Related Link » Five Easy Pieces Diner SceneJack Nicholson has a number of memorable movie scenes to his credit. This one is my favorite. It speaks to me. It tells me that Americans will put up with only so much shit, before they invoke the Eleventh Commandment.
Related Link » IAF Upgrading Its F-15 Fighters
“According to IDF journal BaMachaneh, the F-15I model is currently being fitted with two new systems – one called ‘Barad Pelada’ (‘Steel Hail’), and another named Lightning.”
— DoubleTapper
h/t DoubleTapperRelated Link » Betraying the PlanetRemember when the Nobel Prize meant something besides a big cash payout? Back in the day, you expected people like Albert Einstein to receive one, which he did, and one was impressed by the significance of the honor when J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist and technical director of the Manhattan Project, didn't.“So the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. In political terms, it was a remarkable achievement. But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases. And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.”
— By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: June 28, 2009
Related Link » Rating attractiveness: Study finds consensus among men, not womenIt's stories like these that tempt me to come out of retirement. I could do this kind of research too, you know. After all, I'M STILL BREATHING!“There is much more consensus among men about whom they find attractive than there is among women, according to a new study by Wake Forest University psychologist Dustin Wood. [...] Men's judgments of women's attractiveness were based primarily around physical features and they rated highly those who looked thin and seductive.”
— The study, co-authored by Claudia Brumbaugh of Queens College, appears in the June issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Related Link » Jon Stewart, War Criminals & The True Story of the Atomic Bombs|17min videoMany, nay, I dare say most historical falsehoods never stay dead. Among the most egregious examples, one may include: Holocaust denial; the workability of socialism; and, what I like to call, ignorance of the Eleventh Commandment — Though shalt not f*ck with America. The reasons such zombies continue to rear their ugly heads, seemingly with the emergence of every new group of pretentious intelligencia, probably include humanity's stubborn refusal to learn from mistakes of the past, humanity's reluctance to read history (or anything else, for that matter, except the tabloids at the checkout counter), and youth's inevitable arrogant belief that it knows and understands certain life-principles that countless generations have somehow overlooked.
Related Link » The normblog profile consolidated linksNorm's blog is one of my favorites, and I especially enjoy his "weekly Friday morning feature", the normblog profile. And my favorite question of Norm's standard set is what I refer to as the dinner question: "If you could have any three guests, past or present, to dinner who would they be?" To my mind, that question in particular offers the best insight to the mind of the interviewee. It highlights succinctly the value-set of the responder.“The normblog profile is a weekly Friday morning feature. A list of all the profiles to date, and the links to them, can be found here.”
— Norman Geras
Imagine the conversation: Moses (ethics, justice, investing); Lincoln (leadership, wisdom); Einstein (what it all means).In 2010, the United States will conduct its decennial census, as mandated by the U.S. Constitution (Article 1 Section 2). I think it would be valuable, enlightening, and just plain fun to include an optional version of Norm's dinner question in the census questionnaire. What better way to quantify our values as a Nation?
Related Link » Iran: Desperately Seeking YeltsinPerhaps Charles is right; he often is, in my opinion. But my suspicion is that what the Iranian demonstrators need more than their "Yeltsin" is their guns. A knife, much less a cell phone in a gun fight just doesn't cut it. It only invites suicide by thug or sniper.
“Iran today is a revolution in search of its Yeltsin. Without leadership, demonstrators will take to the street only so many times to face tear gas, batons and bullets. They need a leader like Boris Yeltsin: a former establishment figure with newly revolutionary credentials and legitimacy, who stands on a tank and gives the opposition direction by calling for the unthinkable -- the abolition of the old political order.”
— By Charles Krauthammer, Friday, June 26, 2009
Related Link » Waxman-Markey: Man-Made DisasterThe only thing uglier than Waxman-Markey is Waxman.
“Not since a misguided piece of legislation imposed tariffs that turned a recession into a depression has there been a piece of legislation as bad as Waxman-Markey. The 1,000-plus-page American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454) is being rushed to a vote by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi before anyone can seriously object to this economic suicide pact. It's what Janet Napolitano, secretary of Homeland Security, might call a ‘man-caused disaster’, a phrase she coined to replace the politically incorrect ‘terrorist attack’. But no terrorist could ever dream of inflicting as much damage as this bill.”
— By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, June 25, 2009
Representative Henry A. Waxman (D - CA)
Would you buy a used car from this guy?
