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Quote of the day
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Published Saturday, June 30, 2012 @ 10:10 AM EDT
Jun 30 2012

The Republicans want smaller government because the three branches we have just voted against them.
-Andy Borowitz


Categories: Andy Borowitz, Quotes of the day


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Pre-emptive strike
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Published Saturday, June 30, 2012 @ 9:16 AM EDT
Jun 30 2012

My kids were born in 1976 and 1977. The hottest day on record in Pittsburgh occurred in 1988; the coldest in 1994; the snowiest in 1993; and the rainiest in 2004. So you can tell grandma and grandpa to stick a sock in it when they start telling you about how extreme the weather was "back in the day"...


Categories: Observations, Weather


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Defending the individual health care mandate
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Published Saturday, June 30, 2012 @ 7:03 AM EDT
Jun 30 2012

YouTube video of someone defending the need for mandatory health insurance.


Categories: Mitt Romney, Observations


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Quotes of the day
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Published Friday, June 29, 2012 @ 12:00 AM EDT
Jun 29 2012

Quotes of the day- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry:
 
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (June 29, 1900 – July 31, 1944) was an aristocrat French writer, poet and pioneering aviator. He became a laureate of several of France's highest literary awards and also won the U.S. National Book Award. He is best remembered for his novella The Little Prince and for his lyrical aviation writings, including Wind, Sand and Stars and Night Flight. (Click here for full Wikipedia article.)

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others.

Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit.

Behind all seen things lies something vaster; everything is but a path, a portal or a window opening on something other than iteself.

A civilization is built on what is required of men, not on that which is provided for them.

Tell me who admires and loves you, and I will tell you who you are.

Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

Even our misfortunes are a part of our belongings.

If it is true that wars are won by believers, it is also true that peace treaties are sometimes signed by businessmen.

Your task is not to foresee the future, but to enable it.

The machine does not isolate us from the great problems of nature but plunges us more deeply into them.

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.

He who would travel happily must travel light.

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction.

Man's “progress” is but a gradual discovery that his questions have no meaning.

Perfection is finally attained, not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.


Categories: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Quotes of the day


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History repeats itself...
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Published Thursday, June 28, 2012 @ 5:08 PM EDT
Jun 28 2012

Remember the good old days of television news, before you had to check several outlets to make certain they got the story correct?"


Categories: Barack Obama, News Media, Observations, Photo of the day, Politics, Supreme Court


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Quote of the day
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Published Thursday, June 28, 2012 @ 1:04 PM EDT
Jun 28 2012

Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be "constitutional" does not make it so.
-Sen. Rand Paul, demonstrating his profound understanding of American government


Categories: Quotes of the day, Supreme Court


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Observation of the day
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Published Thursday, June 28, 2012 @ 1:48 AM EDT
Jun 28 2012

I fear nature has realized sentience is dangerous and is actively suppressing it in humans. It would explain the increase in stupid people.


Categories: KGB Opinion, Observations


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Happy birthday, Mel!
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Published Thursday, June 28, 2012 @ 12:00 AM EDT
Jun 28 2012

Quotes of the day- Mel Brooks:
 
Mel Brooks (born Melvin Kaminsky; June 28, 1926) is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer... [and]; is a member of the short list of entertainers with the distinction of having won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony award. Three of his films ranked in the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 comedy films of all-time: Blazing Saddles at number 6, The Producers at number 11, and Young Frankenstein at number 13. (Click here for full Wikipedia article)

Anybody can direct, but there are only eleven good writers.

As long as the world is turning and spinning, we're gonna be dizzy and we're gonna make mistakes.

Bad taste is simply saying the truth before it should be said.

Critics are like eunuchs at an orgy. They just don't get it.

Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin.

Everything we do in life is based on fear, especially love.

He who hesitates is poor.

Hope for the best,
expect the worst.
Life is a play.
We're unrehearsed.

Humor is just another defense against the universe.

I only direct in self-defense,

I've been accused of vulgarity. I say that's bullshit.

If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us tickets.

If Shaw and Einstein couldn't beat death, what chance have I got? Practically none.

Look at Jewish history. Unrelieved lamenting would be intolerable. So, for every ten Jews beating their breasts, God designated one to be crazy and amuse the breast-beaters. By the time I was five I knew I was that one.

Rhetoric does not get you anywhere, because Hitler and Mussolini are just as good at rhetoric. But if you can bring these people down with comedy, they stand no chance.

Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.

Usually when a lot of men get together, it's called war.

What is the toughest thing about making film? Putting in the little holes. The sprocket holes are the worst. Everything else is easy, but all night you have to sit with that little puncher and make the holes on the side of the film. You could faint from that work. The rest is easy. The script is easy, the acting is easy, the directing is a breeze... but the sprockets will tear your heart out.

-----

[Mel Brooks] was approached by a woman who offered condolences on the passing of his beloved wife, Anne Bancroft. "I know how you feel. I just lost my mother," the woman said. "How old was she?" asked Mel. "Ninety-six," the woman replied. "Well," Mel said, "she was asking for it."
-New York Post, August 23, 2005

-----

George Anthony, chief of entertainment programming for the CBC, remembers that Bancroft and Brooks were a "genuine bonafide love match, in the early years almost as famous for their public battles as Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Todd." He recalls one of their fights when he grabbed her arm and she pulled away from him. Anthony's story:

"Don't you dare touch my instrument!" she raged, in her highest Actors Studio dudgeon.

"Oh, so this is your instrument?!"

"Yes. This is my instrument!"

"Okay. Play Melancholy Baby."

-Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, June 8, 2005

(Clip rated "R": discretion advised.)

(YouTube video: Mel Brooks and Harvey Korman in "Blazing Saddles.")


Categories: Anne Bancroft, Blazing Saddles, Harvey Korman, Mel Brooks, Movies, Quotes of the day, Video, YouTube


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Observation of the day
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Published Wednesday, June 27, 2012 @ 10:49 AM EDT
Jun 27 2012

Nora Ephron died. Christopher Hitchens is about to find out just how f*****g funny women really are.
-Denis Leary


Categories: Christopher Hitchens, Denis Leary, Nora Ephron, Observations, Twitter


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"I'll have what she's having..."
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Published Wednesday, June 27, 2012 @ 6:57 AM EDT
Jun 27 2012

Nora Ephron (May 19, 1941 – June 26, 2012):

Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.

