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Quotes of the day
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Published Tuesday, January 31, 2012 @ 2:22 AM EST
Jan 31 2012

Molly Ivins, (August 30, 1944 - January 31, 2007)

Being slightly paranoid is like being slightly pregnant- it tends to get worse.

Government is just a tool, like a hammer. There's nothing intrinsically good or evil about the hammer; it all depends on what it's used for and the skill with which it is used.

I believe all Southern liberals come from the same starting point- race. Once you figure out they are lying to you about race, you start to question everything.

I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag.

If ignorance ever goes to $40 a barrel, I want drillin' rights on that man's head.

It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America.

It's hard to argue against cynics- they always sound smarter than optimists because they have so much evidence on their side.

It's hard to convince people that your're killing them for their own good.

It's like, duh. Just when you thought there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between the two parties, the Republicans go and prove you're wrong.

Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention.

On the whole, I prefer not to be lectured on patriotism by those who keep offshore maildrops in order to avoid paying their taxes.

Stupidity, thy name is the Texas House of Representatives.

The first rule of holes: When you're in one, stop digging.

The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion.

The trouble with global communications is that it is no longer possible to sit on one tiny patch of the earth and think, “God's in His Heaven, all's right with the world.” We always know better.

There is no inverse relationship between freedom and security. Less of one does not lead to more of the other. People with no rights are not safe from terrorist attack.

Thou shalt not break the law with impunity, no matter who the hell thou art.

What you need is sustained outrage... there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority.

You can't ignore politics, no matter how much you'd like to.


Categories: Molly Ivins, Quotes of the day


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Quotes of the day
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Published Monday, January 30, 2012 @ 8:17 AM EST
Jan 30 2012

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, (January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945):

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.

A radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.

Be sincere, be brief, be seated.

Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel in order to be tough.

I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.

I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.

In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.

It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

It is common sense to take a method and try it; if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.

No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.

People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.

The fate of America cannot depend on any one man. The greatness of America is grounded in principles and not on any single personality.

The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the government.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.

The saving grace of America lies in the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities: a sense of humor and a sense of proportion.

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

The truth is found when men are free to pursue it.

The ultimate failures of dictatorship cost humanity far more than any temporary failures of democracy.

They (who) seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers... call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order.

We have, however, a clear mandate from the people, that Americans must forswear that conception of the acquisition of wealth which, through excessive profits, creates undue private power over private affairs and, to our misfortune, over public affairs as well.

We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American Eagle in order to feather their own nests.

We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all our citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization.

When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck to crush him.


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Photo of the day
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Published Monday, January 30, 2012 @ 5:55 AM EST
Jan 30 2012

I, for one, welcome our new canine overlord...


Categories: Dogs, Photo of the day, WTF?


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Quotes of the day
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Published Sunday, January 29, 2012 @ 12:05 AM EST
Jan 29 2012

H.L. Mencken, (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956)

A bachelor's virtue depends upon his alertness; a married man's depends upon his wife's.

A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know.

A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

A gentleman is one who never strikes a woman without provocation.

A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.

A great nation is any mob of people which produces at least one honest man a century.

A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.

A man always remembers his first love with special tenderness. But after that he begins to bunch them.

A man may be a fool and not know it- but not if he is married.

A misogynist is a man who hates women as much as women hate each other.

A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground.

A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker.

A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps.

A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.

A writer is always admired most, not by those who have read him, but by those who have merely heard of him.

Adultery is the application of democracy to love.

After a revolution, of course, the successful revolutionists always try to convince doubters that they have achieved great things, and usually they hang any man who denies it.

All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.

An altruist is one who would be sincerely sorry to see his neighbor's children devoured by wolves.

An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.

Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood.

As an American, I naturally spend most of my time laughing.

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft.

At the end of one millennium and nine centuries of Christianity, it remains an unshakable assumption of the law in all Christian countries and of the moral judgment of Christians everywhere that if a man and a woman, entering a room together, close the door behind them, the man will come out sadder and the woman wiser.

But the razor edge of ridicule is turned by the tough hide of truth.

Certainly there is something radically wrong with a system which enables a Henry Ford to posture magnificently as one who pays lavish wages, and then, when the pinch comes, to lay of men by tens of thousands and throw them on public charity.

Change is not progress.

Christendom is that part of the world where, if a man declare himself to be a Christian, his hearers laugh at him.

Clergyman: a ticket speculator outside the gates of heaven.

College football is a game which would be much more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, legs, and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss to humanity.

Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.

Complete masculinity and stupidity are often indistinguishable.

Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us someone may be looking.

Courtroom: A place where Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot would be equals, with the betting odds in favor of Judas.

Criticism is prejudice made plausible.

Deep within the heart of every evangelist lies the wreck of a car salesman.

Demagogue: One who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of jackals by jackasses.

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

Democracy is the theory that the people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

Do not overestimate the decency of the human race.

During many a single week, I daresay, more money is spent in New York upon useless and evil things than would suffice to run the kingdom of Denmark for a year.

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.

Every great wave of popular passion that rolls up on the prairies is dashed to spray when it strikes the hard rocks of Manhattan.

Every man sees in his relatives a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.

Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

Explanations exist; they have existed for all times, for there is always an easy solution to every human problem- neat, plausible, and wrong.

Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.

For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together. Our friends seldom profit us but they make us feel safe... Marriage is a scheme to accomplish exactly that same end.

For it is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true. In order to overcome that tendency it is not sufficient to exhibit the true; it is also necessary to expose and denounce the false.

Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.

God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in His arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos; He will set them above their betters.

Government in America has taken on a vast mass of new duties and responsibilities; it has spread out its powers until they penetrate to every act of the citizen, however secret; it has begun to throw around its operations the high dignity and impeccability of religion; its agents become a separate and superior caste, with authority to bind and loose, and their thumbs in every pot. But it still remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men. (1926)

Government, today, is growing too strong to be safe. There are no longer any citizens in the world; there are only subjects. They work day in and day out for their masters; they are bound to die for their masters at call. Out of this working and dying they tend to get less and less.

