Back when the rancid visage of George W. Bush first spittled its way into the national consciousness, we were sure he would never be elected. Our reason? "Just look at him!" You could see he was the most transparently unfit being to hold office since Caligula made his horse a Senator.
Megan's Muscle Rumour
I'm told that your body is limited by the amount of neurotransmitter it takes to fire all your muscles at once. Once those are gone, doesn't matter if your muscles are still good to go. I have not looked it up to confirm or deny this.
Lenard On Initiative
The first liar always sets the rules of the game.
-Roger X. Lenard [Ed: Not the Creati0nist of the same name]
Suskind Through The Looking Glass
[...]
And for those who don't get it? That was explained to me in late 2002 by Mark McKinnon, a longtime senior media adviser to Bush, who now runs his own consulting firm and helps the president. He started by challenging me. ''You think he's an idiot, don't you?'' I said, no, I didn't. ''No, you do, all of you do, up and down the West Coast, the East Coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street. Let me clue you in. We don't care. You see, you're outnumbered 2 to 1 by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don't read The New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times. And you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the way he points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it's good for us. Because you know what those folks don't like? They don't like you!'' In this instance, the final ''you,'' of course, meant the entire reality-based community.
Schweber's Prediction
Electoral college: Obama 349. Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Colorado, Missouri. Not North Carolina, Indiana, Montana, New Mexico, Arizona, or North Dakota. Which means there's room at the top for an even higher number, because every single one of those states is easily competitive. I have an even higher number in mind, but I'm afraid that if I try to type it my monitor will burst into flames.
strahlungsamt Reponds To The Evils Of Porn
I should know. As a guy with the looks and charm of Joe the Plumber, I spent most of my life struggling to get a woman. Either I walked around like a sad horn-dog trying to get a date, or I jerked off to a big pile of porn.
Believe me, women objectify men just as much as men objectify women. Plenty of times I have had a good job and women all told me I needed a good wife (when I couldn't bag a girlfriend). If I was the kind of Guido or Homeboy who beat his wife and wore bling-bling, I wouldn't need porn. Those guys get porn-star girlfriends all the time (along with credit card debt, repossession and stds).
I don't care for really abusive porn and I don't like seeing women being abused. And watching a woman being penetrated by four dicks is for gay guys on the DL.
Still, porn does it for me. I can jerk-off to porn in the morning and go to work and not think of pinching the secretary's ass or getting a blow-job in the (female) attorney's cubicle. I am not obsessed with mindless dating like the media is telling me to be. Nor do I have any sexual harassment lawsuits pending against me. The best part is: women actually approach me since I am less threatening and have a stable life.
Thank you Internet Porn.
[Ed: Apologies for the racist language]
Roberts On Trust
There are nights when all my aching bones won't let me sleep
And demons come to plague me as I lie in bed
But I know if you were sleeping there beside me then
That you could fend them off and they would let me rest
- Brad Roberts (Crash Test Dummies), The Ghosts that Haunt Me
Thiele On The Unspoken
The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of the people passing by
I see friends shaking hands, saying, “how do you do?”
But they’re really saying, “I love you”
- Bob Thiele, What A Wonderful World
Philip K. Dick On Philosophy
- Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle
[Note: Etymology sources differ, generally claiming "egghead" is an early 20th c. term for baldness.]
Vogt On Cowardice
"If I were you, Crang, I wouldn't trust Blayney after he gets to be forty."
"Eh?" That was Blayney, an astounded look on his face. Crang's yellow eyes questioned Gosseyn.
"There are psychiatrical explanations for Blayney hitting me as he did," Gosseyn explained. "His nervous system is beginning to react as strongly to things that might have happened as it would if they had actually occurred. It's a purely functional disorder, but its outward form is distressing to the individual. A gradual loss of courage. Sadistic outbursts to cover up the developing cowardice. By the time he's forty he'll be having nightmares about the damage he might have suffered in some of the danger spots he was in as a youth." He shrugged. "Another case of a person lacking null-A integration."
Blayney had gray eyes. They glard at Gosseyn, then twisted over to Crang. He said in a hushed voice, "May I hit him again, Mr. Crang?"
- A.E. van Vogt, The World of Null-A
McDonald On The Prodigal Son
The most touching moment was when I registered a man in his late 50's, a long-ago native of Arkansas named Robert. Robert had obviously been drinking before arriving at LoveFest; he was probably just in the neighborhood, saw the excitement and decided to wander over. Robert came to our voter registration booth with a sad look on his face, to announce that he wished he could vote [...], but he couldn't. When asked why not, he responded that he could not vote because he "had a felony."
I asked him if he had finished serving his time ("Oh, a long time ago!") and if he was currently on probation or parole ("No, I finished with all that years ago"). So I informed him that yes, he was indeed eligible to vote and that I would register him right then and there, even help him to understand the procedure. As he painstakingly started to fill out the form, placing every letter in the correct box, and squinting his eyes to read the small print, he abruptly stopped, put the pen down, and looked at me with watery, fearful red eyes. "I won't get in trouble for doing this, will I?" I had to catch my breath and call the other volunteer in the booth for support. I called Registration headquarters on my cell phone just to make sure, just to reassure Robert, and to confirm what was written on the handout and the form: If a person, even a convicted felon, wishes to vote, it is his American right to vote, so long as he is no longer in prison or on parole.