Related Link » Male writing femaleI can only surmise that the author in question (Andrew Sean Greer) hadn't seen the movie "As Good As It Gets", because anyone who has seen it knows what it takes for a man to write women well:“I have one reservation, which I express tentatively since I'm not altogether sure whether it isn't due only to something in the eye of the beholder, namely, me. The Story of a Marriage is a first-person narration by the woman of the marriage in question, Pearlie. And from time to time as I was reading I had the strong impression that Greer's [the author's] prose was masculine - that this book could only have been written, as it in fact was, by a man.”
— Norman Geras
"I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability".Post #808 Not as Good as It Gets
Related Link » Researchers at NC State are working to solve a nearly century-old problem – what to do with those skimpy, derrière-exposing hospital gownsPerhaps it's immodest of me to notice, but last time I checked a patient's heart rate, administered an IV, or monitored the blood pressure, it did not require access to his or her rectum. Of course, such access is necessary for a colonoscopy, but that procedure ordinarily requires some unpleasant preparation the night before — hardly what could be considered to be an "easy access" necessity."This garment almost needs to be all things to all people," Lamar says. "We obviously want patients to feel comfortable during their hospital stay, but doctors and nurses still need to have easy access to check a patient's heart rate, administer an IV or monitor blood pressure."
— By Caroline M. Barnhill [h/t Craig Newmark]
Related Link » Midweek puzzleThe puzzle that Norm posed (via Marcus du Sautoy) happens to be equivalent to adding the sequence of numbers from 1 to 99. This, in turn, reminded me of a wonderful experience I had as a freshman at Cornell University in 1959.“At [a] party with 100 guests, everyone shakes hands [just once] with everyone else. How many handshakes take place?”
— Norman Geras
In a one-room schoolhouse, a teacher wanted to keep his younger students busy while he spent some time with a few of the oldest students. He told the youngsters to add up all the numbers from 1 to 99. When finished, each student was to stack his slate on the teacher's desk (the year was 1785). This would no doubt keep the youngsters busy for some time.Gauss supposedly visualized the problem as follows: He imagined writing the sequence 1 through 99 down one side of his slate. Then he imagined writing the sequence in reverse order down the other side. Next he observed that the addition of each pair of numbers in all 99 rows of numbers equaled 100. Hence, the two columns together yielded a grand total of 9900, which, however, was exactly twice the sum of one column. Thus, adding all the numbers 1 through 99 equaled 9900/2 equals 4950.
As the youngsters proceeded to add the numbers, the youngest student (the 8-year-old boy) just sat for a few minutes contemplating the assignment. Then he simply wrote the answer on his slate and placed it on the teacher's desk. After a longer period of time, all the other young students stacked their slates on top of the youngest student's slate.
When the teacher was finished with his older students, he examined the stack of slates on his desk. Of course, only the bottom slate had one number on it, and it was the only correct answer. It was then that the teacher realized he had a genius in his class. His name was Carl Friedrich Gauss, the Prince of Mathematicians.
Related Link » North Carolina Program Pays Girls a Dollar a Day Not to Get PregnantOnce again, ignorance and failure to learn from mistakes of the past rule the day in our social-engineering-minded society. Spend, spend, spend hard-earned money in a struggling economy, when a perfectly good and virtually free alternative is available.“Girls in the program attend 90-minute meetings every week at which they receive lessons in abstinence and the use of contraceptives — and they receive $7 every week they do not get pregnant. The money is deposited into a fund that's collectible when they enroll in college.”
— College Bound Sisters, a program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro that aims to keep 12- to 18-year-old girls in school and baby-free.
Related Link » Saving The RaptorYes indeed. Defending America should be job one. But there's a new sheriff in town; and his personal agenda is personal: bullshit America for four years so as to bullshit what's left of it for four more. Gates is not the sheriff; he is a sockpuppet, like all the other Secretaries, Czars, and assorted quislings who do The Obaminator's bidding. And the latter is the Kool-Aid Dispenser-in-Chief.
“[Defense Secretary Robert] Gates argues that wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown the need for such high-tech weapons are over. But not every potential enemy is armed only with an AK-47 and a copy of the Quran. Some are trying to shoot ballistic missiles at us.
[...]
Building the F-22 aids our economic as well as national security. Remember all those jobs President Obama wanted to create or save? At stake are America's continued air dominance and 95,000 highly paid and highly skilled jobs in 44 states.
