Quotes of the Morning: Dirty Sanchez

“U.S. SENATOR JACK REED (D-RI): General Sanchez, today's USA Today, sir, reported that you ordered or approved the use of sleep deprivation, intimidation by guard dogs, excessive noise and inducing fear as an interrogation method for a prisoner in Abu Ghraib prison. Is that correct? SANCHEZ: Sir, that may be correct that it's in a news article, but I never approved any of those measures to be used within CJTF-7 at any time in the last year.”
-General Sanchez testimony before Congress, May 19, 2004

“A memo signed by Lieutenant General Ricardo A. Sanchez authorizing 29 interrogation techniques, including 12 which far exceeded limits established by the Army’s own Field Manual, was made public for the first time by the American Civil Liberties Union today.
‘General Sanchez authorized interrogation techniques that were in clear violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Army’s own standards,’ said ACLU attorney Amrit Singh. ‘He and other high-ranking officials who bear responsibility for the widespread abuse of detainees must be held accountable.’
The Sanchez memo dated September 14, 2003, specifically allows for interrogation techniques involving the use of military dogs specifically to ‘Exploit(s) Arab fear of dogs…,’ isolation, and stress positions.”
-ACLU, March 29, 2005

“Huh.. I could have sworn that the time between September to May was less than a year, and it certainly sounds like he approved the measures. When are we going to prosecute these people for lying before Congress? I mean it. Clinton was impeached and vilified for years for much less than this. Now for a few words from my favorite President (and I say that with no irony or snarkiness at all).”
-Skippy

“They [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion.”
-Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Sept. 23, 1800

“Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.”
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

“But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

“Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting ‘Jesus Christ,’ so that it would read ‘A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;’ the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.”
-Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom

Quotes of the Morning

“Oops, I think I missed the most interesting quote yesterday from Bill Tierney, our friendly neighborhood Christian extremist / Schiavo protestor. Here is the best part, brought to you by the incomparable Billmon.”
-Skippy

“Bill Tierney . . . had just returned from eight months working as an interrogator for US forces in Baghdad, and had come to talk, on the record, about torture.
‘The Brits came up with an expression – wog,’ Tierney said. 'That stands for Wily Oriental Gentleman. There's a lot of wiliness in that part of the world.'. . .
After explaining his various psychological tactics to the audience, interrogator Bill Tierney (a private contractor working with the Army) said, 'I tried to be nuanced and culturally aware. But the suspects didn't break.''
Suddenly Tierney's temper rose. 'They did not break!' he shouted. 'I'm here to win. I'm here so our civilization beats theirs! Now what are you willing to do to win?' he asked, pointing to a woman in the front row. 'You are the interrogators, you are the ones who have to get the information from the Iraqis. What do you do? That word 'torture'. You immediately think, 'That's not me.' But are we litigating this war or fighting it?'
… Asked about Abu Ghraib, Tierney said that for an interrogator, 'sadism is always right over the hill. You have to admit it. Don't fool yourself – there is a part of you that will say, 'This is fun.'’ ''
-Boston Globe, February 13, 2005

“So not only is Mr. Tierney a vocal proponent of Terri Schiavo’s and a one-time believer in the WMD story, but he was also apparently a proponent of torture. If only Mr. Tierney was one of the protestors with tape over his mouth..”
-Skippy

"Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow-creatures is amusing in itself."
-James Anthony Froude (1818-1894)

“Except, of course, for cats.”
-Skippy

"The healthy man does not torture others — generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers."
-Carl Jung (1875-1961)

"In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule."
-Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

"Censorship is almost systematically the weapon of first resort for governments in uncertain political situations. So not only are the famous writers and bold journalists in danger; at every level of public and private life, the freedoms to think, read or write are denied. In the absence of a free press, other human rights abuses flourish unabated. Nothing is reported, criticized, questioned. The example of imprisonment, torture or execution imposes a further silence. A blindly obedient mob mentality is encouraged, driven by extremist religious or ethnic loyalties. The citizens do not know what is happening. Fear and ignorance permeate discussion."
-Marian Botsford Fraser

Quotes of the Morning

“The legal battle over the life of Terri Schiavo may have ended, but a thick, fervent crowd remains in the makeshift encampment outside the Woodside Hospice House here . . .
‘No, we're not going to go home,’ said Bill Tierney, a young daughter at his side. ‘Terri is not dead until she's dead’ . . .
Mr. Tierney, a former military intelligence officer in Iraq who works as a translator and investigator for private companies, cried as he talked about watching the Schiavo spectacle on television and feeling the utter need to be at the hospice.”
-New York Times, March 28, 2005

“Who are these brave men and women who are never willing to say die (unless of course we are talking about the death penalty)? Well Mr. Tierney, mentioned above, has made a long and distinguished career out of being on the cutting edge of the truth. Unfortunately he has been on the wrong side of the cut.”
-Skippy

“Former weapons inspector Bill Tierney... said on the Sean Hannity radio show that we will be shocked with what we are going to find in Iraq. He has no doubt we will find huge amounts of what Iraq swears it does not have.
In addition, Tierney said that he has told our government where Hussein has hidden an underground uranium plant. Tierney said ‘I can drive there with my eyes shut.’”
-Sean Hannity Radio show, per the Free Republic, March 24, 2003

