Modern Conservative

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

-- John Kenneth Galbraith, economist (1908-2006)

Feather Duster

You want to know my philosophy? One day a peacock. The next day a feather duster.

-- Pat Quinn, newly-installed governor of Illinois, on his turn in the spotlight, New York Times, 31 January 2009

Tooth Fairy

The Tooth Fairy has found me!

--

The Tooth Fairy Project would like your help with an important scientific study.

In the 1960s, your parents gave one (or more) of your baby teeth to Washington University in St. Louis to study atomic bomb test fallout. Of the 300,000 study teeth from people your age, 85,000 were never used -- including yours!

Each tooth is in a small envelope, attached to a card with your name, birth date, and other helpful information that your parents provided when you were a small boy.

Our research group found your current address in the white pages. You and 4,000 other St. Louis-area male tooth donors your age are receiving this letter. Your answers to the survey below will help us understand if bomb fallout raised risk of cancer.

1. Are you Donald Appleman, born May, 1959, son of Herbert S. Appleman?

-- From a letter recently received by yours truly, from the Tooth Fairy Project

Conflicting Versions

When there are two conflicting versions of the story, the wise course is to believe the one in which people appear at their worst.

-- H. Allen Smith (12/19/1907-2/24/1976), American journalist and humorist

Pure Communism

The sun is pure communism everywhere except in cities, where it's private property.

-- Malcom De Chazal (1902-1981), writer and painter

You Bastard!

Of course, I understand we're all different. But I can't work out where you're coming from. You probably have your reason for doing what you're doing, and in some parallel universe you might be right. I'm a very liberal person, accustomed to seeing other peoples' viewpoints, and that makes it all the more strange that I can't see yours. What sort of character are you? I just can't make any sense of what you're doing. I can't imagine what sort of story you think you're living out. Don't get me wrong, I realize you might just be very stupid -- but that stupid? As it happens, I'm one of the good guys. We defeat the bad guys; that's how we know we're the good guys. If that hurts, then so be it; you've brought it on yourself. You've forced me into seeing you in a way that I don't really approve of, and that makes me even more angry. You Bastard!

-- Professor David Sims, Cass Business School, London, UK, acceptance speech for the Ig Nobel for Literature, for his paper "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations"

Debtor Mentality

Part of the debtor mentality is a constant, frantically suppressed undercurrent of terror. We have one of the highest debt-to-income ratios in the world, and apparently most of us are two paychecks from the street. Those in power -- governments, employers -- exploit this, to great effect. Frightened people are obedient -- not just physically, but intellectually and emotionally. If your employer tells you to work overtime, and you know that refusing could jeopardize everything you have, then not only do you work the overtime, but you convince yourself that you're doing it voluntarily, out of loyalty to the company; because the alternative is to acknowledge that you are living in terror. Before you know it, you've persuaded yourself that you have a profound emotional attachment to some vast multinational corporation: you've indentured not just your working hours, but your entire thought process. The only people who are capable of either unfettered action or unfettered thought are those who -- either because they're heroically brave, or because they're insane, or because they know themselves to be safe -- are free from fear.

-- Tana French in "The Likeness", a novel set in Ireland, cited in Bruce Schneier's blog, 15 January 2009

Power Versus Knowledge

We got into this crisis because power was overly concentrated relative to knowledge. What has been going on for the past several months is more consolidation of power. This is bound to make things worse. Just as Nixon's bureaucrats did not have the knowledge to go along with the power they took when they instituted wage and price controls, the Fed and the Treasury cannot possibly have knowledge that is proportional to the power they currently exercise in financial markets.

-- Arnold Kling, The Political Economy of the Bailout, econlog.econlib.org, 15 October 2008

Standup Economist

Paul Solman: An economist comedian, who better to analyze our plight, at the micro level, individual consumers, and at the macro, the economy as a whole? Yoram Bauman asked us to feed him the following straight line.

If the U.S. economy were an animal, what animal would it be?

Yoram Bauman: I would have -- I would have to go with a hamster right now. And it's a hamster that's been running around its cage, you know, for maybe seven years. And it's tired. So, as a microeconomist, I look at it, and I think that the hamster needs some rest. Macroeconomists look at the hamster and think that the hamster needs some methamphetamines.

And I'm sure that they're right. But, after two years, it's going to be one ugly hamster. I mean, it's going to have rotten teeth. It's going to have like bloodshot eyes. It's going to be scratching itself all the time. You know, there's going to be a price to pay.

-- Yoram Bauman, Ph.D., the "Standup Economist", PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, 14 January 2009

Obama Inauguration Speech

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. ... Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with the sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use. Our security emanates from the justness of our cause; the force of our example; the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

-- President Barack Obama, inauguration speech excerpts, 20 January 2009

A Boat!

My daughter said, "Daddy, the plane turned into a boat."