Hanging one scoundrel, it appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it? The first one at least is disposed of.

How little it takes to make life unbearable: a pebble in the shoe, a cockroach in the spaghetti, a woman's laugh.

Human progress is furthered, not by conformity, but by aberration.

Husbands never become good; they merely become proficient.

I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.

I believe that it should be perfectly lawful to print even things that outrage the pruderies and prejudices of the general, so long as any honest minority, however small, wants to read them. The remedy of the majority is not prohibition, but avoidance.

I detest converts almost as much as I do missionaries.

I get little enjoyment out of women, more out of alcohol, most out of ideas.

I hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense.

I'm against slavery simply because I dislike slaves.

If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.

If I had my way, any man guilty of golf would be ineligible for any office of trust in the United States.

If I have been wrong in my agnosticism, when I die I'll walk up to God in a manly way and say, Sir, I made an honest mistake.

If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.

Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.

Immorality: The morality of those who are having a better time.

In a man's world... simian aptitudes are rated high, and so not too many women get in. To succeed as a lawyer, for example, a woman would have to throttle two of her chief attributes: her disdain for the petty accumulations of useless knowledge, and her sharp feeling for the truth. What men in their imbecility consistently mistake for a deficiency of intelligence in women is merely an incapacity for mastering small and trivial tricks.

In the United States, doing good has come to be, like patriotism, a favorite device of persons with something to sell.

In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.

Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.

It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.

It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.

It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.

It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf.

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry.

It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or of the American gospel tent, who pretends to know the will and intent of God exactly and completely.

It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.

It seems to me that society usually wins. There are, to be sure, free spirits in the world, but their freedom, in the last analysis, is not much greater than that of a canary in a cage. They may leap from perch to perch; they may bathe and guzzle at their will; they may flap their wings and sing. But they are still in the cage, and soon or late it conquers them.

Legend: a lie that has attained the dignity of age.

Love is an emotion that is based on an opinion of women that is impossible for those who have had any experience with them.

Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.

Man is a natural polygamist. He always has one woman leading him by the nose and another hanging on to his coattails.

Man weeps to think that he will die so soon; woman, that she was born so long ago.

Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.

Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later. For another thing, they die earlier.

Metaphysics is almost always an attempt to prove the incredible by an appeal to the unintelligible.

Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on “I am not too sure.”

Most people want security in this world, not liberty.

Nature abhors a moron.

Never let your inferiors do you a favor- it will be extremely costly.

Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered; there is only error to be exposed.

No man can be friendly to another whose personal habits differ materially from his own. Even the trivialities of table manners thus become important. The fact probably explains much of race prejudice, and even more of national prejudice.

No man, examining his marriage intelligently, can fail to observe that it is compounded, at least in part, of slavery, and that he is the slave.

No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes that she were not.

No matter how long he lives, no man ever becomes as wise as the average woman of forty-eight.

No matter how much a woman loved a man, it would still give her a glow to see him commit suicide for her.

No one ever heard of the truth being enforced by law. Whenever the secular arm is called in to sustain an idea, whether new or old, it is always a bad idea, and not infrequently it is downright idiotic.

No one in this world, as far as I know... has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.

Nobody's got a right to be a nuisance to his neighbors.

Of all escape mechanisms, death is the most efficient.

One of the merits of democracy is quite obvious: it is perhaps the most charming form of government ever devised by man. The reason is not far to seek. It is based on propositions that are palpably not true- and what is not true, as everyone knows, is always immensely more fascinating and satisfying to the vast majority of men than what is true.

Only a government that is rich and safe can afford to be a democracy, for democracy is the most expensive and nefarious kind of government ever heard of on earth.

Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian.

Psychotherapy is the theory that the patient will probably get well anyhow and is certainly a damn fool.

Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration- courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth.

Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.

Self-respect: the secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious.

Sin is a dangerous toy in the hands of the virtuous. It should be left to the congenitally sinful, who know when to play with it and when to let it alone.

So few men are really worth knowing, that it seems a shameful waste to let an anthropoid prejudice stand in the way of free association with one who is.

Suicide is belated acquiescence in the opinion of one's wife's relatives.

Sunday: A day given over by Americans to wishing that they themselves were dead and in Heaven, and that their neighbors were dead and in Hell.

Temptation is a woman's weapon and a man's excuse.

The allurement that women hold out to men is precisely the allurement that Cape Hatteras holds out to sailors: they are enormously dangerous and hence enormously fascinating.

The American people, taking one with another, constitute the most timorous, sniveling, poltroonish, ignominious mob of serfs and goose steppers ever gathered under on flag in Christendom since the end of the Middle Ages.

The argument that capital punishment degrades the state is moonshine, for if that were true then it would degrade the state to send men to war... The state, in truth, is degraded in its very nature: a few butcheries cannot do it any further damage.

The average man doesn't want to be free. He wants to be safe.

The average man never really thinks from beginning to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of cliches. What they mistake for thought is simply repetition of what they have heard. My guess is that well over 80% of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought. Whenever a new one appears the average man shows signs of dismay and resentment.

The average newspaper, especially of the better sort, has the intelligence of a hillbilly evangelist, the courage of a rat, the fairness of a prohibitionist boob-jumper, the information of a high-school janitor, the taste of a designer of celluloid valentines, and the honor of a police-station lawyer.

The average woman must inevitably view her actual husband with a certain disdain; he is anything but her ideal. In consequence, she cannot help feeling that her children are cruelly handicapped by the fact that he is their father.

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.

The best years are the forties; after fifty a man begins to deteriorate, but in the forties he is at the maximum of his villainy.

The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal.

The chief contribution of Presbyterianism to human thought is its massive proof that God is a bore.

The cosmos is a gigantic fly-wheel making 10,000 revolutions a minute. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. Religion is the theory that the wheel was designed and set spinning to give him the ride.

