Not Necessarily True

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.

-- Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)

The Devil's post -- entry number 666

The Source Of Our Troubles

No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.

-- P. J. O'Rourke, writer (1947- )

Cousins

Every family has a black sheep.

-- Bill Burton, spokesman for Barak Obama, on Lynne Cheney's assertion that Obama & her husband Vice President Dick Cheney are distant cousins

Lemmings

There's a whiff of the lynch mob or the lemming migration about any overlarge concentration of like-thinking individuals, no matter how virtuous their cause.

-- P. J. O'Rourke, Parliament of Whores (1991)

Big Pharma Protects The Environment

Here's a point to ponder.

My ex has no health insurance, and currently has nine separate prescriptions to address her congestive heart failure and related maladies. Of these nine, I've been paying cash for the seven that cost under $100 per month each, skipping the two remaining, exorbitantly-priced meds.

This week I went to pick up her Albuterol inhaler, which has been available as a generic for quite a while. Unfortunately, I discovered that it's no longer available as a generic. The pharmaceutical company now has another 2(?) or 3(?) year monopoly on this product which, since it is so widely prescribed, is probably worth a $billion or so.

The change?

The old-style inhaler used CFCs for the propellant; the new-style inhaler uses something more environmentally friendly. I'm guessing that it was big pharma that pushed for the environmental restriction against CFCs as a propellant for inhalers. I'm also guessing that more people will die from not being able to afford inhalers than would have died from the extra CFCs in the atmosphere.

So, an apparently innocuous and right-minded change to environmental law, meant to keep us healthy, is likely going to kill people.

Sanchez

After more than four years of fighting, America continues its desperate struggle in Iraq without any concerted effort to devise a strategy that will achieve victory in that war-torn country or in the greater conflict against extremism.

-- Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez, retired former top commander of American forces in Iraq, New York Times, 10/13/2007

Rockies

I meant to post this last Friday, but it just got better over the weekend.

In an amazing streak, baseball's Colorado Rockies won 13 of their final 14 games in the regular season to tie for the wildcard. That is to say, with that streak, they managed to tie for "best second place".

Since then, they have won a one-game playoff for the wildcard, swept Philadelphia in 3 games in the Division Series, and are on the verge of a sweep of Arizona, having won the first 3 in the best-of-seven League Championship Series.

Overall they have won 20 of their last 21 games, including all 7 games they've played in the post-season.

MQ Software

As of Friday 12 October the programming staff (i.e., 5 of 6 total people) of NEXVU Technologies were hired en masse by MQ Software

http://www.mqsoftware.com

... to work on products akin to the NEXVU product. We start work on Tuesday 16 October, and remain in our old office as a satellite of our Minneapolis-based overlords.

What A Living

If the rich could pay the poor to die for them, what a living the poor could make!

-- anonymous

Illuminati

Courtesy Mutant.net
http://www.mutant.net/editorials/illuminati.html

Re-reading The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, I came across the following passage ...

"... But they can rule by fraud, and by fraud eventually acquire access to the tools they need to finish the job of killing off the Constitution."

"What sort of tools?"

"More stringent security measures. Universal electronic Surveillance. No-Knock Laws. Stop and frisk laws. Government inspection of first-class mail. Automatic fingerprinting, photographing, blood tests and urinalysis of any person arrested before he is charged with a crime. A law making it unlawful to resist even unlawful arrest. Laws establishing detention camps for potential subversives. Gun control laws. Restrictions on travel. The assassinations, you see, establish the need for such laws in the public mind. Instead of realizing that there is a conspiracy, controlled by a handful of men, the people reason - or are manipulated into reasoning - that the entire populace must have its freedom restricted in order to protect the leaders. The people agree that they themselves can't be trusted. ...

"... At present rate, within the next few years the Illuminati will have the American people under tighter surveillance than Hitler had the Germans. And the beauty of it is, the majority of the Americans will have been so frightened by Illuminati-backed terrorist incidents that they will beg to be controlled as a masochist begs for the whip."

From Pages 197-198 of the Dell Trade Paperback edition published in November 1988. The book was written in 1975. Sound familiar?

NEXVU

On Friday, 5 October 2007, NEXVU Technologies ceased operations. My first interview for a replacement gig is tomorrow.