-- Martin Sosa, who was with his family on the US Airways flight that ditched in the Hudson River, New York Times, 17 January 2009

Begin

A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."

-- From the poem recited by Elizabeth Alexander, poet, essayist, playwright, and teacher, at the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama II as the 44th President of the United States

Concerned

I'm concerned about justice. I'm concerned about brotherhood. I'm concerned about truth. And when one is concerned about these, he can never advocate violence. For through violence you may murder a murderer but you can't murder murder. Through violence you may murder a liar but you can't establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can't murder hate. Darkness cannot put out darkness. Only light can do that.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr. (15 January 1929 - 4 April 1968), African American clergyman, civil rights activist, and Nobel laureate, address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 16 August 1967

Peaceful Ends And Means

And the leaders of the world today talk eloquently about peace. Every time we drop our bombs in North Vietnam, President Johnson talks eloquently about peace.

What is the problem?

They are talking about peace as a distant goal, as an end we seek, but one day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal.

We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.

All of this is saying that, in the final analysis, means and ends must cohere because the end is preexistent in the means, and ultimately destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr. (15 January 1929 - 4 April 1968), African American clergyman, civil rights activist, and Nobel laureate, Christmas Sermon, Sunday, 24 December 1967

Take The First Step

Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr. (15 January 1929 - 4 April 1968), African American clergyman, civil rights activist, and Nobel laureate

Something That He Will Die For

I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr. (15 January 1929 - 4 April 1968), African American clergyman, civil rights activist, and Nobel laureate, speech in Detroit, Michigan, 23 June 1963

Apple Tree

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr. (15 January 1929 - 4 April 1968), African American clergyman, civil rights activist, and Nobel laureate

Mea Culpa -- I've since had my attribution corrected from the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to simply Martin Luther.

Transmission Shot

When buying a used car, punch the buttons on the radio. If all the stations are rock and roll, there's a good chance the transmission is shot.

-- Larry Lujack (6 June 1940-), Chicago-area top-40 music radio disc jockey

Train Wreck

This thing started when people with no money and lots of debt, having little or no way of paying back money, were given loans so others could profit. Now we have businesses with no money and lots of debt, having little or no way of paying the money back, asking for loans so a few can profit. Maybe I'm being too simplistic but is seems like a train wreck in slow motion.

-- JimPh [lightly edited for readability], The Dilbert Blog comments, 12 December 2008

Profound Disappointment

If they adopt the Bush administration position, or some version of it, it is going to be a moment of profound disappointment for everyone in the legal community and Americans generally who believe that the Bush administration has tried to turn the presidency into a monarchy.

-- Brandt Goldstein, professor, New York Law School, on the Obama administration's stance on detainees, New York Times, 3 January 2009

2008 Mileage

For the year 2008, driving my 1999 Saturn which now has >189,000 miles, with past years' stats for comparison:

                  2008        2007        2006          2008 delta  % delta
Total miles     : 24,346      25,847      25,111          -1501     - 5.8%
Total cost      : $2,188.79   $2,231.76   $1,942.72       -$42.97   - 1.9%
Total gallons   : 686.27      812.14      776.47          -125.87   -15.4%
Avg gallons/day : 1.875       2.225       2.127           -0.350    -15.7%
Avg days/fillup : 5.3         4.7         4.9             +0.6      +12.7%
Avg miles/day   : 66.52       70.81       68.80           -4.29     - 6.0%
Avg cost/day    : $5.92       $6.00       $5.27           -$0.08    - 1.3%
Avg cost/gal    : $3.14       $2.75       $2.50           +$0.39    +14.1%
Avg miles/gal   : 35.48       32.24       32.77           +3.24     +10.0%

Last year when comparing stats, I resigned myself to losing a chunk of mpg each year as the car ages. However, this year two changes came into play: first, in March I replaced my clutch, and mpg appeared to immediately jump about 5%. Second, the price of gas became ridiculous; I replaced my already fairly sedate driving habits with new ones, and mpg again appeared to immediately jump about 5%.

Waste Your Money

Waste your money and you're only out of money, but waste your time and you've lost a part of your life.

-- Michael LeBoeuf, Ph.D., business author, lecturer, and former management professor

Fixed Income

Time is a fixed income and, as with any income, the real problem facing most of us is how to live successfully within our daily allotment.

-- Margaret B. Johnstone

Life Was About To Begin

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin -- real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles WERE my life.

-- Father Alfred D'Souza

The Very Beginning

We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.

-- Richard Feynman (11 May 1918 - 15 February 1988), Nobel-prize winning American physicist and writer

New Year

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.

-- Bill Vaughan (8 October 1915 - 25 February 1977), American columnist and author

How Different

How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really matters most.

-- Stephen Covey, American speaker, trainer, author of "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People"

If You Always Give

If you always give, you will always have.

-- Chinese Proverb

Kindness

Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.