The Creator is a comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh.

The cynics are right nine times out of ten.

The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act; even when it has worked and he has not been caught.

The doctrine that the cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy is like saying the cure for crime is more crime.

The essence of a genuine professional man is that he cannot be bought.

The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea for a better one; the essence of theology is that it holds its truths to be eternal and immutable. To be sure, theology is always yielding a little to the progress of knowledge, and only a Holy Roller in the mountains of Tennessee would dare to preach today what the popes preached in the thirteenth century.

The existence of most human beings is of absolutely no significance to history or to human progress. They live and die as anonymously and as nearly uselessly as so many bullfrogs or houseflies. They are, at best, undifferentiated slaves upon an endless assembly line, and at worse they are robots who leave their mark upon time only by occasionally falling into the machinery...

The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports the strong probability that yours is a fake.

The first Rotarian was the first man to call John the Baptist “Jack”.

The formula of the argument is simple and familiar: to dispose of a problem all that is necessary is to deny that it exists.

The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office.

The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable.

The great secret of happiness in love is to be glad that the other fellow married her.

The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented.

The lunatic fringe wags the underdog.

The man who boasts that he habitually tells the truth is simply a man with no respect for it. It is not a thing to be thrown about loosely, like small change; it is something to be cherished and hoarded and disbursed only when absolutely necessary. The smallest atom of truth represents some man's bitter toil and agony; for every ponderable chunk of it there is a brave truth-seeker's grave upon some lonely ash-dump and a soul roasting in Hell.

The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell the truth.

The more a man dreams, the less he believes.

The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.

The New Deal began, like the Salvation Army, by promising to save humanity. It ended, again like the Salvation Army, by running flop-houses and disturbing the peace.

The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.

The older I get, the more I admire and crave competence, just simple competence, in any field from adultery to zoology.

The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.

The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants beyond everything else is safety.

The only guarantee of the Bill of Rights which continues to have any force and effect is the one prohibiting quartering troops on citizens in time of peace.

The only really happy people are married women and single men.

The only way to success in American life lies in flattering and kow-towing to the mob.

The opera is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral.

The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.

The plain fact is that I am not a fair man and don't want to hear both sides.

The public demands certainties; it must be told definitely and a bit raucously that this is true and that is false. But there are no certainties.

The saddest life is that of a political aspirant under democracy. His failure is ignominious and his success disgraceful.

The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the devil.

The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians.

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

The true aim of medicine is not to make men virtuous; it is to safeguard and rescue them from the consequences of their vices.

The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth- that the error and truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it is cured on one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one.

The worst government is the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.

Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.

There are no dull subjects. There are only dull writers.

There is no record in human history of a happy philosopher.

There is something even more valuable to civilization than wisdom, and that is character.

Time is the great legalizer, even in the field of morals.

To wage a war for a purely moral reason is as absurd as to ravish a woman for a purely moral reason.

Truth would quickly cease to become stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it.

Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule-and both commonly succeed, and are right.

Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.

We are here and it is now. Further than that all human knowledge is moonshine.

We have our spasms of revolt, our flarings up of peekaboo waists, free love and “art,” but a mighty backwash of piety fetches each and every one of them soon or late.

We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.

What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.

When a husband's story is believed, he begins to suspect his wife.

When a man laughs at his misfortunes, he loses a great many friends. They never forgive the loss of their prerogative.

When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that an old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had only one before.

When the water reaches the upper decks, follow the rats.

Whenever “A” attempts by law to impose his moral standards upon “B,” “A” is most likely a scoundrel.

Whenever a husband and wife begin to discuss their marriage, they are giving evidence at an inquest.

Whenever a reporter is assigned to cover a Methodist conference, he comes home an atheist.

Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sure sign he expects to be paid for it.

Why assume so glibly that the God who presumably created the universe is still running it? It is certainly conceivable that He may have finished it and then turned it over to lesser gods to operate.

Women don't like timid men. Cats do not like prudent mice.

Women hate revolutions and revolutionists. They like men who are docile, and well-regarded at the bank, and never late at meals.


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Quote of the day
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Published Saturday, January 28, 2012 @ 10:30 AM EST
Jan 28 2012

Mitt Romney is going to release his 2010 and 2011 tax returns. Not to be outdone, Newt Gingrich is going to release his 1988, 1994, and 2005 wedding vows.
–Conan O'Brien


Categories: Conan O'Brien, Quotes of the day


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Quotes of the day
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Published Friday, January 27, 2012 @ 6:19 AM EST
Jan 27 2012

John Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009):

A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people's patience.

All blessings are mixed blessings.

All men are boys time is trying to outsmart.

America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy.

Art is like baby shoes. When you coat them with gold, they can no longer be worn.

Being naked approaches being revolutionary; going barefoot is mere populism.

Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.

Facts are generally overesteemed. For most practical purposes, a thing is what men think it is.

Government is either organized benevolence or organized madness; its peculiar magnitude permits no shading.

I imagine most stuff on the information highway is road kill anyway.

I love my government not least for the extent to which it leaves me alone.

Now that I am 60, I see why the idea of elder wisdom has passed from currency.

School is where you go between when your parents can't take you, and industry can't take you.

We do survive every moment, after all, except the last one.

We take our bearings, daily, from others. To be sane is, to a great extent, to be sociable.


Categories: Quotes of the day


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A Good Day
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Published Thursday, January 26, 2012 @ 12:21 PM EST
Jan 26 2012

The good news: the medications significantly reduced Misty's blood pressure, intraocular pressure, and inflammation to the point she apppears to be in little or no pain. The doctor deferred removing her eye today.

The bad news: Misty's secondary glaucoma may be caused by systemic hypertension, which in turn may be caused by kidney disease. More specific tests have been done and sent to the lab. It'll be a few days until we get the results.

But for now, at least, I have a warm, happy, pain-free Sheltie and her three pack mates snoring comfortably at my feet.