Ann Coulter On Women And The Vote

If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen.

-- Ann Coulter, New York Observer, 2 October 2007

Pereiro

The only thing I won in 2007 is the 2006 Tour.

-- Cyclist Oscar Pereiro on his declaration as winner of the 2006 Tour de France after nominal winner Floyd Landis was stripped of his title for doping, VeloNews, 4 October 2007

Stupid Things

We have 1,000 guys out in the field. People make mistakes; they do stupid things sometimes.

-- Erik D. Prince, chief executive of Blackwater USA, which is under scrutiny for shootings by its employees in Iraq, Congressional hearing, 2 October 2007

Data Decryption Law In UK

From ars technica --

UK can now demand data decryption on penalty of jail time
By Ken Fisher | Published: October 01, 2007 - 10:20PM CT

New laws going into effect today in the United Kingdom make it a crime to refuse to decrypt almost any encrypted data requested by authorities as part of a criminal or terror investigation. Individuals who are believed to have the cryptographic keys necessary for such decryption will face up to 5 years in prison for failing to comply with police or military orders to hand over either the cryptographic keys, or the data in a decrypted form.

Part 3, Section 49 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) includes provisions for the decryption requirements, which are applied differently based on the kind of investigation underway. As we reported last year, the five-year imprisonment penalty is reserved for cases involving anti-terrorism efforts. All other failures to comply can be met with a maximum two-year sentence.
... snip ...

Cowardly Escape

War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.

-- Thomas Mann (1875-1955), German novelist, essayist, short story writer, and Nobel laureate

Miracle Mets

Do you know what it's like
To be chased by the Ghost of Failure
While staring through Victory's door?
Of course you do, you're a Mets fan.

-- Frank Messina, self-proclaimed Mets Poet, as the Mets complete the worst end-of-season collapse in baseball history, blowing a 7-game lead with 17 games to play to finish out of the running, New York Times, 29 September 2007

So This Is _Normal_ To Them

Forty percent of Americans have never lived when there wasn't a Bush or a Clinton in the White House, as president or vice president.

-- Associated Press, 28 September 2007

So the government as it currently exists is _normal_ to them.

If You Have To Be In A Soap Opera

If you have to be in a soap opera, try not to get the worst role.

-- Boy George

Counsel Of Our Fears

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell: What is the greatest threat facing us now? People will say it's terrorism. But are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No. Can they knock down a building? Yes. Can they kill somebody? Yes. But can they change us? No. Only we can change ourselves. So what is the great threat we are facing?

I would approach this differently, in almost Marshall-like terms. What are the great opportunities out there\u2014ones that we can take advantage of? It should not be just about creating alliances to deal with a guy in a cave in Pakistan. It should be about how do we create institutions that keep the world moving down a path of wealth creation, of increasing respect for human rights, creating democratic institutions, and increasing the efficiency and power of market economies? This is perhaps the most effective way to go after terrorists.

Interviewer: So you think we are getting too hunkered down and scared?

Powell: Yes! We are taking too much counsel of our fears.

This doesn't mean there isn't a terrorist threat. There is a threat. And we should send in military forces when we have a target to deal with. We should also secure our airports, if that makes us safer. But let's welcome every foreign student we can get our hands on. Let's make sure that foreigners come to the Mayo Clinic here, and not the Mayo facility in Dubai or somewhere else. Let's make sure people come to Disney World and not throw them up against the wall in Orlando simply because they have a Muslim name. Let's also remember that this country was created by immigrants and thrives as a result of immigration, and we need a sound immigration policy.

Let's show the world a face of openness and what a democratic system can do. That's why I want to see Guantanamo closed. It's so harmful to what we stand for. We literally bang ourselves in the head by having that place. What are we doing this to ourselves for? Because we're worried about the 380 guys there? Bring them here! Give them lawyers and habeas corpus. We can deal with them. We are paying a price when the rest of the world sees an America that seems to be afraid and is not the America they remember.

-- Colin Powell in GQ Magazine, October 2007

Marcel Marceau

Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?

-- Marcel Marceau (March 22, 1923 - September 22, 2007) The Reader's Digest (June 1958)

What Everyone Knows

I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.