“Tierney's methods of ascertaining this location were rather unconventional. ‘I would ask God and just get a sense if something was valid or not, and then know if I needed to pursue it,’ he said. His assessments through prayer were then confirmed to him by a friend's clairvoyant dream, where he was able to find the location on a map. ‘Everything she said lined up. This place meets the criteria,’ Tierney said of a power generator plant near the Tigris River that he believes is actually a cover for a secret uranium facility.”
-Coast to Coast (radio program), February 14, 2003

“ROBERTSON: You’ve got a case and I wish you the best, but what about the situation over there? We’ve heard a defector say Saddam (Hussein) is going to use chemical weapons against our troops, that he’s going to open up everything he’s got. How do you read it, with what you’ve seen?
TIERNEY: He will use mustard gas against his own people. He did that in Halabja, as it is well known. He also did it in southern Iraq during the Intifada in 1991. I was an interrogator. I was talking to people coming across the border. I had numerous reports that this was occurring. We sent Arabic-speaking interrogators to a field hospital to help with the treatment of Iraqi civilians with chemical burns. Now the reason why this was not established is because there was technical intelligence, meaning that it was only hinted at. They didn’t confirm it. There is a longstanding bias against human intelligence and this is a very good example of that. Numerous reports said this was occurring, but other intelligence disciplines did not confirm it, so the assessment was it didn’t happen.
ROBERTSON: What about this time? In your opinion, is he (Saddam) hiding large quantities of Sarin VX?
TIERNEY: Yes.
ROBERTSON: Yes. No question?
TIERNEY: Oh, Yes. Sure. Yes. Like you said, it’s absurd, that Hans Blix is a fool and Mohammed El Baradei is a fraud. Okay?
ROBERTSON: You heard it here – "Hans Blix is a fool and El Baradei is a fraud?"
TIERNEY: Yeah. Look, I checked my fire when this first started, because I just wanted to see how things progressed, but there is a few things your viewers should know. Kofi Annan just despised the U.N. Special Commission. It was outside of the normal rules of the U.N. It was that people there were based on competency, not the areas of the world, and he is the one who helped with the demise of UNSCOM. He is the one who picked Hans Blix. If you wanted to pick someone who was sure to fail, yet do so with an air of legitimacy, you can’t pick a better person than Hans Blix.
ROBERTSON: "Sure to fail, but with an air of legitimacy?"
TIERNEY: Yeah.
ROBERTSON: Incredible.
TIERNEY: Yeah. Well, look at this last report; it was just a joke. It should’ve been one sentence … ‘Mr. President, the government of Iraq has not fulfilled the obligation of resolution. That’s the end of the report. Thank you.’ That’s it. He hasn’t done it. So that’s all you need to say, but yet, he went into this long thing about there are hopeful signs here and a wink of the eye there, and it’s just ridiculous. It’s ridiculous.
-Christian Broadcasting Network, March 18, 2003

“It is a sad thing when the brain-dead are used for politics, but enough of Mr. Tierney. Today’s Quotes have been brought to you by Atrios at the ever-invaluable Eschaton.””
-Skippy

Quotes of the Morning

“The central weakness of the liberal case is that it is morally thin. Once you say that it is up to individuals or families to draw their own lines separating life from existence, and reasonable people will differ, then you are taking a fundamental issue out of the realm of morality and into the realm of relativism and mere taste . . .
What begins as an appealing notion -- that life and death are joined by a continuum -- becomes vapid mush, because we are all invited to punt when it comes time to do the hard job of standing up for common principles, arguing right and wrong, and judging those who make bad decisions.”
-David Brooks, Morality and Reality, March 26, 2005

“And now.. for some more of those ‘common principles’.”
-Skippy

“DAVID BROOKS: But the interrogation process and how we react at Gitmo, how we react in Iraq, these are issues that I think we should have memos about. You know, every week we sit here and we watch on Fridays the soldiers that have been killed in Iraq and . . .
JIM LEHRER: We have some more tonight.
DAVID BROOKS: And we know very little about the insurgents. And we have got to somehow do a better job in knowing about the people who are killing the faces we see every Friday night. And this is part of that process. And I think his [Gonzales] role has been utterly appropriate.”
-David Brooks, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, January 7, 2005

"I don't know anybody on the right who would say, 'I'm in favor of innocent people being tortured.' But that said, I think a lot of people on the right are skeptical of hype: That the allegations are not nearly as horrendous or as widespread a matter of policy as the media portrays’ . . .
‘There are lots of things that are ugly and terrible about war,’ Goldberg adds. ‘I think that people on the right are more comfortable allowing for that.’"
-Jonah Goldberg, Interview with Salon, February 28, 2005

“There is a valuable lesson to learn here.. Apparently (and I was previously unaware of this) allowing a woman to die, no matter what the circumstances, is evil and wrong and will lead to atheism, godless Communism and tooth decay. Meanwhile allowing torture is good, moral and will bring us peace and help save baby seals. You see, this all goes back to a basic truth of the universe.. Americans, being God’s chosen people, are simply more important than them thar foreigners (especially the non-white ones). As soon as the rest of the world realizes that we’ll all lead happy, productive lives filled with joy and satisfaction. I can hardly wait. By the way, how are things going with that ethnic cleansing going on in Darfur going?”
-Skippy