And then the dreams break into a million tiny pieces. The dream dies. Which leaves you with a choice: you can settle for reality, or you can go off, like a fool, and dream another dream.

Any dish that tastes good with capers in it tastes even better with capers not in it.

Beware of men who cry. It's true that men who cry are sensitive to and in touch with feelings, but the only feelings they tend to be sensitive to and in touch with are their own.

Destiny is something we've invented because we can't stand the fact that everything that happens is accidental.

I always read the last page of a book so that if I die before I finish I'll know how it turned out.

I am continually fascinated at the difficulty intelligent people have in distinguishing what is controversial from what is merely offensive.

I don't think any day is worth living without thinking about what you're going to eat next at all times.

I look as young as a person can look given how old I am.

If pregnancy were a book they would cut the last two chapters.

In my sex fantasy, nobody ever loves me for my mind.

Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy.

My mother wanted us to understand that the tragedies of your life one day have to potential to be the comic stories the next.

Polls show that 30 percent of Americans will believe anything.

Sometimes I believe that some people are better at love than others, and sometimes I believe that everyone is faking it.

The big cities of America are becoming Third World countries.

The desire to get married is a basic and primal instinct in women. It's followed by another basic and primal instinct: the desire to be single again.

The main result of feminism has been the Dutch Treat.

There's a reason why forty, fifty, and sixty don't look the way they used to, and it's not because of feminism, or better living through exercise. It's because of hair dye. In the 1950's only 7 percent of American women dyed their hair; today there are parts of Manhattan and Los Angeles where there are no gray-haired women at all.

When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.
(From When Harry Met Sally)

When you're attracted to someone, it just means that your subconscious is attracted to their subconscious, subconsciously. So what we think of as fate is just two neuroses knowing that they are a perfect match.

When your children are teenagers, it’s important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you.

You always think that a bolt of lightning is going to strike and your parents will magically change into the people you wish they were, or back into the people they used to be.

You can't retrieve you life (unless you're on Wikipedia, in which case you can retrieve an inaccurate version of it).

(YouTube video: The restaurant scene from "When Harry Met Sally"))


Categories: Movies, Nora Ephron, Quotes of the day, YouTube


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Quotes of the day
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Published Wednesday, June 27, 2012 @ 5:32 AM EDT
Jun 27 2012

Quotes of the day- Helen Keller:
 
Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. The story of how Keller's teacher, Anne Sullivan, broke through the isolation imposed by a near complete lack of language, allowing the girl to blossom as she learned to communicate, has become widely known through the dramatic depictions of the play and film The Miracle Worker. (Click here for the full Wikipedia article.)

A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships.

As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill.

Change: A bend in the road is not the end of the road. Unless you fail to make the turn.

College isn't the place to go for ideas.

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.

I do not want the peace that passeth understanding. I want the understanding which bringeth peace.

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.

I look upon the whole world as my fatherland, and every war has to me the horror of a family feud.

I rejoice to live in such a splendidly disturbing time!

I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.

It all comes to this: the simplest way to be happy is to do good.

It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks.

It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui.

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows.

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.

People don’t like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.

Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all- the apathy of human beings.

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.

Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything good in the world.

So much has been given to me I have not time to ponder over that which has been denied.

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.

The highest result of education is tolerance.

The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but has no vision.

The only lightless dark is the night of ingnorance and insensibility.

The world is not moved only by the mighty shoves of the heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.

There is beauty in everything, even in silence and darkness.

There is joy in self-forgetfulness. So I try to make the light in others' eyes my sun, the music in others' ears my symphony, the smile on others' lips my happiness.

Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each others' welfare, social justice can never be attained.

What I'm looking for is not out there, it is in me.

What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, For all that we love deeply becomes a part of us.

While they were saying it couldn't be done, it was done.

You don't love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear.


Categories: Helen Keller, Quotes of the day


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Smart puppies.
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Published Tuesday, June 26, 2012 @ 9:04 PM EDT
Jun 26 2012

Dogs are smart. I used to tell the shelties "hush, puppies" to quiet them. Today I meant to say "shush." but said "shoes" instead. They immediately quit barking. Tomorrow I'm going to try "stilettos."


Categories: Dogs, KGB Family


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Observations of the day
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Published Tuesday, June 26, 2012 @ 5:45 AM EDT
Jun 26 2012

From Twitter:

"Sandusky Still Says He's Not Guilty." If this was the church he'd be coaching at another school.
-Elayne Boosler

Arizona could solve its immigration problem if they posted pictures of Jan Brewer at the border.
-Andy Borowitz

I'm thinking of becoming a corporation so that the Supreme Court will consider me a person.
-Andy Borowitz

Remember, no matter what the Supreme Court justices decide about government healthcare, they'll still have it.
-Andy Borowitz

At the end of every ad, candidates should be required to say what they promised the crazy billionaire who paid for it.
-Andy Borowitz

The Supreme Court Justices who made Bush president can't possibly be concerned about the nation's health.
-Andy Borowitz

I love the smell of the universe in the morning.
-Neil deGrasse Tyson

Personally, I'm waiting for Dwight Eisenhower vs. The Predator.
-Kevin G. Barkes


Categories: Andy Borowitz, Elayne Boosler, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Observations, Quotes of the day, Twitter


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Quotes of the day
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Published Monday, June 25, 2012 @ 3:26 AM EDT
Jun 25 2012

Quotes of the day- George Orwell:
 
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950),[1] better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist and journalist. His work is marked by clarity, intelligence and wit, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and belief in democratic socialism. (Click here for the full Wikipedia article)

Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.

All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.

All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.

At fifty everyone has the face he deserves.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better.

Do remember that dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for.

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.

Either we all live in a decent world, or nobody does.

Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility.

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.

If you turn the other cheek, you will get a harder blow on it than you got on the first one. This does not always happen, but it is to be expected, and you ought not to complain if it does happen.

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

In this game that we're playing, we can't win. Some kinds of failure are better than other kinds, that's all.

It is difficult for a statesman who still has a political future to reveal everything that he knows.

