Henry Kissinger's role in the Cambodian genocide, Chile, and East Timor, makes him a first class war criminal, arguably at least in the class of Hitler's Foreign Minister Joachim Von Ribbentrop, hanged in 1946. But Kissinger has the impunity flowing naturally to the leaders and agents of the victorious and dominant power. He gets a Nobel Peace prize, is an honored member of national commissions, and is a favored media guru and guest at public gatherings. - Prof Edward Herman, Univ of Pennsylvania To slavery in the abstract, slavery in the concrete, to slavery absolute, slavery feudal, and the salvery of wages; to slavery where it is, and where it is not; from the first Israelite who leaned his ear against the door, and was pierced with his master's awl to the last son of Adam who shall wear the badge of servitude; to Slavery we are utterly opposed under every phase and modification, and so with firm and solemn purpose will remain until our lives end. - New York Workingmen, Jan 1845 Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Abraham Lincoln "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and cause me to tremble for the safety of my country; corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in High Places will follow, and the Money Power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the People, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic destroyed." - Abraham Lincoln, 1864 Necessity knows no law, and the starving man has a natural right to a share of his neighbor's bread... Ask for work. If they do not give you work, ask for bread. If they do not give you work or bread, then take bread. - Emma Goldman "I would be ashamed to admit that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the ranks, and not from the ranks." - Eugene Debs They say the Pharaohs built the pyramids. Do you think one Pharaoh dropped one bead of sweat? We built the pyramids for the Pharaohs and we're building for them yet. - Anna Louise Strong The great appear great to us only because we are on our knees -- let us arise. _The_Rebel_ With all their faults, trade-unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the beterment of the race, for the developing of character in man, than any other association of men. - Clarence Darrow, Nov 1909 The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor. - Helen Keller, 1911 “What? Are we to put difference of party tactics before the desperate needs of the workers? Are we no better than the capitalist politicians who stand in the high places and harangue about petty matters, while millions of the people are underpaid, underfed, thrown out of work and dying?” - Helen Keller “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.” - Martin Luther King Jr. "When I fed the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked, 'Why are they poor?' they called me a communist." - Dom Helder Camara You are not making a gift of what is yours to the poor man, but you are giving him back what is his. You have been appropriating things that are meant to be for the common use of everyone. The earth belongs to everyone, not to the rich. - Populorum Progressio "by degrees it has come to pass that working men have been surrendered, isolated and helpless, to the hardheartedness of employers and the greed of unchecked competition. The mischief has been increased by rapacious usury, which, although more than once condemned by the Church, is nevertheless, under a different guise, but with like injustice, still practiced by covetous and grasping men. To this must be added that the hiring of labor and the conduct of trade are concentrated in the hands of comparatively few; so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself." - Rerum Novarum The present age handed over the workers, each alone and defenseless, to the unbridled greed of competitors... so that a very few and exceedingly rich men have laid a yoke of almost slavery on the unnumbered masses of non-owning workers. - Pope Leo XIII All riches come from iniquity, and unless one has lost, another cannot gain. Hence that common opinion seems to be very true, 'the rich man is unjust, or the heir to an unjust one.' Opulence is always the result of theft, if not committed by the actual possessor, then by his predecessor. - St. Jerome "My country, right or wrong" is a thing that no patriot would think of saying, except in a desperate case. It is like saying "My mother, drunk or sober." -- G.K. Chesterton I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind! The answer is twelve? I think I'm in the wrong building. - Charles Schulz When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him whose. - Don Marquis, Journalist Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one. - A. J. Liebling As long as I am mayor of this city the great industries are secure. We hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to myself, "That man is a Red, that man is a Communist". You never hear a real American talk like that. -- Frank Hague, 1896-1956, Jersey City, New Jersey An earthquake achieves what the law promises but does not maintain... the equality of men. -I. Silone War hath no fury like a non-combatant. -- C. Montague Naturally the common people don't want war... but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country. -- Hermann Goering, non-combatant Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear -- kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor -- with the cry of grave national emergency... Always there has been some terrible evil to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant sums demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real. -- General Douglas MacArthur, 1957 It is generally accepted that the Aborigines failed to discover Australia because they had: no guns, no Bibles, no diseases (plague, small pox, etc.), no flags, and no title deeds. --A. Smallacombe Planet