arcana imperii :: the book of j

Quotation of the Day

# posted by j @ 12:04 et / |

«Impeach Trump. Save America.»

Impeaching a president is the most consequential thing our Congress can do — other than declaring war. So, after great consideration, I say: President Trump not only should be impeached, he must be impeached if America’s democracy is to remain intact.

Why? Because the facts here are not in doubt — indeed Trump’s allies in the media and Congress have largely given up disputing them: Trump held up congressionally directed taxpayer funding to strengthen Ukraine’s military against Russia until the new Ukrainian president agreed to do what Trump called a “favor” — announce that Ukraine was investigating Trump’s most likely opponent in the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden, and his son, who was involved with a Ukrainian gas company. Trump apparently thought that just the announcement of such an investigation would kill Biden’s campaign in its crib.

Generally speaking, I believe presidents should be elected and removed by the voters at the polls. But when I hear Trump defenders scream, “Impeachment subverts the will of the people,” I say: “Really? What the hell do you think Trump was doing in Ukraine?” He was subverting the will of the people by scheming to use our tax dollars to knock out his most feared opponent in the coming election — rather than trusting voters to do that.

The only reason the plot was aborted was that a whistle-blower from the intelligence community drew attention to the president’s plan, forcing him to release the money to Ukraine — moments before his shakedown exploded into public view. Trump was like a bank robber with a gun to a teller’s head, who suddenly heard the police sirens approaching and ran off before he could stash the money in his bag.

So while the founders wanted to reserve removal of a president for elections by the people, they understood that there could be situations when removing a president might be necessary to protect and preserve our very framework for holding free and fair elections. That framework is the Constitution and the rule of law — and this is one of those situations.

If we say, as Republicans do, that what Trump did is not an impeachable offense, we are telling ourselves and every future president that — in direct contradiction of what the founders wrote in the Constitution — it is O.K. to enlist a foreign power to tilt the election your way. Can you imagine how much money candidates could raise from Saudi Arabia or China to tilt a future election their way, or how many cyberwarriors they could enlist from Russia or Iran to create fake news, suppress voting or spur outrage?

The integrity of our elections would be shattered, and we would never again have a legitimate president — a president, who, whether or not you liked him or her, was at least seen as legitimately elected. That would be a prescription for permanent political chaos, as no future presidents’ authority would be respected if they were elected on the basis of foreign interference.

But that is what Republicans are courting by blindly defending Trump’s indefensible enlistment of Ukraine’s help to take down Biden and by echoing Trump’s conspiracy theory — originated by Russian agents — that it was Ukraine that hacked the Democratic National Committee’s emails in 2016, not Russia. They also argue that the D.N.C.’s server was shipped off to Ukraine before the F.B.I. could look at it.

This is right out of “The Twilight Zone.”

Folks, can you imagine what Russia’s President Putin is saying to himself today? “I can’t believe my luck! I not only got Trump to parrot my conspiracy theories, I got his whole party to do it! And for free! Who ever thought Americans would so easily sell out their own Constitution for one man? My God, I have Russian lawmakers in my own Parliament who’d quit before doing that. But it proves my point: America is no different from Russia, so spare me the lectures.”

If Congress were to do what Republicans demand — forgo impeaching this president for enlisting a foreign power to get him elected, after he refused to hand over any of the documents that Congress had requested and blocked all of his key aides who knew what happened from testifying — we would be saying that a president is henceforth above the law.

We would be saying that we no longer have three coequal branches of government. We would be saying that we no longer have a separation of powers.

We would be saying that our president is now a king.

If we do that, the America you studied in history class, the America you grew up knowing and loving, and the America that the rest of the world has so long admired as a beacon of democracy and justice will be no more. Oh, how we will miss it when it’s gone.

At a time when virtually every Republican lawmaker and Fox News have chosen to prostitute themselves for Trump, I do see one glimmer of hope hiding in plain sight.

As The Times reported last Saturday, incumbent presidents almost always benefit from a strong economy, and right now job growth is robust and average hourly earnings are up — but Trump’s poll numbers are not: “Instead of enjoying anything close to overwhelming popularity because of the economy, Mr. Trump’s national approval rating has remained low, dropping about two percentage points to 41 percent since the Ukraine story broke.’’