“Darfur's genocide has been in the news for about a year now. There's a temptation to say, okay, we failed on that, but that was last year's failure; move on. But Darfur will be this year's story even more than last year's. The number of deaths will likely be more appalling, not less so. Yet the diplomacy on Darfur spins pointlessly around irrelevant side questions. Within the Bush administration, panic is nowhere.”
-Washington Post, March 27, 2005

“A tragic story of 300,000 deaths (so far) in an African nation. Millions of people displaced in an ongoing military insurrection.. OOoo! Terri babbled something! Plug in the feeding tube!!”
-Skippy

Quotes of the Morning: Number 2 on the Government

“Just to burnish my reputation as a bomb thrower, I think Jeb Bush should give serious thought to storming the Bastille.
By that I mean he should think about telling his cops to go over to Terri Schiavo's hospice, go inside, put her on a gurney and load her into an ambulance. They could take her to a hospital, revive her, and reattach her feeding tube. It wouldn't save Terri exactly; she'd still be in the same rotten shape she was in before they disconnected the feeding tube.
But the point is, the temple of the law is so sacrosanct that an occasional chief executive cannot flaunt it once in a while, sort of drop his drawers on the courthouse steps and moon the judges, as a way to protest the complete disregard courts and judges have shown here, in this case, for facts outside the law.”
-John Gibson, Fox News Commentator, March 24, 2005

“Ok.. that isn’t really about the Schiavo case. It is about a news commentator saying that we should disregard the rule of law. You know.. the basis of our government. This is about the so-called unbiased press stating that one branch of the government should ignore another branch when it suits them. Get this man a brown shirt and some boots to goose-step in.”
-Skippy

“Army and Pentagon investigations have acknowledged a limited amount of ghosting, but more than a dozen documents and investigative statements obtained by The Washington Post show that unregistered CIA detainees were brought to Abu Ghraib several times a week in late 2003, and that they were hidden in a special row of cells. Military police soldiers came up with a rough system to keep track of such detainees with single-digit identification numbers, while others were dropped off unnamed, unannounced and unaccounted for.
The documents show that the highest-ranking general in Iraq at the time acknowledged that his top intelligence officer was aware the CIA was using Abu Ghraib's cells, a policy the general abruptly stopped when questions arose.”
-Washington Post, March 24, 2005

“Number 6: Where am I?
Number 2: In the Village.
Number 6: What do you want?
Number 2: We want information.
Number 6: Whose side are you on?
Number 2: That would be telling, we want information, information information.
Number 6: You won't get it.
Number 2: By hook or by crook, we will.
Number 6: Who are you?
Number 2: The new Number 2.
Number 6: Who is Number 1?
Number 2: You are Number 6.
Number 6: I am not a Number, I am a free man!
Number 6: Who is Number 1?
Number 2: You are, Number 6.
Number 6: I am not a Number. I am a person.”
-The Prisoner, BBC

“Number 2: What in fact has been created? An international community. A perfect blueprint for world order. When the sides facing each other suddenly realise that they're looking into a mirror, they'll see that this is the pattern for the future.
Number 6: The whole world as the Village?
Number 2: That is my dream. What's yours?
Number 6: To be the first man on the moon.”
-The Prisoner, BBC

'Culture of Life'

Want to know how much the mainstream media cares about the sanctity of life? Here is the headline at MSNBC.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7286825/

BP blast could mean billions in liability

Only after that do you get to the sub-heading..

Refinery explosion killed 15, injured more than 100

Yep.. Good to see that the money is a bigger deal than 15 dead and 100 injured. Sigh..

Quotes of the Morning

“Ok. I promise. This is the last day on the sad, pitiful Schiavo case unless something really interesting happens. I apologize for dwelling on it so much, but this turning a personal family tragedy into a public political media circus really, really pisses me off.”
-Skippy

Jeb Bush and Florida’s social services agency filed a petition in state court to take custody of Schiavo and, presumably, reconnect her feeding tube. It cites new allegations of neglect and challenges Schiavo’s diagnosis as being in a persistent vegetative state. The request is based on the opinion of a neurologist working for the state who observed Schiavo at her bedside but did not conduct an examination of her.
-MSNBC, March 23, 2005

“Ah yes.. Jeb has tried to make her a ward of the state based on the diagnosis of someone who has never examined her. Fabulous. At the same time this is happening, in case you have forgotten, millions of children in the United States are currently completely uninsured, with large portions of them living below the poverty line. This at a time when Congress just made it more difficult to declare bankruptcy, which has as one of its primary causes medical emergencies within the family. Oh, and they are slashing Medicaid, the program which would fund things like medical care for cases like Terri’s. But other than that everything is just peachy. Bush, Bush, Delay and Frist are all fighting the good fight for what they feel is right… in this one, isolated case.”
-Skippy

"And, although Frist writes frequently about the ethical issues surrounding transplants--for example, the question of when death begins--he approaches these issues in starkly scientific terms, with little patience for religious objections.
Near the end of the book, for example, Frist suggests changing the legal definition of 'brain death' to include anencephalic babies, who are born with a fatal neurological disorder but show just the slightest hint of brain-stem activity. Such a change would make it possible to harvest their organs for transplant--something the Catholic Church and pro-life groups oppose. 'Three thousand anencephalic babies were born a year, enough to solve our demand many times over--but we never used them.'”
-New Republic, January 27, 2003