I'm officially declaring: that this a good day; that Misty is a very, very good girl; and that, at least for today, I'm one lucky fella.


Categories: Dogs, KGB Family


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Quotes of the day
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Published Wednesday, January 25, 2012 @ 12:12 AM EST
Jan 25 2012

William Somerset Maugham, (January 25, 1874 – December 16, 1965)

A woman may be as wicked as she likes, but if she isn't pretty it won't do her much good.

American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers.

Art for art's sake makes no more sense than gin for gin's sake.

At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.

Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.

Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner.

I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort that it values more, it will lose that too.

If people waited to know one another before they married, the world wouldn't be so grossly over-populated as it is now.

It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late.

It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry with you, for it was the illusion they loved.

It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set.

It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.

It's a funny thing about life: if you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it.

Love is only the dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.

Money is like a sixth sense-and you can't make use of the other five without it.

My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.

No man in his heart is quite so cynical as a well-bred woman.

Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved.

The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.

The contrast between a man's professions and his actions is one of the most diverting spectacles that life offers.

The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned.

The prestige you acquire by being able to tell your friends that you know famous men proves only that you are yourself of small account.

The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune and willingly avoids the sight of distress.

There are three rules for writing a novel; unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

Tolerance is only another name for indifference.

Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.

We who are of mature age seldom suspect how unmercifully and yet with what insight the very young judge us.

You can't learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.

You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.


Categories: Quotes of the day


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Goodbye, Will Robinson
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Published Tuesday, January 24, 2012 @ 9:31 AM EST
Jan 24 2012

Dick Tufeld, best known as the voice of The Robot in the 60s Lost in Space television series and 90s film of the same name, died Sunday. He was 86.

Tufeld's career spanned six decades and included major announcing roles with ABC television and Disney.

This is one of the many tributes to Tufeld. It's worth the trip.


Categories: Dick Tufeld, Lost in Space


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Photo of the day
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Published Monday, January 23, 2012 @ 2:59 PM EST
Jan 23 2012

At the psychiatrist's office: Perhaps this isn't the best place for this painting, especially if your practice contains any paranoids...


Categories: KGB, Photo of the day, WTF?


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It's all about family values
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Published Monday, January 23, 2012 @ 2:39 AM EST
Jan 23 2012


Categories: Family Values, Hypocrisy, Newt Gingrich


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Photos of the day
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Published Sunday, January 22, 2012 @ 5:40 AM EST
Jan 22 2012

A typical day surfing the web...

 
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Apparently? Apparently?!

 
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Categories: Photo of the day


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Observation of the day
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Published Saturday, January 21, 2012 @ 12:00 PM EST
Jan 21 2012

Cindy pointed out this morning that due to my error, we've been drinking decaf coffee since Monday. Now I understand why I've been dragging all week. Problem corrected, and several pots later I'm ready to go outside and face the world.

And I will, as soon as my toes uncurl and I can put on my shoes.


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Happy birthday, Bones
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Published Friday, January 20, 2012 @ 12:42 AM EST
Jan 20 2012

DeForest Kelley, who played the curmudgeonly Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy in the original Star Trek series, was born on this day in 1920 in Atlanta, Georgia. He was the first member of the original Star Trek cast to pass away, on June 11, 1999, at the age of 79.

Initially approached for the role of the Vulcan science officer Mr. Spock, Kelley was instead cast as the ship's chief medical officer, described by series creator Gene Roddenberry as "a future-day H.L. Mencken". An unabashed cynic of technology, the McCoy character was a self-described old fashioned country doctor who put more faith in humanity than high technology.

In a 1982 interview with author Allan Asherman, Kelley said McCoy represented "the perspective of the audience, that if you were along on the voyage you'd think, 'These people are crazy! How in the hell do they expect to do that?'" Indeed, the McCoy character was often used to interject a dose of reality, interpret the techno-babble, and explain the frequently convoluted plotting of the more arcane Trek adventures to those in the audience struggling to follow the science fiction storylines.

His summary of the plot of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, delivered in exasperated disbelief to the gung-ho Captain Kirk, still stands as one of the best examples of exposition in screen history:

"You're proposing that we go backwards in time, find humpbacked whales, then bring them forward in time, drop 'em off, and hope to hell they tell this probe what to go do with itself?!" The entire plot in fewer than 35 words. That's Bones for you.

The son of a Baptist minister, Jackson DeForest Kelley wanted to be a doctor like an uncle he greatly admired, but his family couldn't afford to send him to medical school. He instead became a character actor who worked steadily in film and television from the late 1940s through the 1960s. Star Trek's popularity in syndication essentially ended his acting career, but he considered himself fortunate to be associated with a role that made him a permanent icon in popular culture, and he made a comfortable living by reprising his character for the motion picture series and appearing on the convention circuit.

Asherman's interview ended with a quote that could serve as an accurate and fitting epitaph:

"I'd wanted to be a physician and couldn't- and yet became the most well-known doctor in the galaxy."


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Quote of the day
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Published Thursday, January 19, 2012 @ 6:54 AM EST
Jan 19 2012

Under SOPA, you could get five years for uploading a Michael Jackson song, one year more than the doctor who killed him.
-Postsecret


Categories: Quotes of the day


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The Day the LOLcats Died....
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Published Wednesday, January 18, 2012 @ 10:24 AM EST
Jan 18 2012


Categories: Video, YouTube


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Happy birthday, Betty!
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Published Tuesday, January 17, 2012 @ 2:49 AM EST
Jan 17 2012

Betty White (b. January 17, 1922):

"I love everything with a leg on each corner, but the human animal is a vengeful creature, and we wish very bad things for other human animals."

My favorite Betty White bit, from just two years ago, is here.