“Stock Markets Up Record Numbers,” Trump tweeted on Friday, adding, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Yes, it’s the economy, stupid — when you have a president who is not violating his oath to preserve and protect the Constitution. But if you read today’s poll numbers alongside the economy numbers, it turns out that more than a few Americans are saying, “It’s the Constitution, stupid — and unlike you, Mr. Trump, we value some things more than money.”

We care about having a president who does not lie 20 times a day. We care about having a president who does not demean his opponents and mock their physical appearance. We care about having a president who does not take the word of Russia’s president over that of his own intelligence services. We care about having a president who is not caught up in conspiracy theories, which he then makes everyone around him chase. We care about having a president who values our nonpartisan public servants. We care about having a president who wants to be the president of the whole country, not just his base.

And most of all, we care about having a president who takes seriously his oath to preserve and protect our Constitution. Without that, we will end up one day morally and financially bankrupt. How many Americans will still feel that way on Election Day remains to be seen and will also depend on the Democrats’ alternative. But for now, it’s good to know that it’s a significant number — that despite three years of Donald Trump’s presidency, the country still has a civic pulse.

Labels: #Anti-Democratic, #Civil Liberties, #Commentary, #Democracy, #Elections, #Impeachment, #ImpeachTrump, #International Affairs, #Opinion, #Thomas L Friedman, #TreasonTrump, #Trump, #US Congress, #US politics

# posted by j @ 19:24 et / |

Musical Marvels

Labels: Effects of Music, Help, Human Achievement, Music, Music Therapy, Science

# posted by j @ 17:51 et / |

Missing Link Found

The USA Today reports that a study has found that fossils discovered in South Africa are the missing link in human evolution.

«Scientists writing in the journal PaleoAnthropology found that the species is the bridge between the 3-million-year-old "Lucy" or Australopithecus afarensis and the "handy man" Homo habilis, which used tools between 1.5 and 2.1 million years ago.»

Labels: #evolution #science #missinglink #paleoanthropology #anthropology #evolutionisafact

# posted by j @ 23:03 et / |

A Better Seat Assignment, Please

I had to drive at 05:58 yesterday morning from the Inter Continental Hotel Cleveland to the John Glenn Columbus International Airport to catch a flight to DC. Because I had to get to DC to hear extraordinary German baritone, Benjamin Appl's last US Debut Tour Recital at the a Philips Collection's Music Room, Sunday, 20 January 2019 at 16:00. Accompanied by none other than brilliant pianist, James Baillieu.

At the gate I met an incredible young woman to whom I found myself telling stories about Benjamin and James, about the recent and untimely passing of my beloved Mother and about the Christians with whom I had spent part of my visit to Israel in the Autumn of 2018. We were laughing within minutes and also establishing a quick bond between us. It's really amazing when this happens and her telling me that she was heading to Charlotte didn't faze me at all.

As soon as I noticed the check-in desk open I requested a better seat assignment from the agent and my wish was granted.

This new friend and I marched down a ramp and into our aeroplane to in time find out that someone else had been assigned to my seat. I checked my boarding pass and it had her name on it! And I was already upset enough because soon after I had accommodated myself in my seat a man rushed in complaining about purses and backpacks being inside overhead compartments and not under the seat. I invited him to check his bloody luggage in the hold, asked him to stop complaining and told him that my backpack is a bsckback and not an oversize purse and that my winter coat was not going to travel under my seat, space which was already occupied by the Intercontinental's Continental Breakfast which I intended to eat on the plane.

A steward thought about the boarding passes for a moment, checked them and realised that I had boarded a flight to Charlotte! Yes, in North Carolina! So the luggage, coat and food grabbing started along with the running which got me into an aeroplane bound for DC, but in bloody seat 19D.

This all happened because I had to meet Charmaine. Praise be!

Labels: American Airlines, Benjamin Appl, Charmaine, Cleveland, DC, Driving, Flying, Harper, James Baillieu, Snow Storm, The Inter Continental Hotel, The Philips Collection, Washington

# posted by j @ 12:44 et / |

Spirit Airline Ranks Higher?

