Gains

Our gains are not measured in the losses of others.  They are counted in the conflicts we avert, the prosperity we share, and the peace we extend.

-- George W. Bush (6 July 1946-), 43rd US President, speech at Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Vally, CA (19 November 1999)

Not Our Job

It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.

-- Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., New York Times, 29 June 2012

Knack

Stupidity has a knack of getting its way.

-- Albert Camus (1913-1960), Algerian-French author and Absurdist philosopher, The Plague (1947)

This Honest

This is the only state where the proponents are this honest about what exactly their motivation is.

-- Michelle Movahed, a lawyer with the Center for Reproductive Rights, about a law in Mississippi that would effectively leave the state's only abortion clinic without physicians, New York Times, 23 June 2012

Whether the weather be fine,
Whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold,
Whether the weather be hot,
We'll weather the weather,
Whatever the whether,
Whether we like it or not

-- Author unknown

Exaction

Our precedent demonstrates that Congress had the power to impose the exaction in Section 5000A under the taxing power, and that Section 5000A need not be read to do more than impose a tax.  This is sufficient to sustain it.

-- Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, upholding the mandate in the Affordable Care Act, 28 June 2012

Trees And Cages

God loved the birds and invented trees.  Man loved the birds and invented cages.

-- Jacques Deval (1895-1972), French playwright and director, as quoted in "A Dictionary of Environmental Quotations" (1992)

Four Numbers

The basic problem can be summed up with four numbers:

1. 0.26% of Americans give more than $200 in a congressional election;
2. 0.05% max out;
3. 0.01% give more than $10,000;
4. .000063% -- 196 Americans -- have given more than 80% of the superPAC money spent so far in this election.

-- Larry Lessig: The corruption of the American political system, Durham, NC, posted 13 June 2012 by Melanie Chernoff

Revenge Of The Nerds

[It's] the ultimate revenge of the nerds, the greatest way of getting back at all the guys that stuffed people from Google into lockers from high school and stole all their prom dates.  And you can't fight against Google, because they've got billions of dollars.

But, I love their search engine.

-- Nathanial Moon, a bodybuilder at Gold's Gym in Venice, CA, on Google office space opening nearby, New York Times, 19 June 2012

The Public Sucks

In the midst of all my bitching, you might have noticed that I never complain about politicians.  I leave that to others.  And there's no shortage of volunteers; everyone complains about politicians.  Everyone says they suck.  But where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky; they don't pass through a membrane from a separate reality.  They come from American homes, American families, American schools, American churches, and American businesses.  And they're elected by American voters.  This is what our system produces, folks.  This is the best we can do.  Let's face it, we have very little to work with. Garbage in, garbage out.

Ignorant citizens elect ignorant leaders, it's as simple as that.  And term limits don't help.  All you do is get a new bunch of ignorant leaders.  So maybe it's not the politicians who suck; maybe it's something else.  Like the public.  That would be a nice realistic campaign slogan for somebody: "The public sucks.  Elect me." Put the blame where it belongs: on the people.

-- George Carlin (1937-2008), American comedian, actor, and author, Napalm And Silly Putty (2001)

King

People, I just want to say, can we all get along?  Can we get along?  Can we stop making it horrible for the older people and the kids?

-- Rodney Glen King (2 April 1965 - 17 June 2012), American citizen and victim of vidoetaped police brutality on 3 March 1991, speaking during the LA riots triggered by the acquittal of the charged officers, 1 May 1992

Doable

I'm against very wealthy people attempting to or influencing elections. But as long as it's doable I'm going to do it.  Because I know that guys like Soros have been doing it for years, if not decades.  And they stay below the radar by creating a network of corporations to funnel their money.  I have my own philosophy and I'm not ashamed of it.  I gave the money because there is no other legal way to do it.  I don't want to go through ten different corporations to hide my name.  I'm proud of what I do and I'm not looking to escape recognition.

-- Billionaire Sheldon Adelson, on his willingness to donate up to $100M to a Republican presidential candidate, Forbes Magazine interview, 12 March 2012

Surprise!

History is merely a list of surprises. ...  It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.  Please write that down.

-- Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007), American novelist, Slapstick ch. 48 (1976)

Dreamed

I came to the conclusion that I want to go out while I can still contribute and make a difference.  To be able to compete for 19 years as a professional cyclist has been something I would have never dreamed of doing.  But at the same time, it's also going to be good to spend more time with my kids, who are getting to be the age where they miss me when I'm gone.

-- US cyclist George Hincapie, announcing his impending retirement, 11 June 2012

Forever

I'll be paying this forever.