Defending America should be job one.”
— By Investor's Business Daily
Internationally, on June 21, 2009, Greenland assumed self-determination with the responsibilities of self-government of judicial affairs, policing and its natural resources. Denmark maintains control of finances, foreign affairs and defense. It is a step towards full independence from Danish rule. Greenlandic became the official language of Greenland at the historic ceremony.
Related Link » NIH Funds $423,500 Study of Why Men Don't Like to Use CondomsAlthough I see nothing theoretically wrong with funding an important study such as the one proposed by the NIH, I've decided to take matters into my own hands, as it were, to get to the bottom of this issue and penetrate the obfuscation shielding the truth.“In what government watchdogs are calling a waste of taxpayer money, the National Institutes of Health is spending nearly half a million dollars to determine why men don't like to wear condoms during sex.”
Related Link » White House Press SecretaryWhat's it like to be a senior White House official and, simultaneously, a complete douchebag? Ask any Secretary of State. The Secretary of State, who happens to be the fourth in line to succeed to the Presidency, along with the Press Secretary, both have the unenviable task of constantly parroting and making excuses for the absurd statements and actions of their President, who, by definition of the Secretaries' job descriptions, must be treated as infallible. Mind you, they must treat the President not just infallible on matters of State, but strictly infallible on any and all issues (a concept that far exceeds the mind-boggling infallibility attributed to the Pope on Church issues only).“The White House Press Secretary is a senior White House official, whose primary responsibility is to act as spokesperson for the Administration. The current Press Secretary is Robert Gibbs, who assumed the role on January 20, 2009.”
— From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear TheBigHenry,Dear ConCon,
I voted for President Obama because he seemed like a nice man, he spoke so sincerely, and he promised to make the world a happy place. I just wanted everything to be Okey Dokey, but now I see that it's not that easy, you know? I mean, there is so much shit out there in the big bad world; and hopey dopey just doesn't seem to work the way The Obaminator promised, you know? So, what do I do now?
Signed,
“Confused and Concerned”
Related Link » Reflections on the Iranian Enigma[I seldom re-publish someone else's article in its entirety, but Professor Hanson's post is so persuasive to me that I wish to share it with my readers as a whole without further comment from me. — TheBigHenry]Thoughts Tonight on Iran
Everything is contingent on being liked, or rather worshipped. I was proud of Bush when Chavez trashed him, when Ahmadinejad blasted Bush, when Putin slurred Bush — and very worried when they began to court Obama whom they either saw as a patsy to be used or a friend — to be used. Years from now do we really think there will be some great revisionism and the world will come to love the ‘peacemaker’ Chamberlain or Baldwin, and despise the troublemaker Churchill?
- Why did we reject the Bush policy of non-engagement with a monster like Ahmadinejad, who oppressed his own and threatened nuclear destruction to Israel? Is it all that moral, or all that wise, or all that much in US realpolitik interests to apologize to a thug? Does it show solidarity with the Iranian people to court a nut? What is so smart in making Iran the center of our attention rather than the Maliki democratic government in Iraq? Hamas rather than democratic Israel? Is what we are now seeing in the streets of Iran proof of all the praise once heaped on theocratic “democratic” Iran by the likes of Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and the NY Times?
- Will someone please tell President Obama that when you send videos to Ahmadinejad, apologize for something that happened over a half-century ago, and ignore serial Iranian killing of Iraqi and American democrats in Iraq, you, well, send a message that implicitly you either approve of him — or are afraid of him? One of two things is happening in [Iran]: either a boasting, cocky Ahmadinejad rigged the election, without worry that anyone — much less the present US — would care. Or, if the election result is semi-accurate (I doubt it), he energized his base, by showing the rural believers that even much worshipped Barack Hussein Obama was courting their all-wise leader and de facto agreeing to the new Persian Islamic nuclear hegemony.
- So what constitutes Obama’s morality? Courting the Islamic street by distorting history? Being more critical of one’s own democratic open society than the autocratic Arab governments you seek to placate? Using your middle name abroad to court favor and separate yourself from America’s past, while insisting that those who invoke it at home are as illiberal as you are liberal in broadcasting it?
- Much of Iran wants what they see going on in Iraq. How odd that the ‘experts’ assured us that Bush had empowered Iran by removing his rival Saddam. Perhaps in the short term — but in the long term TV, radio, and osmosis from free Iraq is proving more destabilizing to the theocracy in Iran than are Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and shaped charged IEDs to Iraq.