A cording to Forbes, «Spirit» pulls ahead of American and United in new airline rankings. Not that this would get me to fly them. First, there's the issue of the cost of hand or hold on luggage and checked luggage and other fees and whether I'd fly and not accumulate additional mileage on my favourite airline loyalty programme for a less expensive option.

Labels: Airlines, American Airlines, Flying Costs, Rankings, Spirit Airlines, United Airlines, US Economics, Who's better

# posted by j @ 12:11 et / |

Today's Google Doodle

Labels: Art, Cartoon, Google Doodle, Humanitarian, Kurt Masur, Music, New York Philharmonic, Philanthropy

# posted by j @ 20:10 et / |

Quotation of the Week

Labels: American Society, Crisis, Democrats, Helsinki, Politics, Putin, Republicans, TreasonSummit, Trump, TrumpTreason, US Congress, US Politics

# posted by j @ 19:19 et / |

Sam Harris: The ‘Salon’ Interview

Labels: Atheism, Christianity, Current Events, Extremism, History, ISIS, Islam, Israel, Jihad, Malala, Must-read, Palestine, Regressive Left, Religion, Sam Harris, Taliban, Terrorism, War

# posted by j @ 17:29 et / |

Quotation of the Week

Labels: Celebration, Christmas, December, Holiday Greetings, Holidays, quotations

# posted by j @ 17:10 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«Denken ist schwer, darum urteilen die meisten.»
~Carl Gustav Jung

Labels: Jung, Life, Prejudice, quotations

# posted by j @ 18:32 et / |

¡Feliz Día de Reyes!

Labels: Día de Reyes, Holiday Greetings, Holidays, Tradition

# posted by j @ 18:27 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«Truth exists; only lies are invented.»
~Georges Braque

Labels: Atheism, Georges Braque, Life, quotations, Religion, Truth

# posted by j @ 17:10 et / |

Labels: Christmas, Holiday Greetings, Holidays, Language, New Year

# posted by j @ 19:41 et / |

Quotation of the Week

Labels: Bukowsky, Idiocy, Intelligence, Life, quotations, Reason

# posted by j @ 17:55 et / |

Labels: Economics, Miners, Politics, Shootings, South Africa, Strike

# posted by j @ 01:12 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«Aut viam inveniam aut faciam.»
(I will either find a way or make one.)
~Hannibal

Labels: Attitude, Hannibal, Latin, Life, Purpose, quotations

# posted by j @ 01:25 et / |

Behold the Hand

Labels: Art, Attitude, Borsa, Empowerment, Life, Maurizio Cattlelan, Middle Finger, Sculpture

# posted by j @ 01:20 et / |

Labels: Abortion, Rape, Republicans, Science, The Media, US Congress, US Politics

# posted by j @ 18:30 et / |

Quotation of the Week

Labels: Life, Literature, Oscar Wilde, quotations

# posted by j @ 15:35 et / |

Happy Birthday America 2012

Labels: America, Fourth of July, Holiday Greetings, Holidays, Independence Day, Patriotism, The Stars and Stripes, The Statue of Liberty, The United States of America

# posted by j @ 14:58 et / |

Who Really Matters in Life

Labels: Assertiveness, Attitude, Family, Friendship, Life, Love, Recovery

# posted by j @ 17:21 et / |

A Great Day for America

Labels: Boehner, Democrats, Healthcare, Mitt Romney, Obamacare, President Barack Obama, Republicans, The US Congress, US Politics

# posted by j @ 13:18 et / |

Know Your Meme

Labels: Attitude, Empowerment, Life, Pride, Recovery, Strength, The Wanted

# posted by j @ 14:08 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.» ~Edmund Burke

Labels: Help, Life, Mistakes, quotations

# posted by j @ 14:16 et / |

Keep Calm and...

