Posted 15 August 2006
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling, which thinks that nothing is worth war, is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
—John Stuart Mill
Posted 15 August 2006
How many seconds are there in a year? If I tell you there are 3.155 x 10^7, you won’t even try to remember it. On the other hand, who could forget that, to within half a percent, pi seconds is a nanocentury.
—Tom Duff, Bell Labs
Posted 13 August 2006
[It is a] fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen.
—Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. Ct. of Ap., 1981)
Posted 3 August 2006
It’s tempting to believe that government regulation of the Internet would be more consumer-friendly; history and economics suggest otherwise. The reason is simple: a regulated industry has a far larger stake in regulatory decisions than any other group in society. As a result, regulated companies spend lavishly on lobbyists and lawyers and, over time, turn the regulatory process to their advantage. Economists have dubbed this process “regulatory capture,” and they can point to plenty of examples. The airline industry was a cozy cartel before being deregulated in the 1970’s. Today, government regulation of cable television is the primary obstacle to competition.
—Timothy Lee, in The New York Times
Posted 9 April 2006
If you can control your family you’ve gone terribly wrong somewhere.
—Imelda Staunton in My Family and Other Animals
Posted 3 February 2006
I had an epiphany a few years ago where I was out at a celebrity party and it suddenly dawned on me that I had yet to meet a celebrity who is as smart and interesting as any of my friends.
—Moby
Posted 24 January 2006
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.
—Charles Darwin
Posted 12 January 2006
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
—Leo Tolstoy
Posted 12 January 2006
The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office.
—H. L. Mencken
Posted 12 January 2006
Noticeably missing [from the 3 ‘R’s] are an understanding of ethics and morals and the ability to protect them. Thus I present, the 5 Rs: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Rights, Riflery
—Julias Shaw
