Wild Boars

We are not sure if this is a miracle, a science, or what.  All the thirteen Wild Boars are now out of the cave.

-- Post on a Thai Navy SEAL Facebook page announcing the successful rescue of a group of Thai youths and their soccer coach from a flooded cave after 17 days, 10 July 2018

Set Aside Those Views

What matters is not a judge's political views, but whether they can set aside those views to do what the law and the Constitution require.

-- President Donald Trump, announcing Brett Kavanaugh as his nominee to the Supreme Court, 9 July 2018

Outstanding

I have accepted the resignation of Scott Pruitt as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.  Within the Agency Scott has done an outstanding job, and I will always be thankful to him for this.  The Senate confirmed Deputy at EPA, Andrew Wheeler, will...

...on Monday assume duties as the acting Administrator of the EPA.  I have no doubt that Andy will continue on with our great and lasting EPA agenda.  We have made tremendous progress and the future of the EPA is very bright!

-- President Donald J. Trump on Twitter as @realDonaldTrump, 5 July 2018

Terrifying

There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you're under your desk and then hear the gunman reload

-- @PhilDavis_CG on Twitter, Courts/Crime reporter Phil Davis for the Capital Gazette newspaper, describing a shooting at the newspaper that killed 5, 2:46 PM 28 June 2018

Notification Of My Decision

My dear Mr. President,

This letter is a respectful and formal notification of my decision, effective July 31 of this year, to end my regular active status as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, while continuing to serve in a senior status, as provided in 28 U.S.C 371 (b).

For a member of the legal profession it is the highest of honors to serve on this Court.  Please permit me by this letter to express my profound gratitude for having had the privilege to seek in each case how best to know, interpret, and defend the Constitution and the laws that must always conform to its mandates and promises.

Respectfully and sincerely,
Anthony M Kennedy

-- Resignation letter of Supreme Court Justice Anthony M Kennedy, 27 June 2018

Animus Rex

Taking all the relevant evidence together, a reasonable observer would conclude that the Proclamation was driven primarily by anti-Muslim animus, rather than by the Government's asserted national-security justifications.  Even before being sworn into office, then-candidate Trump stated that "Islam hates us," warned that "[w]e're having problems with the Muslims, and we're having problems with Muslims coming into the country," promised to enact a "total and complete shut down of Muslims entering the United States," and instructed one of his advisers to find a "lega[l]" way to enact a Muslim ban.  The President continued to make similar statements well after his inauguration, as detailed above. ...

Unlike in Masterpiece, where the majority consid­ered the state commissioners' statements about religion to be persuasive evidence of unconstitutional government, the majority here completely sets aside the President’s charged statements about Muslims as irrelevant.  That holding erodes the foundational principles of religious tolerance that the Court elsewhere has so emphatically protected, and it tells members of minority religions in our country "that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community." ...

I dissent.

-- Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissent to the majority opinion upholding President Trump's travel ban in Trump v Hawaii, 26 June 2018

Epidiolex

This is an important medical advance.  Because of the adequate and well-controlled clinical studies that supported this approval, prescribers can have confidence in the drug's uniform strength and consistent delivery.

-- FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb in a statement accompanying FDA approval of Epidiolex, a treatment for some forms of epilepsy, and the first FDA approved treatment derived from marijuana, CNN, 25 June 2018

Progress Of Science

As Justice Brandeis explained in his famous dissent, the Court is obligated -- as "[s]ubtler and more far-reaching means of invading privacy have become available to the Government" -- to ensure that the "progress of science" does not erode Fourth Amendment protections.  Here the progress of science has afforded law enforcement a powerful new tool to carry out its important responsibilities.  At the same time, this tool risks Government encroachment of the sort the Framers, "after consulting the lessons of history," drafted the Fourth Amendment to prevent.

We decline to grant the state unrestricted access to a wireless carrier's database of physical location information.  In light of the deeply revealing nature of CSLI, its depth, breadth, and comprehensive reach, and the inescapable and automatic nature of its collection, the fact that such information is gathered by a third party does not make it any less deserving of Fourth Amendment protection.

-- Chief Justice Roberts in the Supreme Court's majority opinion in Carpenter v US asserting that law enforcement needs a warrant to obtain cell phone location data, 22 June 2018

RIP Koko

The Gorilla Foundation is sad to announce the passing of our beloved Koko

Woodside, CA Koko -- the gorilla known for her extraordinary mastery of sign language, and as the primary ambassador for her endangered species -- passed away yesterday morning in her sleep at the age of 46.

Koko touched the lives of millions as an ambassador for all gorillas and an icon for interspecies communication and empathy.  She was beloved and will be deeply missed. ...

