Thursday, June 29. 2006
It is not what the man of science believes that distinguishes him, but how and why he believes it. His beliefs are tentative, not dogmatic; they are based on evidence, not on authority or intuition. Bertrand Russell (taken from a piece at Humbug on scientific theory)
Wednesday, June 28. 2006
Modern liberalism, for most liberals, is not a consciously understood set of rational beliefs, but a bundle of unexamined prejudices and conjoined sentiments. The basic ideas and beliefs seem more satisfactory when they are not made fully explicit, when they merely lurk rather obscurely in the background, coloring the rhetoric and adding a certain emotive glow. James Burnham (via a Hot Air comment by Publius Forum)
Tuesday, June 27. 2006
"...And this was the failing of détente: it drew its inspiration more from a sense of democratic weakness than of totalitarian strength. It was a form of disguised retreat, carried forward in a rapture of exalted dissimulation by persons whose assumption was that the American people would not face reality.” [emphasis added]
Daniel Patrick Moynihan (in A Dangerous Place)
Monday, June 26. 2006
Perhaps, if you understood me, I misspoke. Alan Greenspan
Friday, June 23. 2006
When in doubt, don't. Benjamin Franklin
Thursday, June 22. 2006
We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount... The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. Gen.Omar Bradley
Wednesday, June 21. 2006
If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be content to take their own, and depart. Socrates
Tuesday, June 20. 2006
Judge not, lest ye be judged judgemental. The Owner's Manual
Monday, June 19. 2006
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility - I welcome it. John F. Kennedy
Friday, June 16. 2006
I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University. William F. Buckley, Jr.
Thursday, June 15. 2006
Princes and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society. Niccolo Machiavelli
Wednesday, June 14. 2006
So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that Slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interest of the South. So fully am I satisfied of this that I would have cheerfully lost all that I have lost by the war, and have suffered all that I have suffered to have this object attained. Gen. Robert E. Lee
Tuesday, June 13. 2006
"In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing." Mark Twain
What I say is that, if a fellow really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow. A.A. Milne
Thursday, June 8. 2006
He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire. Winston Churchill
Wednesday, June 7. 2006
Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted. Robert Frost
Continue reading "QQQ"
Monday, June 5. 2006
I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life; I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well. Theodore Roosevelt
Friday, June 2. 2006
Hell is empty and all the devils are here. Shakespeare
Thursday, June 1. 2006
It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: 'And this, too, shall pass away.' How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction! Abraham Lincoln
Wednesday, May 31. 2006
Danger lies in the writer becoming the victim of his own exaggeration, losing the exact notion of sincerity, and in the end coming to despise truth itself as something too cold, too blunt for his purpose—as, in fact, not good enough for his insistent emotion. From laughter and tears the descent is easy to snivelling and giggles. Joseph Conrad
Yes, it certainly is. Al Gore used a euphemism for playing fast and loose with the truth, and the estimable Dr. Joy Bliss called him on it. To all my Fark friends, I send you back to the dictionary, where you can find all sorts of words for stressing important things, like: reiterate, and stress; accent; accentuate; belabor; dwell on; feature; harp on; headline; italicize; emphasize; play up; point up; repeat; rub in; spotlight; underline; underscore. Those are words used by people NOT trying to give a false impression to create a panic they can capitalize on politically, and seeking to innoculate themselves from future criticism by making their bona fides in the good intention department to excuse their ambivalence about accuracy and proportion. The antonym for these words is relax, by the way; sound advice. Do we at Maggies Farm... ahem... over represent the Environmental Carbon Cavilling Cavalier's love for everpresent looming armageddon and false alarmism, as characterized by Mr. Gore? You tell me: Greenpeace's fill-in-the-blank public relations meltdown Before President Bush touched down in Pennsylvania Wednesday to promote his nuclear energy policy, the environmental group Greenpeace was mobilizing. "This volatile and dangerous source of energy" is no answer to the country's energy needs, shouted a Greenpeace fact sheet decrying the "threat" posed by the Limerick reactors Bush visited. But a factoid or two later, the Greenpeace authors were stumped while searching for the ideal menacing metaphor. We present it here exactly as it was written, capital letters and all: "In the twenty years since the Chernobyl tragedy, the world's worst nuclear accident, there have been nearly [FILL IN ALARMIST AND ARMAGEDDONIST FACTOID HERE]." Had Greenpeace been hacked by a nuke-loving Bush fan? Or was this proof of Greenpeace fear-mongering? The aghast Greenpeace spokesman who issued the memo, Steve Smith, said a colleague was making a joke by inserting the language in a draft that was then mistakenly released. "Given the seriousness of the issue at hand, I don't even think it's funny," Smith said. The final version did not mention Armageddon. It just warned of plane crashes and reactor meltdowns. (From Monday's Philadelphia Enquirer Thanks to a Chequer Board of Nights and Days for the link)
Would it look any different, really, if it said: FILL IN OVER-REPRESENTATION HERE ?
Preach the Gospel always, using words if necessary. St. Francis of Assisi, to his followers (If I had been his editor - God forbid - I would have had him say "using words, only if necessary")
Tuesday, May 30. 2006
The new DVD of The Producers is selling like hotcakes... I wish it was selling like DVDs. Mel Brooks, heard on a radio interview on Saturday with Mark Simone.
Monday, May 29. 2006
Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace - but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775 We posted the Image below of Arlington National Cemetery, last Christmastime, along with the story of Merrill Worcester, of Maine's Worcester Wreath company, who donates these wreaths:
Friday, May 26. 2006
It ain't what you don't know that gets you in trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so. Mark Twain, with a slick hair-do
Thursday, May 25. 2006
Liberty is the very last idea that seems to occur to anybody, in considering any political or social proposal. It is only necessary for anybody for any reason to allege any evidence of any evil in any human practice, for people instantly to suggest that the practice should be suppressed by the police. G.K. Chesterton (1921)
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