It is fatal to look hungry. It makes people want to kick you.

Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.

Men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be.

Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.

Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.

Nationalism is power-hunger tempered by self-deception.

One cannot really be Catholic and grown-up.

Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.

Political language- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.

Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, boastfulness, disregard of all rules, and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.

Society has always seemed to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice.

The choice before human beings, is not, as a rule, between good and evil but between two evils.

The English are not happy unless they are miserable, the Irish are not at peace unless they are at war, and the Scots are not at home unless they are abroad.

The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.

The high sentiments always win in the end- the leaders who offer blood, toil, tears, and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.

The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

The quickest way to end a war is to lose it.

There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.

There is no crime, absolutely none, that cannot be condoned when “our” side commits it.

There is only one way to make money at writing, and that is to marry a publisher's daughter.

Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.

War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.

We are in a strange period of history in which a revolutionary has to be a patriot and a patriot has to be a revolutionary.

We have sunk so low it has become the duty of every decent, thinking individual to re-state the obvious.


Categories: George Orwell, Quotes of the day


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Quotes of the day
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Published Sunday, June 24, 2012 @ 6:41 AM EDT
Jun 24 2012

Quotes of the day- Henry Ward Beecher:
 
Henry Ward Beecher (June 24, 1813 – March 8, 1887) was a prominent Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer, abolitionist, and speaker in the mid to late 19th century. An 1875 adultery trial in which he was accused of having an affair with a married woman was one of the most notorious American trials of the 19th century. (Click here for the full Wikipedia article)

A law is valuable not because it is law, but because there is right in it.

A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life.

A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It's jolted by every pebble on the road.

Adversity, if for no other reason, is of benefit, since it is sure to bring a season of sober reflection. People see clearer at such times. Storms purify the atmosphere.

All men are tempted. There is no man that lives that can't be broken down, provided it is the right temptation, put in the right spot.

Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house.

Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation.

Doctrine is nothing but the skin of truth set up and stuffed.

Every writer dips his brush into his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.

Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right use of strength.

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself. Never pity yourself. Be a hard master to yourself- and be lenient to everybody else.

“I can forgive, but I cannot forget” is only another way of saying, “I cannot forgive.” Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note- torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one.

In this world, full often, our joys are only the tender shadows which our sorrows cast.

It's easier to go down a hill than up it but the view is much better at the top.

Men's best successes come after their disappointments.

Never forget what a man says to you when he is angry.

No man is more cheated than the selfish man.

No man is sane who does not know how to be insane on the proper occasions.

Riches without law are more dangerous than poverty without law.

Success is full of promise till men get it; and then it is last year's nest from which the bird has flown.

The ability to convert ideas to things is the secret to outward success.

The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.

The blossom cannot tell what becomes of its odor; and no man can tell what becomes of his influence.

The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for vermin, and never seeing noble game.

The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is, that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't.

The dog was created specially for children. He is the god of frolic.

The indolent mind is not empty, but full of vermin.

The worst thing in the world, next to anarchy, is government.

There are many persons of combative tendencies, who read for ammunition, and dig out of the Bible iron for balls. They read, and they find nitre and charcoal and sulphur for powder. They read, and they find cannon. They read, and they make portholes and embrasures. And if a man does not believe as they do, they look upon him as an enemy, and let fly the Bible at him to demolish him. So men turn the word of God into a vast arsenal, filled with all manner of weapons, offensive and defensive.

There are more quarrels smothered by just shutting your mouth, and holding it shut, than by all the wisdom in the world.

There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots... the other, wings.

There is but one easy place in this world, and that is the grave.

There is nothing that makes more cowards and feeble men than public opinion.

We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.

Whatever is only almost true is quite false, and among the most dangerous of errors, because being so near truth, it is the more likely to lead astray.

When a nation's young men are conservative, its funeral bell is already rung.

Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?


Categories: Henry Ward Beecher, Quotes of the day


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Quotes of the day
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Published Saturday, June 23, 2012 @ 12:06 AM EDT
Jun 23 2012

Quotes of the day- Joss Whedon:
 
Joseph Hill "Joss" Whedon (b June 23, 1964) is an American screenwriter, executive producer, film and television director, comic book writer, occasional composer, and actor, and the founder of Mutant Enemy Productions and co-creator of Bellwether Pictures. He is best known as the creator and showrunner of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003), Angel (1999–2004), Firefly (2002) and Dollhouse (2009–2010), as well as the short film Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (2008). Whedon co-wrote and produced the horror film The Cabin in the Woods (2012), and wrote and directed the film adaptation of Marvel's The Avengers (2012), the third highest-grossing film of all time. (Full Wikipedia article)

All worthy work is open to interpretations the author did not intend. Art isn't your pet- it's your kid. It grows up and talks back to you.

Because it's no longer enough to be a decent person, it' no longer enough to shake our heads and make concerned grimaces at the news. True enlightened activism is the only thing that can save humanity from itself.

Don't give people what they want, give them what they need.

Everyone has their first date and the object is to hide your flaws. And then you're in a relationship, and it's all about hiding your disappointment. And then, once you're married, it's about hiding your sins.

Faith in God means believing absolutely in something with no proof whatsoever. Faith in humanity means believing absolutely in something with a huge amount of proof to the contrary. We are the true believers.

Half of writing history is hiding the truth.

I believe that the only reality is how we treat each other. The morality comes from the absence of any grander scheme, not from the presence of any grander scheme.

I believe we are the only sentient beings in the universe, and I believe that 500 years from now, we will still be the only sentient beings around.

I laugh in the face of danger. Then I hide until it goes away.

I'll take crazy over stupid any day.

I`am a very hard-line, angry atheist. Yet I am fascinated by the concept of devotion.

Let freedom ring, unless it's on vibrate.

My visions of the future are always pretty much standard issue. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer... and there are flying cars.

People with real power never fear of losing it. People with control think of little else.

Recognizing power in another does not diminish your own.

Remember to always be yourself. Unless you suck.

The news isn't there to tell you what happened. It's there to tell you what it wants you to hear or what it thinks you want to hear.