Labels: British, Humour, Keep Calm and..., Life

# posted by j @ 20:40 et / |

Stand Back

Labels: Attitude, Empowerment, Get Over It, Life, Recovery

# posted by j @ 20:20 et / |

Labels: Body Donation, Celebration, Death, Fatherhood, Grieving, In Memoriam, Life, Medicine, Mourning, Obituary, Organ Donation

# posted by j @ 15:30 et / |

Ash Wednesday 2012

Labels: Ash Wednesday, Holiday Greetings, Holidays

# posted by j @ 21:29 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«We do not see what we love, but we love in the hope of confirming the illusion that we are indeed seeing anthing at all.»
~Paul de Man

Labels: Love, quotations

# posted by j @ 17:21 et / |

BLACKOUT: OPPOSE SOPA and PIPA

Labels: Blacklist, Censorship, Freedom of Information, Law, PIPA, Politics, Protest, SOPA

# posted by j @ 10:56 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«It may be that the old astrologers had the truth exactly reversed, when they believed that the stars controlled the destinies of men. The time may come when men control the destinies of stars.»
~Arthur C Clarke, First on the Moon, 1970

Labels: Human Achievement, quotations, Science

# posted by j @ 10:46 et / |

¡Feliz Día de Reyes!

Labels: 2012, Epiphany, Holiday Greetings, Holidays, Reyes Magos, Three Kings Day

# posted by j @ 10:42 et / |

Here's to 2012 CE

Labels: 2012, Holiday Greetings, Holidays, New Year

# posted by j @ 00:28 et / |

31 December 2011

Labels: Holiday Greetings, New Year

# posted by j @ 15:36 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice.
Then he made school boards.»
~Mark Twain

Labels: Education, quotations, Religion

# posted by j @ 17:53 et / |

It's Time To Kill The "Robin Hood" Myth

If you were to judge by the rhetoric, you might think that Paul Ryan’s plan for reducing the federal deficit slashed the government’s budget by 90%, and funded the killing of kittens to boot. E.J. Dionne, for instance, calls it “radical,” “irresponsible,” and “extreme,” and asks, is this “the end of progressive government?” The truth is that Ryan actually proposes increasing government spending in the coming years–just at a lower rate than current projections. So why are Ryan’s critics so up in arms?

Because Ryan’s plan dares to touch (albeit, merely to scratch) the untouchable entitlement state. Ryan’s plan would, among other things, trim and reorganize Medicare and Medicaid and reduce federal support for education. To the plan’s critics, this amounts to “reverse-Robin Hood redistribution,” as former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Blinder put it. “[A]bout two-thirds of Mr. Ryan’s so-called courageous budget cuts would come from programs serving low- and moderate-income Americans, while the rich would gain from copious tax cuts.”

The “reverse-Robin Hood” line suggests that Ryan’s plan robs from “the poor” and gives to “the rich.” But cutting entitlements is not robbery–and cutting taxes isn’t a gift.

Entitlements are essentially government handouts: the government takes money from some people in order to finance other people’s retirements, doctor’s visits, and whatever else the government deems worthy. They are unearned benefits. It is shameful that in a civilized society we have to say this, but getting less loot is not the same thing as being robbed.

A tax cut, meanwhile, is not a government handout–it is a reduction of how much of your income the government takes. Whether you’re a millionaire, billionaire, or an ambitious stock boy, a tax cut means you get to keep more of what you earn.

In this context, consider president Obama’s recent budget speech, in which he criticized Ryan’s plan for implying that “even though we can’t afford to care for seniors and poor children, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy.” When Obama speaks of what “we” can afford, he is obviously smuggling in the premise that all wealth rightfully belongs to society and that the government–as society’s representative–will dole out that wealth as it sees fit.

We reject that premise. On our view, you earned your wealth and it belongs to you, and no politician has any business talking about how much of your money he can “afford” to let you keep. What is true is that government is running deficits. It is spending (and has promised to spend) much more than it is taking in through taxes. Much of that spending, Obama admitted, is going toward entitlements.

What, then, did Obama propose as his solution to this spending binge? According to the president, the solution can’t be to stop doling out entitlement checks. That would be “abandon[ing] the fundamental commitment this country has kept for generations.” Instead, we must raise taxes on productive American citizens. (What about the Founders’ view that America’s “fundamental commitment” was to protect every individual’s inalienable rights, including his right to the fruits of his own labor? Obama didn’t say.)