Bog -- pools of toxic chemicals bubble under a choking atomsphere of poisonous gases... but aside from that, it's not much like Earth. -- Calvin The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. -- Anatole France I always turn to the sports page first, which record people's accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man's failures. - Chief Justice Earl Warren Never attribute to malice what can be perfectly well explained by stupidity. - M. Turner Politicians should be replaced often, like a diaper, and for the same reason. ---------1---------2---------3---------4-----------5---------6---------7---------8 SIMPLE is a language designed to make it impossible to write code with errors in it. The statements are, therefore, confined to BEGIN, END and STOP. No matter how you arrange the statements, you can't make a syntax error. Programs written in SIMPLE do nothing useful. Thus they achieve the results of programs written in other languages without the tedious, frustrating process of testing and debugging. Maintainer's Motto: If we can't fix it, it ain't broke. (2) If Roger Rowdy wrecks his car every week, and each week he breaks twice as many bones as before, how long will it be before he breaks every bone in his body? How long will it be before they cut off his insurance? Where does he get a new car every week? The more we disagree, the more chance there is that at least one of us is right. "All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power" - Ashleigh Brilliant Computers run on smoke. If it leaks out it won't work. Youth and brilliance are no match for experience and treachery. You may be sure that when a man begins to call himself a "realist," he is preparing to do something he is secretly ashamed of doing. -- Sydney Harris Love is grand. Divorce is over 20 grand. Very funny Scotty, now beam down my pants. If the universe is expanding, why can't I find a parking space? Humans think they are smarter than dolphins because we build cars and buildings and start wars, etc... and all that dolphins do is swim in the water, eat fish, and play around. Dolphins believe that they are smarter for exactly the same reasons. -Douglas Adams A priest asked: "What is Fate, Master?" And the Master answered: "It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence. It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs. It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City to City upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns have come to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness." "And that is Fate?" said the priest. "Fate... I thought you said Freight," responded the Master. "That's all right," said the priest, "I wanted to know what Freight was too." - K. Albran Goodgulf, Gimlet, and the rest rode by him, praying for their fate to be quick, painless, and if possible, someone else's. - "Bored of the Rings", The Harvard Lampoon The Israelites were all waiting anxiously at the foot of the mountain, knowing that Moses had had a tough day negotiating with God over the Commandments. Finally a tired Moses came into sight. "I've got some good news and some bad news, folks," he said. "The good news is that I got Him down to ten. The bad news is that adultery's still in." Life: That brief interlude between nothingness and eternity. Predestination was doomed from the start. When the blind leadeth the blind get out of the way. Life can be so tragic -- you're here today and here tomorrow. Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics. -- F. Knebel Life is a sexually transferred disease with 100% mortality. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. For I have prisons to fill and corrections officers who need jobs." Decisions of the judges will be final unless shouted down by a really overwhelming majority of the crowd present. Abusive and obscene language may not be used by contestants when addressing members of the judging panel, or, conversely, by members of the judging panel when addressing contestants (unless struck by a boomerang). -- Mudgeeraba Creek Emu-Riding and Boomeraaang-Throwing Assoc. Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. - Woody Allen, "Annie Hall" The herd instinct among economists makes sheep look like independent thinkers. If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you. A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory. Life is the living you do, Death is the living you don't do. - J. Pintauro Bureaucrat, n.: A person who cuts red tape sideways. -- J. McCabe Modern man is the missing link between apes and human beings. [The ERA] encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians. -- Pat Robertson, student of law The American system of ours, call it Americanism, call it Capitalism, call it what you like, gives each and every one of us a great opportunity if we only seize it with both hands and make the most of it. -- Al Capone Cynical, misanthropic male, 34, looking for soul mate but certain not to find her. Drop me a note. I'll call you, we'll talk and I'll ask you out to dinner where I'll probably spend more than I can afford in a feeble attempt to impress you. Then we'll realize we have absolutely nothing in common and we'll go our separate ways, more embittered and depressed than before (if such a thing is possible). Money is the root of all evil. ...a man needs roots. The absent are always wrong. -English proverb Love means nothing to a tennis player. chparker to fpsoc: "Now they show you how detergents take out bloodstains, a pretty violent image there. I think if you've got a T-shirt with a bloodstain all over it, maybe laundry isn't your biggest problem. Maybe you should get rid of the body before you do the wash." --Jerry Seinfeld "Why does Sea World have a seafood restaurant? I'm halfway through my fishburger and I realize, Oh my God....I could be eating a slow learner." --Lynda Montgomery I can't