-- Chelsea Grove, 24, who dropped out of Bowling Green State University and owes $70,000 in student loans, New York Times, 13 May 2012

Digression

Digression is the soul of wit.  Take the philosophic asides away from Dante, Milton or Hamlet's father's ghost and what stays is dry bones.

-- Ray Douglas Bradbury (22 August 1920 - 5 June 2012) American -- fantasy, horror, and science fiction writer, Coda, Afterword to the 1979 edition of Fahrenheit 451 (1979)

For And To

Here is the Golden Rule of sound citizenship, the first and greatest lesson in the study of politics: you get the same order of criminality from any State to which you give power to exercise it; and whatever power you give the State to do things FOR you carries with it the equivalent power to do things TO you.

-- Albert Jay Nock (1873-1945), American author and libertarian political philosopher, The Criminality of the State, American Mercury Magazine (March 1939)

Crazy

It might be crazy to expect a high government official to speak the truth. It might be crazy to believe that government policy will be something more than the handmaiden of the most powerful interests.  It might be crazy to argue that we should preserve a tradition that has been part of our tradition for most of our history -- free culture.  If this is crazy, then let there be more crazies.  Soon.

-- Lawrence Lessig (3 June 1961), American academic and political activist, Free Culture (2004)

Knowledge And Wisdom

We can be knowledgeable with other men's knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.

-- Michel Montaigne (1533-1592), essayist, Essais, Book 1, Chapter 25

Not The Same

It is two years after, but I will never forget this tour it has been a very good tour. ...  It is not the same as to take the jersey on a podium in the tour.  You don't have the podium girls, everything around is different.

-- Tour de France winner Andy Schleck, on receiving the 2010 Yellow Jersey after Alberto Contador was disqualified for doping, 29 May 2012

Boring

Somebody's boring me.  I think it's me.

-- Dylan Thomas (1914-1953), Welsh poet and writer, quoted in Rayner Heppenstall's "Four Absentees" (1963)

Weighted

The tax code is weighted toward the ultra-wealthy and ultra-wealthy corporations, and has created an offshore aristocracy of people who can afford to hire an army of accountants and lawyers.  This shifts the tax burden to small businesses, entrepreneurs, and others.  I don't want to see taxes go up on any hardworking American.  We need a simpler, fairer tax code.

-- Representative Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE), who after signing the Taxpayer Protection Pledge during his first four runs for Congress, defied Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform and decided not to sign this time around, in an interview with Rod Dreher, 13 May 2012

To Be Governed

To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so.

-- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865), French mutualist political philosopher, The General Idea of the Revolution in the 19th Century, 1851

Things Turn Out

Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.

-- John Wooden (1910-2010), American basketball coach, as quoted by Art Linkletter in "Yes, you can:  How to succeed in business and life" page 52 (1979)

W00t!

Congratulations to my #2 daughter, Sheena, and her new husband Cody Schwartz on their wedding this past Saturday 19 May 2012.  They've been together for more than 7 years, have 2 kids together, and they decided to make it official.

Mystical

The most important of my achievements, if you want to call them that, was that I successfully introduced mystical ideas into pop culture, ....  I wanted to save our culture from the stupidity and the bigotry and the ignorance that threatened it.

-- Donovan (10 May 1946-), Scottish singer, songwriter, and guitarist, Grip Interview (1997)

Up All Night

Being with a woman all night never hurt no professional baseball player. It's staying up all night looking for a woman that does him in.

-- Casey Stengel (1890 - 1975), American baseball player and manager, BBC "The Myths of Sex Before Sport" (Jennifer Quinn), 12 August, 2004

Stupid Doesn't Mean

I don't know.  Just because we are stupid doesn't mean everybody else was.

-- JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, arguing against increased regulation as a response to his company's $2 billion loss, in a conference call, 10 May 2012

Someone Else Decide

When you've driven race cars, and when you've jumped out of airplanes, cars are on fire, when you've been upside down at two hundred miles per hour waiting for your head to hit the ground, when you've been in Africa with a wounded Cape buffalo six feet in front of you, chargin' ya, I'll let someone else decide what the most dangerous thing I've ever done is.

-- Carroll Shelby (11 January 1912 - 10 May 2012), American automotive designer, racing driver, and entrepreneur

Comfortable

I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual men and women marrying one another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties.

-- Vice President Joseph R. Biden, on NBC's "Meet the Press", quoted in the New York Times, 7 May 2012

Too Old To Learn

Who is too old to learn is too old to teach -- Scottish Proverb

Vision

A great teacher never strives to explain her vision: she simply invites you to stand beside her and see for yourself. -- Reverend R. Inman

HBD To Me

The truth is a trap; you cannot get it without it getting you; you cannot get the truth by capturing it, only by its capturing you.