Robert completed his form and handed it to me with all seriousness. He seemed to sober up as we went over the form to search for errors or omissions. I signed the form and handed him his receipt, which he slowly and carefully folded and placed in his wallet. He looked into my eyes with gratitude, thanked me, shook my hand, and accepted the big hug I gave him. My last words to him as he walked away toward the street were, "Robert, look--you tell everyone you know that they all have the right to vote! They can vote! Once they've served their time, they can be a citizen again! Tell everybody! Tell them all!"
[Note: Mildly edited to be non-partisan. Follow link for more context.]
Invitation To Excel
It's up to us now. We may never again have our hands on history quite like this again for as long as we live. That makes each hour so so precious. We can slack off, sleep in, and make excuses for the rest of our lives. But today - and for the next 3 weeks... whether we knew what we were getting into or not... we have ended up with people's lives, livelihoods, and dreams for their children - all dependent on our performance day in and day out. This is our one chance at history... our one chance at perfection. Our one chance to live forever. So today - breathe this in... realize that your grandkids will be reading about you... realize that you will miss this feeling very very soon... and win every single hour.
[Excerpt from a North Carolina campaign regional field director note to organizers]
Ostroy On Negative Campaigning
And anyway, is it possible for one person to be a socialist, an elitist, a terrorist and a celebrity? How would that even look? Do you attend Harvard to get high-paying jobs so you can live in a wealthy neighborhood just so you can steal from your rich neighbors to give to the poor, all before you blow up their houses and then go for drinks with Alec Baldwin? I'm lost....
Shantideva On Perspective
To cover all the earth with sheets of hide
Where could such amounts of skin be found?
But simply wrap some leather round your feet
And it's as if the whole earth has been covered
- Shantideva (circa 8th century A.D.)
Armstrong's Epiphany On Men
I still wasn't sorry. It seemed necessary to emasculate men--to keep me safe. That was when I saw the sixteen year-old running my life. The saucy teen who had concluded that men "are bigger and stronger and they'll hurt you." In the instant that I saw that inexperienced, unknowledgeable, scared little girl, I knew that I would never experience the true power of a woman until I allowed men their own power.
I told Ellen, "Okay, I'll stop." Her response surprised me. She said, "I'm not asking this for you. I'm asking you to stop castrating men because I believe when women stop castrating men, men will give us everything we ever wanted. Including peace and the end of hunger."
McLintock's Gift Of Love
Becky! Come here. Somethin' I ought to tell you. Guess now's as good a time as any. You're going to have every young buck west of the Missouri around here tryin' to marry you - mostly because you're a handsome filly, but partly because I own everything in this country from here to there. They'll think you're going to inherit it.
Well, you're not. I'm going to leave most of it to, well, to the nation really, for a park where no lumbermen'll cut down all the trees for houses with leaky roofs. Nobody'll kill all the beaver for hats for dudes nor murder the buffalo for robes.
What I'm going to give you is a 500 cow spread on the Upper Green River. Now that may not seem like much, but it's more than we had, your mother and I. Some folks are gonna say I'm doin' all this so I can sit up in the hereafter and look down on a park named after me, or that I was disappointed in you - didn't want you to get all that money.
But the real reason, Becky, is because I love you, and I want you and some young man to have what I had, because all the gold in the United States Treasury and all the harp music in heaven can't equal what happens between a man and a woman with all that growin' together. I can't explain it any better than that.
George Washington McLintock In Love
Half the people in the world are women. Why does it have to be you that stirs me?
dagan68 On Canvassing
I understand from a friend at a local official registration location that Kai did indeed show up - with about 50 of his friends in tow. I actually started crying.
Kakistocracy
Government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens.Rick Finkelstein observes it was first used by Thomas Love Peacock in The Misfortunes of Elphin (1829), basing it on the Greek "kakistos", meaning "worst."
The Demands Of Conscience
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star
This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far
To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause
And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest
And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star
-The Impossible Dream, lyrics by Joe Darion
"God help us - we are both men of La Mancha."
- Miguel de Cervantes, Man Of La Mancha
M*A*S*H Theme
Through early morning fog I see
Visions of the things to be,
The pains that are withheld for me,
I realize and I can see...
That suicide is painless,
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please.
The game of life is hard to play,
I'm going to loose it anyway,
The loosin' card I'll someday lay;
So this is all I have to say...
That suicide is painless,
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please.
The only way to win is cheat
And lay it down before I'm beat
And to another give my seat
For that's the only painless feat.
That suicide is painless,
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please.
And you can do the same thing if you please.
-Suicide is Painless (M*A*S*H Theme), Mike Altman and Johnny Mandel
Yeats' Sphinx Rises
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
- The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats
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