- As Aristotle saw, amorality is as much an absence of moral judgment as it is a commission of sin. When Obama lavishes more attention on Chavez, Castro, Ortega, Ahmadinejad, or a Saudi royal than he does on our struggling democratic friends in Iraq, Israel, Columbia and eastern Europe, he sends a message: ‘I wish to be loved, adored, to be seen as absolutely even-handed, even more than I do to take risks for those of you who bravely risk even more by championing freedom and consensual government.’
- In Obama’s morally equivalent universe, when all leaders are alike, when there is no moral difference between nations, when a handful of classical texts that survived only in Arabic written by Muslims are equivalent to the entire transmission of classical learning through thousands of manuscripts in Europe, then there is no A or B, just AB, then there is no bad or good, no nothing really. Yes, he certainly is not a “Manichean” like Bush, who saw the world in moral absolutes. Yes, but he is certainly also a moral relativist, who cannot distinguish an Ahmadinejad from a Maliki, a Netanyahu from Abbas, a Chavez from an Uribe.
I think not.
Obama has applause for the moment, it is true, but for all our sakes, he better start thinking of respect from the ages.
— Victor Davis Hanson, June 14th, 2009 5:35 pm
Related Link » An extraordinary four monthsExtraordinary, indeed. O, that it were only to be four months instead of years, Norm.“‘Boy, it is a new day in Washington.’ Here [Obama's Quiet Fight Against Poverty].”
— Norman Geras
Related Link » European Left More Dangerous for Jews than European RightBefore the Battle of Stalingrad, the branding of Jew-hatred throughout Europe was decidedly symbolized by Germanic Nazism at the Fascistic right of the socio-political spectrum. After the Russian victory at Stalingrad, the ascendancy of the equal-opportunity mass-murdering Red Czar persuaded all elements of the socio-political spectrum that Jew-hatred was politically correct. Even some Jews, famously exemplified by the chess champion Bobby Fischer and the cunning linguist Noam Chomsky, joined in the Jew-hating euphoria currently sweeping all hatreds before it.“European Judeophobia often takes on new life forms such as anti-Semitic boycott campaigns and anti-Israel demonstrations, the growing intensity of which the European left not only overlooks or obscures but often actively supports. It is transmitted by Europe’s left-leaning mass media, which not only believes that the systematic demonization of Israel promotes the postmodern and postnational ideological worldview of Europe’s governing class, but also appeases the wrath of Europe’s Muslim immigrants, lest they expose the myth of European socialist multicultural utopia.”
— Soeren Kern, June 12, 2009
John Donald ("Don" or "Donnie") Budge (June 13, 1915 – January 26, 2000) was an American tennis champion who was a World No. 1 player for five years, first as an amateur and then as a professional. He is most famous as the first man to win in a single year the four tournaments that comprise the Grand Slam of tennis. Budge was considered to have the best backhand in the history of tennis, at least until the emergence of Ken Rosewall in the 1950s and 1960s.
Related Link » Invented equivalenceI think my friend Norm protests a bit much. Nobody can know the mind of The Obaminator, but I don't believe that is particularly pertinent in these circumstances. "Equivalence", moral or otherwise, is in the mind of the "exegesist". Norm assumes the role of "factotum of facts" in asserting, "The fact is that Obama drew no equivalence."“The fact is that Obama drew no equivalence and, for any listener or reader not actively looking for trouble, he didn't even appear to. There is no respectable rule of exegesis according to which material in adjacent paragraphs must be there in the shape of a moral equivalence and, other than 'subliminal', Melanie gives not one word in support of her contention that these two paragraphs had the function for Obama of proposing one.”
— Norman Geras
Related Link » Wright: Jews blocking him from W.H.The Jews are back! Now that Bush (the evil one) has been relegated to the dustbin of blameworthy scapegoats for whatever ails the hate mongers among us, the Jews rule the Anointed One, as in biblical days. We are back in the familiar comfort zone.“Asked if he had spoken to the president, Wright said: ‘Them Jews aren't going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter that he'll talk to me in five years when he's a lame duck, or in eight years when he's out of office. ... They will not let him to talk to somebody who calls a spade what it is. ... I said from the beginning: He's a politician; I'm a pastor. He's got to do what politicians do.’”