“Of course Terri’s condition is pretty much identical to the anencephalic condition. Political? Nah, why do you ask? It does seem that this is throwing a little stress into the conservative bonding experience.”
-Skippy

“This is a clash between the social conservatives and the process conservatives, and I would count myself a process conservative. When a case like this has been heard by 19 judges in six courts and it's been appealed to the Supreme Court three times, the process has worked -- even if it hasn't given the result that the social conservatives want. For Congress to step in really is a violation of federalism."
-David Davenport, of the Hoover Institute (a conservative think tank), on the Schiavo case, March, 2005

Quotes of the Morning

"In cases like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws, and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life. This presumption is especially critical for those like Terri Schiavo, who live at the mercy of others."
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, March 21, 2005

“Mr. Bush of course oversaw the implementation of the death penalty in over 150 cases while governor of Texas. The legal summaries he used to decide whether or not to grant clemency were rarely more than a page long and were filed by Alberto Gonzales. Texas under Bush had the highest execution rate in the country. To be perfectly clear.. Bush oversaw the highest number of implementations of the death penalty of any governor in the history of the United States of America.”
-Skippy

"Number of death sentences upheld by Texas courts since 1990 for men whose lawyers slept during their trials: 3"
-Harper’s Magazine, September 1999

“At every step in the death penalty process in Texas, a litany of grossly inadequate legal procedures fail to meet recognized minimum international standards for the protection of human rights."
-Amnesty International, 1998

"A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy."
-Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)

"A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation."
-Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965)

"Nothing seems to me to be rarer today then genuine hypocrisy. I greatly suspect that this plant finds the mild atmosphere of our culture unendurable. Hypocrisy has its place in the ages of strong belief: in which even when one is compelled to exhibit a different belief one does not abandon the belief one already has."
-Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Quotes of the Morning

“And to keep everyone up to date with the state of compassion in the media today.. Top article on MSNBC right now: No Reversal, Judge denies parents’ bid to resume feeding Schiavo. Second article: Minnesota massacre: Ten die in worst shooting rampage since Columbine. Now I don’t want to be too extreme here, but I’d think that just looking at simple numbers ten violent deaths of primarily young people would be more newsworthy than one brain-dead person’s condition, but hey, what do I know? I thought that the over 100,000 deaths of civilians we’ve caused in Iraq was important too, but the media never really even mentions that. Priorities I guess.”
-Skippy

"In effect, what we are saying is we are going to tie your future as you retire to the overall health and function of the American economy."
-Dick Cheney, on proposals for what to do with Social Security, March 21, 2005

“Yep.. And if the economy is doing badly when you retire, well, I guess you’re screwed. Beautiful.”
-Skippy

“I want to remind you right quick what this country has been through, and the challenges this economy had faced over the last three years. First, we went through a recession. That means we were going backwards.”
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, March. 4, 2004

"This United States will keep our promise to people retired or near retirement."
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, March 21, 2005

“Um.. Shouldn’t we keep our promises to everyone?”
-Skippy

“There can be no real individual freedom in the presence of economic insecurity.”
-Chester Bowles (1901 - 1986)

“An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.”
-Laurence J. Peter (1919 - 1988)

Quotes of the Morning

"Mrs. Schiavo's life is not slipping away ¯it is being violently wrenched from her body in an act of medical terrorism."
-Tom Delay, March 18, 2005

“President Bush's dramatic return to deal with the Terri Schiavo case was seen as a powerful embrace of the ‘culture of life’ issues of religious conservatives.”
-New York Times, March 21, 2005

“Let me get this straight. Dubya, who couldn’t be troubled for several days to deal with the tsunami that cost over 100,000 people dead and millions homeless, rushed home to deal with the case of a woman with no higher brain (not higher brain function.. no higher brain. Portions of her brain have atrophied and been replaced with fluid). That is to say that Dubya, who started a ‘pre-emptive’ war that has cost over 1,500 Americans, and over 100,000 Iraqis, their lives, felt compassion for a brain dead woman whose husband wants her to die with dignity, and he decided to show that compassion by supporting overriding the courts and supporting legislation that will keep her plugged in, against what her husband states were her wishes, until she dies a ‘natural’ death.
If he showed one one-millionth of the concern for that living that he does for the brain dead I would be impressed.
Oh, and Delay making the husband a ‘terrorist’ was a nice one too.”
-Skippy

“By making the right choices, we can make the right choice for our future.”
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, Dallas, Texas, Jul. 18, 2003

“My six years as governor of Texas have been invaluable to me as I carry out my duties as the presidency.”
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, Washington, D.C., Feb. 27, 2005

“Texas law allows hospitals to discontinue life-sustaining care, even if a patient's family members disagree. A doctor's recommendation must be approved by a hospital's ethics committee, and the family must be given 10 days from written notice of the decision to try and locate another facility for the patient. Texas Children's said it contacted 40 facilities with newborn intensive care units, but none would accept Sun.”
-Houston Chronicle, March 16, 2005, (emphasis added)

“The baby wore a cute blue outfit with a teddy bear covering his bottom. The 17-pound, nearly 6-month-old boy wiggled with eyes open, his mother said, and smacked his lips.
Then at 2 p.m. Tuesday, a medical staffer at Texas Children's Hospital gently removed the breathing tube that had kept Sun Hudson alive since his birth Sept. 25. Cradled by his mother, he took a few breaths, and died.”
-Houston Chronicle, March 16, 2005