The foundation will continue to honor Koko’s legacy and advance our mission with ongoing projects including conservation efforts in Africa, the great ape sanctuary on Maui, and a sign language application featuring Koko for the benefit of both gorillas and children. ...

-- Press release from The Gorilla Foundation, 20 June 2018

Cheese Lover

Origin of turophile

Turophile a rare word not only in meaning but also in its spelling.  The combining form -phile is very common in English, but the combining form turo- is unique: it comes from the Greek noun tȳrós, which is nearly always Romanized as tyro-, as in the technical term tyrosine (an amino acid).  Tȳrós comes from a complicated Proto-Indo-European root tēu, tewe, teu, tū "to swell, coagulate, be or become thick": for the Greeks cheese was "thickened milk."  The Latin word būtȳrum "butter" is a borrowing from Greek boútyron "butter," literally "cow cheese."  Būtȳrum "butter" was adopted by the West Germanic languages, e.g., Old English butere, English butter, Dutch boter, Old High German butera, and German Butter.  Turophile entered English in the 20th century.

-- From Diciontary.com's Word of the Day for 19 June 2018

Most Important

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.

-- Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894 - 1963), British author, most famous for his novel Brave New World; grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley and younger brother of Julian Huxley, "A Case of Voluntary Ignorance" in Collected Essays (1959)

He Lived

My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.

-- Clarence Budington "Bud" Kelland (11 July 1881 - 18 February 1964), prolific American writer who once described himself as "the best second-rate writer in America"

13,000 Projects

Microsoft has purchased GitHub.  It cost the multinational behemoth $7.5 billion in stock to acquire the free code and data hosting service that had become the "de facto home of open source software development." More than 13,000 projects left GitHub within an hour of the news, migrating to its competitor, GitLab.

-- Motherboard, by way of FiveThirtyEight's Significant Digits newsletter, 5 June 2018

Joint Statement

President Donald J. Trump of the United States and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea have committed to cooperate for the development of new U.S.-DPRK relations and for the promotion of peace, prosperity, and security of the Korean Peninsula and of the world.

-- Closing paragraph of the Joint Statement of President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea at the Singapore Summit, 12 June 2018

Chief Deficiency

The chief deficiency I see in the skeptical movement is its polarization: Us vs. Them -- the sense that we have a monopoly on the truth; that those other people who believe in all these stupid doctrines are morons; that if you're sensible, you'll listen to us; and if not, to hell with you.  This is nonconstructive.  It does not get our message across.  It condemns us to permanent minority status.

-- Carl Sagan, in The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1996), p. 300

Thoughts On Anything

I don't believe Mrs. Trump has ever discussed her thoughts on anything with Mr. Giuliani.

-- Melania Trump's communications director Stephanie Grisham, in a statement after Rudy Giuliani said, "She believes her husband.  And she knows it's untrue," regarding President Trump's alleged tryst with Stormy Daniels, 7 June 2018

In One Place

What if we could get every one in the world together to record what they know in one place?

-- Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales (1966-), when recruiting Larry Sanger in January 2000, The early history of Wikipedia (part 1) (1:48), Larry Sanger, YouTube, 7 May 2010

Big Mac Diplomacy

No two countries that both have a McDonald's have ever fought a war against each other.

-- Thomas L. Friedman (1953-), American journalist, author, and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, "Foreign Affairs Big Mac I", New York Times, 8 December 1996

Not A Known Side Effect

People of all races, religions and nationalities work at Sanofi every day to improve the lives of people around the world.  While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication.

-- Sanofi-Aventis Pharmaceuticals, posting on Twitter as @SanofiUS in response to Roseanne Barr blaming Sanofi's Ambien sleep aid for a racist tweet that led to the cancellation of her show by ABC, 30 May 2018

Respect

That’s the Earth farting, man.  All I know is, that volcano is demanding some respect.

-- Rufus Daigle, a 69-year-old poet who runs a roadside stand not far from the Kilauea volcano, New York Times, 18 May 2018

Please Copy

♡ Copying is an act of love.  Please copy & share.

-- Nina Paley, on the copyheart.org home page, 3 December 2010

Lilith Patricia Ann

I'd like to welcome into the world Lilith Patricia Ann, born Friday 18 May 2018 at 8:19am, 8 lbs 1 oz, 20.5 inches.  She is my 10th grandkid (6th granddaughter), and the first child of my #3 daughter and her husband.  I'll make the trek to Louisiana this weekend to meet her in person.

Welcome, little one!

RIP Philip Roth

Just like those who are incurably ill, the aged know everything about their dying except exactly when.