— President Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright
Related Link » Obama Hovers From on HighSome think The Obaminator is God. Many think he's the Messiah. As the POTUS, he surely is someone "of weight". The problem in his case is that his weight is concentrated in his ego.“On the one hand, there certainly is some American university where the women's softball team has received insufficient Title IX funds -- while, on the other hand, Saudi women showing ankle are beaten in the street, Afghan school girls have acid thrown in their faces, and Iranian women are publicly stoned to death for adultery. (Gays, as well -- but then again we have Prop 8.) We all have our shortcomings, our national foibles. Who's to judge? That's the problem with Obama's transcultural evenhandedness. It gives the veneer of professorial sophistication to the most simple-minded observation: Of course there are rights and wrongs in all human affairs. Our species is a fallen one. But that doesn't mean that these rights and wrongs are of equal weight.”
— Charles Krauthammer“I'll come down talk to you later. I'm "of weight".”
— Det. Frank Keller (Al Pacino) in "Sea of Love" (1989)
Related Link » DHS Report Warned Against Anti-Semitic ViolenceHalf-truths; lies; and damn lies. Yes, DHS warned about conditions for a resurgence in radicalization, among other warnings. But the backlash directed at Napolitano concerned the offensive insinuations of the report that stigmatized our veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. And Napolitano herself apologized for these vile insinuations.“In April, the Department of Homeland Security issued a draft memorandum warning that the current economic and political landscape created dangerously ripe conditions for a resurgence in radicalization and extremist recruitment. In it, federal officials warned specifically about an upswing of anti-Semitic behavior. [...] When the 10-page DHS memorandum was made public, however, warnings like these largely took the back seat to charges that the department had been politically motivated in its assessments and writings. Indeed, a wide swath of voices in the conservative movement -- from Rush Limbaugh to RNC Chairman Michael Steele -- lashed out at DHS Secretary Napolitano over what they deemed an anti-Republican report.”
— Sam Stein, a Political Reporter at the Huffington Post
Related Link » How do you greet an extraterrestrial?In a previous post, I estimated that it would take, at a minimum, about 1½ millennia for aliens to reach us (in person) after receiving a greeting from us. For that reason, I would broadcast a greeting with reckless abandon and irony. Here are a few sample greetings off the top of my head:
“The Bay Area-based SETI Institute, dedicated to the search for alien life, is asking space enthusiasts around the world to think about what we should say if we ever get a cosmic phone call.”
— By John Johnson Jr., June 7, 2009
h/t TheoThere is nothing wrong with hope and change, so long as the former is based on reason and the latter is based on common sense. The Tooth Fairy is fine for little kids with baby teeth. Reason, common sense, and, most importantly, personal accountability is for adults getting longer in the tooth.
“‘In sum,’ Daniels said, ‘our parents scrimped and saved to provide us a better living standard than theirs. We borrowed and splurged ... It's been a blast. Good luck cleaning up after us.’ [...] ‘Please, be judgmental,’ Daniels continued. ‘As free people, we agree to tolerate any conduct that does no harm to others, but we should not be coerced into condoning it. Selfishness and irresponsibility in business, personal finances or in family life are deserving of your disapproval. Go ahead and stigmatize them.’”
— Peter Robinson, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and contributor to RobinsonandLong.com, writes a weekly column for Forbes.
Shamefully borrowed (but NOT stolen!) from McSweeney's Internet Tendency. Explanations for the txt-impaired are available here and here. Finally, the smiley :-X means "big wet kiss" (what did you think it meant, you perv?).M, pls rite on tabs & giv 2 ppl.
- no1 b4 me. srsly.
- dnt wrshp pix/idols
- no omg's
- no wrk on w/end (sat 4 now; sun l8r)
- pos ok - ur m&d r cool
- dnt kill ppl
- :-X only w/ m8
- dnt steal
- dnt lie re: bf
- dnt ogle ur bf's m8. or ox. or dnkey. myob.
ttyl, JHWH.
ps. wwjd?
— by Jamie Quatro
“As most of you know, I was born Jewish. I was born in the former USSR, so I understand with more clarity than most what it's like to be powerless, at the mercy of a tyrannical government, without recourse ... without freedom ... without the right to fight against authoritarian dregs of sub-humanity whose only goal is to mask their own mediocrity at your expense and to gain power by trampling you merely because they can.What she said.
That's why when I read this kind of Orwellian doublespeak [quoted between the lines, below], I get nauseated and want to beat these festering douchebags to a bloody pulp, because I know that no common sense will work on them. Ever.PARENTAL WARNING: strong language ahead ...