Categories: Betty White, Quotes of the day, SNL, Video


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Trivia of the day
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Published Monday, January 16, 2012 @ 7:11 AM EST
Jan 16 2012

Ross Bagdasarian, Sr. (January 27, 1919 – January 16, 1972), aka David Seville, creator of Alvin and the Chipmunks, was the cousin of writer William Saroyan. Bagdasarian and Saroyan wrote the song "Come on-a My House" in 1939, which became a hit when it was recorded by Rosemary Clooney in 1951.


Categories: David Seville, Music, Rosemary Clooney, Ross Bagdasarian, Trivia of the day, Video, William Saroyan, YouTube


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MLK's Birthday
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Published Sunday, January 15, 2012 @ 5:08 PM EST
Jan 15 2012

Martin Luther King, Jr. has his own section at KGB Report.

You can see it here.


Categories: Martin Luther King, Jr.


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It's like Pee Wee's Playhouse on crack
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Published Saturday, January 14, 2012 @ 8:45 AM EST
Jan 14 2012

That was host Craig Ferguson's description of his Late Late Show, and it's fairly accurate.

The above clip is from last year's Labor Day episode, in which Craig's sidekick, a robot skeleton named Geoff Peterson (constructed by Mythbusters engineering whiz Grant Imahara), showed up drunk and responded to the appearance of Secretariat, a recurring gag.

I usually record the show and watch it before going to work. Trust me, starting off with Craig, Geoff and Secretariat better prepares you for the day than watching Today, GMA, or CBS' morning show du jour.


Categories: Craig Ferguson, Video, WTF?, YouTube


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This is no joke. This is what the Supreme Court did to U.S. elections.
(permalink)

Published Friday, January 13, 2012 @ 7:06 AM EST
Jan 13 2012

As Dave Barry would say, You Cannot Make Up This Stuff.

(Colbert Report video: Think Citizens United was a joke? You have no idea...)

"Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 08-205 (2010), 558 U.S. ––––, 130 S.Ct. 876 (January 21, 2010), was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court holding that the First Amendment prohibits government from placing limits on independent spending for political purposes by corporations and unions. The 5–4 decision originated in a dispute over whether the non-profit corporation Citizens United could air a film critical of Hillary Clinton, and whether the group could advertise the film in broadcast ads featuring Clinton's image, in apparent violation of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, commonly known as the McCain–Feingold Act in reference to its primary Senate sponsors."
-Wikipedia

By giving corporations First Amendment rights and removing limits on donation size, the Court, in the words of President Obama, "gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington- while undermining the influence of average Americans who make small contributions to support their preferred candidates," and "strikes at our democracy itself."

The clip above is simultaneously hilarious, enlightening, and depressing. It's an accurate depiction of how SuperPACs work- although the transfer "ceremony" is optional- and reveals how the Supreme Court gave coporations a blank check.

And, depressingly, it's real. This is what a conservative Supreme Court has done to our election process.


Categories: Colbert Report, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Supreme Court, Video, WTF?


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"Three quarters of the earth, if I drop you butt-naked, you're dead ten minutes later."
(permalink)

Published Thursday, January 12, 2012 @ 6:03 AM EST
Jan 12 2012

(YouTube video: Astophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson on the mistaken belief that Earth is a nice place to live.)


Categories: Neil deGrasse Tyson, YouTube


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The best 1:35:39 you'll spend this week
(permalink)

Published Wednesday, January 11, 2012 @ 5:50 AM EST
Jan 11 2012

Biography of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, whose off-campus "office" was a topless bar.


Categories: Richard Feynman, Video, YouTube


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Observation of the day
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Published Tuesday, January 10, 2012 @ 12:18 AM EST
Jan 10 2012

It's irritating when they see your gray hair and assume you're a computer illiterate.

Kid at Genius Bar: Did you try restarting it?

Me: Listen, Skippy, my first programming language was solder.


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Observation of the day
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Published Monday, January 09, 2012 @ 12:02 AM EST
Jan 09 2012

Perhaps the best solution to the problem of Republicans forcing their reproductive and lifestyle views on the rest of us would be to incorporate our genitals.


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Borowitz on a roll
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Published Sunday, January 08, 2012 @ 11:44 AM EST
Jan 08 2012

I have a Twitter account but I really don't follow it- I already have enough distractions. But I do have the app installed on my cell phone. I accidentally ran it this morning and was presented with a week's worth of hysterical musings by Andy Borowitz. My favorites follow: they're in reverse chronological order, starting with his observations on the latest GOP debate in New Hampshire:

I'm surprised Huntsman hasn't benefited more from our culture's fascination with vampires.

When Gingrich talks about "moving to a 21st century model," Callista better watch her back.

Rick Perry's comments have been sponsored by Lunesta.

Mitt Romney would make a great President in a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie.

Somewhere, Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann are in a motel room watching this & laughing.

Rick Perry: "Not only have I worn a uniform, this Halloween I went as a slutty nurse."

Huntsman: "I am the only man on this stage with decades of experience running a funeral home."

Ron Paul better be on guard or Huntsman will try to embalm him.

This promises to be the whitest Yo Mama contest on record.

I worry that all the jokes about Santorum's sweater vests are distracting us from the fact that he's a f*cking a**hat.

Gingrich: "I'm not leaving Romney alone unless he gets cancer."

That weird sensation you're feeling while watching the #GOPDebate is your brain cells curling up and dying.

Rick Perry on preparing for the debate: "I started drinking yesterday."

I'll miss Bachmann and Cain tonight. It'll be like watching an episode of Three's Company with no Ropers.

To Santorum, poor people are like sweater sleeves- he knows they exist, he just has no use for them.

I never delete any voicemails just in case there's something Rupert Murdoch might enjoy.

It's helpful when CNN shows us what's happening on Twitter because it reminds us to turn off CNN and go on Twitter.

From now on, please join me in referring to a "sweater vest" as a "douche holster."

Real sign the economy is improving: Republicans are starting to say Obama wasn't born here again.

Newt Gingrich is the kind of guy who goes to church and his "Hard Out Here For a Pimp" ringtone goes off.

