Today's necessary but likely very expensive action for taxpayers is the consequence of regulatory neglect and of a broader political system's reluctance to take on what should have been clearly seen as festering problems.
If you owe the bank $100, that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem.
We often borrow from our tomorrows to pay our debts to our yesterdays.
If we run into such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers.
How much longer are we going to think it necessary to be "American" before (or in contradistinction to) being cultivated, being enlightened, being humane, having the same intellectual discipline as other civilized countries? It is really too easy a disguise for our shortcomings to dress them up as a form of patriotism!
When I started Oracle, what I wanted to do was to create an environment where I would enjoy working. That was my primary goal. Sure, I wanted to make a living. I certainly never expected to become rich, certainly not this rich. I mean, rich does not even describe this. This is surreal.
If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begun upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time.
If I extrapolate from myself, there's a lot of deceit in the world without a beginning, middle, or end. The way it really works, a lot of the time, is that you suffer from the weight of what happened, from what you said and did, so you lie as therapy. Now the story you make up starts to take up space otherwise reserved for reality. For phenomena you substitute epiphenomena. Skew becomes ascendant. The secondary becomes primary. When it's time to confess, you don't know what you're saying.
If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I wouldn't pass it around. Wouldn't be doing anybody a favor. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't say embrace trouble. That's as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say, meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it.
The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the one who will win.
If art doesn't seem dangerous for the artist, it probably isn't relevant.
In the past few weeks I've heard more news commentators mistakenly say the word "Soviet" when they meant "Russian" than ever before. Putin's machinations with respect to Georgia, and now Poland, have that old-school feeling of Soviet aggression.
Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.
In the Twenty-first Century, nations don't invade other nations.
The Current State of Copyright Law is too depressing
Mr. Hamdan, I hope the day comes that you are able to return to your wife and daughters and your country.
It is not the level of prosperity that makes for happiness but the kinship of heart to heart and the way we look at the world. Both attitudes are within the power, so that a man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy, and no one can stop him.
Do you want our government to have the ability to track where you went, how you went, how you got there and when you got home? It would be naive for someone to think this information will not be abused in the future. Virtually every decade these kinds of files have been used to violate people's privacy.
Hey America, I'm Paris Hilton and I'm a celebrity, too. Only I'm not from the olden days and I'm not promising change like that other guy. I'm just hot. But then that wrinkly, white-haired guy used me in his campaign ad, which I guess means I'm running for president. So thanks for the endorsement white-haired dude ... I want America to know that I'm, like, totally ready to lead.
On Saturday 08-02-08 I participated for the second time in the annual Champaign Park District mini-triathlon. I did OK, though I didn't win any prizes. It was a 400 meter swim, 6 mile bike ride, and 2 mile run. My time was 48:41.4, an improvement of 4:23 over my previous performance.
Amendment X
Amendment IX
Amendment VIII
Amendment VII
Amendment VI
Amendment V
Amendment IV
Amendment III
Amendment II
The Conventions of a number of the States having, at the time of adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added, and as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution; Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two-thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States; all or any of which articles, when ratified by three-fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the said Constitution, namely:
The pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue states, red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too: We worship an awesome God in the blue states and we don't like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the red states. We coach Little League in the blue states and, yes, we've got some gay friends in the red states. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.
Fascism: Philosophy of government that stresses the primacy and glory of the state, unquestioning obedience to its leader, subordination of the individual will to the state's authority, and harsh suppression of dissent. Martial virtues are celebrated, while liberal and democratic values are disparaged.
We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that has to change.
Obama's remarks that -- if he takes office -- in 16 months he would withdraw the forces, we think that this period could increase or decrease a little, but that it could be suitable to end the presence of the forces in Iraq. Who wants to exit in a quicker way has a better assessment of the situation in Iraq.
I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.
As president, I will order an immediate review of our overseas deployments - in dozens of countries. The longstanding commitments we have made to our allies are the strong foundation of our current peace. I will keep these pledges to defend friends from aggression. The problem comes with open-ended deployments and unclear military missions. In these cases we will ask, "What is our goal, can it be met, and when do we leave?" As I've said before, I will work hard to find political solutions that allow an orderly and timely withdrawal from places like Kosovo and Bosnia. We will encourage our allies to take a broader role. We will not be hasty. But we will not be permanent peacekeepers, dividing warring parties. This is not our strength or our calling.
Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.
When I was young American politics were fairly straightforward: conservatives let you keep all your money in return for telling you how to live your life, while liberals let you live as you pleased in return for all your money. Now the only difference is whether they want your money or your life first.
An awful privilege, and an awful responsibility, that we should help to create the world in which posterity will live.
There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet.
Back before we lost our collective minds and began shrieking with horror at the thought of kids having fun on their own (as in not part of an official league or otherwise organized activity), they used to do things like find a vacant field, turn it into a makeshift diamond and spend glorious hours in the summer sun.
In no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department.
We didn't have satellite, syndication and networking like today. So, I created my own network of local clowns and productions, a cross-country operation that kept me on the road for 50 weeks a year for decades.
I've been portrayed as a caveman by some. That's not true. I'm a conservative progressive, and that means I think all men are equal, be they Slants, Beaners, or Niggers.
What makes this document doubly stunning is that these were techniques to get false confessions. People say we need intelligence, and we do. But we don't need false intelligence.
Bonds' 756th homer ball lands in Hall, finally
You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have.
One hundred years ago today, the so-called Tunguska Event, apparently a mid-air explosion of a meteor, levelled the trees across an area of more than a half million acres (~830 square miles).
I'm not sure how much wisdom there is in staying because these are floods that are supposed to come every 500 years and they're coming every 15 years.