The message was plain: It is necessary and perhaps noble to deprive a person of what he has earned, but it would be morally monstrous to deprive a person of the unearned. You created wealth? Big deal. You have a need you can’t fulfill? You have a right that nothing on earth can supersede.

It is fitting that those pushing this doctrine should invoke Robin Hood. When people hail the man who “robbed from the rich and gave to the poor,” it is normally on the grounds that the need of Robin Hood’s beneficiaries justified the looting of his victims. Stealing is wrong–if you’re serving your own “greed.” But if you’re serving others’ need? Anything goes.

It is also fitting that at the same time the debate over entitlements was going on, Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged was jetting to the top of the Amazon bestseller list. In Rand’s novel, the mysterious Ragnar Danneskjöld declares, “I’m after a man whom I want to destroy. He died many centuries ago, but until the last trace of him is wiped out of men’s minds, we will not have a decent world to live in... Robin Hood.”

According to Danneskjöld, Robin Hood “is held to be the first man who assumed a halo of virtue by practicing charity with wealth which he did not own... He is the man who became the symbol of the idea that need, not achievement, is the source of rights, that we don’t have to produce, only to want, that the earned does not belong to us, but the unearned does.”

This is why, contrary to the rhetoric, the “cuts” proposed by Republicans have been puny to non-existent: the Republicans share the Robin Hood morality. However much they decry taxes, however much they recognize that entitlements are leading us toward bankruptcy à la Greece, they agree that need does entitle people to others’ wealth. And so Paul Ryan and all the other Republicans hasten to assure the world that they would never be so cruel as to cut entitlement redistribution schemes: their only goal is to save them. Their message is: Obama’s goals are noble; only his means are open to criticism.

Instead of ducking charges of “reverse-Robin Hood,” defenders of limited government should follow Danneskjöld’s example–they should fight with full moral confidence against any scheme to take earnings from some in order to lavish others with the unearned.

Robin Hood, rest in peace.

Labels: Democrats, Economics, Entitlements, Forbes, Mythology, Obama, Obama's Presidency, Objectivism, Republicans, Robin Hood, US Congress, US Economics, US Politics

# posted by j @ 17:47 et / |

Holiday Laughter

Labels: Christmas, Holidays, Humour

# posted by j @ 20:06 et / |

Happy Holidays to all!

Labels: Christmas, Holiday Greetings, Holidays, Language, New Year

# posted by j @ 20:02 et / |

Happy Winter Solstice 2011!

Labels: Holiday Greetings, Holidays

# posted by j @ 21:25 et / |

NANDO'S Advert pulled in South Africa

Labels: Advertising, Censorship, NANDO, South Africa

# posted by j @ 15:19 et / |

WORLD AIDS DAY 2011

Labels: AIDS, Holiday Greetings, Holidays

# posted by j @ 17:50 et / |

Renée Fleming Returns in «Rodelinda»

Labels: Metropolitan Opera, Music, Opera, Renée Fleming, Rodelinda

# posted by j @ 16:13 et / |

STOP THE WORLD: I'M OUT OF COFFEE!

Labels: Coffee, Life, Products

# posted by j @ 21:37 et / |

Happy Hallowe'en 2011!

Labels: Halloween, Holiday Greetings, Holidays

# posted by j @ 19:33 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.»
~Abraham Lincoln

Labels: quotations

# posted by j @ 13:04 et / |

Amy Winehouse death: Alcohol Poisoning

Labels: Alcohol, Amy Winehouse, Cause of death, Music

# posted by j @ 14:08 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity.»
~Christopher Morley

Labels: quotations

# posted by j @ 12:47 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«Show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged an hour!»
~Taken from: Measure for Measure

Labels: quotations

# posted by j @ 20:27 et / |

12 October: Fiesta Nacional

Labels: Holidays

# posted by j @ 13:32 et / |

Op-Ed: Obama 'Devastating' For Civil Liberties

«President Obama is a perfect nightmare when it comes to civil liberties. He not only adopted most of President Bush's policies in the civil liberties areas when it comes to terrorism, but he actually expanded on them. He outdid George Bush.