-- Soren Kierkegaard (5 May 1813 - 11 November 1855), Danish Christian philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialist thought and Absurdist traditions, The Journals of Soren Kierkegaard (1954)


 19590505 has 2 representations as a sum of 2 squares:
19590505 = 572**2 + 4389**2 = 3091**2 + 3168**2

 May 5, 1959 was ...
The 125th day of the year (126th, this year)
2765 weeks and 3 days ago
19,358 days ago
53 years ago
... and, my birthday.

Seventeen And Crazy

I'm seventeen and I'm crazy. My uncle says the two always go together. When people ask your age, he said, always say seventeen and insane. -- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

First Places Taken

It is more often from pride than from ignorance that we are so obstinately opposed to current opinions; we find the first places taken, and we do not want to be the last. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680), French author and moralist, Reflections; Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665)

Tenant Farmers

We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature's inexhaustible sources of energy -- sun, wind and tide. ... I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that. -- Thomas Edison (1847-1931), American inventor and businessman, in conversation with Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone (1931); as quoted in Uncommon Friends : Life with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alexis Carrel & Charles Lindbergh (1987) by James Newton, p. 31

Big Brother

If you believe in privacy and free markets, you should be deeply concerned about the proposed marriage of government intelligence gathering with private, profit-seeking companies. CISPA is Big Brother writ large, putting the resources of private industry to work for the nefarious purpose of spying on the American people. -- Representative Ron Paul (R-TX), "CISPA is the new SOPA", thehill.com, 23 April 2012

HBD, HSA

It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was. -- Anne Sexton (1928-1974), American poet and writer, "The Poet's Story," entry for 1 January 1972

More Harm Than Good

At this point, we don't trust America's TSA, Britain's Department for Transport, or airport security in general. We don't believe they're acting in the best interests of passengers. We suspect their actions are the result of politicians and government appointees making decisions based on their concerns about the security of their own careers if they don't act tough on terror, and capitulating to public demands that "something must be done." ... This loss of trust -- in both airport security and counterterrorism policies in general -- is the first harm. ... In 2004, the average extra waiting time due to TSA procedures was 19.5 minutes per person. That's a total economic loss -- in America -- of $10 billion per year, more than the TSA's entire budget. The increased automobile deaths due to people deciding to drive instead of fly is 500 per year. Both of these numbers are for America only, and by themselves demonstrate that post-9/11 airport security has done more harm than good. -- Security expert Bruce Schneier, "Harms of Post-9/11 Airline Security, schneier.com, 29 March 2012

Soundtrack

Music is the soundtrack of your life.

-- Dick Clark (30 November 1929 - 18 April 2012), American radio and television personality, host of American Bandstand from 1957 to 1987

Crazy

The United States is getting accustomed to a completely crazy level of inequality.

-- Thomas Piketty, one of two French economists whose work tracking income equality has informed debate in the United States over earnings and tax fairness, New York Times, 17 April 2012

Product

If what you are getting online is for free, you are not the customer, you are the product.

-- Unknown

Generic

Your pharmacists aren't telling you, hey, when we fill this with your generic, you are giving up all of your legal remedies.

-- Michael Johnson, a lawyer in a case concerning a lack of redress for patients harmed by generic, rather than brand-name, drugs, New York Times, 21 March 2012

Drone

I have revenge in my heart. I just want to grab a drone by the tail and smash it into the ground.

-- Noor Magul, a farmer in Pakistan who said three of his relatives were killed by a United States drone strike, New York Times, 19 March 2012

Founder

I cannot imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that ....

-- Edward John Smith, Captain RMS Titanic (17 January 1850 - 15 April 1912), on the maiden voyage of the Adriatic in New York, 1907

Trayvon

If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon.

-- President Obama, on the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, 17, in Florida, New York Times, 24 March 2012

Dance

I feel like I want to dance. I'm so happy that they beat the military. We need a party that stands for the people.

-- 65-year-old Khin Maung Myint, on Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's election to Myanmar's Parliament after 15 years imprisonment by the nation's military rulers, New York Times, 2 April 2012

Nine Out Of Ten

When I was a young man I observed that nine out of every ten things I did were failures. Not wanting to be a failure, I did ten times more work.

-- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Irish playwright, critic, political activist, and the only person to have been awarded both the Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938)

Of Sound Mind

A man who is "of sound mind" is one who keeps the inner madman under lock and key.

-- Paul Valery, "Bad Thoughts and Not So Bad", in The Collected Works of Paul Valery, edited by Jackson Mathews, Volume 14, page 450

Forest

If a cell phone rings in the forest and you're there to hear it, are you really on vacation?

-- Sean Kutzko