-- Former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan; cited in Katrina Vanden Heuvel, "Greenspan, Iraq & Oil" (Nation, September 15, 2007)

By The Numbers

The new Forbes 400, by the numbers --

Oldest member       : John Simplot, 98
Youngest member     : John Arnold, 33
Average age         : 65
Number never married: 11
Avg number of kids  : 3.2
Minimum net worth   : $1.3 Billion
Average net worth   : $3.8 Billion
Collective net worth: $1.54 Trillion
Entirely self-made  : 270
Entirely inherited  : 74
Number of women     : 39
California residents: 88
New York residents  : 73
NY City residents   : 64

Number of billionaires with not enough money to make the list : 84

Planet Bush

The president can make things true simply by solemnly pronouncing them from the Oval Office. He can reach out to his critics just by saying he is doing so. And people believe him. But over here in the real world, things are different. Iraq is mostly ruled by armed gangs, not a central government. American troops are dying in the crossfire as the country continues to violently disintegrate along ethnic and sectarian lines. We're in it pretty much alone. There's no end in sight. And the real al Qaeda is regrouping in Pakistan.

-- Dan Froomkin, "It Came From Planet Bush", Washington Post, September 14, 2007

Good Intentions

Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions.

-- Daniel Webster

Origin Of Myths

If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.

-- Bertrand Russell

Front, Back

If a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian. If it went through the front, it's criminal.

-- An intelligence analyst, regarding the violence in Iraq; cited in Paul Krugman, "Time to Take a Stand" (New York Times, September 7, 2007)

Occupied

If someone occupied my hometown in the same manner Americans occupy Iraq, I'd be killing them any way I could.

-- Marine Scott Ritter, "Reporting from Baghdad" (TruthDig, September 7, 2007)

A Great Soul And Vast Views

Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service when it is violating all His laws.

-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1816

We Do Not Remember Days

We do not remember days; we remember moments.

-- Cesare Pavese, 1908-1950, Italian novelist, poet, and translator

Air Power

If I hear one more lawyer with no military experience explain to me how air power alone really can do it this time, I'm going to kill him.

-- An active-duty US Army officer; cited in "We Don't Need Another Fight Right Now" (Swedish Meatballs Confidential, August 31, 2007)

Public Diplomacy

The government calls it "public diplomacy". Some call it "propaganda". I prefer the term "manure". Others may prefer an easier-to-spell synonym. But it all smells the same.

-- Winter Patriot, "Did Bush Just Declare War On Iran?" (Winter Patriot blog, August 29)

Most Joyful, Most Perfect

For me, music making is the most joyful activity possible, the most perfect expression of any emotion.

-- Luciano Pavarotti (October 12, 1935 - September 6, 2007) Italian opera singer

Lack Of Access

I believe, if we don't fix the health care system, that lack of access will be a bigger cancer killer than tobacco. The ultimate control of cancer is as much a public policy issue as it is a medical and scientific issue.

-- John R. Seffrin, of the American Cancer Society, which plans to devote its entire advertising budget this year to the consequences of inadequate health coverage, NY Times, 8/31/07

Finish?

Well, that was an exciting finish.

-- Steve Fossett, millionaire adventurer, reported missing Monday 3 September, 2007

Do It Right

There is no labor a person does that is undignified, if they do it right.

-- Bill Cosby (1937-, American Actor, Comedian)

Miracles

This [war] is an endless story unless a miracle takes place in a time when miracles do not take place any more.

-- Waleed al-Ubaydi, a political analyst at Baghdad University, August 2007

The Chain Of Change

And, oh! what beautiful years were these
When our hearts clung each to each;
When life was filled and our senses thrilled
In the first faint dawn of speech.

Thus life by life and love by love
We passed through the cycles strange,
And breath by breath and death by death
We followed the chain of change.

-- Langdon Smith

Intelligent Work

The great difference between those who succeed and those who fail does not consist in the amount of work done by each but in the amount of intelligent work.

-- Og Mandino (1923-1996), American motivational author, speaker

Gonzales Going Going Gone

To achieve victory at the cost of eroding civil liberties would not really be a victory. We cannot change the core identity of our Nation and claim success. And our identity has never been in doubt -- we are a free people, dedicated to liberty for the popular and the unpopular, committed to the ideal that the People govern themselves, and determined to have a government that cannot extinguish or suppress the rights that make us Americans.