And they range. His position on torture and refusing to have people investigated or prosecuted for torture, on privacy lawsuits. He pushed aggressively for the dismissal of dozens of lawsuits brought by private interest organizations. He's for immunity for people who engaged in warrantless surveillance. He has fought standing for people even to be able to get courts to review his programs, much like George Bush. He kept military tribunals and the authority to make the discretionary choice of sending some people to a real court, some people to a military tribunal. He has asserted the right to kill U.S. citizens based solely on his own discretion, that he believes them to be a threat to the country.

His administration has, once again, as with the Bush administration, cited secret law, that - and including a case of assassinating citizens - a law that we're not allowed to see, but we have to trust them.»

Labels: Civil Liberties, Commentary, Obama's Presidency, Politics

# posted by j @ 00:47 et / |

Obama has decimated the progressive cause. Would he do it again?

Labels: Commentary, Failure, Obama, Politics, Wall Street

# posted by j @ 14:09 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«To understand nothing takes time.»
~Zen saying

Labels: quotations, Zen

# posted by j @ 01:09 et / |

Mark Rutstein from DC: A BULLY

«You are a shallow cowardly hind, and you lie.»
~Taken from: Henry IV, part I

Labels: 30 Degrees, Cobalt, Cyberbully, Facebook, Level One, Mark Rutstein, Real Estate, Washington DC

# posted by j @ 12:52 et / |

In Memoriam ~ 11 September 2011

Labels: Memorial

# posted by j @ 01:22 et / |

Obama's Failure

The president is fond of referring to “the arc of history,” paraphrasing the Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s famous statement that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” But with his deep-seated aversion to conflict and his profound failure to understand bully dynamics — in which conciliation is always the wrong course of action, because bullies perceive it as weakness and just punch harder the next time — he has broken that arc and has likely bent it backward for at least a generation.

In contrast, when faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze. Instead of indicting the people whose recklessness wrecked the economy, he put them in charge of it. He never explained that decision to the public — a failure in storytelling as extraordinary as the failure in judgment behind it. Had the president chosen to bend the arc of history, he would have told the public the story of the destruction wrought by the dismantling of the New Deal regulations that had protected them for more than half a century. He would have offered them a counternarrative of how to fix the problem other than the politics of appeasement, one that emphasized creating economic demand and consumer confidence by putting consumers back to work. He would have had to stare down those who had wrecked the economy, and he would have had to tolerate their hatred if not welcome it. But the arc of his temperament just didn’t bend that far.

[...] instead of indicting the economic policies and principles that had just eliminated eight million jobs, in the most damaging of the tic-like gestures of compromise that have become the hallmark of his presidency — and against the advice of multiple Nobel-Prize-winning economists — he backed away from his advisers who proposed a big stimulus, and then diluted it with tax cuts that had already been shown to be inert. The result, as predicted in advance, was a half-stimulus that half-stimulated the economy.

[...] All [Americans] know today, is that they’re still unemployed, they’re still worried about how they’re going to pay their bills at the end of the month and their kids still can’t get a job. And now the Republicans are chipping away at unemployment insurance, and the president is making his usual impotent verbal exhortations after bargaining it away.

This pattern of presenting inconsistent positions with no apparent recognition of their incoherence is another hallmark of this president’s storytelling. He announces in a speech on energy and climate change that we need to expand offshore oil drilling and coal production — two methods of obtaining fuels that contribute to the extreme weather Americans are now seeing. He supports a health care law that will use Medicaid to insure about 15 million more Americans and then endorses a budget plan that, through cuts to state budgets, will most likely decimate Medicaid and other essential programs for children, senior citizens and people who are vulnerable by virtue of disabilities or an economy that is getting weaker by the day. He gives a major speech on immigration reform after deporting more than 700,000 immigrants in two years, a pace faster than nearly any other period in American history.