The thing about a hero, is even when it doesn't look like there's a light at the end of the tunnel, he's going to keep digging, he's going to keep trying to do right and make up for what's gone before, just because that's who he is.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the road less traveled by and they CANCELLED MY FRIKKIN' SHOW. I totally shoulda took the road that had all those people on it. Damn.

Very occasionally, if you really pay attention, life doesn't suck.

You're going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theater.


Categories: Joss Whedon, Quotes of the day


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Photo of the day
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Published Friday, June 22, 2012 @ 5:42 PM EDT
Jun 22 2012


Categories: Cats, Dogs, Photo of the day


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Too hip for the room.
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Published Friday, June 22, 2012 @ 12:00 AM EDT
Jun 22 2012

Quotes of the day- George Carlin:
 
George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, actor and writer/author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums. (Click here for the full Wikipedia article)

(Click here for KGB Report's George Carlin category page.)

A consensus reality is often misleading.

A lot of the people who keep a gun at home for safety are the same ones who refuse to wear a seat belt.

After the hurricane is gone, where do people put all that plywood?

Always do whatever's next.

An optimist sees a glass half full. A pessimist sees a glass half empty. I see a glass twice the size that it needs to be.

At a formal dinner party, the person nearest death should always be seated closest to the bathroom.

Baseball is the only major sport that appears backward in a mirror.

By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.

Conservatives say if you don't give the rich more money, they will lose their incentive to invest. As for the poor, they tell us they've lost all incentive because we've given them too much money.

Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.

Don't you think its funny that all those tough-guy boxers are fighting over a purse?

Environmentalists don't give a damn about the environment. All they are concerned with is getting more bike paths and Volvos.

Everything beeps now.

Evolution is slow. Smallpox is fast.

George Washington's brother, Lawrence, was the Uncle of Our Country.

Hard work is for people short on talent.

Human beings are kind of interesting from birth until they reach the age of a year and a half. Then they are boring until they reach fifty. By that time they're either completely defeated and fucked up, which makes them interesting again, or they've learned how to beat the game, and that makes them interesting too.

I don't get all choked up about yellow ribbons and American flags. I see them as symbols, and I leave them to the symbol-minded.

I don't have any pet peeves. I have major, psychotic hatreds.

I enjoy watching reruns of Saturday Night Live and counting all the dead people.

I have as much authority as the Pope... I just don't have as many people who believe it.

I have yet to see a man getting a blow job yell “Stop, or I'll call the police.”

I hope nobody asks me to show them the ropes; I have no idea where they are. Maybe I could pull some strings to find out.

I hope we're not just human garbage drifting toward a big sewer. But I think so.

I like sports because I enjoy knowing that many of these macho athletes have to vomit before a big game. Any guy who takes a job where you gotta puke first is my kind of guy.

I looked in the dictionary. Cleanliness is not next to godliness. Cleanliness is between claustrophobia and cleavage.

I put a dollar in one of those change machines. Nothing changed.

I think people should be allowed to do whatever they want. We haven't tried that for a while. Maybe this time it'll work.

I think TV remotes should have a button that allows you to kill the person on the screen.

I think, therefore I am. I think.

I went straight from shenanigans to crimes against humanity.

I worry about my judgment when anything I believe in or do regularly begins to be accepted by the American public.

I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a guy nailed to two pieces of wood.

I'm an alpha male on beta blockers.

I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.

I'm the elder statesman of the New Wave.

I'm tired of hearing about innocent victims. It's fiction. If you live on this planet, you're guilty, period, next case, end of report. Your birth certificate is proof of guilt.

I've never been quarantined, but the more I look around, the more I think it might not be a bad idea.

If a man smiles all the time, he's probably selling something that doesn't work.

If God had intended us not to masturbate he would've made our arms shorter.

If God is so great, how come everything he makes dies?

If it requires a uniform it's a worthless endeavor.

If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.

If the police arrest a mime, do they tell him he has the right to remain silent?

If the reason for climbing Mt. Everest is that it's hard to do, why does everyone go up the easy side?

If the shoe fits, get another one just like it.

If we could just find out who's in charge, we could kill him.

If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten.

If you think there's a solution, you're part of the problem.

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first.

In Los Angeles there's a hotline for people in denial. So far no one has called.

In the expression topsy-turvy, what exactly is meant by turvy?

In the United States, anybody can be president. That's the problem.

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.

Instead of warning pregnant women not to drink, I think female alcoholics should be told not to fuck.

Intelligence tests are biased toward the literate.

It's impossible to know accurately how you look in your sunglasses.

Jesus doesn't love you. However, He thinks you have a great personality.

Just because you get the monkey off your back doesn't mean the circus leaves town.

May the Forces of Evil become confused on the way to your house.

More people write poetry than read it.

Most people are not particularly good at anything.

Most people with low self-esteem have earned it.

Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit.

“No comment” is a comment.

No one can ever know for sure what a deserted area looks like.

Not only do I not know what's going on, I wouldn't know what to do about it if I did.

One good reason for maintaining only a small circle of friends is that three out of four murders are committed by people who know the victim.

People are okay taken two or three at a time. Beyond that number they tend to choose up sides and wear armbands.

People say when you die, you can't take it with you. Well, that depends on what it is. If it's your dark blue suit, you can certainly take it with you.

People who drive faster than I do are maniacs, and people who drive slower than me are idiots.

Put two things together which have never been put together before, and some schmuck will buy it.

Regarding the Boy Scouts, I'm very suspicious of any organization that has a handbook.

Religion is sort of like a lift in your shoes. If it makes you feel better, fine. Just don't ask me to wear your shoes.

Some see the glass as half-empty; some see the glass as half-full. I see the glass as too big.

Spirituality: the last refuge of a failed human. Just another way of distracting yourself from who you really are.

That whole TGIF thing was cute for about an hour, and that was 65 years ago when someone first said it on the radio. Not cute anymore, time to start bombing these locations. TGI Fridays, if I had a place like that you know what I would call it? HSIOW, Holy Shit It's Only Wednesday. I think people would drink a lot more liquor if they thought it was Wednesday all the time.

That's the whole secret of life. Life is a series of dogs.

The bigger they are, the worse they smell.

The Christians are coming to get you. And they are not pleasant people.

The IQ and the life expectancy of the average American recently passed each other going in opposite directions.