believe that out of 100,000 sperms, you were the fastest. -S. Pearl Obscenity is whatever gives a judge an erection. Some guy hit my fender the other day , and I said onto him. "Be fruitful, and copulate." But not in those words. -Woody Allen First you forget names, then you forget faces, then you forget to pull your zipper up, then you forget to pull your zipper down. -L. Rosenberg "Why robotics? Well my parents were always telling me to make new friends." - A. Vaughan People don't learn from each other's mistakes. They learn each other's mistakes. There are no bugs, only unrecognized features. Shaw's Principle (& Bob's Boggle): Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it. "Left on their own, all of the major networks would broadcast live executions. Except the Fox network, which would broadcast naked live executions." Hawaii, Sept. 1989, Dan Quayle: "Hawaii has always been a very pivotal role in the Pacific. It is IN the Pacific. It is a part of the United States that is an island that is right here." There's so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets? -D. Cavett All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy. If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error. -- John Kenneth Galbraith If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside. -- Robert X. Cringely, InfoWorld One day an explorer is out in the jungle. As he wanders along, he comes upon an elephant, crying with pain, a large thorn lodged in its foot. Feeling sorry for the elephant, the man carefully pulls out the thorn. The elephant looks at him gratefully, then limps off into the jungle. Many years later, the same man vists a circus, and sits in the front row. The elephant acts come on, but one of the elephants keeps looking over at the explorer. Eventually, the elephant breaks free, runs over to him... then picks the man up with his trunk, dashes him to the ground, and tramples him to death with his mighty feet. Why did the elephant do this? It wasn't the same elephant. Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. In capitalism, man exploits man. In communism, it's exactly the opposite. Private property. Keep out. Trespassers will be shot...Survivors will be shot again! >From Harper's Index Nov. 1988 "Parking fees that Universal Studios collected from picketers of _The Last Temptation of Christ_: $4,500" A closed mouth gathers no foot. A liberal is someone too poor to be a capitalist and too rich to be a communist. One day we reporters came to work and discovered that our old, slow, horse-drawn typewriters had been replaced by sleek, efficient computers with keys that said "BREAK" and "NUM LOCK." Fortunately we were trained by highly skilled professional computer personnel who spoke no English. "Before you macro your ASCII, you have to format your RAM," they would advise us, in a tone of voice clearly suggesting that any member of the vegetable family should know this instinctively. -Dave Barry "I wish I had a dollar for every time I spent a dollar, because then, yahoo!, I'd have all my money back." - Jack Handey Show me a man who is a good loser and I'll show you a man who is playing golf with his boss. The excavation showed that the fossilized plesiosaur had been holding a placard which read, "End Nuclear Testing Now". - Terry Pratchett Mr Ixolite is a banshee with a speech impediment, so instead of standing on the roof and screaming when there's a death in the house he writes "OooEeeOooEeeOoo" on a piece of paper and pushes it under the door. - Terry Pratchett Q: How do you make a million dollars as a folk singer? A: Start with two million . . . Your chances of winning the lottery get a lot better if you buy a ticket. A friend with weed is a friend indeed. Eighty percent of air pollution comes from plants and trees. -- Ronald Reagan [famous movie star] "It's at times like this I wish I'd listened to my mother." "Why, what did she say?" "I don't know, I never listened." -- Douglas Adams It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I just beat people up. -Muhammad Ali A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say. -- Michael Winner If you go to the zoo, always take somethin' to feed the animals - even if the signs say "Do not feed the animals." It wasn't the animals that put them signs up. "Somewhere out in this audience there may be someone who will be the spouse of a future President of the United States. I wish him well." --Barbara Bush Someday, we will all look back on this, and not remember any of it. -Soy Sauce Here's an often overlooked accounting technique that can save you thousands of dollars: For several days before you put it in the mail, carry your tax return around under your armpit. No IRS agent is going to want to spend hours poring over a sweat-stained document. So even if you owe money, you can put in for an enormous refund and the agent will probably give it to you, just to avoid an audit. What does he care? It's not his money. -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes" If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he next comes to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. -- Thomas De Quincey "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you lay the blame." "It's not whether you win or lose, it's whether I win or lose." Somebody told me it was frightening how much topsoil we are losing each year, but I told that story around the campfire and nobody got scared. -Jack Handey When I was a boy of fourteen my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years. -Mark Twain Based on what you know about him in history books, what do you think Abraham Lincoln would be doing if he were alive today? A. Writing his memoirs of the Civil War. B. Advising the President. C. Desperately clawing at the inside of his coffin. -David Letterman If you took all the world's politicians, and put them in a long line around the