-- Then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, at the U.S. Air Force Academy, November 20, 2006

Less And Less Obvious

Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines.

-- R. Buckminster Fuller

Bodies Of Men

Has it been found that bodies of men act with more rectitude or greater disinterestedness than individuals? The contrary of this has been inferred by all accurate observers of the conduct of mankind; and the inference is founded upon obvious reasons. Regard to reputation has a less active influence, when the infamy of a bad action is to be divided among a number than when it is to fall singly upon one. A spirit of faction, which is apt to mingle its poison in the deliberations of all bodies of men, will often hurry the persons of whom they are composed into improprieties and excesses, for which they would blush in a private capacity.

-- Alexander Hamilton

Context

For example, international terrorism annually causes the same number of deaths as drowning in bathtubs or bee stings. It would take a repeat of Sept. 11 every month of the year to make flying as dangerous as driving. Over a lifetime, the chance of being killed by a terrorist is about the same as being struck by a meteor .... In conclusion, an American's risk of dying at the hands of a terrorist is microscopic.

-- John Mueller, an Ohio State University political science professor

Waxing Eloquent

I can also say that this bike climbs like a monkey in a set of crampons, descends like a monkey in a set of crampons being droppd from a helicopter, handles corners like a prostitute, and accelerates like a particle in a particle accelerator that itself is just a tiny particle in a giant particle accelerator. Overall, the effect is like sitting in a cafe in a trendy Milan street while sipping a cappuccino and wearing fabulous clothes yet inexplicably traveling at or close to the speed of light. Pure Italian class.

-- Bike Snob NYC, waxing eloquent about the new Colnago Extreme Power bicycle

Neutron Loans

All of the old-timers knew that subprime mortgages were what we called neutron loans -- they killed the people and left the houses. The deals made in 2005 and 2006 were going to run into trouble because the credit pendulum at the time was stuck at easy.

-- Louis S. Barnes, a partner at Boulder West, a mortgage banking firm, NY Times, 8/19/07

Patience

You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.

-- Franklin P. Jones

When We Teach

When we teach a child to draw, we teach him how to see. When we teach a child to play a musical instrument, we teach her how to listen. When we teach a child to dance, we teach him how to move through life with grace. When we tach a child to read and write, we teach her how to think. When we nurture imagination, we create a better world, one child at a time.

-- Jane Alexander

Crying And Rejoicing

When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.

-- Cherokee proverb

Never Have Children

Never have children, only grandchildren.

-- Gore Vidal (October 3, 1925-), novelist, essayist, playwright, and provocateur, quoting his grandfather, Senator Thomas Pryor Gore

The Mother Is Born

Giving birth is little more than a set of muscular contractions granting passage of a child. Then the mother is born.

-- Erma Louise Bombeck, 1927 - 1996

Saiya

At 6:27 AM today my number two daughter Sheena gave birth to my first grandchild. Saiya Marie Schwartz weighed in on arrival at 8 pounds 6 ounces, and 20 inches long.

Dinger

Throughout the past century, the home run has held a special place in baseball, and I have been privileged to hold this record for 33 of those years. I move over now and offer my best wishes to Barry and his family on this historic achievement.

-- From Hank Aaron's video tribute to Barry Bonds on Bonds' record-breaking 756th career home run, August 7, 2007

TSA Guy

Security Consultant Bruce Schneier: By today's rules, I can carry on liquids in quantities of 3 oz or less, unless they're in larger bottles. But I can carry on multiple three-ounce bottles. Or a single larger bottle with a non-prescription medicine label, like contact lens fluid. It all has to fit inside a one-quart plastic bag, except for that large bottle of contact lens fluid. And if you confiscate my liquids, you're going to toss them into a large pile right next to the screening station -- which you would never do if anyone thought they were actually dangerous.

Can you please convince me there's not an Office for Annoying Air Travelers making this sort of stuff up?