Remember, no matter what sh*t you're going through in your life right now, at least you're not talking to Rick Santorum.

Critics may accuse Mitt Romney of flip-flopping, but he has been very consistent about being a d*ck.

Children say amazing and hilarious things unless they're other people's children.

Boehner on improving employment numbers: "This is a wakeup call. We've got to work harder to f*ck this up."

The Underwear Bomber is named Umar Farouk Abdulmjutallab, so let's just keep calling him The Underwear Bomber.

There's no way you can see a headline like "Santorum Blanketing New Hampshire" and not be grossed out.

There's an interesting story about the psychology of Romney voters in the American Journal of Settling.

Just reread the Book of Revelation- I had never noticed all the references to sweater vests before.

Just reread ancient Mayans' prophecy. They didn't say the world would end in 2012, just a Van Halen reunion.

Rick Santorum supports the rights of the unborn child until it's born and wants a gay marriage.

Pat Robertson: 'God Told Me the GOP Nominee Will Be a White Male A**hole'

Bachmann on quitting the race: "At least now I won't have to figure out where all those other states are."

Mitt Romney is hoping for a big win in New Hampshire, which he defines as 9 votes.

Santorum says he"s not against homosexuality "when it's done right."

I felt safer with Michele Bachmann on the campaign trail than I do now that she's just wandering around.

If only 8 more people liked me than Rick Santorum I would put a gun in my mouth.

BREAKING: Romney Vows to Put Americans Back to Work Making Negative Ads

What I'll miss most about Michele Bachmann? When she means "standard bearer" she always says "standard bear."

Michele Bachmann's decision to quit the race is disturbing because it smacks of sanity.

Romney Jubilant after Finishing in Dead Heat with Walking Joke in Sweater Vest

Iowa is too small and white to choose a President, which is why I'm glad we're moving on to New Hampshire.

BREAKING: CNN to Simulcast Bachmann's Withdrawal Speech in English

Remember, Michele Bachmann doesn't know the meaning of the word surrender. Also: the words science, math, apple, cat.

BREAKING: .0006% of Iowans Dislike Romney less than Santorum

The last time so few people decided a Presidential race they were all on the Supreme Court.

Say what you will about the margin of Romney's victory, but 8 votes is still 6 more than Rick Perry can count.

Rick Perry just said this race wasn't about him. Apparently Iowa agrees.

Note to Middle Easterners: when you protest for democracy, remember to specify "but not that caucus sh*t."

Only Wolf Blitzer could make the words "three-way" sound so boring.

Mitt Romney must be thrilled: he's in a tie with a lawn gnome and a guy who opposes man-on-dog marriage.

Santorum says he didn't mind trailing in the polls "because I'm used to being in the cellar."

If Santorum is going to be President we better hurry and marry our pets now.

In a bold last-minute tactic, Romney has changed his first name on the ballot from Mitt to Not.

Such a small unrepresentative group has never been allowed to pick a US President. Oh wait- the Supreme Court.

The Iowa caucuses are like a sitcom with no main characters and just wacky neighbors.

If Michele Bachmann and Tebow both lose this week, then God is 0 for 2012.

If Santorum almost wins Iowa, it will be like when Sanjaya almost won American Idol.

I get that God has his reasons for tsunamis and earthquakes, but I'm finding these Tebow losses hard to fathom.

Pat Robertson: 'God Made Tebow Lose to Punish any Denver Fans who Might be Gay'

Reality check, America: God does not make people win football games. He makes them win Grammys.

BREAKING: Santorum Picks Up Key Endorsement from Ancient Mayans

I really think it's time Boyz 2 Men just started calling themselves Men.


Categories: Andy Borowitz


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Happy Birthday to The King
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Published Sunday, January 08, 2012 @ 12:00 AM EST
Jan 08 2012

Elvis Aaron Presley: (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977)

(YouTube video: Elvis Presley sings "In The Ghetto". Written by Mac Davis and included in his 1969 album "From Elvis in Memphis," it was The King's first non-gospel top-ten hit in six years and perhaps the last of the great "message" songs. The album also contained "Suspicious Minds," "Don't Cry Daddy," and "Kentucky Rain.")


Categories: Music, YouTube


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Quote of the day
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Published Saturday, January 07, 2012 @ 2:57 PM EST
Jan 07 2012

It's not whether you win or lose, it's why you think there's a game.
-The Covert Comic


Categories: Covert Comic, Quotes of the day


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Happy 20th Anniversary, ABC World News Now
(permalink)

Published Friday, January 06, 2012 @ 3:16 AM EST
Jan 06 2012

You have to love a show that will allow an obscure geek from a Pittsburgh suburb one minute of national network airtime, even if it is at 3 am:

(Video of appearance on ABC World News Now, January 30, 2003. The next day, anchor John Berman was sent to cover the war in Iraq. I like to think the two are unrelated).

My database publishing business and the slower computers and dial-up lines of the early 90's frequently required me to work at 2 or 3 am, and World News Now's quirky presentation made staying awake easier. I finally got in the habit of taping it to watch later in the day.

Thanks to Jonathan Larsen, who invited me to the studio in 1999 after I sent in a viewer video. ((I got to do the weather with Juju Chang and Anderson Cooper.). And special thanks Sharon Newman, who invited me to contribute bits like the one above and sit in the control room in the wee hours of the morning whenever I was in New York on business. I think I hold the news broadcast record for waving and mouthing "Hi, Mom!" during segment bumpers.

Happy 20th, WNN, and a salute from all of us in The Elite Guard.


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Quotes of the day
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Published Thursday, January 05, 2012 @ 11:56 PM EST
Jan 05 2012

Theodore Roosevelt, October 27, 1858 - January 6, 1919

A man who never graduated from school might steal from a freight car. But a man who attends college and graduates as a lawyer might steal the whole railroad.

A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.

Americanism is a question of principle, of purpose, of idealism, of character. It is not a matter of birthplace or creed or line of descent.

