Wednesday, August 30, 2006

We have failed

We have lost in Iraq, and no gradualism, no untethered optimism, no good intentions will suffice at this point. We must either win, properly, or admit that we have lost.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled hiatus.

Monday, August 28, 2006

Quotations #082

"The best argument is that which seems merely an explanation." -- Dale Carnegie

"The various admirable movements in which I have been engaged have always developed among their members a large lunatic fringe." -- Theodore Roosevelt

"In formal logic, a contradiction is a sign of defeat; but in the evolution of knowledge it marks the first step in progress towards a victory." -- Alfred North Whitehead

"The old nobility would have survived if they had known enough to become masters of printing materials." -- Napoleon Bonaparte

"I'd rather be caught holding up a bank than stealing so much as a two-word phrase from another writer; but ... when someone has the wit to coin a useful word, it ought to be acclaimed and broadcast or it will perish." -- Jack Smith

Friday, August 18, 2006

Quotation and Six Random Things Meme

Normally I don't do meme-tag requests, but this one includes a citation to a huge collection of epigrammatic wit and wisdom.

Go here and keep clicking (you may want to check the boxes for expanded quote collections at the bottom) until you find five (or six, I never was good at numeric memes) quotations that represent you.
  1. "Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal." -- Albert Camus (1913 - 1960)
  2. "The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity." -- Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967), (attributed)
  3. "I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 - 1969)
  4. "Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats." -- H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
  5. There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance." -- Hippocrates (460 BC - 377 BC)
Second meme: Six random things about me.
  • I often go too long without changing the oil in our car: it's been eight months
  • I had ingrown toenails as a youth
  • I have become very fond of crystallized ginger in dark chocolate
  • Given time to kill (very rare) in a properly equipped bookstore (less rare), I will read graphic novels (i.e. comic books with proper conclusions) at length
  • My sibling and I both eat M&Ms so that the colors come out even in the end (and I'm holding out for Dark Chocolate Mega M&Ms)
  • I like short poems. Writing and reading them, both. Long poems bore me, though there are a few epics which are just plain fun to read. [ed. - tanka, anyone?]

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Quotations #081

"Just as a tree without roots is dead, so a people without history or culture is a dead people." -- Malcolm X

"If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past." -- Baruch Spinoza

"How many disputes could have been deflated into a single paragraph, if the disputants had dared to define their terms." -- Aristotle

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no use being a damned fool about it." -- W. C. Fields

"Methuselah lived to be 969 years old ... You boys and girls will see more happen in the next fifty years than Methuselah saw in his whole lifetime." -- Mark Twain

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Shoot the Moon....

If you take a cheap digital camera (fixed lens, 4Mp) set on macro, and put it up against the eyepiece of your telescope on a full moon....

I know I could get better, if I was a bit more careful with focus and steady. But this was more of a "test of concept" and I'm thrilled.

Back to your regularly scheduled hiatus.... (actually, I'm gonna start doing more of the quotations file soon, just for fun. Not really blogging, so much as finishing something I started a long time ago.)

Update: You just can't win sometimes. Cool.