“Sun Hudson was 6 months old. Never heard of him? I wonder why not.. Of course, he wasn’t the center of a media circus. He wasn’t made into a big political centerpiece. And he was black. Why didn’t Bush leave his vacation for Sun?”
-Skippy

Quotes O' the Mornin'

“The Irish are a fair people - they never speak well of one another .”
-Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)

“God invented whiskey to keep the Irish from ruling the world.”
-Ed McMahon

“I showed my appreciation of my native land in the usual Irish way by getting out of it as soon as I possibly could.”
-George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

“An Irishman is the only man in the world who will step over the bodies of a dozen naked women to get to a bottle of stout.”
-Unknown

“And now I’m on my way to a bottle of stout, not because I love to drink (though I do), but simply to enjoy the way there. And later me long-sufferin’ wife, Mrs. Skippy, can greet me at the door in the traditional Irish manner.. with a frying pan. The Quotes O’ the Mornin’ shall return on Monday once I am done nursin’ me head (one way or the other).”
-Skippy

Quotes of the Morning

“A newly announced federal order to reduce mercury pollution from coal-burning power plants will require weakening more stringent state controls that were enacted in Wisconsin only last year, a state official says.”
-Associated Press, March 15, 2005

“Huh.. Who would have figured?”
-Skippy

“We want to reduce greenhouse gases. Ours is a large economy. We used to generate more wealth than we are today. And as a result, we do contribute greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.”
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, London, July 19, 2001

“The goal of life is living in agreement with nature.”
-Zeno (335 BC - 264 BC), from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

“There are some monuments where the land is so widespread, they just encompass as much as possible. And the integral part of the - the precious part, so to speak, I guess all land is precious - but the part that the people uniformly would not want to spoil, will not be despoiled. But there are parts of the monument lands where we can explore without affecting the overall environment.”
-President Dubya, Mar. 13, 2001

“I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.”
-Frank Lloyd Wright (1869 - 1959)

“There's no such thing as being too closely aligned with the oil industry in West Texas.”
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, in the 1970s, running for U.S. Congress

“I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.”
-E. B. White (1899 - 1985)

Quotes of the Morning

“Remember Bernie Kerik? The person nominated by Dubya to take over Homeland Security until a few of his little indiscretions became known? Well, here’s another one. Sure, its legal, but somehow it just seems.. dirty.”
-Skippy

“Former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik accepted thousands of dollars in royalties from a book published to raise money for the families of heroes killed on Sept. 11, 2001, the Daily News has learned. Kerik contributed an 11-sentence foreword to the book of photographs, titled ‘In the Line of Duty,’ in which he praised police and firefighters who ‘desperately fought and struggled and bled and died in a noble effort.’ ‘Theirs is a story beyond words; a story of bravery, fidelity and sacrifice; a story that must never be forgotten,’ Kerik wrote. Kerik's royalties on the book have so far totaled $75,954.52, sources told The News. The deal came about when Kerik was engaged in a torrid year-long affair with the book's publisher, Judith Regan, as The News revealed in December. “
-New York Daily News, March 14, 2005

“And now.. Good news.”
-Skippy

“A judge ruled Monday that California's ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional, saying the state could no longer justify limiting marriage to a man and a woman. In the eagerly awaited opinion likely to be appealed to the state's highest court, San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer said that withholding marriage licenses from gays and lesbians is unconstitutional. ‘It appears that no rational purpose exists for limiting marriage in this state to opposite-sex partners,’ Kramer wrote.”
-Associated Press, March 14, 2005

“A good marriage is one which allows for change and growth in the individuals and in the way they express their love.”
-Pearl Buck (1892 - 1973)

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments: love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds.”
-William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Sonnet cxvi

Quotes of the Morning

“Drive thy business or it will drive thee.”
-Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790)

“I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me.”
-John Cleese (1939 - )

“No one traveling on a business trip would be missed if he failed to arrive.”
-Thorstein Veblen (1857 - 1929)

“The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.”
-Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)

“Organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year and spends very little on office supplies.”
-Woody Allen (1935 - )

“Who cares who's captain after the wings have fallen off.”
-Scott McNealy on IBM Corp's new chief executive officer Louis Gerstner

Quotes of the Morning: Blood, Sweat and Four More Years

"Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."
-Winston Churchill

“Never give up, and never surrender!”
-Commander Peter Quincy Taggart, Galaxy Quest

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."
-Winston Churchill

“Thus making Dubya the most successful President in American history.”
-Skippy

"The Americans will always do the right thing... after they've exhausted all the alternatives."
-Winston Churchill

“You know.. It seems that Churchill may have very well inspired a young Dubya. So much of Churchill’s writing seems like stuff that Dubya may have learned a little too enthusiastically.”
-Skippy

"There is no such thing as a good tax."
-Winston Churchill

"One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!"
-Winston Churchill

"If you're going through hell, keep going."
-Winston Churchill

"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."
-Winston Churchill

"If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time-a tremendous whack."
-Winston Churchill

"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life."
-Winston Churchill

"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."
-Winston Churchill

Quotes of the Morning

“There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.”
-Homer (800 BC - 700 BC), The Odyssey