-- Philip Milton Roth (19 March 1933 - 22 May 2018), American novelist, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 and the Man Booker International Prize in 2011, The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography (1988), Opening letter to Nathan Zuckerman

Verify Verify Verify

This isn't "Trust, but verify."  It's "Distrust everything and verify, verify, verify."

-- Ernest J. Moniz, a secretary of energy in the Obama administration, who helped negotiate the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, describing the difficulty of enforcing a similar accord with North Korea, New York Times, 7 May 2018

RIP Tom Wolfe

The Internet is the modern form of knitting.  In the old days women who had nothing to do would knit, but at least you got something out of it -- a pair of socks, maybe a scarf, occasionally a little bedspread.  That's mostly what the Internet is, just passing the time.  But unfortunately you are dealing with words that can have meaning.

-- Thomas Kennerly (Tom) Wolfe (2 March 1931 - 14 May 2018), best-selling American author and journalist, American Spectator interview (2005)

Wobby On The Truth

When we as people, a free people, go wobbly on the truth even on what may seem the most trivial of matters, we go wobbly on America.

If our leaders seek to conceal the truth and we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then as an American people we are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom.

If we do not as Americans confront the crisis of ethics and integrity in our society and among our leaders in both private and public sector, and regrettably at times even the nonprofit sector, then American democracy as we know it is entering its twilight years.

-- Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson speaking to the graduating class of cadets at the Virginia Military Institute, 16 May 2018

All Directions

If the nation's economists were laid end to end, they would point in all directions.

-- Arthur Harrison "Red" Motley (1900-1984), publisher and business executive

First Time

On behalf of the 45th President of the United States of America, we welcome you officially and for the first time to the Embassy of the United States here in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel.  Thank you.

-- First Daughter Ivanka Trump, at the unveiling of the plaque designating the new US Embassy in Jerusalem, 14 May 2018

Crème Brûlée

* Required

I will not use this in a house
    I will not point this at my spouse
I will not use this in an unsafe way
    The best use is crème brulee ...

... and that exhausts our rhyming ability.

-- From the Boring Company's Not-a-Flamethrower Terms and Conditions, 10 May 2018

Disturbing & Disqualifying

I believe Gina Haspel is a patriot who loves our country and has devoted her professional life to its service and defense.  However, Ms. Haspel's role in overseeing the use of torture by Americans is disturbing.  Her refusal to acknowledge torture's immorality is disqualifying.  I believe the Senate should exercise its duty of advice and consent and reject this nomination.

-- Statement by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairmain John McCain on the nomination of Gina Haspel to be Director of the CIA, 9 May 2018

Take Note

It is with regret and concern that we, the Leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom take note of President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States of America from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

-- Joint statement from Prime Minister May, Chancellor Merkel and President Macron following President Trump’s statement on Iran, 8 May 2018

Apologizing

The capacity for friendship is God's way of apologizing for our families.

-- John Barrett (Jay) McInerney Jr (13 January 1955 -), American writer, The Last of the Savages (1996)

Never, Nor, Nor Have I Ever

I have never been disciplined, nor reprimanded, nor have I ever heard a complaint about my ministry during my time as House chaplain.

-- House Chaplain Reverend Patrick J. Conroy, in a letter to Paul Ryan rescinding his late-April forced resignation, 3 May 2018

Make Them Clear

Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts.  Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity.  A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. Philosophy does not result in "philosophical propositions", but rather in the clarification of propositions.  Without philosophy thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to make them clear and to give them sharp boundaries.

-- Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 - 1951), Austrian-born philosopher, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922), 4.112

Reality

Reality continues to ruin my life.

-- Bill Watterson, The Complete Calvin and Hobbes Collection (2005)

Their Voice

Democracy demands that our election system be protected, and without vigorously enforced campaign finance laws, the people of this country lose their voice.  The U.S. Attorney's Office and the Department of Justice are committed to the prosecution of individuals who abuse the very system of which they seek to become a part.

-- U.S. Attorney George Holding, announcing a federal grand jury indictment against two-time presidential candidate John Edwards, for soliciting and covering up the secret spending of more than $925,000 to hide his mistress and their baby during the peak of his 2008 campaign for the White House, The Associated Press, 3 June 2011

Hierarchy

We had a hierarchy in my office in Congress.  If you're a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn't talk to you.  If you're a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you.

-- Whitehouse Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, addressing the American Bankers Associations conference in Washington DC, 24 April 2018, New York Times via Salon.com

Ideas About Reality

With our concept-making apparatus called "mind" we look at reality through the ideas-about-reality which our cultures give us.  The ideas-about-reality are mistakenly labeled "reality" and unenlightened people are forever perplexed by the fact that other people, especially other cultures, see "reality" differently.  It is only the ideas-about-reality which differ.  Real (capital-T True) reality is a level deeper than is the level of concept.