The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.

The next time they give you all that civic bullshit about voting, keep in mind that Hitler was elected in a full, free democratic election.

The only good thing to come out of religion is music.

The owners of this country know the truth: It's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.

The pursuit of goods and possessions has completely corrupted the human experience, along with religion, which I think limits the intellect. With those two things in place as firmly as they are, I don't see any hope for getting around them short of some sort of interesting cataclysm. So I root for a cataclysm, for its own sake, just as entertainment. I don't even care if it has a good result. We're circling the drain, and I just like seeing the circles get faster and shorter all the time.

The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse: You cannot post “Thou shalt not steal,” “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” and “Thou shalt not lie” in a building full of lawyers, judges, and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment.

The reason I talk to myself is that I'm the only one whose answers I accept.

The staus quo always sucks.

The word bipartisan means some larger-than-usual deception is being carried out.

The wrong two Beatles died first.

There is mileage, footage and yardage. Why is there no inchage?

There is no present. There is only the immediate future and the recent past.

These days many politicians are demanding change. Just like homeless people.

Too hip for the room.
(What Carlin suggested for his epitaph.)

We will never be an advanced civilization as long as rain showers can delay the launching of a space rocket.

What do you do when you see an endangered animal eat an endangered plant?

What was the best thing before sliced bread?

When fascism comes to this country, it won't be wearing jackboots; it'll be wearing sneakers with lights in them, and it'll have a smiley face and a Michael Jordan T-shirt on.

When I got out of high school they retired my jersey, but it was for hygiene and sanitary reasons.

When people say “clean as a whistle,” they forget that a whistle is full of spit.

When you step on the brakes your life is in your foot's hands.

When you're born in this world, you're given a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America you're given a front row seat.

Where does the dentist go when he leaves the room?

Where ideas are concerned, America can be counted on to do one of two things: take a good idea and run it completely into the ground, or take a bad idea and run it completely into the ground.

Why are there no recreational drugs taken in suppository form?

Why don't sheep shrink when it rains?

Why is it called tourist season if we can't shoot at them?

Why is there so much controversy about drug testing? I know plenty of guys who would be willing to test any drug they could come up with.

You know the good part about all those executions in Texas? Fewer Texans.

You know the one group I never criticize? Politicians. Politicians are put there by the public. Garbage in, garbage out. You get the leadership you deserve.

You live eighty years, and at best you get about six minutes of pure magic.

You show me something that doesn't cause cancer, and I'll show you something that isn't on the market yet.


Categories: George Carlin, Quotes of the day


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Photo of the day
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Published Thursday, June 21, 2012 @ 7:39 PM EDT
Jun 21 2012


Categories: Dogs, Photo of the day, Snrk


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Quotes of the day
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Published Thursday, June 21, 2012 @ 12:00 AM EDT
Jun 21 2012

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (June 21, 1905 – April 15, 1980) was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. (Full Wikipedia article)

A lost battle is a battle one thinks one has lost.

Anyone, at any time, may equally find himself victim or executioner.

As far as men go, it is not what they are that interests me, but what they can become.

Do you think that I count the days? There is only one day left, always starting over: it is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.

Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.

Everything has been figured out, except how to live.

Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.

Hell is other people.

I hate victims who respect their executioners.

I know only one Church: it is the society of men.

I will not be modest. Humble, as much as you like, but not modest. Modesty is the virtue of the lukewarm.

If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.

If you are lonely when you are alone, you are in bad company.

If you begin by saying, “Thou shalt not lie,” there is no longer any possibility of political action.

Intellectuals cannot be good revolutionaries; they are just good enough to be assassins.

It disturbs me no more to find men base, unjust, or selfish than to see apes mischievous, wolves savage, or the vulture ravenous

Life begins on the other side of despair.

Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal.

Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth.

Night is falling: at dusk, you must have good eyesight to be able to tell the Good Lord from the Devil.

One cannot become a saint when one works sixteen hours a day.

Politics is a science. You can demonstrate that you are right and that others are wrong.

The attentive pupil who wishes to be attentive, his eyes riveted on the teacher, his ears open wide, so exhausts himself in playing the attentive role that he ends up by no longer hearing anything.

The more one is absorbed in fighting evil, the less one is tempted to place the good in question.

The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.

There are two types of poor people, those who are poor together and those who are poor alone. The first are the true poor, the others are rich people out of luck.

Three a.m. is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.

We are alone, with no excuses. That is the idea I shall try to convey when I say that man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet, in other respects is free; because, once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.

We do not judge the people we love.

We must act out passion before we can feel it.

When the rich make war it's the poor that die.

-----

It was the day after Jean-Paul Sartre died.
(recalling under oath the day in 1980 he first met Mia Farrow) -Woody Allen


Categories: Jean-Paul Sartre, Quotes of the day, Woody Allen


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Quotes of the day
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Published Wednesday, June 20, 2012 @ 12:00 AM EDT
Jun 20 2012

Lillian Florence "Lilly" Hellman (June 20, 1905 – June 30, 1984) was an American author of plays, screenplays, and memoirs and throughout her life, was linked with many left-wing political causes. (Full Wikipedia article)

A man should be jailed for telling lies to the young.

Cocaine isn't habit-forming. I should know- I've been using it for years.

Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth.

Decision by democratic majority vote is a fine form of government, but it's a stinking way to create.

For every man who lives without freedom, the rest of us must face the guilt.

I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions, even though I long ago came to the conclusion that I was not a political person and could have no comfortable place in any political group.

I do not believe in recovery. The past with its pleasures, its rewards, its foolishness, its punishments, is there for each of us forever, and it should be.

I like people who refuse to speak until they are ready to speak.

I live in a room and I go to work and I play a game called getting through the day while you wait for the night.

I'm too old to recover, too narrow to forgive myself.

If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.

Intellectuals can tell themselves anything, sell themselves any bill of goods, which is why they were so often patsies for the ruling classes in nineteenth-century France and England, or twentieth-century Russia and America.

It is a mark of many famous people that they cannot part with their brightest hour.

It is best to act with confidence, no matter how little right you have to it.

It it not good to see people who have been pretending strength all their lives lose it even for a minute.