equator, then that would be kinda cool. If you put your money where your mouth is, you will look very strange to other people. Pilot: "Pheeeew, this must be the shortest strip I've ever landed on!" Co-pilot: "Yes but it is certainly one of the widest" -- F. de Jonge In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up. -Pastor Martin Niemoeller Mah Mama owl-ways sad Math is lack a box of choc'lets -- it is owl-ways best when you use your fingers. For three days after death, hair and fingernails continue to grow, but phone calls taper off. -Johnny Carson A man goes to the doctor and says to the doctor: "It hurts when I press here" (pressing his side) "And when I press here" (pressing the other side) "And here" (his leg) "And here, here and here" (his other leg, and both arms) After examination the doctor says: "You've got a broken finger." Revolution is not a crime if the government is overthrown. "The meek shall inherit the Earth, if that's all right with you." Q: People that love the English are called Anglophiles, people that love the French are Francophiles, what are people that love Americans called? A: Americans. -- T. Patterson The world holds two classes of men - intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence. -Abu'l-Ala-Al-Ma'arri (973-1057) The Bible tells us to love our neighbors and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people. -G.K. Chesterton/Mark Twain ... if forced to travel on an airplane, try and get in the cabin with the Captain, so you can keep an eye on him and nudge him if he falls asleep or point out any mountains looming up ahead ... -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" Money isn't the most important thing in life, but it's right up there with oxygen. "Football combines the worst elements of America: Mass violence punctuated by committee meetings." The only person who got all his work done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe. Actor: "I'm a smash hit. Why, yesterday during the last act, I had everyone glued in their seats!" Oliver Herford: "Wonderful! Wonderful! Clever of you to think of it!" Bless you my child. May all of your children be born naked. In 1994, more people went bowling than voted in Congressional elections. F. Scott Fitzgerald: Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. Ernest Hemingway: Yes, they have more money. I used to think I was poor. Then they told me I wasn't poor, I was needy. Then they told me it was self-defeating to think of myself as needy. I was deprived. (Oh not deprived but rather underprivileged.) Then they told me that underprivileged was overused. I was disadvantaged. I still don't have a dime. But I have a great vocabulary. -Jules Feiffer (1965) Lord Percy: He died a hero's death, dying so his friends might live... Blackadder: ...And that his enemies might have something to go with their potatoes. There was a young poet named Dan, Whose poetry never would scan. When told this was so, He said, "Yes, I know. It's because I try to put every possible syllable into that last line that I can." If you want to take long walks, take long walks. If you want to hit things with a stick, hit things with a stick. But there's no excuse for combining the two and putting the results on TV. Golf is not so much a sport as an insult to lawns. -National Lampoon I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That's deep enough. What do you want, an adorable pancreas? -Jean Kerr How come the dove gets to be the peace symbol? How about the pillow? It has more feathers than the dove, and it doesn't have that dangerous beak. -Jack Handey Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space. -Douglas Adams I am not an Athenian or a Greek, I am a citizen of the world. -Socrates "Most people want peace and are ready to take a risk for it." -Yitzhak Rabin, 11/4/95 I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves. -August Strindberg I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia. -Woody Allen Mistakes can often be the stepping stones to utter failure. Murphy's Laws of Combat: Never forget that your weapon is made by the lowest bidder. Never draw fire, it irritates everyone around you. Teamwork is essential, it gives them someone else to shoot at. What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset. -- Crowfoot [Blackfoot warrior, orator, 1821-1890], last words If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants. -- Sir Isaac Newton If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders. -- Hal Abelson The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning, and does not stop until you get to work. Women, can't live with them, can't live with them. Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple. -B. Switzer "The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy ... Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water." >Railway station ticket counter, down under: Man in hurry: Gimme a ticket to Jeopardy! Clerk: Sorry sir. There is no such place called Jeopardy in New Zealand. Man in hurry: You gotta be kidding mate, I just heard on the radio that there were 500 jobs in Jeopardy. What's the difference between God and Rush Limbaugh? God doesn't think he's Rush Limbaugh. If everybody hated you, you'd be paranoid too. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C," and "D." And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. - Barry Goldwater, Congressional Record, 999/16/1981 The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep. -- W. C. Fields I've always wanted to be somebody, but now I see I should have been more specific." - Lily Tomlin ``There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is having lots to do and not doing it.'' Workers of the world, arise! You have nothing to lose but your chairs. "Well, I love to swim in the nude, and one day I was in the pool in Palm Springs when two gatemen looked over the fence and said, 'Oops, hi, Eva!' Well, I got out of that pool, draped a towel around me, and I told them, 'No, dahling ... it's Zsa Zsa!'" -Eva Gabor Frisbeetarianism: The Belief that when one dies, one's Soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck. Computers aren't intelligent. They only think they are. Those who can't write, write manuals. It is generally agreed that "Hello" is an appropriate greeting because if you entered a room and said "Goodbye," it could confuse a lot of people. -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot" Anarchy may not be the best form of government, but it's better than no government at all. Know what I hate most? Rhetorical questions. -- H. Camp The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is also opposed to all other attempts at rational thinking. Not by accident does Genesis 3 make the father of knowledge a serpent -- slimy, sneaking and abominable. Since the earliest days the church as an organization has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was the apologist for the divine right of kings. - H. L. Mencken For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. --H. Mencken The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much. Bug \'b*g\ n: An aspect of a computer program which exists because the PROGRAMMER was thinking about Jumbo Jacks or stock options when s/he wrote the program. Fortunately, the second-to-last bug has just been fixed. --R. Simard "Easiest Color to Solve on a Rubik's Cube: Black. Simply remove all the little colored..." --S. Rubenstein Some of you ... may have decided that, this year, you're going to celebrate it the old-fashioned way, with your family sitting around stringing cranberries and exchanging humble, handmade gifts, like on "The Waltons". Well, you can forget it. If everybody pulled that kind of subversive stunt, the economy would collapse overnight. The government would have to intervene: it would form a cabinet-level Department of Holiday Gift-Giving, which would spend billions and billions of tax dollars to buy Barbie dolls and electronic games, which it would drop on the populace from Air Force jets, killing and maiming thousands. So, for the good of the nation, you should go along with the Holiday Program. This means you should get a large sum of money and go to a mall. -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it "Christmas" and went to church; the Jews called it "Hanukka" and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say "Merry Christmas!" or "Happy Hanukka!" or (to the atheists) "Look out for the wall!" These days, people say "Season's Greetings," which, when you think about it, means nothing. It's like walking up to somebody and saying "Appropriate Remark" in a loud, cheerful voice... Some day, I imagine, even "Season's Greetings" will be considered too religious, and we'll celebrate the Holiday Season by saying "Have a nice day." Money may be able to buy love and happiness, but it still can't buy greed. -Soy Sauce "Worst Vegetable of the Year: The brussels sprout. This is also the worst vegetable of next year." --S. Rubenstein All the big corporations depreciate their possessions, and you can too, provided you use them for business purposes. For example, if you subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, a business-related newspaper, you can deduct the cost of your house, because, in the words of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger in a landmark 1979 tax decision: "where else are you going to read the paper? Outside? What if it rains?" --Dave Barry Never judge a cover by its book. There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it. --G.B. Shaw The Roman Rule The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it. "Winning isn't everything. ....winning and gloating and rubbing their noses in it, THAT'S everything." Being schizophrenic is better than living alone. Heheh, that's me, Liberal-Man...dun-dun-dun duuunn.... Faster than a speeding lawsuit! More powerful than a special interest group! Able to leap tall Republicans in a single bound! Look up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! No! It's Liberal-Man! Fighting for Truth! Justice! And the American Civil Liberties Union! -Soy Sauce AIDS is nothing less than the hand of God. Stop the Asian Invasion. Welfare is a liberal conspiracy to reverse natural selection. Larry Bird is the greatest basketball player ever. Dan Quayle is the smartest man this side of the Mississippi. -Soy Sauce Don't mess with me man! I know karate, judo, ninjitsu, and a dozen other Japanese words. I want to die peacefully, In my sleep, Like my Grandfather. Not screaming, In terror, Like the passengers in his car. Sign: "Going beyond this point may result in death and/or loss of skiing privileges." "Life is a video game. No matter how good you get, you're always zapped in the end." Two elephants Harry and Faye, Couldn't kiss with their trunk in the way, So the board a plane, Now their kissing in Maine, 'Cause their trunks got sent to LA! When all is said and done, There was a hell of a lot more said than done. If you hit a man over the head with a fish, he'll have a headache for a day. But if you teach a man to hit himself over the head with a fish, he'll have headaches for the rest of his life. On the afternoon of March 13, 1993, Winchester B Fleen of Toad Sphincter, Arkansas, was abducted by large-brained beings who drilled holes in his head, probed him with giant needles, pumped chemicals into his body, took samples of his organs and drained his body fluids before they found out that he did not have health insurance, at which point they released him back into the hospital waiting room. -Dave Barry On the morning of July 3, 1994, one year old Jason Toastwanker fell off his tricycle, hit his head and was knocked out. When he regained consciousness, he spoke to his parents in fluent German. This did