Transportation Safety Administration Head Kip Hawley [who apparently has a sense of humor]: Screening ideas are indeed thought up by the Office for Annoying Air Travelers and vetted through the Directorate for Confusion and Complexity, and then we review them to insure that there are sufficient unintended irritating consequences so that the blogosphere is constantly fueled.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/07/conversation_wi_4.html

Any Event

Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian.

-- Lee Simonson

Ego

You need a healthy ego to endure the abuse that comes with any sort of success. The trick is to think of your ego as your goofy best friend who lends moral support but doesn't know shit.

-- Scott Adams, The Dilbert Blog, 7/23/07

Pervading Evil

The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.

-- Lord Acton (10 January 1834 - 19 June 1902), English historian, The History of Freedom in Antiquity (February 28, 1877)

Power Corrupts

All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.

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

Everything Secret Degenerates

Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.

-- Lord Acton (10 January 1834 - 19 June 1902), English historian, Letter (January 23, 1861)

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

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

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

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/

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

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

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

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).

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

People Who Cannot Find Time

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

-- John Wannamaker

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

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!

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

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

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.

Coincidence

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

-- "It's All Politics" radio program

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

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

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

Discrimination

The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.

-- Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., in the majority opinion on school integration, June 28, 2007

Exit Blair

Some may belittle politics but we who are engaged in it know that it is where people stand tall. Although I know that it has many harsh contentions, it is still the arena that sets the heart beating a little faster. If it is, on occasions, the place of low skulduggery, it is more often the place for the pursuit of noble causes. I wish everyone, friend or foe, well. That is that. The end.

-- Tony Blair's last official words as Prime Minister, said at Prime Minister's Questions on 27 June 2007

Flaws

I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.

-- Augusten Burroughs

Aimed Rather Low

If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.

-- George Carlin

Properly Free

I myself am human and free only to the extent that I acknowledge the humanity and liberty of all my fellows .... I am properly free when all the men and women about me are equally free. Far from being a limitation or a denial of my liberty, the liberty of another is its necessary condition and confirmation.

-- Mikhail Bakunin

Driving In Illinois

When you're driving in Illinois, watching the buildings in the distance move SO SLOWLY, you're watching a kind of movie that you've been watching all your life, and that isn't playing in any other cinema.

-- Ernie Metzger, Glasgow, Scotland, formerly of Urbana, IL

Bloomberg On Politics

Any successful elected executive knows that real results are more important than partisan battles, and that good ideas should take precedence over rigid adherence to any particular political ideology.

-- Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, New York Times, June 20, 2007

Ready Booted And Spurred

I never would believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world, ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden.

-- Walt Whitman, American poet (1819-1892)

Sacrifices Must Be Made

For you to be successful, sacrifices must be made. It's better that they are made by others but failing that, you'll have to make them yourself.

-- Rita Mae Brown (November 28, 1944-), American writer

Real ID

The REAL ID Act is one of the largest identity management undertakings in history. It would bring more than 200 million people from a large, diverse, and mobile country within a uniformly defined identity system, jointly operated by state governments. This has never been done before in the USA, and it raises numerous policy, privacy, and data security issues that have had only brief scrutiny, particularly given the scope and scale of the undertaking.

It is critical that specific issues be carefully considered before developing and deploying a uniform identity management system in the 21st century. These include, but are not limited to, the implementation costs, the privacy consequences, the security of stored identity documents and personal information, redress and fairness, "mission creep", and, perhaps most importantly, provisions for national security protections.

The Department of Homeland Security's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking touched on some of these issues, though it did not explore them in the depth necessary for a system of such magnitude and such consequence. Given that these issues have not received adequate consideration, the Committee feels it is important that the following comments do not constitute an endorsement of REAL ID or the regulations as workable or appropriate.

-- The Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee of the Department of Homeland Security

Strength Of Character

Strength of character does not consist solely in having powerful feelings, but in maintaining one's balance in spite of them. Even with the violence of emotion, judgment and principle must still function like a ship's compass, which records the slightest variations however rough the sea.

-- Carl von Clausewitz

xkcd

You can look at practically any part of anything manmade around you and think "some engineer was frustrated while designing this." It's a little human connection.

-- xkcd, 6/14/07, xkcd.com (check it out)

Liberty V. Security

The very point of protecting liberty is to demand that sacrifices to liberty are not in vain and that security interests, which compromise civil liberties, are sufficiently effective to warrant the cost.