“Real success is finding your lifework in the work that you love.”
-David McCullough

“It's not the hours you put in your work that counts, it's the work you put in the hours.”
-Sam Ewing

“If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there and worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the loss of sleep.”
-Dale Carnegie

“...in order that a man may be happy, it is necessary that he should not only be capable of his work, but a good judge of his work.”
-John Ruskin

“When I woke up this morning my girlfriend asked me, 'Did you sleep good?' I said 'No, I made a few mistakes.' “
-Steven Wright

“All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.”
-Aristotle

Quotes of the Morning: Representing

“Ok, most of these are pretty old, but these are the kinds of people still working as representatives of the people in Washington and state capitols. Some (DeLay) actually have more power now than they did when they said this stuff. Think about that for a few.”
-Skippy

"Quit looking at the symbols. Get out and get a job. Quit shooting each other. Quit having illegitimate babies."
- State Rep. John Graham Altman (R-SC), addressing African-American concerns about the 'symbol' of the Confederate Flag, January 24, 1997

"Two things made this country great: White men & Christianity. The degree these two have diminished is in direct proportion to the corruption and fall of the nation. Every problem that has arisen (sic) can be directly traced back to our departure from God's Law and the disenfranchisement of White men."
- State Rep. Don Davis (R-NC), emailed to every member of the North Carolina House and Senate, reported by the Fayetteville Observer, August 22,2001

"My biggest fear is going to be going to the funeral of some young Iowa man or woman who dies in this conflict and having their mother or father come up to me and ask whether or not their son or daughter died for America, or died to save Bill Clinton's presidency. I don't know what I would say to those grieving parents. For that reason I believe the President must resign immediately."
- Rep. Jim Nussle (R-IA), December 18, 1998

“God forbid you criticize the war in Iraq though..”
-Skippy

"The homosexual blitzkrieg has been better planned and executed than Hitler's."
- Rep. William Dannemeyer (R-CA), August 1, 1994

"Emotional appeals about working families trying to get by on $4.25 an hour are hard to resist. Fortunately, such families do not exist."
- Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), House Majority Whip, April 23, 1996

"Get rid of the guy. Impeach him, censure him, assassinate him."
- Rep. James Hansen (R-UT), talking about President Clinton, as reported by journalist Steve Miner of KSUB radio who overheard his conversation, November 1, 1998

"Environmentalists are a socialist group of individuals that are the tool of the Democrat Party. I'm proud to say that they are my enemy. They are not Americans, never have been Americans, never will be Americans."
- Rep. Don Young (R-AK), August 19, 1996

Quotes of the Morning

“President George W. Bush has nominated John Bolton, a blunt long-time critic of the United Nations, to be U.S. ambassador to the world body in a move that raised doubts about Bush's new emphasis on diplomacy.”
-Reuters, March 8, 2005

"The president and I have asked John to do this work because he knows how to get things done. He is a tough-minded diplomat. He will be a strong voice for reform."
-Condoleeza Rice, March 8, 2005

“His nomination is likely to be seen by many at the UN headquarters in New York as an aggressive move by Washington. Mr Bolton has made clear he is no friend of the UN. He once said: ‘There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is only the international community, which can only be led by the only remaining superpower, which is the United States.’”
-The Times (UK), March 8, 2005

“The [U.N.] Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If it lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference,"
-John Bolton, 1994

"Moreover, many Republicans in Congress - and perhaps a majority - not only do not care about losing the General Assembly vote but actually see it as a ‘make my day’ outcome. Indeed, once the vote is lost, and the adverse consequences predicted by the U.N.'s supporters begin to occur, this will simply provide further evidence to many why nothing more should be paid to the U.N. system."
-John Bolton, as reported in the Washington Times, October 28, 1998

“Kim Jong Il, of course, has not had to endure the consequences of his failed policies. While he lives like royalty in Pyongyang, he keeps hundreds of thousands of his people locked in prison camps with millions more mired in abject poverty, scrounging the ground for food. For many in North Korea, life is a hellish nightmare.”
-John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control, July 31, 2003

“I’m not saying that the leader of North Korea is a nice guy (he most certainly isn’t), but when you are a diplomat, sometimes you should remember the words that most mothers taught us.. ‘If you can’t say something nice about someone don’t say anything at all’.”
-Skippy, September 9, 2003

"We know that there are several hawks within the present U.S. administration but have not yet found out such rude human scum as Bolton. What he uttered is no more than rubbish which can be let loose only by a beastly man bereft of reason. […] such human scum and bloodsucker is not entitled to take part in the talks."
-North Korean Foreign Ministry, August 3, 2003

“Charming. Good job insulting the United Nations Dubya. This is kind of like nominating Rush Limbaugh to head up the BATF, or getting Gandhi to head up the NRA. Sometimes you should just know better.”
-Skippy

“Why should I have to change my name? He's the one who sucks”
-Michael Bolton, Office Space

Quotes of the Morning

“The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.”
-Henry David Thoreau

“The cost of a things is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”
-Henry David Thoreau

“Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is in prison.”
-Henry David Thoreau

“Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.”
-Henry David Thoreau

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.”
-Henry David Thoreau

Quotes of the Morning

“Just because sometimes you need some Dogbert in your life..”
-Skippy

"I'll cure your shyness by putting nude photos of you on the internet."
-Dogbert

“Though that one was specifically for Jeff Gannon.”
-Skippy

"Reality is always controlled by the people who are most insane."
-Dogbert

"According to my online database, our product isn't compatible with your computer. It's also incompatible with all other computers and all other software including our own. And those red blotches on your hands - That's because our box is made of poison ivy."
-Dogbert

"One way to look at your problem is that nobody likes your products. But I don't know how to fix that. So I recommend forming internal business units to bicker with each other."
-Dogbert

"I can give you excellent advice for $50,000 per month. If budget is a problem, I also offer bad advice for the low price of $45,000 per month."
-Dogbert

"Although your company is highly profitable, I wouldn't be much of a consultant if I didn't recommend changes."
-Dogbert

Quotes of the Morning

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teaming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
-Emma Lazarus, ‘The New Colossus’ (poem from the Statue of Liberty)

“The Department of Homeland Security is experimenting with a controversial new method to keep better track of immigrants who are applying to remain in the United States. It is requiring aliens in eight cities to wear electronic monitors 24 hours a day.
The ankle bracelets are the same monitors that some rapists and other convicted criminals have to wear on parole. But the government's pilot project is putting monitors on aliens who have never been accused of a crime.
So far, the Department of Homeland Security has put electronic monitors on more than 1,700 immigrants. Victor Cerda, director of Detention and Removal Operations at Homeland Security, says the anklets will help prevent tens of thousands of immigrants who are ordered to leave the country each year from ‘absconding’ -- going into hiding to avoid deportation.”
-NPR, Morning Edition, March 2, 2005

“Hey, just because we’re treating people who want to legally immigrate like convicted criminals doesn’t mean that we don’t accept them and value them. It just means that we don’t trust them and want to invade their privacy.”
-Skippy

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
-Benjamin Franklin, 1759

“Be careful in revising those immigration laws of yours. We got careless with ours.”
-advice given to Herbert Humphrey by an Native American from New Mexico

Quotes of the Morning: From Russia with Love

“Today’s Quotes come via the always invaluable Billmon at Billmon.org. I can only wish to do as well on my own.”
-Skippy

“While [Russian President] Putin travels with a contingent of reporters just as Bush does, the Kremlin press pool is a handpicked group of reporters, most of whom work for the state.”
-Washington Post, February 25, 2005

“The Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same.”
-USA Today, January 7, 2005

“… and the rest selected for their fidelity to the Kremlin's rules of the game. “
-Washington Post, February 25, 2005
"It was very specifically said [that] we need to be fairer to the Bush Administration or to the Republicans than anybody else in the media would be. But that was always understood there as a sort of a code for “lay off.”
-Former Fox News reporter interviewed in the documentary Outfoxed, 2004

“Helpful questions are often planted.”
-Washington Post, February 25, 2005
“Gannon: In your denunciations of the Abu Ghraib photos, you've used words like 'sickening,' 'disgusting' and 'reprehensible.' Will you have any adjectives left to adequately describe the pictures from Saddam's rape rooms and torture chambers? And will Americans ever see those images?
McClellan: I'm glad you brought that up, Jeff, because the President talks about that often.”
-White House press conference, May 10, 2004

“Unwelcome questions are not allowed.”
-Washington Post, February 25, 2005
“During his trip to Germany on Wednesday, the main highlight of George W. Bush's trip was meant to be a ‘town hall’-style meeting with average Germans. But with the German government unwilling to permit a scripted event with questions approved in advance, the White House has quietly put the event on ice.
-Der Speigel, February 23, 2005

“And anyone who gets out of line can get out of the pool.”
-Washington Post, February 25, 2005

“During last year's election campaign Bush avoided interviews with leading newspapers, such as the Washington Post, but frequently invited reporters from smaller swing state publications to speak with him on Air Force One. Vice-president Dick Cheney took the strategy one step further and banned New York Times reporters from travelling with him.”
-The Observer, February 20, 2005

“Television channels air newscasts with fancy graphics but follow scripts approved by the Kremlin.”
-Washington Post, February 25, 2005

“The [Education] Department already has paid Ketchum . . . to produce a video release on the law that was used by some television stations as if it were real news. Other government agencies -- including the Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- also have distributed such prepackaged videos, a practice that congressional auditors have described as illegal in some cases.”
-Washington Post, January 8, 2005

“The general manager installed at NTV after the Kremlin takeover was later fired when his coverage of the Moscow theater siege in 2002 angered Putin.”
-Washington Post, February 25, 2005

“CNN's top news executive, Eason Jordan, resigned after a web-fed controversy over comments he made at a conference last month in Davos, Switzerland . . . Jordan drew the ire of mostly right-wing bloggers after he allegedly said that U.S. forces in Iraq targeted journalists on several occasions.”
-NewsHour, February 14, 2005

“NTV's most independent remaining hosts, Leonid Parfyonov and Savik Shuster, were taken off the air after the government bristled at their talk shows. Shuster's show was called ‘Freedom of Speech.’"
-Washington Post, February 25, 2005

“ABC is canceling Bill Maher's late-night topical talk show, ‘Politically Incorrect,’ [which] has been on thin ice since just after the September 11 terrorist attacks, when host Maher was quoted as referring to past United States military actions as ‘cowardly.’"
-CNN, May 14, 2002