not surprise them, because they were Germans and this happened in Germany. What surprised them was that, before the accident, he had cleaned up his room without being asked. -Dave Barry I have here a document, sent in by an alert reader, stating that a researcher in New Zealand has discovered a new method for growing tomatoes hydroponically. I believe that "hydroponically" comes from the Greek words "Hydro" meaning "a" and "ponically" meaning "way of growing tomatoes". -Dave Barry A: Please divert your course 15 degrees North to avoid collision. B: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees South to avoid a collision. A: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course. B: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course. A: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER ENTERPRISE, WE ARE A LARGE WARSHIP OF THE US NAVY. DIVERT YOUR COURSE NOW! B: This is a lighthouse. Your call. Kansas City Star: In a recent Star magazine there was an article about a 15th birthday celebration. This phrase was used: "La fiesta de quince anos." The word "anos" is spelled incorrectly, because in order for it to mean "years" it should have a tilde above the "n". As printed it is an anatomical term. Prof. Patrick Winston on MIT: There are three kinds of MIT students. 1/3 think they're God. 1/3 think they're the lowest scum on earth. and 1/3 oscillate between the two. The following is a deep and meaningful poem, and although it may seem superficially comic on the surface, underneath it is a deep reflection of the meaning of existence: There was once a limerick by me, That didn't rhyme at all. And it didn't have those two lines in the middle, That are shorter then all the rest, That limerick by me. And it had one line too many. -Unknown "Would you people stop quoting me, already." -A.J. Liebling Roses are red Violets are blue I'm a lousy poet Because I can't rhyme |\/\/\/| | | | | | (o)(o) C _) EAT MY SHORTS | ,___| | / /____\ / \ I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous. The best things in life are free...and worth every penny. Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake when you make it again. He'll sit here and he'll say, "Do this! Do that!" And nothing will happen. - Harry S. Truman, on presidential power Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read. -- Groucho Marx You can observe a lot just by watching. -- Yogi Berra It's not the dress that makes you look fat, it's the FAT that makes you look fat. -- Al Bundy Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down. [Land mine briefing.] Lieutenant: "If we do happen to step on a mine, Sir, what do we do?" Captain: "Normal procedure, Lieutenant, is to jump 200 feet in the air and scatter oneself over a wide area." "Calm down. It's only ones and zeros." He's dead, Jim. You grab his tricorder, I'll get his wallet. [Not for Brain Opera] Politics: Poli (many) - tics (blood sucking parasites) "Banks are a place that will lend you money, if you prove that you don't need it." - Bob Hope - To err is human - to blame it on a computer is even more so. So many pedestrians, so little time. A man without religion is like a fish without a bicycle. ["A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." - Gloria Steinem?] Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.... -C. Zwanzig "Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way." -- Kurt Vonnegut "There is no distinctly American criminal class, except Congress." -- Mark Twain As we anarchists say: "There's no government like no government." -- D. Cain It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished. ....unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. --Voltaire "My father built a quicksand box in our back yard. I was an only child, eventually." -- Steven Wright Pi = 3, for small values of pi and large values of 3. "My friend Bob is a radio DJ, and when he walks under a bridge, you can't hear him talk." -- Steven Wright NAPOLEON: What shall we do with this soldier, Guiseppe? Everything he says is wrong. GUISEPPE: Make him a general, Excellency, and then everything he says will be right. In the force if Yoda's so strong, construct a sentence with words in the proper order then why can't he? Roses are red, violets are blue; I'm schizophrenic and so am I. (My own! Seen in "fortune"! ....but... I am too.) Don't knock President Fillmore. He kept us out of Vietnam. MOSQUITO: The state bird of New Jersey. -- Andy Warhol But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses. -- Bruce Leverett "Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers" Just remember: when you go to court, you are trusting your fate to twelve people that weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty. I may kid around about drugs, but really, I take them seriously. "I heard that Tonya Harding was calling herself the Charles Barkley of figure skating. I was going to sue her for defamation of character, but then I realized I had no character." -- Charles Barkley, Phoenix "What a waste it is to lose one's mind -- or not to have a mind at all. How true that is." -- V.P. Dan Quayle, garbling the United Negro College Fund slogan in an address to the group (from Newsweek, May 22nd, 1989) The 90s are like the 70s, only 20 years later. If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it. -- Thomas Carlyle A London reporter on the eve of the England-West Germany Soccer World Cup final of 1966: "If, on the morrow, the Germans defeat us at our national sport, be not dismayed. For twice in this century, we've defeated them at theirs." Take your dying with some seriousness, however. Laughing on the way to your execution is not generally understood by less-advanced life-forms, and they'll call you crazy. -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul A bather whose clothing was strewed By breezes that left her quite nude, Saw a man come along And, unless I'm quite wrong, You expected this line to be lewd. 