The American Jewish Committee filed an amicus brief with the United States Supreme Court today, asserting that the District of Columbia’s strict gun control laws do not offend the Constitution. The case, D.C. v. Heller, will be the first gun control case before the Supreme Court in sixty eight years.
“Gun control laws safeguard liberty, rather then restrict it,” said AJC General Counsel Jeffrey Sinensky. “Democracy can only flourish when the government is permitted to protect its citizens from harm.”
Open Letter to the American Jewish Committee:
You ignorant, clueless sheep! You are an embarrassment to every single Jew who fought and died in the Warsaw Ghetto! You are a pathetic humiliation to the thousands of Jews who laid down their lives to protect their land and loved ones against nations and individuals that wanted to destroy them! You are rotten, fetid boils on the ass of freedom, and the fact that you would spew such loathsome rubbish in the name of a principle you obviously don't understand, and that you have twisted and perverted to suit your repulsive purposes, shows you to be not only fools, but obtuse, witless lemmings who have no respect for your heritage or history.”
— Nicki Fellenzer
“Nuclear Proliferation: In the torrent of analysis of the president's Muslim speech, a major policy shift went largely unnoticed. We now endorse equal opportunity regarding what countries can have atomic weapons. President Obama's Cairo University address to the world's Muslims on Thursday squandered a historic opportunity that perhaps only a president with a Muslim father and a Muslim name could have utilized: effectively rallying the Islamic world against Iran as it pursues nuclear weapons. Instead, he did pretty much the opposite, declaring that ‘no single nation should pick and choose which nation holds nuclear weapons.’ This is multilateralism taken to its reductio ad absurdum.”As I fully anticipated, The Obaminator has granted Iran, and by extension the terrorists that Iran supports and exports, carte blanche to pursue nuclear weapons without interference from the United States. With one verbal flourish in the midst of the anti-West world, the darling of the Liberal Left has completely undermined more than half a century of American effort "to protect ourselves and the rest of the world from the danger of total destruction", as President Truman declared at the dawn of atomic weapons.
[emphasis added]
— Investor's Business Daily
h/t Theo
h/t Theo
h/t Theo"Cogito, ergo sum [I think, therefore I am]." — René Descartes
"I am, therefore timshel [I may]." — TheBigHenryI ascribe significant value to structure in my life. Perhaps that is a manifestation of my OCD persuasion. Be that as it may, I think of my life having consisted of several stages so far:
“Do you ever wonder about the folks that go all out to protest in favor of the terrorists in Gitmo? Time after time you will see that they are not merely pacifists, but downright hateful and venomous cretins that support the mass extermination of not just Israelis but all Jews.”
“Yes, on every question, including the question we asked about Latina women, she just knocked it out of the park.”{link » Sonia Sotomayor In Context}
— Senator Schumer
“In Washington, the clearer a statement is, the more certain it is to be followed by a "clarification" when people realize what was said. The clearly racist comments made by Judge Sonia Sotomayor on the Berkeley campus in 2001 have forced the spinmasters to resort to their last-ditch excuse, that it was "taken out of context." If that line is used during Judge Sotomayor's Senate confirmation hearings, someone should ask her to explain just what those words mean when taken in context. What could such statements possibly mean — in any context — other than the new and fashionable racism of our time, rather than the old-fashioned racism of earlier times? Racism has never done this country any good, and it needs to be fought against, not put under new management for different groups.”Consider the arrogance of Chuck Schumer, in or out of context. This is the same Phuck who declared to the "chattering class" that "the American people really don't care" about pork-laden spending.
— Thomas Sowell
“I readily admit that the mass of the citizens sincerely wish to promote the welfare of the country; nay, more, I even grant that the lower classes mix fewer considerations of personal interest with their patriotism than the higher orders; but it is always more or less difficult for them to discern the best means of attaining the end which they sincerely desire. Long and patient observation and much acquired knowledge are requisite to form a just estimate of the character of a single individual. Men of the greatest genius often fail to do it, and can it be supposed that the common people will always succeed? The people have neither the time nor the means for an investigation of this kind. Their conclusions are hastily formed from a superficial inspection of the more prominent features of a question. Hence it often happens that mountebanks of all sorts are able to please the people, while their truest friends frequently fail to gain their confidence.”Post #771 Of Mountebanks and Narcissistic Metrosexuals
— Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, p. 201.