Labels: American Society, Crisis, Economics, Obama's Presidency, Politics

# posted by j @ 01:19 et / |

The Seven Dwarfs Revamped

Labels: Cartoon, Commentary, History, Life, Snow White, The Seven Dwarfs

# posted by j @ 15:01 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«You can't have everything. Where would you put it?»
~Steven Wright

Labels: Desire, Life, quotations

# posted by j @ 00:54 et / |

Norway's A-ha to Sing Again

Labels: A-ha, Memorial, Music, Norway

# posted by j @ 09:10 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.»
~Eric Hoffer

Labels: Manners, quotations

# posted by j @ 08:57 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?»
~Epicurus

Labels: Atheism, Philosophy, quotations, Religion

# posted by j @ 19:14 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«Be great in act, as you have been in thought.»
~Jean Richter (and attrib. to the man known as "Shakespeare")

Labels: quotations

# posted by j @ 01:21 et / |

In Memoriam: Amy Winehouse

Labels: Memorial, Music

# posted by j @ 15:36 et / |

Quotation of the Week

Labels: quotations

# posted by j @ 17:23 et / |

Fête Nationale (Bastille Day)

«Grand Dieu, sauve le Roi!
Long jours à notre Roi!
Vive le Roi
A lui la victoire
Bonheur et gloire
Qu’il ait un règne heureux
Et l'appui des cieux.»

«Grand Dieu, sauve le Roi!
Grand Dieu, venge le Roi!
Vive le Roi!
Que toujours glorieux
Louis victorieux
Venge ses ennemis
Toujours soumis.»

Labels: History, Holidays, Monarchy

# posted by j @ 19:41 et / |

Quotation of the Summer

«Though we travel the world to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.»
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Labels: quotations

# posted by j @ 19:29 et / |

Independence Day 2011;

Labels: Holiday Greetings, Holidays

# posted by j @ 19:15 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.»
~Thomas Jefferson

Labels: quotations

# posted by j @ 10:50 et / |

Happy Father's Day

Labels: Holiday Greetings

# posted by j @ 09:47 et / |

FLAG DAY 2011

Labels: Holidays

# posted by j @ 16:08 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«Never explain --your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.»
~Elbert Hubbard

Labels: quotations

# posted by j @ 14:29 et / |

Friday Dinner

Labels: Food

# posted by j @ 19:42 et / |

Classic Google Search

Labels: Art, Google, History, Internet, Search Engine

# posted by j @ 18:23 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.»
~Albert Einstein

Labels: quotations

# posted by j @ 18:18 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«i'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart.»
~e.e. cummings

Labels: quotations

# posted by j @ 16:13 et / |

Germans are ruder

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress."

Labels: Commentary, Manners

# posted by j @ 10:49 et / |

Prediction: PP will win Spain's March 2012 elections

Labels: Elections, International Affairs, Politics, PP, PSOE, Spain

# posted by j @ 18:26 et / |

On this day...

Labels: History

# posted by j @ 15:59 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.»
~Benjamin Franklin in the Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

Labels: Commentary, International Affairs, Politics, quotations, War

# posted by j @ 09:57 et / |

Muammar Gaddafi and son are indicted by the ICJ

Labels: Arab Uprisings, ICJ, International Affairs, NATO, Politics, War

# posted by j @ 15:14 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.»
~Bertrand Russell

Labels: quotations

# posted by j @ 15:09 et / |

Read somewhere

«American Idol» ousts autistic metal-singing idiot James Durbin and determines Top 3 finalists despite the pollack vote.

Labels: Music

# posted by j @ 14:02 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«We are the ones you should be fearing,
come in the night and take your teeth away.
Now sew up your mouth, and go to sleep, 'cause
we'll be there soon, to break your heart and spite your face.»
~Aesthetic Perfection, The Ones

Labels: lyrics, quotations

# posted by j @ 12:22 et / |

Osama bin Laden's whereabouts known to Islamabad since 2004

# posted by j @ 09:25 et / |

Creationism Still Advocated in HS Biology Classes

# posted by j @ 01:45 et / |

Enhanced interrogations and torture

Labels: Capital Punishment, Intelligence, Law Enforcement, Politics, Torture, Was

# posted by j @ 01:11 et / |

Let's see the dead terrorist's pictures

Labels: Freedom of Information, Osama Bin Laden, Politics, Terrorism, War

# posted by j @ 19:18 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.»
~Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli

Labels: Osama Bin Laden, Politics, quotations, Terrorism, War

# posted by j @ 09:01 et / |

OSAMA BIN LADEN IS DEAD

«On nights like this one we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to al Qaeda's terror: Justice has been done,» President Obama said in a late-night televised address from the White House this evening

Labels: Politics, Terrorism, US Military, War

# posted by j @ 01:46 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«The real meaning of enlightenment is to gaze with undimmed eyes on all darkness.»
~Nikos Kazantzakis

Labels: q

# posted by j @ 11:50 et / |

Flashback to 2005

«[...]