Americans learn only from catastrophes and not from experience.

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

I hold that public servants are in very truth the servants and not the masters of the people, and that this is true not only of executive and legislative officers but of judicial officers as well.

I wonder whether there ever can come in life a thrill of greater exaltation and rapture than that which comes to one between the ages of say six and fourteen, when the library door is thrown open and you walk in to see all the gifts, like a materialized fairyland, arrayed on your special table?

If I have to choose between peace and righteousness, I'll choose righteousness.

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.

It is better to be faithful than famous.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground.

Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.

No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.

Nothing is gained by debate on non-debatable subjects.

The old parties are husks, with no real soul within either, divided on artificial lines, boss-ridden and privilege-controlled, each a jumble of incongruous elements, and neither daring to speak out wisely and fearlessly on what should be said on the vital issues of the day.

The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything.

The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.

The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism...The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.

Though hardness of heart is a great evil, it is no greater an evil than softness of head.

To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer “present” or “not guilty.”


Categories: Quotes of the day, Theodore Roosevelt


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Quotes of the day
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Published Thursday, January 05, 2012 @ 5:10 AM EST
Jan 05 2012

Florence King (b. January 5, 1936):

America is the only country in the world where you can suffer culture shock without leaving home.

As the only class distinction available in a democracy, the college degree has created a caste society as rigid as ancient India's.

By sending the contradictory message that the famous are just plain folks on Mount Olympus, America has forged a relentless tension between loftiness and accessibility. Stir in the fact that the inborn talent and intelligence needed to achieve fame are immune to distributive tinkering by government programs and you have a definition of fame certain to produce envious rage: somebody screwed democracy.

Chinks in America's egalitarian armor are not hard to find. Democracy is the fig leaf of elitism.

[Democracy is] The crude leading the crud.

Each time a mediocre singer performs, he is saying, in effect, “This is good enough for you.” The audience, thrust into that familiar American mood of knowing something is wrong but not knowing what it is, unconsciously absorbs the insult and projects it back onto the mediocre performer in the form of inattention, rudeness and noise.

Familiarity doesn't breed contempt, it is contempt.

Golf is an exercise in Scottish pointlessness for people who are no longer able to throw telephone poles at each other.

He travels fastest who travels alone, and that goes double for she. Real feminism is spinsterhood. It's time America admitted that old maids give all women a good name.

Humor inspires sympathetic, good-natured laughter and is favored by the “healing power” gang. Wit goes for the jugular, not the jocular, and it's the opposite of football; instead of building character, it tears it down.

I'd rather rot on my own floor than be found by a bunch of bingo players in a nursing home.

I've always said that next to Imperial China, the South is the best place in the world to be an old lady.

I've had sex and I've had food, and I'd rather eat.

In social matters, pointless conventions are not merely the bee sting of etiquette, but the snake bite of moral order.

Judge not, lest ye be judged judgmental.

Men are not very good at loving, but they are experts at admiring and respecting; the woman who goes after their admiration and respect will often come out better than she who goes out after their love.

Misanthropes have some admirable if paradoxical virtues. It is no exaggeration to say that we are among the nicest people you are likely to meet. Because good manners build sturdy walls, our distaste for intimacy makes us exceedingly cordial “ships that pass in the night.” As long as you remain a stranger we will be your friend forever.

Owning your own home is America's unique recipe for avoiding revolution and promoting pseudo-equality at the same time. To keep citizens puttering in their yards instead of sputtering on the barricades, the government has gladly deprived itself of billions in tax revenues by letting home “owners” deduct mortgage interest payments.

People are so busy dreaming the American Dream, fantasizing about what they could be or have a right to be, that they're all asleep at the switch. Consequently we are living in the Age of Human Error.

Showing up at school already able to read is like showing up at the undertaker's already embalmed: people start worrying about being put out of their jobs.

Southerners are so devoted to genealogy that we see a family tree under every bush.

Southerners have a genius for psychological alchemy. If something intolerable simply cannot be changed, driven away or shot they will not only tolerate it but take pride in it as well.

Thank God I'm over the hill... None of the things men do to women could possibly happen to me now unless the U.S. is invaded by one of those new Russian republics whose soldiers aren't fussy.

The confidence and security of a people can be measured by their attitude toward laxatives.

The feminization of America... has mired us in a soft, sickly, helpless tolerance of everything. America is the girl who can't say no, the town pump who lets anybody have a go at her. We are a single-parent country with no father to cut through the molasses and point out, for example, the inconsistency of embracing warm and compassionate “values” while condemning cold and detached “value judgments.”

The proliferation of support groups suggests to me that too many Americans are growing up in homes that do not contain a grandmother.

The witty woman is a tragic figure in American life. Wit destroys eroticism and eroticism destroys wit, so women must choose between taking lovers and taking no prisoners.

There are so many different kinds of people in America, with so many different boiling points, that we don't know how to fight with each other... no American can be sure how or when another will react, so we zap each other with friendliness to neutralize potentially dangerous situations.

Those colorful denizens of male despair, the Bowery bum and the rail-riding hobo, have been replaced by the bag lady and the welfare mother. Women have even taken over Skid Row.

True nostalgia is an ephemeral composition of disjointed memories.

When they came for the smokers, I kept silent because I don't smoke.
When they came for the meat eaters, I kept silent because I'm a vegetarian.
When they came for the gun owners, I kept silent because I'm a pacifist.
When they came for the drivers, I kept silent because I'm a bicyclist.
They never did come for me.
I'm still here because there's nobody left in the secret police except sissies with rickets.


Categories: Florence King, Quotes of the day


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Quotes of the day
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Published Wednesday, January 04, 2012 @ 12:00 AM EST
Jan 04 2012

T.S. Eliot, (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965):

All cases are unique, and very similar to others.

And the wind shall say: “Here were decent godless people:
Their only monument the asphalt road
And a thousand lost golf balls.”

