-- Roger Babson (1875-1967, American statistician, columnist)

WillYouJoinUs

Energy will be one of the defining issues of this century. One thing is clear: the era of easy oil is over. What we all do next will determine how well we meet the energy needs of the entire world in this century and beyond.

Demand is soaring like never before. As populations grow and economies take off, millions in the developing world are enjoying the benefits of a lifestyle that requires increasing amounts of energy. In fact, some say that in 20 years the world will consume 40% more oil than it does today. At the same time, many of the world's oil and gas fields are maturing. And new energy discoveries are mainly occurring in places where resources are difficult to extract, physically, economically and even politically. When growing demand meets tighter supplies, the result is more competition for the same resources.

We can wait until a crisis forces us to do something. Or we can commit to working together ... Whatever actions we take, we must look not just to next year, but to the next 50 years.

-- Text from a new ad campaign from Chevron @ http://www.willyoujoinus.com

Describe Things

If you describe things as better than they are, you are considered to be a romantic; if you describe things as worse than they are, you will be called a realist; and if you describe things exactly as they are, you will be thought of as a satirist.

-- Quentin Crisp, "The Naked Civil Servant"

The Real Test Of Power

Today the real test of power is not capacity to make war but capacity to prevent it.

-- Anne O'Hare McCormick

What We Do Not Want To Know

Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.

-- Eric Hoffer

The Winds That Blow

The winds that blow our billions away return burdened with themes of scorn and dispraise.

-- Garet Garrett

Too Much Certainty

I am certain there is too much certainty in the world.

-- Michael Crichton, State of Fear

Tales Of Successful Violence

No society that feeds its children on tales of successful violence can expect them not to believe that violence in the end is rewarded.

-- Margaret Mead, anthropologist (1901-1978)

Marriage Vows

You will reciprocally promise love, loyalty, and matrimonial honesty. We only want for you this day that these words constitute the principle of your entire life and that with the help of divine grace you will observe these solemn vows that today, before God, you formulate.

-- Pope John Paul II


On the occasion of my first "Used to be my anniversary, but isn't anymore".

However Scrupulously Concealed

You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)


When I read this recently, the image that jumped into my mind was someone pumping gas into an SUV, with the Middle East as the slaughterhouse.

No Sufficient Reason

If there is no sufficient reason for war, the war party will make war on one pretext, then invent another ... after the war is on.

-- Senator Robert M. La Follette (1855-1925)

In Times Of Peace

In times of peace, the war party insists on making preparations for war. As soon as prepared for, it insists on making war.

-- Senator Robert M. La Follette (1855-1925)

War Party

Every nation has its war party. It is not the party of democracy. It is the party of autocracy. It seeks to dominate absolutely.

-- Senator Robert M. La Follette (1855-1925)

It's A Dry Heat

In Iraq, it's a dry heat. And the language that none of our troops or diplomats speak is Arabic rather than Vietnamese.

-- Daniel Ellsberg

Iran v Iraq?

It is true that weapons clearly, unambiguously from Iran have been found in Iraq.

-- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, August, 2005


If this claim is true, with its clear implication that the Iranian government is supporting Iraqi insurgents, can someone tell me why the Iranians would support a largely Sunni Iraqi insurgency against an allied, mainly Shiite government?

Making A Graceful Exit

General Casey, the US commander in Iraq, will announce at an opportune moment before the November 2006 US elections that "Iraqization" has reached a point where he can begin the troop withdrawals that he previewed with Secretary Rumsfeld in Baghdad on July 27. The conservative media conglomerates on which ordinary Americans depend for news will judge Iraq's civil war no longer newsworthy, since US troops are officially not involved. When the carnage becomes too gruesome to ignore, the President will explain that it was the Iraqi politicians, not America's brave soldiers, who had failed. The American people will believe because Bush himself will believe.

-- John Brady Kiesling, freelance writer and former political counselor at the US embassy in Athens. Excerpted from an article in the Athens News, August 5, 2005, page 9

Reason Is A Verb

Many are destined to reason wrongly; others, not to reason at all; and others, to persecute those who do reason.

-- Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694-1778, French historian, writer)

Science

science [Lat. scientia=knowledge]. For many the term science refers to the organized body of knowledge concerning the physical world, both animate and inanimate, but a proper definition would also have to include the attitudes and methods through which this body of knowledge is formed; thus, a science is both a particular kind of activity and also the results of that activity.

The Scientific Method
The scientific method has evolved over many centuries and has now come to be described in terms of a well-recognized and well-defined series of steps. First, information, or data, is gathered by careful observation of the phenomenon being studied. On the basis of that information a preliminary generalization, or hypothesis, is formed, usually by inductive reasoning, and this in turn leads by deductive logic to a number of implications that may be tested by further observations and experiments (see induction; deduction). If the conclusions drawn from the original hypothesis successfully meet all these tests, the hypothesis becomes accepted as a scientific theory or law; if additional facts are in disagreement with the hypothesis, it may be modified or discarded in favor of a new hypothesis, which is then subjected to further tests. Even an accepted theory may eventually be overthrown if enough contradictory evidence is found, as in the case of Newtonian mechanics, which was shown after more than two centuries of acceptance to be an approximation valid only for speeds much less than that of light.

Role of Measurement and Experiment
All of the activities of the scientific method are characterized by a scientific attitude, which stresses rational impartiality. Measurement plays an important role, and when possible the scientist attempts to test his theories by carefully designed and controlled experiments that will yield quantitative rather than qualitative results. Theory and experiment work together in science, with experiments leading to new theories that in turn suggest further experiments. Although these methods and attitudes are generally shared by scientists, they do not provide a guaranteed means of scientific discovery; other factors, such as intuition, experience, good
judgment, and sometimes luck, also contribute to new developments in science.

Columbia University Press, http://www.answers.com/science&r=67

Intelligent Design

Intelligent Design: Why limit equal time to biology class?
Salt Lake Tribune 8/05/2005

President Bush has thrown in with those who think that an idea called "intelligent design" should be taught alongside evolution in the nation's schools.

"I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought," the president told some visiting newspaper reporters from his native Texas.

OK. But why stop there?

While the science teacher is at it, he might make the study of astronomy more poetic by including the theory that the sun is not a frighteningly impersonal thermonuclear furnace but actually the flaming chariot of Phoebus Apollo streaking across the sky.

Or he might calm the students' fears of being adrift in a soulless universe by casting aside all this Copernican nonsense and admitting that, as any fool can see just by looking up, the Earth stands still and the sun, moon and stars revolve around us, er, it.

History? Make sure all those open-minded students hear that we never landed on the moon, President Kennedy was killed by the CIA and the Nazis couldn't possibly have killed 6 million Jews.

Seriously, are all those alternative ideas to be banned from the public consciousness? Of course not. They might even be discussed in school, if there's time.

But given the limited time and resources of our schools, and the sometimes minuscule attention span of our students, we need to make sure we don't lose our focus.

In science class, focus on established science.

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_2915082

Gathering Honey

If you want to gather honey, don't kick over the beehive.

-- Dale Carnegie (1888-1955, American Trainer, author, "How to Win Friends and Influence People")

Kill A Story

Kill a story before it kills you.

-- A simple rule in politics, according to journalists Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen; cited in their "In Plame Leaks, Long Shadows: Rove Knew of CIA Agent, Husband's Role in Criticizing Bush" (Washington Post, July 17, 2005)

Boredom

Boredom: the desire for desires.

-- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy, 1828-1910

Smooth & Easy War

Never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter.

-- Sir Winston Churchill

Unpatriotic & Cowardly

Before the war is ended, the war party assumes the divine right to denounce and silence all opposition to war as unpatriotic and cowardly.

-- Senator Robert M. La Follette (1855-1925)

An End To IRA Violence?

The leadership of Oglaigh na hEireann (IRA) has formally ordered an end to the armed campaign.