“[MSNBC host Phil Donahue's show] was cancelled despite having the best ratings on the network; this occurred, according to published reports, after a study commissioned by NBC described Donahue as ‘a tired, left-wing liberal out of touch with the current marketplace’ who would be a ‘difficult public face for NBC in a time of war.’"
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, March 7, 2003

"People do get fired in American press. They don't get fired by government, however. They get fired by their editors or they get fired by their producers, or they get fired by the owners of a particular outlet or network."
-George’Dubya’ Bush, Joint Press Conference with President Putin, February 24, 2005

“Newspaper editors at the Texas City (Texas) Sun and the Daily Courier in Grants Pass, Ore., apologized for opinion pieces critical of Bush's leadership in the aftermath of the [9/11] attacks, then fired the writers. ‘Criticism of our chief executive and those around him needs to be responsible and appropriate,’ wrote Daily Courier editor Dennis Roler in an editorial. “
-USA Today, October 8, 2001

“If Bush does not trust the Russian press to get the story of yesterday's news conference right, he can at least go to the Kremlin's own Web site. On it was posted a transcript of the joint news conference. Only all of Bush's statements and answers were deleted.”
-Washington Post, February 25, 2005

“The list of names of countries supporting the U.S.-led military action in Iraq has been removed from the White House Web site. [Also] gone are links to the audio and video of President Bush's statement that ‘I'm not that concerned’ about Osama bin Laden…”
-Washington Post, October 25, 2004

“The Kremlin press pool is like so many institutions in Russia that have the trappings of a Western-style pluralistic society but operate under a different set of understandings, part of what analyst Lilia Shevtsova of the Carnegie Moscow Center calls ‘the illusion of democracy.’"
-Washington Post, February 25, 2005

“When conservatives talk of George W. Bush’s ‘transformational’ role in American politics, they are referring to a fundamental change they seek in the U.S. system of government in which the Republican Party will dominate for years to come and power will not really be up for grabs in general elections . . .
This concept also might be called the ‘Putin-izing’ of American politics, where one side’s dominance of media, financial resources and the ability to intimidate opponents is overwhelming – as now exists in Russia under President Vladimir Putin.”
-Robert Parry, February 12, 2005

"I've just had a very important and constructive dialogue with my friend . . . We have had, over the past four years, very constructive relations, and that's the way I'm going to keep it for the next four years, as well."
-George’Dubya’ Bush, Joint Press Conference with President Putin, February 24, 2005

Quotes of the Morning from Monday

“The following quotes come from Conservatives, and let me be clear.. By Conservatives I mean ‘I am not a liberal.. I hate those stupid granola crunchers’ Conservatives, not simply moderates who like to be ‘fair’. Feel free to look them and their writings up if you don’t believe me. I just wanted to prove that sometimes I do agree with Conservatives.”
-Skippy

“I don’t think there are yet real fascists in the administration, but there is certainly now a constituency for them — hungry to bomb foreigners and smash those Americans who might object. And when there are constituencies, leaders may not be far behind.”
-Scott McConnell, The American Conservative, February 14, 2005

“In short, what we have alive in the US is an updated and Americanized fascism [that] adores the head of state as a godlike figure who knows better than anyone else what the country and world's needs, and has a special connection to the Creator that permits him to discern the best means to bring it about.”
-Lew Rockwell, December 31, 2004

“I remember when conservatives favored restraint in foreign policy and wished to limit government power in order to protect civil liberties. Today’s young conservatives are Jacobins determined to use government power to impose their will at home and abroad . . . From whence came the brownshirt movement that slavishly adheres to the neocons’ agenda?”
-Paul Craig Roberts, October 2004

“From the first days after 9/11, the Bush administration created a mythology that would spur reverence for both the president and the government. Bush wrapped himself in a flag drenched with the blood of Americans who died due to the failure of the federal government he commanded, and sadly the people bought it — and still continue to buy it.”
-James Bovard, September 17, 2004

Quotes of hte Morning

“Now we know where Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas) thinks the weapons of mass destruction are buried: in Syria, which he said he’d like to nuke to smithereens. Speaking at a veterans’ celebration at Suncreek United Methodist Church in Allen, Texas, on Feb. 19, Johnson told the crowd that he explained his theory to President Bush and Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas) on the porch of the White House one night. Johnson said he told the president that night, ‘Syria is the problem. Syria is where those weapons of mass destruction are, in my view. You know, I can fly an F-15, put two nukes on ‘em and I’ll make one pass. We won’t have to worry about Syria anymore.’”
-Roll Call, February 2005

“Ok.. Let’s look at this one. A seated congressman, speaking at a church, told the crowd that he would nuke a country of 18 million people (about 1.8 million of which are Christian) because of his ‘theory’ that they have weapons of mass destruction. He first told this theory (and his solution) to the President, who apparently, judging from Mr. Johnson’s pride in retelling this, did not call him a moron to his face like he should have. Wow.”
-Skippy

“We don't want to start a nuclear war unless we really have to, now do we Jack?”
-Group Capt. Mandrake (Peter Sellers) to Col. Jack Ripper, Dr. Strangelove

“Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.”
-Omar Bradley (1893 - 1981)

“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
-Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992), Salvor Hardin in "Foundation"

“There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people.”
-Muhammad Ali (1942 - )