More Annoying

In the part of this universe that we know there is great injustice, and often the good suffer, and often the wicked prosper, and one hardly knows which of those is the more annoying.

-- Bertrand Russell

The Trouble With Words

The trouble with words is that you never know whose mouths they've been in.

-- Dennis Potter, dramatist (1935-1994)

Aghast

I walked through the World Trade Center 20 minutes before the attack; saw the buildings burning; breathed the poisonous dust; wept for my country. Now Blackwater. Torture. An unprovoked, botched war. I am aghast, revolted. And ashamed.

-- Paul Nadler, Metuchen, N.J., Letter to the Editor, New York Times, October 4, 2007

If All They Want

If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison.

-- President Dwight D. Eisenhower; cited at http://www.westpointgradsagainstthewar.org/

Middle Man

If no one out there understands, start your own revolution and cut out the middle man.

-- Billy Bragg

Played With Expression

I assure you that the typewriting machine, when played with expression, is not more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.

-- Oscar Wilde

Not Necessarily True

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.

-- Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)

The Devil's post -- entry number 666

The Source Of Our Troubles

No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.

-- P. J. O'Rourke, writer (1947- )

Cousins

Every family has a black sheep.

-- Bill Burton, spokesman for Barak Obama, on Lynne Cheney's assertion that Obama & her husband Vice President Dick Cheney are distant cousins

Lemmings

There's a whiff of the lynch mob or the lemming migration about any overlarge concentration of like-thinking individuals, no matter how virtuous their cause.

-- P. J. O'Rourke, Parliament of Whores (1991)

Big Pharma Protects The Environment

Here's a point to ponder.

My ex has no health insurance, and currently has nine separate prescriptions to address her congestive heart failure and related maladies. Of these nine, I've been paying cash for the seven that cost under $100 per month each, skipping the two remaining, exorbitantly-priced meds.

This week I went to pick up her Albuterol inhaler, which has been available as a generic for quite a while. Unfortunately, I discovered that it's no longer available as a generic. The pharmaceutical company now has another 2(?) or 3(?) year monopoly on this product which, since it is so widely prescribed, is probably worth a $billion or so.

The change?

The old-style inhaler used CFCs for the propellant; the new-style inhaler uses something more environmentally friendly. I'm guessing that it was big pharma that pushed for the environmental restriction against CFCs as a propellant for inhalers. I'm also guessing that more people will die from not being able to afford inhalers than would have died from the extra CFCs in the atmosphere.

So, an apparently innocuous and right-minded change to environmental law, meant to keep us healthy, is likely going to kill people.

Sanchez

After more than four years of fighting, America continues its desperate struggle in Iraq without any concerted effort to devise a strategy that will achieve victory in that war-torn country or in the greater conflict against extremism.

-- Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez, retired former top commander of American forces in Iraq, New York Times, 10/13/2007

Rockies

I meant to post this last Friday, but it just got better over the weekend.

In an amazing streak, baseball's Colorado Rockies won 13 of their final 14 games in the regular season to tie for the wildcard. That is to say, with that streak, they managed to tie for "best second place".

Since then, they have won a one-game playoff for the wildcard, swept Philadelphia in 3 games in the Division Series, and are on the verge of a sweep of Arizona, having won the first 3 in the best-of-seven League Championship Series.

Overall they have won 20 of their last 21 games, including all 7 games they've played in the post-season.

MQ Software

As of Friday 12 October the programming staff (i.e., 5 of 6 total people) of NEXVU Technologies were hired en masse by MQ Software

http://www.mqsoftware.com

... to work on products akin to the NEXVU product. We start work on Tuesday 16 October, and remain in our old office as a satellite of our Minneapolis-based overlords.

What A Living

If the rich could pay the poor to die for them, what a living the poor could make!

-- anonymous

Illuminati

Courtesy Mutant.net
http://www.mutant.net/editorials/illuminati.html

Re-reading The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, I came across the following passage ...

"... But they can rule by fraud, and by fraud eventually acquire access to the tools they need to finish the job of killing off the Constitution."

"What sort of tools?"

"More stringent security measures. Universal electronic Surveillance. No-Knock Laws. Stop and frisk laws. Government inspection of first-class mail. Automatic fingerprinting, photographing, blood tests and urinalysis of any person arrested before he is charged with a crime. A law making it unlawful to resist even unlawful arrest. Laws establishing detention camps for potential subversives. Gun control laws. Restrictions on travel. The assassinations, you see, establish the need for such laws in the public mind. Instead of realizing that there is a conspiracy, controlled by a handful of men, the people reason - or are manipulated into reasoning - that the entire populace must have its freedom restricted in order to protect the leaders. The people agree that they themselves can't be trusted. ...

"... At present rate, within the next few years the Illuminati will have the American people under tighter surveillance than Hitler had the Germans. And the beauty of it is, the majority of the Americans will have been so frightened by Illuminati-backed terrorist incidents that they will beg to be controlled as a masochist begs for the whip."

From Pages 197-198 of the Dell Trade Paperback edition published in November 1988. The book was written in 1975. Sound familiar?

NEXVU

On Friday, 5 October 2007, NEXVU Technologies ceased operations. My first interview for a replacement gig is tomorrow.

Ann Coulter On Women And The Vote

If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen.

-- Ann Coulter, New York Observer, 2 October 2007

Pereiro

The only thing I won in 2007 is the 2006 Tour.

-- Cyclist Oscar Pereiro on his declaration as winner of the 2006 Tour de France after nominal winner Floyd Landis was stripped of his title for doping, VeloNews, 4 October 2007

Stupid Things

We have 1,000 guys out in the field. People make mistakes; they do stupid things sometimes.

-- Erik D. Prince, chief executive of Blackwater USA, which is under scrutiny for shootings by its employees in Iraq, Congressional hearing, 2 October 2007

Data Decryption Law In UK

From ars technica --

UK can now demand data decryption on penalty of jail time
By Ken Fisher | Published: October 01, 2007 - 10:20PM CT

New laws going into effect today in the United Kingdom make it a crime to refuse to decrypt almost any encrypted data requested by authorities as part of a criminal or terror investigation. Individuals who are believed to have the cryptographic keys necessary for such decryption will face up to 5 years in prison for failing to comply with police or military orders to hand over either the cryptographic keys, or the data in a decrypted form.

Part 3, Section 49 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) includes provisions for the decryption requirements, which are applied differently based on the kind of investigation underway. As we reported last year, the five-year imprisonment penalty is reserved for cases involving anti-terrorism efforts. All other failures to comply can be met with a maximum two-year sentence.
... snip ...

Cowardly Escape

War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.

-- Thomas Mann (1875-1955), German novelist, essayist, short story writer, and Nobel laureate

Miracle Mets

Do you know what it's like
To be chased by the Ghost of Failure
While staring through Victory's door?
Of course you do, you're a Mets fan.

-- Frank Messina, self-proclaimed Mets Poet, as the Mets complete the worst end-of-season collapse in baseball history, blowing a 7-game lead with 17 games to play to finish out of the running, New York Times, 29 September 2007