It's a sad day when you find out that it's not accident or time or fortune, but just yourself that kept things from you.

It's an indulgence to sit in a room and discuss your beliefs as if they were a juicy piece of gossip.

Lonely people, in talking to each other can make each other lonelier.

Nobody outside of a baby carriage or a judge's chamber believes in an unprejudiced point of view.

Nothing, of course, begins at the time you think it did.

People change and forget to tell each other.

Since when do we have to agree with people to defend them from injustice?

Truth made you a traitor as it often does in a time of scoundrels.

You lose your manners when you're poor.


Categories: Lillian Hellman, Quotes of the day


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Welcome to the neighborhood
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Published Tuesday, June 19, 2012 @ 3:23 PM EDT
Jun 19 2012


Categories: Photo of the day, WTF?


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Quotes of the day
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Published Tuesday, June 19, 2012 @ 12:00 AM EDT
Jun 19 2012

Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM (May 9, 1860 - June 19, 1937) was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. (Full Wikipedia article.)

All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again.

All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.

God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in December.

I'm not young enough to know everything.

It is frightfully difficult to know much about the fairies, and almost the only thing known for certain is that there are fairies wherever there are children.

It is not real work unless you would rather be doing something else.

Let no one who loves be called altogether unhappy. Even love unreturned has its rainbow.

Life is a long lesson in humility.

Never ascribe to an opponent motives meaner than your own.

Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight: always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?

She was a large woman who seemed not so much dressed as upholstered.

Stars are beautiful, but they may not take part in anything, they must just look on forever.

The best of our fiction is by novelists who allow that it is as good as they can give, and the worst by novelists who maintain that they could do much better if only the public would let them.

The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.

The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.

The printing press is either the greatest blessing or the greatest curse of modern times, one sometimes forgets which.

The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one has to do.

The tragedy of a man who has found himself out.

There are few more impressive sights in the world than a Scotsman on the make.

Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.

To die will be an awfully big adventure.

We are all failures- at least, the best of us are.

We never understand how little we need in this world until we know the loss of it.

What is algebra, exactly? Is it one of those three-cornered things?

When a new baby laughs for the first time a new fairy is born, and as there are always new babies there are always new fairies.

Wise children always choose a mother who was a shocking flirt in her maiden days, and so had several offers before she accepted their fortunate papa.

You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by. Yes, but some of them are golden only because we let them slip.

Young boys should never be sent to bed. They always wake up a day older.


Categories: J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan


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Observation
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Published Monday, June 18, 2012 @ 11:37 PM EDT
Jun 18 2012

The law of unintended consequences: John McCain winning the nomination results in Bristol Palin having a reality show.
-Andy Borowitz


Categories: Andy Borowitz, Observations


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Their finest hour
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Published Monday, June 18, 2012 @ 12:02 AM EDT
Jun 18 2012

The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.

But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.

-Prime Minister Winston Churchill, June 18, 1940


Categories: History, Quotes of the day, Winston Churchill


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Quotes of the day
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Published Sunday, June 17, 2012 @ 8:15 AM EDT
Jun 17 2012

You know when you're young, you think your dad's Superman. Then you grow up and you realize he's just a regular guy who wears a cape.
-Dave Atell

All fathers are invisible in daytime; daytime is ruled by mothers and fathers come out at night. Darkness brings home fathers, with their real, unspeakable power. There is more to fathers than meets the eye.-
-Martin Atwood

By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he's wrong.-
-Charles Wadsworth

Diogenes struck the father when the son swore.-
-Robert Burton

Every generation revolts against its fathers and makes friends with its grandfathers.-
-Lewis Mumford

Every time I find a girl who can cook like my mother, she looks like my father.-
-Tony Randall

Father's Day is like Mother's Day, except the gift is cheaper.-
-Gerald F. Lieberman

Fatherhood is pretending the present you love the most is soap-on-a-rope.-
-Bill Cosby

Fathers should neither be seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.-
-Oscar Wilde

For years I thought my father was a hunchback. Turns out he didn't know suspenders were adjustable.-
-Bill Kelly

Genetics explains why you look like your father, and if you don't, why you should.-
-Unattributed

Hello. My name is Oedipus. You are my father. Prepare to die.-
-Nancy Lebovitz

I once complained to my father that I didn't seem to be able to do things the same way other people did. Dad's advice? “Margo, don't be a sheep. People hate sheep. They eat sheep.”-
-Margo Kaufman

I was kidnapped and they sent back a piece of my finger to my father. He said he wanted more proof.-
-Rodney Dangerfield

If a child looks like his father, that's heredity. If he looks like a neighbor, that's environment.-
-Unattributed

If I were a father and had a daughter who was seduced, I would not despair over her. But if I had a son who became a journalist and continued to remain one for five years, I would give him up.-
-Soren Kierkegaard

It is impossible to please all the world and one's father.-
-Jean de la Fontaine

Many of you know that I got my name, Barack, from my father. What you may not know is Barack is actually Swahili for “That One.” And I got my middle name from somebody who obviously didn't think I'd ever run for president.-
-Barack Obama

Most Americans aren't the sort of citizens the Founding Fathers expected; they are contented serfs. Far from being active critics of government, they assume that its might makes it right.-
-Joseph Sobran

My father always told me that all businessmen were sons of bitches, but I never believed it until now.-
-John F. Kennedy

My father had a profound influence on me. He was a lunatic.-
-Spike Milligan

My father was frightened of his father, I was frightened of my father, and I am damned well going to see to it that my children are frightened of me.-
-King George V

No man is responsible for his father. That is entirely his mother's affair.-
-Margaret Turnbull

Noble fathers have noble children.-
-Euripedes

She got her good looks from her father. He's a plastic surgeon.-
-Groucho Marx

Some men are Baptists, others Catholics. My father was an Oldsmobile man.-
-Jean Shepherd

The fundamental defect of fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them.-
-Bertrand Russell

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.-
-Theodore Hesburgh

The similarities between me and my father are different.-
-Dale Berra

The worst misfortune that can happen to an ordinary man is to have an extraordinary father.-
-Austin O'Malley

To be a successful father there's one absolute rule: when you have a kid, don't look at it for the first two years.-
-Ernest Hemingway


Categories: Father's Day, Quotes of the day


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Father's Day
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Published Sunday, June 17, 2012 @ 7:34 AM EDT
Jun 17 2012

It's become a bit of a tradition- the day before Father's Day, my kids take me to lunch and a movie. Last year we saw Green Lantern, which was ok, but nothing spectacular. Yesterday, we saw The Avengers.