This will take effect from 4 p.m. this afternoon. All IRA units have been ordered to dump arms. All volunteers have been instructed to assist the development of purely political and democratic programs through exclusively peaceful means.

-- Excerpt from the Irish Republican Army statement of July 28, 2005, announcing an end to its armed campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland

Commander In Chief

One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief ... My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade ..., if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency.

-- Texas Governor George W. Bush, 1999

War Without Censorship

Vietnam was the first war ever fought without any censorship. Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.

-- General William C. Westmoreland (1914-2005)

Vive le Tour

Vive le Tour. Forever.

-- Lance Armstrong, Sunday, July 24, 2005, upon winning the Tour de France for a seventh time, before retiring from competition

Short, Decisive War

The belief in the possibility of a short, decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.

-- Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949)

A Depressing View Of War

Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war.

-- Donald Rumsfeld

Ultimate Freedom

Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.

-- Stephen Covey

Only Two Modes

We have only two modes - complacency and panic.

-- James R. Schlesinger, the first energy secretary, in 1977, on the US approach to energy. Cited in New York Times, 7/12/05

Reckless

reckless (rk'ls) adj. Heedless or careless. Headstrong; rash. Indifferent to or disregardful of consequences: a reckless driver.

[Middle English reckeles, from Old English receleas.]
reck'lessly adv.
reck'lessness n.

SYNONYMS reckless, rash, precipitate, foolhardy, temerarious. These adjectives mean given to or marked by unthinking boldness. Reckless suggests wild carelessness and disregard for consequences: conceiving measures to protect the fur-bearing animals from reckless slaughter
(Getrude Atherton). Rash implies haste, impetuousness, and insufficient consideration: Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash (George S. Patton). Precipitate connotes headlong haste without due deliberation: destroyed in a precipitate burning of his papers a few days before his death (James Boswell). Foolhardy implies injudicious or imprudent boldness: a foolhardy attempt to wrest the gun from the mugger. Temerarious suggests reckless presumption: this temerarious foeman who dared intervene between himself [the elephant] and his intended victim (Edgar Rice Burroughs).

Dude

Congratulations to my big fat black cat Dude for attaining the age of 17 years as of 7/9/2005. The oldest cat I've ever owned, and still going strong.

He was born behind the couch in the apartment I shared with then-girlfriend (now ex-wife) Melody in Lakeside, CA, in 1988 on the same day that I flew to Illinois to check on job prospects that soon led to my return to Illinois from a 3-year stint in San Diego.

His father was my cat, "Tranch" (short for Tarantula, a name given by a friend who was amused by the long white hairs that stood out through his otherwise smooth black coat); his mother was Melody's cat Gizmo (who earlier survived a near-fatal encounter with a car, and had pins in her leg). On that same morning, my female cat Jasper & Melody's male cat JYC (Junkyard Cat) had a litter under the dishwasher that included Misty, who passed away in February of '04.

Dude & Misty were the 2 kittens that we brought with us from California when we moved. He's older than 3 of my kids (one of whom has her driver's license), and remains the alpha male in a 5-cat household.

The World Gets Better

The world gets better. It also gets worse. The time it will take you to address this is exactly equal to your lifetime, and if you're lucky you don't know how long that is. The future is dark. Like night. There are probabilities and likelihoods, but there are no guarantees.

-- Rebecca Solnit, author of Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities (which developed from this piece) and 7 other books.

Originally published at TomDispatch.com

The Only Bible

Be careful how you live. You may be the only bible some people ever read.

-- Unknown

Let Us Not Look Back In Anger

Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.

-- James Thurber

Tyrants & Religion

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious.

-- Aristotle

Fear Is The Mind Killer

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

-- Frank Herbert, Dune - The Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear

Execute Your Ideas

If you don't execute your ideas, they die.

-- Roger von Oech, author and consultant

Crayons

We could learn a lot from crayons: Some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, while others bright, some have weird names, but we have to learn how to live in the same box.

