Quotes of the Morning

“Benefit cuts is an interesting word. Benefits are scheduled to grow at a certain rate, and one of the suggestions, for example ... was [that] they grow, but not at a rate as fast as projected. You can call it anything you want. I would call it an adjustment to reality.”
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, February 15, 2005

'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
-Unidentified White House official, quoted by Ron Suskind in the New York Times Magazine, October 17, 2004

“Intent is not a thought, or an object, or a wish. Intent is what can make a man succeed when his thoughts tell him that he is defeated . . . Intent is what makes him invulnerable. Intent is what sends a shaman through a wall, through space, to infinity.”
-Carlos Castaneda, A Separate Reality, 1971

“To give credit where credit is due.. All of the quotes this morning were lifted from Billmon at billmon.org. Goddess I love the blogs. They reduce my work in finding the Quotes immensely.”
-Skippy

“Ibrahim Jaafari [the likely new Iraqi Prime Minister] . . . is a religious Shiite who commands popular support unmatched by any of his competitors. When talks were under way last February over the drafting the fundamental law which serves as Iraq's interim Constitution, Jaafari was among those leading the camp who favored Islam as the only source of legislation.”
-Daily Star, January 29, 2005

"The policy of the American government is to stand for the non-negotiable demands of human dignity -- the rule of law, the limits on the power of the state, free speech, freedom of worship, equal justice, respect for women, religious and ethnic tolerance, and protections for private property. That is what we believe and we're not going to change."
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, March 12, 2004

"We shouldn't have anything that conflicts with Islam. Islam is the religion of the majority, so it should be the official religion of the state."
-Da'wa Party leader Ibrahim Jaafari, February 7, 2005

"Successful societies guarantee religious liberty -- the right to serve and honor God without fear of persecution."
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, March 12, 2004

“Although [Jaafari] also says he is for women's rights and the right of a woman to be a professional and to hold high political office, many in his party want women's testimony to be worth half that of a man's and want girls to inherit half what their brothers do.”
-Juan Cole, February 16, 2005

"The advance of women's rights and the advance of liberty are ultimately inseparable."
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, March 12, 2004

“[Jaafari's] top aide, Adnan Ali al-Kadhimi, said there should be a council that would review laws to make sure they don't contradict Islam. But it would not be a council of clerics with ultimate say over the laws, like in Iran, he said; rather it would be an advisory group of religious and secular legal experts.”
-Boston Globe, February 15, 2005

"No democracy can allow religious people to impose their own view of perfection on others, because this invites cruelty and arrogance that are foreign to every faith."
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, June 29, 2004