I was not a Marvel fan as a kid, didn't (and don't) follow the Marvel universe, so I went into the show with no preconceptions, other than liking Robert Downey, Jr.'s first Iron Man film.

But I am a fan of Joss Whedon, specifically his Buffy The Vampire Slayer, so I had somewhat elevated hopes.

I wasn't disappointed.

Here are the four brief, almost throwaway scenes that made the whole thing worth the price of admission:

And what do you do after all the credits have rolled, and you've finished battling extraterrestrials and Norse demi-gods? Why, you stop off with your co-workers at the local restaurant for some shawarma:

The movie's made $1.5 billion worldwide so far. And they deserve every penny of it.

And thanks to my kiddos Doug and Sara, daughter-in-law Angela, and granddaughter Leanna for the cards, the lunch, the movie, and the always-scintillating conversation. You guys are the best.


Categories: Avengers, Joss Whedon, KGB Family, Movies, Video, YouTube


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Thingamablog error fix for Thingamablog users using Thingamablog
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Published Saturday, June 16, 2012 @ 7:30 AM EDT
Jun 16 2012

Regular readers, please excuse this content digression.

This is for Thingamablog users who are searching Google with terms like Thingamablog ftp error and Thingamablog ftp connection closed and similar Thingamablog error text. (Forgive me for the seemingly excessive use of the term Thingamablog, but it's one way to make certain that Thingamablog users looking for information on Thingamablog can find this article about Thingamablog. Did I mention Thingamablog? Sorry.)

I switched to Thingamablog when Blogger stopped supporting ftp.

As the Wikipedia entry on Thingamablog states:

"Thingamablog is a cross-platform, standalone blogging application. Unlike other blogging solutions, Thingamablog does not require a third-party blogging host, a cgi/php enabled web host, or a MySQL database. Static web pages are created by entry, by category and/or by date and are published by FTP, SFTP, or network access to a web server."

The key here is that Thingamablog produces flat ascii files that can be easily moved around and edited. Give me an ftp client and a rudimentary text editor and I can update this website from just about anywhere using free software available on virtually all operating systems and platforms.

I also don't have to worry about the web hosting company having the right version of MySQL or Wordpress or whatever installed. All I need is http and ftp protocol support, and I'm in business.

The downside is that Thingamablog now appears to be an orphaned application. All the interactive elements of the Thingamablog website- user forums, e-mail, bug reports- are now dead.

So when problems develop, you're pretty much on your own.

A few days ago, Thingamablog suddenly lost the ability to transfer files to my web site. Upon connecting to the host, the Java ftp client would immediately throw an error and report that the connection was closed by the host.

There was no way to determine the nature of the problem. It could have been something as simple as a minor change in a text string the web host's ftp server returned for status reporting. Whatever. The point was, I could no longer publish my website.

Faced with the prospect of migrating to yet another blogging platform, I decided instead to look for a workaround. Fortunately, I found one. Thingamablog users, here's what you do:

If you haven't done so already, copy the content of your entire website to your computer's local hard drive. Here's my directory structure; yours will be similar:

c:\KGB_Report_website\
                     \web\
                     \archives\
                     \js\
                     \media\

Based on this structure, go to "General Options" in Thingamablog's "Configure" menu and change your Location options to:

Base Path:   C:/KGB_Report_website/web/
Base URL:    http://www.kgbreport.com/
Archive URL: http://www.kgbreport.com/archives/
Media URL:   http://www.kgbreport.com/media

Now go to "Configure", "Publishing", and change the Transport type to Local.

Next time you publish, instead of ftping the files to your web host, Thingamablog will write them to your hard drive.

You can now use an external ftp client to upload the new files to your web host. I use FileZilla, which allows me to specify the transfer of files based on various parameters, including whether the local file was created later and/or has a different size than the file stored on my web host. A few mouse clicks, and the entire website is updated, with only changed files transferred to the host.

FileZilla has robust error handling and retry capability, so if something craps out, you don't have to republish; just re-initiate the upload.

I actually prefer this approach. It's faster and automatically creates a local mirror of my website structure.

Thingamablog users, e-mail me if you have any questions.

We now return to our regularly scheduled inanity.


Categories: KGB Blog News, Thingamablog


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Superman's ghost
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Published Saturday, June 16, 2012 @ 12:01 AM EDT
Jun 16 2012

George Reeves (January 5, 1914-June 16, 1959)

(YouTube video: Don McLean performing "Superman's Ghost")


Categories: Don McLean, George Reeves, Music, Superman, YouTube


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Where were you in '62?
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Published Friday, June 15, 2012 @ 12:19 AM EDT
Jun 15 2012

George Lucas' classic American Graffiti opened in New York City on June 15, 1973. Trivia: the high school teacher/dance chaperone was played by former KDKA Radio personality Terry McGovern, whom George Lucas credits with inventing the word "Wookiee."


Categories: Classic, George Lucas, Movies, Star Wars, Trivia of the day, YouTube


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Quote of the day
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Published Thursday, June 14, 2012 @ 3:08 PM EDT
Jun 14 2012



Categories: George Orwell, Quotes of the day


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Thingamablog's FTP is broken
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Published Thursday, June 14, 2012 @ 12:52 PM EDT
Jun 14 2012

At first I thought it was because of a Java update that I installed yesterday. But I system restored myself back to the pre-update state, and it appears that Thingamablog, the orphaned software I use to maintain this blog, can no longer automatically update the web site.

While inconvenient, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. The software's ftp client was notoriously slow. FileZilla makes quick work of transferring files up to kgbreport.com. It was just necessary to change the configuration files to update the blog "locally" (on my computer's clone of the website) instead of over the net.

So, it looks like I'm looking for another blogging platform. Again.

Suggestions welcome.