-- Author Unknown

Only Way To Achieve Happiness

There is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball, and that is to have either a clear conscience or none at all.

-- Ogden Nash, 1902 - 1971

Rightful Liberty

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add "within the limits of the law" because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

-- Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect, and author (1743-1826)

No Care But For Themselves

There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.

-- Samuel Johnson, Taxation No Tyranny

Procrastination

Procrastination is my sin.
It brings me naught but sorrow.
I know that I should stop it.
In fact, I will -- tomorrow!

-- Gloria Pitzer

Snapple

An attempt to erect the world's largest popsicle went sour Tuesday when a 25-foot-tall, 17.5-ton treat of frozen Snapple thawed faster than expected, flooding Manhattan's Union Square. Firefighters closed streets and used hoses to wash away the kiwi-strawberry-flavored liquid. The colossal snack was erected by Snapple to promote its new line of frozen goodies. Snapple official Lauren Radcliffe said it was unlikely the company would try for the record (21 feet, Holland, 1997) again.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/22/AR2005062202111.html [with photo, story near the bottom]

-- Korin Miller (Names & Places, Washington Post, June 23, 2005)

My Country Right Or Wrong

I don't want anyone to think that because I live in the US I believe that everything my country does is right.

"My country right or wrong" is both unpatriotic (not faithful to one's country), and un-American (not faithful to the ideals of the founding fathers). Those who don't see that are destroying what this country is, has been, and should be.

Every Act Of Conscious Learning

Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all.

-- Thomas Szasz, author, professor of psychiatry (1920- )

Born In The USA

Being born in the elite in the U.S. gives you a constellation of privileges that very few people in the world have ever experienced. Being born poor in the U.S. gives you disadvantages unlike anything in Western Europe and Japan and Canada.

-- David I. Levine, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, May 2005

Men Think In Herds

Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.

-- Charles Mackay

History

History is a vast early warning system

-- Norman Cousins

Rest Is Not Idleness

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.

-- Sir John Lubbock

The Wrong Questions

If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.

-- Thomas Pynchon, writer (1937- )

Secrecy

Secrecy, being an instrument of conspiracy, ought never to be the system of a regular government.

-- Jeremy Bentham, jurist and philosopher (1748-1832)

Scriptures

Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.

-- Ambrose Bierce, writer (1842-1914) [The Devil's Dictionary]

Characteristic Human Trait

Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told -- and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare ... Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion.

-- Michael Crichton

Experiments & Questions

A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions -- as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.

-- Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, section 41

Trvth in Blog Form

http://www.trvth.org

True Hypocrite

The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.

-- French writer Andre Gide; cited in Richard Macintosh, "'Un-American' Questions" (Swans, CA)

The Shepherd & The Sheep

The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.

-- Stendal (Marie Henri Beyle), novelist (1783-1842)

I Am, Indeed, A King

I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself.

- Pietro Aretino, satirist and dramatist (1492-1556)

Grenades

If I didn't have writing, I'd be running down the street hurling grenades in people's faces.

-- Paul Fussell

How Things Work

Nobody can understand how all technology works. But it always surprises me how so many people can go through life in delightful ignorance, not only unaware of why their car moves forward or there is sound in the radio, but not even being curious about it. It is not hard to find out how things work. Gone are the days of wiring diagrams and complex mathematical formulae. You can find excellent explanations, helpful graphics and animation schemes describing how many common technologies work.

But no. People want to press a button and just have it done. And therein lies the problem. If you don't know how things work, you don't know what is hard. So you invest in natural language systems (speech recognition has been a promising technology for 30 years) or systems that can predict the stock market. Or you go out and spend a fortune on pyramid schemes or magnet therapy. And wander through life, "mouth agape in doltish wonder," to quote Paul Fussell.

-- Espen Andersen, The S-Curves of Sinks, and Technology, "Ubiquity", Volume 6, Issue 19 (June 1-8, 2005)

Deep Throat

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