-- Malaclypse the Younger and Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst, in Principia Discordia, Psycho-Metaphysics (1965)

Uncertainty

Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.

-- Carl von Clausewitz (1780 - 1831), Prussian general and influential military theorist, in A Reader in International Relations and Political Theory (1993), p. 150

Submarine For Fish

An aquarium is a submarine for fish.

-- Kevin Beckman (Chris Hemsworth), in Ghostbusters (2016)

It Has To Be Enough

I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God." Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life.  I'm not greedy.  I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough.  It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me.  It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more.  Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven.  I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

-- Penn Jillette (1955 -), American magician, in an essay titled "There Is No God (2005)" on NPR's This I Believe, 21 November 2005

Off The Hook

I'll give you a strange answer.  I hope not because I think impeaching and removing Donald Trump from office would let the American people off the hook and have something happen indirectly that I believe they're duty bound to do directly.  People in this country need to stand up and go to the voting booth and vote their values.

We'll fight about guns.  We'll fight about taxes.  We'll fight about all those other things down the road.  But you cannot have, as president of the United States, someone who does not reflect the values that I believe Republicans treasure and Democrats treasure and Independents treasure.  That is the core of this country.  That's our foundation.  And so impeachment, in a way, would short circuit that.

-- Former FBI Director James Comey, in an interview with George Stephanopoulos, when asked whether President Trump should be impeached, 15 April 2018

RIP Barbara Bush

I am still old and still in love with the man I married 72 years ago.

-- Former First Lady Barbara Pierce Bush (8 June 1925 - 17 April 2018), in her final update in Smith Alumnae Quarterly, published March 2018.  On 6 January, the couple celebrated their 73rd wedding anniversary, the longest presidential marriage in history

What You Get Out Of It

Life is like a sewer -- what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.  It's always seemed to me that this is precisely the sort of dynamic, positive thinking that we so desperately need today in these trying times of crisis and universal brouhaha.

-- Thomas Andrew Lehrer (9 April 1928 -), American singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, and mathematician, Introduction to "We Will All Go Together When We Go"

Part Animal, Part Angel

You just never know.  You drift along, year after year, presuming certain values to be fixed; like being able to drive on a public thoroughfare without somebody trying to murder you.  You came to depend on that sort of thing.  Then something occurs and all bets are off.  One shocking incident and all the years of logic and acceptance are displaced and, suddenly, the jungle is in front of you again.  Man, part animal, part angel.

--Richard Matheson (1926-2013), American author and screenwriter of horror and science fiction, "Duel" (1971), a short story, which he later adapted into a screenplay for Duel (1971), Steven Spielberg's first feature-length film

Robin Trower

Thank you! Good night!

-- Guitarist Robin Trower (9 March 1945 -), at the end of his show at the Virginia Theater in Champaign, IL, 11 April 2018

Juggling The Demands

Parenthood isn't just a women's issue; it's an economic issue and one that affects all parents -- men and women alike.  As tough as juggling the demands of motherhood and being a senator can be, I'm hardly alone or unique as a working parent.

-- Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), in a statement after becoming the first sitting US senator to give birth (to daughter Maile Pearl Bowlsbey), Washington Post, 9 April 2018

No Limits

There are no limits to my daily amounts though -- of weed or distance.

-- Roger Boyd, 37, of Bristol, UK, who cycled 19,000 miles around the world in the past 2 years, and who documents his travels on his blog at healthy-stoner.com, Bristol Post, 9 April 2018

Vice Basket

Bloomberg’s Vice Basket tracks average retail prices for:

* A pack of cigarettes, popular and premium
* A bottle of alcoholic beverages including beer, wine and spirits
* A gram of amphetamine-type stimulants, including methamphetamine and/or ecstasy
* A gram of cannabis, including marijuana hashish resin and/or cannabis oil
* A gram of cocaine, regardless of salts, paste or base forms
* A gram of opioids, including heroin and/or opium.

Data are sourced from the UN, World Health Organization, World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

This year the United States cost is $617.10, up $217.90 from a year ago. The US is ranked 38th in affordability, with the Vice Basket costing 53.9% of an average weekly wage.

The cheapest overall cost is in the Congo, at $18.30, though most affordable goes to Luxembourg at $206.20, just 10.0% of that nation's average weekly income.

-- Bloomberg, 3 April 2018

One Thing

The one thing that would be dishonorable for us is to bring all this attention to the assassination of Dr. King and not have a resurrection of the efforts and the unfinished business dealing with systemic racism, systemic poverty.

-- The Reverend Dr William Barber II, a North Carolina pastor whose sermons and outreach efforts have tended to align with the religious left, New York Times, 4 April 2018