Quote:
Random thoughts on the passing scene:
They say that man cannot control the weather. But every time I buy photographic equipment, it rains.
Who says that there is no difference between the political parties? When Democrats are criticized, they counter-attack. When Republicans are criticized, they whine that they are innocent.
We all enter the world knowing nothing but, by the time we are teenagers, we know it all. Sometimes it is decades later before we know enough to realize how little we know.
Nothing is called "second-hand" any more, except "second-hand smoke." Why is it not called "pre-owned" smoke?
Civil rights used to be about treating everyone the same. But today some people are so used to special treatment that equal treatment is considered to be discrimination.
Some people seem to think that we live in more "liberated" times, when all that has happened is that one set of taboos has been replaced by another and more intolerantly enforced set of taboos.
If people had been as mealy-mouthed in centuries past as they are today, Ivan the Terrible would have been called Ivan the Inappropriate.
Sometimes you need a vacation just to recover from all the preparations you made before going on vacation.
Why would a boxer agree to a match in another boxer's home town?
Whatever the political benefits of making decisions by committees, the need for consensus virtually guarantees the lowest common denominator. A bipartisan committee with people of widely differing views has to paper over these differences and issue mushy pieties, like those of the Baker-Hamilton report on Iraq.
I don't feel any different as I get older. However, I do notice that, when I am out biking, a lot of other bikers seem to be passing me and I don't seem to be passing anybody.
What is especially disturbing about the political left is that they seem to have no sense of the tragedy of the human condition. Instead, they tend to see the problems of the world as due to other people not being as wise or as noble as themselves.
The next time somebody says that the government is forced to intervene in the economy to protect the poor, ask why the government is forcing taxpayers to subsidize municipal golf courses, the ballet, opera and -- the biggest subsidy of all -- surrounding affluent communities with vast amounts of expensive "open space."
Some days I don't seem to have much energy. Perhaps worse yet, I don't particularly want much energy.
One of the scariest aspects of our times is how easy it is for glib loudmouths to turn us against each other, weakening the whole framework of society, on which we all depend.
Despite the shameless propaganda of the environmentalist zealots about the loss of animal habitat, more than 90 percent of the land in the United States is undeveloped. Animals already have vastly more habitat than human beings have. How much is enough?
As much as I have enjoyed traveling, the older I get the sooner I become homesick.
The Detroit "big three" top automobile manufacturers in America have already become the "big two," as Toyota replaced DaimlerChrysler as the third largest seller of cars in the United States. An internal memo from the Ford Motor Company indicates that they expect Toyota to replace them in the number two spot.
It is hard to think of any word that has confused more issues than the word "rights." Nowadays, almost anything that anybody wants is called a "right" -- a magic word that does away with the need for evidence, logic or even common sense.
Many of the same people who are urging us to get out of Iraq are also urging us to go into Darfur. They say we should "do something" about the murderous horrors in Darfur. But you cannot simply "do something." You have to do something specific. Those who are urging intervention won't take the responsibility for specifying what we are to do -- and at what cost in American lives.
Compact disks are especially valuable to people who listen to classical music. Through CDs, they can now enjoy the music without having to watch the antics and rituals of classical concerts.
We can only hope that the rumor that Israel is going to take out Iran's nuclear weapons facilities is true. If they do, Israel will be widely condemned by governments that are breathing a sigh of relief that they did.
Don't you mean "Refurbished" Smoke? 
Granted it had a tendency to go after the left-wing a little more, almost all of it was still correct. XD
~Tobe
Civil rights used to be about treating everyone the same. But today some people are so used to special treatment that equal treatment is considered to be discrimination.
WHAT?! YOU'LL GIVE WHITE PPL $250 SCHOLARSHIPS FOR BEING WHITE?! THAT'S RACISM! *threaten, but is interrupted by a phone call from the United Negro College Fund saying they accepted the application*
I've heard something about this stupid in school, actually. Some students - black, as are 75% of the students - were talking about they heard this on the news, and that's racism, and "that's f*cked up, man, I swear." It was damn near impossible to not butt in, so I just left before I turned around and said something I'd probably regret.
Of course, the hundreds of thousands of dollars in race scholarships is just one example.
Quote:
Random thoughts on the passing scene:
A reader asks: "Why do we drive on the parkway and park on the driveway?"
You can fall in love with an individual but you marry into a whole family.
It is fascinating to hear subprime lenders being accused of "exploitation" while they are losing millions of dollars and some of them are going bankrupt.
Will those who are dismantling this society from within or those who seek to destroy us from without be the first to achieve their goal? It is too close to call.
One of the many fashionable excuses of our time is that some words or actions were "taken out of context." Those who say this seldom, if ever, bother to say what these words or actions mean when taken in context.
No music moves me like the third movement of the Grieg Concerto. Am I not supposed to appreciate it because I am not Norwegian?
According to a report from a news agency in Kuwait, deaths of American troops are down since the recent "surge" in U.S. troop strength. But the mainstream American media apparently do not consider that news, since it goes against their political grain.
"Women's Liberation" and the "sexual revolution" have not liberated women. They have liberated the sort of man who is a "love and leave 'em" kind of guy, who lets the woman deal with the consequences, including pregnancy.
Amid all the media hysteria over the price of gasoline and the profits of "Big Oil," one simple fact has been repeatedly overlooked: The oil companies' earnings are just under 10 percent of the price of a gallon of gas, while taxes take 17 percent. Yet who ever accuses the government of "greed"?
After President Bush fired a handful of U.S. attorneys, it has become a big scandal in the media. But when President Clinton fired all the U.S. attorneys in the country -- including those who were investigating him for corruption in Arkansas -- it was no big deal. Yet many in the media still claim that there is no bias.
Where are all the beautiful movie actresses? There are some better looking women on television news programs.
Why did special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald put a reporter in jail and ruin a government official's life in an "investigation" of things he already knew, including the fact that it was Richard Armitage who revealed that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA? Perhaps it was the corrupting influence of unbridled power.
Despite political spin about "tax cuts for the rich," cuts in tax rates have led to increases in tax revenues -- not only in this administration, but in the Reagan administration before that, and the Kennedy administration before that, not to mention in India and Iceland as well.
When the Constitution's protection of private property was disregarded, so that politicians could rob from the rich to give to the poor, that also gave politicians the power to rob from the poor and give to the rich -- such as seizing homes in low-income neighborhoods and turning that property over to developers.
Whenever I see the kinds of expressions on the faces of people in high-fashion ads, I feel lucky that I never met them.
When the University of California system and the California State University system raised their tuitions, the headline in the San Francisco Chronicle read: "UC, CSU Reach Again for Students' Wallets." Apparently you are only supposed to reach for the taxpayers' wallets.
A reader says that he had a T-shirt made that said: "Stop Continental Drift!" It made as much sense as "Stop Global Warming."
When Democrats are criticized, they counter-attack. When Republicans are criticized, they apparently believe in "the soft answer which turneth away wrath." In politics, however, a soft answer is like blood in the water that provokes piranhas to more vicious attacks.
At a recent debate over global warming sponsored by National Public Radio, the audience was polled beforehand and was solidly on the side of the hysterical predictions. Afterwards, they switched to a slight plurality against those predictions. Don't look for the global warming crusaders to risk doing any more debates.
Why should they, when they have virtually a monopoly in the media, in schools and colleges, and among politicians?
Amid all the media hysteria over the price of gasoline and the profits of "Big Oil," one simple fact has been repeatedly overlooked: The oil companies' earnings are just under 10 percent of the price of a gallon of gas, while taxes take 17 percent. Yet who ever accuses the government of "greed"?
...people don't accuse the government of greed?