-- Daniel J. Solove, Data Mining and the Security-Liberty Debate, George Washington University Law School

Ironic Way Of Failing

It's not about money, it's about freedom. If you think it's about money you've missed the point. I want to use a computer in freedom, to cooperate, to not be restricted or prohibited from sharing. The GNU/Linux system is catching on somewhat more now. The system is becoming popular for practical reasons. It's a good system. The danger is people will like it because it's practical and it will become popular without anyone having the vaguest idea of the ideals behind it, which would be an ironic way of failing.

-- Richard Stallman in a Software Libre article by Richard Hillesley, 3/18/07

Refuse To Recognize

To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians, even if the President calls them "enemy combatants," would have disastrous consequences for the Constitution -- and the country.

We refuse to recognize a claim to power that would so alter the constitutional foundations of our Republic.

-- United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., ordering the release from military detention of Ali al-Marri

Young And Foolish

To be young and foolish you need to be both young and foolish. One without the other is no good.

-- Wayne Howell

Romney Is An Idiot

As I slowly winnow away at the list of candidates, Romney makes it easy to elminate him from contention ... here's an excerpt from an article about the June 5 candidates' debate --


At the Republican candidates' debate on June 5, White House contender Mitt Romney remarkably claimed that weapons inspectors were barred from entering Iraq before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. But Romney's error was little noted by the mainstream media.

Asked if he thought it was "a mistake for us to invade Iraq," Romney declared the question a "null set," and explained:

"If you're saying let's turn back the clock, and Saddam Hussein had opened up his country to IAEA inspectors, and they'd come in and they'd found that there were no weapons of mass destruction, had Saddam Hussein, therefore, not violated United Nations resolutions, we wouldn't be in the conflict we're in. But he didn't do those things, and we knew what we knew at the point we made the decision to get in."

Romney's suggestion that weapons inspectors were not permitted into Iraq before the war started is, of course, incorrect. Weapons inspectors from UNMOVIC (the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission) returned to Iraq on November 18, 2002. Led by Hans Blix, the inspectors spent months in Iraq, issuing reports on Iraqi compliance that were a crucial part of the debate over whether to invade Iraq.

-- From "Romney's Iraq Gaffe Ignored, GOP contender's bizarre pre-war history" 6/8/07, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3112

Pro Patria

I was the first fruits of the battle of Missionary Ridge.
When I felt the bullet enter my heart
I wished I had staid at home and gone to jail
For stealing the hogs of Curl Trenary,
Rather a thousand times the county jail
Than to lie under this marble figure with wings,
And this granite pedestal
Bearing the words, "Pro Patria."

What do they mean, anyway?

-- From the "Spoon River Anthology"

Rearing Our Children In Captivity

We are rearing our children in captivity -- their habitat shrinking almost daily. In 1970 the average nine-year-old girl would have been free to wander 840 meters from her front door. In 1997 it was 280 metres. Now the limit appears to have come down to the front doorstep.

-- Mark Easton, Home editor, BBC News, 4 June 2007

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6720661.stm

Eat Before You Are Hungry

Eat before you are hungry. Drink before you are thirsty. Rest before you are tired. Cover up before you are cold. Peel off before you are hot. Don't drink or smoke on tour. Never ride just to prove yourself.

-- Paul de Vivie (Velocio, 1853-1930) inventor of a two speed derailleur in 1905, on cycling

Tattoo Your Name On Their Chest

If you can persuade your customer to tattoo your name on their chest, they probably will not switch brands.

-- An Indiana University professor (re: Harley-Davidson owners)

If We Quit Vietnam

If we quit Vietnam, tomorrow we'll be fighting in Hawaii, and next week we'll have to fight in San Francisco.

-- President Lyndon Johnson, quoted by Ron Hutcheson in "Some See Troubling Parallels Between Iraq and Vietnam" (Common Dreams, September 18, 2003)

My Own Funeral

I feel like I've been attending my own funeral, listening to all these speeches.

-- Billy Graham, at the dedication of a library honoring his ministry, May 31, 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/01/us/01graham.html?th&emc=th