And keep talking that mess, that's fine
But could you walk and talk at the same time?
[...]

You must not know 'bout me
You must not know 'bout me
I could have another you in a minute
Matter of fact he'll be here in a minute, baby

You must not know 'bout me
You must not know 'bout me
I can have another you by tomorrow
So don't you ever for a second get to thinking you're irreplaceable

So go ahead and get gone
And call up that [boy] and see if [he]'s home
Oops, I bet ya thought that I didn't know
What did you think I was putting you out for?

Because you was untrue
[...]

So since I'm not your everything
How about I'll be nothing, nothing at all to you
Baby I won't shed a tear for you, I won't lose a wink of sleep
'cause the truth of the matter is replacing you is so easy

[...]»
~Beyoncé, Irreplaceable

Labels: Life, lyrics

# posted by j @ 22:09 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.»
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Labels: quotations

# posted by j @ 15:28 et / |

The US military's dirty, ugly and shameful secret

«Less than two weeks after arriving on base, [Greg Jeloudov] was gang-raped in the barracks by men who said they were showing him who was in charge of the United States. When he reported the attack to unit commanders, he says they told him, “It must have been your fault. You must have provoked them.”

What happened to Jeloudov is a part of life in the armed forces that hardly anyone talks about: male-on-male sexual assault.»

Labels: GLBT Interest, Homophobia, Life, Politics, Sexuality, US Military

# posted by j @ 19:39 et / |

Quotations of the week

«By your inflection, I can tell that you think what you're saying is funny, but... no.»

«Oh, I am full. I cannot drink another bite.»

«No. It's all a lie. I'm not who you think I am. I'm not good or real. I'm evil and imaginary. And I'm rich. Filthy rich!»

«Oh honey, I would, but... I don't want to.»

«You say potato, I say vodka.»

~Karen Walker

Labels: quotations

# posted by j @ 18:45 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«Either I've been missing something or nothing has been going on.»
~Karen Elizabeth Gordon

Labels: quotations

# posted by j @ 17:02 et / |

A Sign at the Zoo

Labels: Commentary, Signs, Travel

# posted by j @ 01:18 et / |

The shame!

# posted by j @ 01:15 et / |

Quotation of the Week

«A man's silence is wonderful to listen to.»
~Thomas Hardy

Labels: quotations

# posted by j @ 00:25 et / |

¿Dónde?

«¿Dónde estabas cuando te escuchaba palabras que no creias ni tú?
Entre tanta mierda, dime, ¿dónde estabas tú?
¿Donde estabas cuando te llamaba?
Por eso me fui.»
~Bebe

Labels: lyrics

# posted by j @ 00:20 et / |

The 1895 US Eighth-grade Test

Labels: Commentary, Education, History

# posted by j @ 12:45 et / |

Today's Japan earthquakes and tsunamis

Labels: Commentary, Disaster, Help, Life, Science

# posted by j @ 11:30 et / |

A majority of American university students flunk test

Labels: Education

# posted by j @ 19:30 et / |

Quotation of the Week: A message

«[You] speak an infinite deal of nothing.»
~From The Merchant of Venice

Labels: quotations

# posted by j @ 12:26 et / |

Quotation of the week

«What does a fish know about the water in which it swims all its life?»
~Albert Einstein

Labels: quotations

# posted by j @ 17:40 et / |

Quotation of the week

«Den som en sten är värdefull för måtte vara omgiven av rikedomar vart han gå.»
~Pär Lagerqvist

«One for whom the pebble has value must be surrounded by treasures wherever he goes.»
~Pär Lagerqvist

Labels: quotations

# posted by j @ 19:43 et / |

Is the glass full or...?

via: @Rimmba.

Labels: Culture, Life, Philosophy, Science

# posted by j @ 17:55 et / |