Categories: KGB Blog News


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Quote of the day
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Published Wednesday, June 13, 2012 @ 2:53 AM EDT
Jun 13 2012

You can't be happy with a woman who pronounces both d's in Wednesday.
-Peter de Vries


Categories: Quotes of the day


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Oops.
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Published Tuesday, June 12, 2012 @ 7:51 AM EDT
Jun 12 2012

The First Amendment was designed to protect offensive speech, because nobody ever tries to ban the other kind.
-Mike Godwin

Swear in public? Pay $20 fine in Mass. town


Categories: First Amendment


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Remembering De
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Published Monday, June 11, 2012 @ 7:12 AM EDT
Jun 11 2012

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

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."

(YouTube video: A Tribute to DeForest Kelley)


Categories: DeForest Kelley, Star Trek, Video, YouTube


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Unfair
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Published Sunday, June 10, 2012 @ 12:51 PM EDT
Jun 10 2012

The dog on the floor gets the air conditioning vent. The dog on the couch gets the fan. The cat contemplates the unfairness of it all.


Categories: Cats, Dogs


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Photo of the day
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Published Saturday, June 09, 2012 @ 12:18 PM EDT
Jun 09 2012


Categories: Animals, Dogs, Photo of the day


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Photo of the day
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Published Friday, June 08, 2012 @ 6:25 AM EDT
Jun 08 2012


Categories: Photo of the day


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Observations
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Published Thursday, June 07, 2012 @ 6:08 AM EDT
Jun 07 2012


Categories: Observations


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Quotes of the day
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Published Thursday, June 07, 2012 @ 4:52 AM EDT
Jun 07 2012

Ray Bradbury (August 22, 1920 - June 5, 2012):

Anything that's strange is no good to the average American. If it doesn't have Chicago plumbing, it's nonsense.

Anything you dream is fiction, and anything you accomplish is science, the whole history of mankind is nothing but science fiction.

Don't ever look at local television news again. It's all crap. There's no news, there's no information. It's negative, negative, negative. You look at that, and you think the world is coming to an end.

Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down.

I have three rules to live by: Get your work done. If that doesn't work, shut up and drink your gin, and when all else fails, run like hell.

I have two rules in life - to hell with it, whatever it is, and get your work done.

I wonder how many men, hiding their youngness, rise as I do, Saturday mornings, filled with the hope that Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam and Daffy Duck will be there waiting as our one true always and forever salvation?

If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.

If you can't read and write you can't think. Your thoughts are dispersed if you don't know how to read and write. You've got to be able to look at your thoughts on paper and discover what a fool you were.

If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none.

Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage.

Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces. Stand back from the centrifuge.

Ours is a culture and a time immensely rich in trash as it is in treasures.

People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it. Better yet, build it.

Read, read, read and put away computers. Forget the Internet, that's all crap.

Recreate the world in your own image and make it better for your having been here.

Science-fiction balances you on the cliff. Fantasy shoves you off.

Teachers are to inspire; librarians are to fulfill.

The human race likes to give itself airs. One good volcano can produce more greenhouse gases in a year that the human race has in its entire history.

The minute you get a religion you stop thinking. Believe in one thing too much and you have no room for new ideas.

There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.

There's no use going to school unless your final destination is the library.

To hell with more. I want better.

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

We have our Arts so we won't die of Truth.

We have too many cellphones. We've got too many Internets. We have got to get rid of those machines. We have too many machines now.

Why would you clone people when you can go to bed with them and make a baby? C'mon, it's stupid.

With schools turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word “intellectual,” of course, became the swear word it deserved to be.

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.


Categories: Quotes of the day, Ray Bradbury


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Robert F. Kennedy (November 20, 1925 – June 6, 1968)
(permalink)

Published Wednesday, June 06, 2012 @ 9:02 AM EDT
Jun 06 2012


Categories: Robert F. Kennedy


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The Transit of Venus
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Published Tuesday, June 05, 2012 @ 8:13 PM EDT
Jun 05 2012


Categories: Photo of the day


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Photo of the day
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Published Tuesday, June 05, 2012 @ 3:06 AM EDT
Jun 05 2012


Categories: Cats, Photo of the day


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Gentle on our minds
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Published Monday, June 04, 2012 @ 12:00 AM EDT
Jun 04 2012

John Hartford (December 30, 1937 – June 4, 2001):

(YouTube video: John Hartford performing "Gentle On My Mind")


Categories: John Hartford, Music, Video, YouTube


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Observation of the day
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Published Sunday, June 03, 2012 @ 6:43 PM EDT
Jun 03 2012


Categories: Observations


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Quotes of the day
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Published Sunday, June 03, 2012 @ 4:50 PM EDT
Jun 03 2012

Franz Kafka (July 3, 1883 – 3 June 3, 1924):

A belief is like a guillotine, just as heavy, just as light.

A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.

All knowledge, the totality of all questions and all answers is contained in the dog.

Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached.

Capitalism is a condition both of the world and of the soul.

Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.

Don't despair, not even over the fact that you don't despair.

Every man lives behind bars, which he carries within him.

Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.

Evil is whatever distracts.

I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.

In any fight between you and the world, back the world.

It's often safer to be in chains than to be free.

Religions get lost as people do.

Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.

The meaning of life is that it stops.

There is hope, but not for us.

We live in an age which is so possessed by demons, that soon we shall only be able to do goodness and justice in the deepest secrecy, as if it were a crime.

You are free and that is why you are lost.

Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.


Categories: Franz Kafka, Quotes of the day


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Karma
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Published Saturday, June 02, 2012 @ 12:58 PM EDT
Jun 02 2012

The CPAP machine arrived Wednesday, and the change it's made in my sleeping pattern is phenomenal. For the last three nights I've had 7-8 hours of uninterrupted sleep, not even waking to use the bathroom. That alone is amazing. I also awake feeling rested and alert. It's like skipping the first two hours of the day, which were dedicated primarily to caffeine consumption and lap drooling.

The downside is that those first two hours were still moderately productive. Since Thursday I've begun each day "in the hole," which is forcing me evaluate my daily routine for items I can jettison or perform more efficiently.

Which is why there was no entry here yesterday, and why this one is appearing in mid-afternoon.

Oh, well. Three steps forward, and all that...

"A man can only do what he can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day.
-Albert Schweitzer


Categories: KGB


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