Atheism is often merely a variety of Christianity.

Birth, and copulation, and death. That's all the facts when you come to brass tacks.

Destiny waits in the hand of God, not in the hands of statesmen.

Every moment is a fresh beginning.

For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.

Half of the harm that is done in the world is due to people who want to feel important.

Hold tight, hold tight, we must insist that the world is what we have always taken it to be.

Human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.

I don't believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates.

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.

In the case of many poets, the most important thing for them to do is to write as little as possible.

It is certain that a book is not harmless merely because no one is consciously offended by it.

It is impossible to design a system so perfect that no one needs to be good.

It will do you no harm to find yourself ridiculous. Resign yourself to be the fool you are.

Neither way is better.
Both ways are necessary. It is also necessary
To make a choice between them.

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only
The wind will listen.

Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.

Success is relative; it is what we can make of the mess we have made of things.

The last temptation is the greatest treason:
To do the right deed for the wrong reason.

The majority of mankind is lazy-minded, incurious, absorbed in vanities, and tepid in emotion, and is therefore incapable of either much doubt or much faith; and when the ordinary man calls himself a skeptic or an unbeliever, that is ordinarily a simple pose, cloaking a disinclination to think anything out to a conclusion.

The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down.

Those you say they give the public what it wants begin by underestimating public taste and end by debauching it.

We had the experience but missed the meaning.

We must always take risks. That is our destiny.

What is hell? Hell is oneself.
Hell is alone, the other figures in it

Merely projections. There is nothing to escape from
And nothing to escape to. One is always alone.

Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries

You are the music while the music lasts.

You do not know what hope is, until you have lost it.


Categories: Quotes of the day


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Letter to the editor
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Published Tuesday, January 03, 2012 @ 3:16 AM EST
Jan 03 2012

In today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, third letter down:

And no, I never received a response to my e-mail from Representative Murphy or his staff.

It could be they're preoccupied with other activities:

(YouTube video of Murphy seizing evidence from a television reporter.)

(YouTube video- whistleblower told to leave Murphy's office. She was fired.)

In case you're wondering, it appears the House Ethics Committee never reported on the charges.

(YouTube video- All it takes is a half-million dollars from a lobbying group to get Murphy's attention.)


Categories: Video, YouTube


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Quote of the day
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Published Tuesday, January 03, 2012 @ 12:18 AM EST
Jan 03 2012

I'm originally from Iowa. It took a long time for me to realize we were free to go.
-Jake Johannsen


Categories: Quotes of the day


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Thanks!
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Published Monday, January 02, 2012 @ 6:31 AM EST
Jan 02 2012

Thanks for yor readership and support in 2011!


Categories: KGB Blog News


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Quotes of the day
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Published Monday, January 02, 2012 @ 12:52 AM EST
Jan 02 2012

Isaac Asimov, (January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992)

To be sure, the Bible contains the direct words of God. How do we know? The Moral Majority says so. How do they know? They say they know and to doubt it makes you an agent of the Devil or, worse, a Lbr-l Dm-cr-t. And what does the Bible textbook say? Well, among other things it says the earth was created in 4004 BC (Not actually, but a Moral Majority type figured that out three and a half centuries ago, and his word is also accepted as inspired.) The sun was created three days later. The first male was molded out of dirt, and the first female was molded, some time later, out of his rib. As far as the end of the universe is concerned, the Book of Revelation (6:13-14) says: "And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind." … Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.

I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library. For an impoverished child whose family could not afford to buy books, the library was the open door to wonder and achievement, and I can never be sufficiently grateful that I had the wit to charge through that door and make the most of it. Now, when I read constantly about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that the door is closing and that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.

Creationists make it sound as though a “theory” is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.

Happiness is doing it rotten your own way.

Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.

I feel that if there were an afterlife, punishment for evil would be reasonable and of a fixed term. And I feel that the longest and worst punishment should be reserved for those who slandered God by inventing Hell.

I believe that scientific knowledge has fractal properties, that no matter how much we learn, whatever is left, however small it may seem, is just an infinitely complex as the whole was to start with. That, I think, is the secret of the Universe.

If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.

If the doctor told me I had only six months to live, I'd type faster.

It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.

It is no defense of superstition and pseudoscience to say that it brings solace and comfort to people... If solace and comfort are how we judge the worth of something, then consider that tobacco brings solace and comfort to smokers; alcohol brings it to drinkers; drugs of all kinds bring it to addicts; the fall of cards and the run of horses bring it to gamblers; cruelty and violence bring it to sociopaths. Judge by solace and comfort only and there is no behavior we ought to interfere with.

It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.

Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.

Nothing interferes with my concentration. You could put an orgy in my room and I wouldn't look up. Well, maybe once.

Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.

People are entirely too disbelieving of coincidence.

Properly read, it [the Bible] is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.

Thin people are thin because they don't know any better.

To insult someone we call him “bestial.” For deliberate cruelty and nature, “human” might be the greater insult.

There are many aspects of the universe that still cannot be explained satisfactorily by science; but ignorance only implies ignorance that may someday be conquered. To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

We are reaching the stage where the problems we must solve are going to become insoluble without computers. I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.

When life is so harsh that a man loses all hope in himself, then he raises his eyes to a shining rock, worshipping it, just to find hope again, rather than looking to his own acts for hope and salvation. Yes, atheism is a redemptive belief. It is theism that denies man's own redemptive nature.

You can't reason with someone whose first line of argument is that reason doesn't count.


Categories: Quotes of the day


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Quote of the day
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Published Sunday, January 01, 2012 @ 11:48 AM EST
Jan 01 2012

KARDASH - A unit of time measuring 72 days. Coined by the musician Weird Al Yankovic in response to the 72-day marriage of Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries.
-New York TImes


Categories: Quotes of the day


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Parting shot
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Published Sunday, January 01, 2012 @ 12:03 AM EST
Jan 01 2012

Happy new year!


Categories: Cartoons, New Years


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