-- Lao Tzu, philosopher (6th century B.C.)

Fragrance Always Clings

A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives the rose.

-- Chinese proverb

Greatest Gift

The greatest gift you can give another is the purity of your attention.

-- Richard Moss, physician, self-help author

Presents

Presents, I often say, endear absents.

-- Charles Lamb, essayist (1775-1834)

Permanently Personal

Do give books -- religious or otherwise -- for Christmas. They're never fattening, seldom sinful, and permanently personal.

-- Lenore Hershey (1919-1997), editor and writer

Too Busy

We are always too busy for our children; we never give them the time or interest they deserve. We lavish gifts upon them; but the most precious gift -- our personal association -- which means so much to them, we give grudgingly.

-- Mark Twain, pseudonym of Samuel Clemens (1835-1910), American writer and humorist

Sincerely

Dear Sir or Madam,

We are writing to let you know that computer tapes containing some of your personal information were lost while being transported to an off-site storage facility by our archive services vendor. While we have no reason to believe that this information has been accessed or used inappropriately, we deeply regret that this incident occurred and we wanted to explain the precautionary steps we have taken to help protect you. ...

Protecting the confidentiality of this information - and all of our clients' information - has long been a top priority at The Bank of New York Mellon. However, in late February 2008, our archive services vendor notified us that they could not account for one of several boxes of data backup tapes being transported to an off-site storage facility. The missing tapes held certain personal information, such as your name, address, Social Security number and/or shareowner account information. ...

Sincerely, Investor Care Response Team

Valuable Thing

If ... they're not going to offer anything of any value, then I might just take it. ... I'm going to keep this Senate option for me a real possibility, you know, and therefore I can drive a hard bargain. ... [The seat] is a [expletive] valuable thing, you just don't give it away for nothing.

-- Democratic Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, in wiretaps discussing the open senate seat of Barack Obama, according to a press release from US Attorney Peter Fitzgerald announcing Blagojevich's arrest, 9 December 2008

Madman

Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.

-- Kenneth Boulding (1910-1993), economist, educator, peace activist, and poet

Creative Art Is Magic

All creative art is magic, is evocation of the unseen in forms persuasive, enlightening, familiar and surprising, for the edification of mankind, pinned down by the conditions of its existence to the earnest consideration of the most insignificant tides of reality.

-- Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), Polish-born English novelist

Art

Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.

-- Frank Zappa (21 December 1940 - 4 December 1993), American composer, guitarist, record producer, and film director

Lest We Mock

He shall mark our goings, question whence we came,
Set his guards about us, as in Freedom's name.
He shall peep and mutter, and night shall bring
Watchers 'neath our window, lest we mock the King.

-- Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), author, Nobel laureate

Recession

We will rewrite the record book on length for this recession. It's still arguable whether it will set a new record on depth. I hope not, but we don't know.

-- Allen Sinai, president of Decision Economics in Lexington, MA, New York Times, 2 December 2008

More Terrifying

The prospect of a government that treats all its citizens as criminal suspects is more terrifying than any terrorist. And even more frightening is a citizenry that can accept the surrender of its freedoms as the price of "freedom".

-- Joseph Sobran (1946-), American journalist and writer

Greatest Of Virtues

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.

-- Marcus Tullius Cicero (3 January 106 BC - 7 December 43 BC), Roman statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and philosopher

GM

What was good for the country was good for General Motors, and vice versa.

-- Charles Erwin Wilson, then-GM president, in Senate confirmation hearings to become President Eisenhower's Secretary of Defense, 1953

Promises

Civilization rests on a set of promises; if the promises are broken too often, the civilization dies, no matter how rich it may be, or how mechanically clever. Hope and faith depend on the promises; if hope and faith go, everything goes.

-- Herbert Agar, American author

Keys To The Kingdom

He who is able to fix the public utilities holds the keys to the kingdom in terms of winning the support of the Iraqi people and ultimately ending this conflict.

-- Army Sgt. Alex J. Plitsas, on conditions in the Sadr City section of Baghdad, New York Times, 22 April 2008

Stand Up

This vote shows that the Iraqis have figured out how to stand up for themselves, to Iran and to the U.S.

-- Michael O'Hanlon, specialist in Iraq at the Brookings Institution, on the Iraqi cabinet's approval of a security agreement calling for a full withdrawal of American forces by the end of 2011, New York Times, 17 November 2008

Well-Laid Plan

A well-laid business plan is no guarantee against the disappearance of the industry on which it is based.

-- Tim Cavanaugh, American libertarian writer and editor, Reason Online, May 2003

Grieving

People are grieving. There was a death. Their money died.

-- Barbara Goldsmith, semiretired psychotherapist in Delray Beach, Florida, New York Times, 13 November 2008

Cure Every Ill

Congress seems to want to cure every ill known to man except unconstitutional government and high taxes.

-- Charley Reese (1937-), American syndicated columnist