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 No problem is so big that you can't run away from it. Law of Software Envelopment: "Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can." "Why shouldn't the American people take half my money from me? I took all of it from them." -Edward Filene (Filene's Department Stores) Even though Lisp compilers in 1987 were about as good as C compilers, there are many more compiler experts who want to make C compilers better than want to make Lisp compilers better. The good news is that in 1995 we will have a good operating system and programming language; the bad news is that they will be Unix and C++. --R. Gabriel A chicken is an egg's way of making more eggs. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first, and call whatever you hit the target. The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair. -Douglas Adams You have the capacity to learn from mistakes. You'll learn a lot today. - B. Mittelstedt In the beginning, there was nothing. So God said, "Let there be light!" And there was still nothing, but you could see it. I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. -- Galileo Galilei You can do more with a kind word and a gun than with just a kind word. - Al Capone "I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell's ass." - Senator Barry Goldwater, when asked whattt he thought of Jerry Falwell's suggestion that all good Christians should be against Sandra Day O'Connor's nomination to the Supreme Court Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. Have you noticed that all you need to grow healthy, vigorous grass is a crack in your sidewalk? Q: Why do ducks have flat feet? A: To stamp out forest fires. Q: Why do elephants have flat feet? A: To stamp out flaming ducks. Lord, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the Courage to change the things I must, and the Wisdom to hide the bodies of those I had to kill because they got in my way. Some people hope to achieve immortality through their works or their children. I would prefer to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen There are three types of engineers. Those who can count. And those who can't. Eggnog is a traditional holiday drink invented by the English. Many people wonder where the word "eggnog" comes from. The first syllable comes from the English word "egg", meaning "egg". I don't know where the "nog" comes from. To make eggnog, you'll need rum, whiskey, wine, gin and, if they are in season, eggs... The individual choice of garnishment of a burger can be an important point to the consumer in this day when individualism is an increasingly important thing to people. -- Donald N. Smith, president of Burger King "The C Programming Language -- A language which combines the flexibility of assembly language with the power of assembly language." A new study has discovered that research causes cancer in rats. My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right. One good reason why computers can do more work than people is that they never have to stop and attend team meetings. Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. -- E. Hoffer It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper. -- R. Serling "The attempt to silence a man is the greatest honor you can bestow on him. It means that you recognize his superiority to yourself." -- J. Sobran "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy." -- L. Rosten Imagine if Cray computer decided to make a personal computer that has a 1 GHz processor, 1 gigabyte of RAM, 1 terabyte of disk storage, a screen resolution of 8192x8192 pixels, relies entirely on voice recognition for input, fits in your shirt pocket and costs $300. What's the first question that the computer community asks? "Is it Windows compatible?" "If God dropped acid, would he see people?" -Steven Wright Opinions are like assholes -- everyone's got one, but nobody wants to look at the other guy's. -- H. Hickman A bus station is where the bus stops. A train station is where the train stops. On my desk I have a work station... "I cannot overemphasize the importance of good grammar." What a crock. I could easily overemphasize the importance of good grammar. For example, I could say: "Bad grammar is the leading cause of slow, painful death in North America," or "Without good grammar, the United States would have lost World War II." -- Dave Barry Canada Jones' Motto: It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money. Supplement: A .44 magnum beats four aces. C Code. C Code Run. Run, Code, RUN! PLEASE!!!! "In 1969 We went to the moon and there was no air and only a bunch of dirt and WE LOVED IT!" -T. Whitley talking about kids today and Apollo. Aibohphobia (n.): the fear of palindromes. - A. Bierce "I believe OS/2 is destined to be the most important operating system, and possibly program, of all time" - B. Gates, Nov, 1987. Hey! Who took the cork off my lunch??! -- W. C. Fields Things are more like they are now than they ever were before. Dwight D. Eisenhower Lots of people are busy working trying to build a kernel. Applications, of course, are what is really needed. Nobody wanted a 3/4" drill bit, all they ever wanted was a 3/4" hole. - R. Kolstad Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners. Quiet people aren't the only ones who don't say much. - R. Baalke I like work; it fascinates me; I can sit and look at it for hours. Crime does not pay... as well as politics. "We have secretly switched the Enterprise's dilithium crystals with Folgers crystals, let's see if they will notice the difference." From a-brmack to citytest, citydev: How do they get Teflon to stick to a frying pan? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. - Sigmund Freud "The inventor of Crest passed away. 4 out of 5 dentists came to the funeral." - J. Leno Teach children to be polite and courteous in the home, and, when they grow up, they will never be able to edge a car onto a freeway. Yesterday: open the swimsuit to see the buttocks. Today: open the buttocks to see the swimsuit. "If you steal from 1 you are plagarizing. If you steal from 10 you are doing research. If you steal from 100 you are an expert." -B. Delaney "There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself." -- J. S. Bach "At this point, we suggest you try re-reading the manual." - The Algol compiler used at Case Instituttte of Technology, after finding 25 errors in the source. Now and then an innocent man is sent to the Legislature. "The rule which forbids ending a sentence with a preposition is the kind of nonsense up with which I will not put." -Winston Churchill I would have promised those terrorists a trip to Disneyland if it would have gotten the hostages released. I thank God they were satisfied with the missiles and we didn't have to go to that extreme. - Oliver North A recent study has found that concentrating on difficult off-screen objects, such as the faces of loved ones, causes eye strain in computer scientists. Researchers into the phenomenon cite the added concentration needed to "make sense" of such unnatural three dimensional objects.... When all else fails, read the instructions. Every great scientific truth goes through three states: 1. "It conflicts with the Bible." 2. "It's been discovered before." 3. "We've always believed it." - L. Agassiz Q: Where do you go to get a new battery for a computer? A: Those things are supposed to last for about 5 years. Q: So? A: So you should be buying a new computer, not a new battery. "Doctors at a hospital in Brooklyn, New York have gone on strike. Hospital officials say they will find out what the Doctors' demands are as soon as they can get a pharmacist over there to read the picket signs." - Jay Leno My grandmother, she started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She's 97 today and we don't know where the hell she is. - Ellen DeGeneris I'm not into working out. My philosophy: No pain, no pain. -- C. Leifer PROGRAMMER'S DRINKING SONG 100 little bugs in the code! 100 little buuugs! Track one down! Work around! 101 little bugs in the code... Repeat until (cBugs == 0) Kirk: "Bones, Bones! Do you think you're all right? Are you badly hurt?" McCoy: "Damn it Jim, I'm a doctor, not a lawyer." Q: "Darling, will you love me when I'm old and feeble?" A: "You bet I do" Five Stages of an Actor's Career: 1. Who's Joe Smith? 2. GET ME Joe Smith!!! 3. Get me a Joe Smith type. 4. Get me a young Joe Smith. 5. Who's Joe Smith? "Feudalism - it's your count that votes!" "I think there's a world market for about 5 computers." -- Thomas J. Watson, Chairman of the Boarddd, IBM (circa 1948) Doctor: "What's your son going to be when he graduates?" Parent: "An old man." Lea Sr: "I think today is Ronald Reagan's birthday." Lea Jr: "Yeah, people the world over celebrated by forgetting it." - J. Lea A cement mixer collided with a prison van on the Kingston Pass. Motorists are asked to be on the lookout for sixteen hardened criminals. -R. Corbett If God had really intended men to fly, He'd make it easier to get to the airport. - G. Winters The nice thing about computer standards is that there are so many to choose from. I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it. Don't take life too seriously -- you'll never get out of it alive. God did not create the world in 7 days; he screwed around for 6 days and then pulled an all-nighter. "I'm doing a film. I don't know what it's about. I don't know what you'll be playing in it. I don't even know if we'll have a film at the end of it. Do you want to do it or not?" - Marianne Jean-Baptiste, recalling Mike LLLeigh's "Secrets & Lies" pitch The canal system of this country is being threatened by a new form of transportation known as "railroads." ...pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour ...endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening women and children. - Martin Van Buren Old fishermen never die, they just smell that way. "Welcome to Chicago" - American Airlines welcome sign, San Diego, April Fool's Day The chance of forgetting something is directly proportional to ..... to ........ uh .............. A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn. Professor Gorden Newell threw another shutout in last week's Chem. Eng. 130 midterm. Once again a student did not receive a single point on his exam. Newell has now tossed 5 shutouts this quarter. Newell's earned exam average has now dropped to a phenomenal 30%. Once ... in the wilds of Afghanistan, I lost my corkscrew, and we were forced to live on nothing but food and water for days. -- W. C. Fields, "My Little Chickadee" When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it. -- Clarence Darrow Whenever you read a good book, it's like the author is right there, in the room, talking to you, which is why I don't like to read good books. -- Jack Handey Famous last words: "" Tower: BA 288, please say altitude. BA 288: Altitude. T: Very funny, 288, please say altitude. B: Altitude. T: BA 288, please say "cancelling IFR". B: Er, BA 288 at flight level three seven zero.... "I don't even know what street Canada is on." -- Al Capone "The Book says BURN and DESTROY repent and redeem and revenge and deploy and rumble thee forth to the land of the unbelieving scum 'cause they don't go for what's in the Book and that makes 'em BAD." -- Frank Zappa Old soldiers never die. Young ones do. .... Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed. "A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students." -- J. Cairdi Doctor Henry Breault, inventor of the child-proof bottle cap, died last week. Dozens of friends and relatives attended what was supposed to be an open-casket funeral. - CBC-TV Bloom's Seventh Law of Litigation: The judge's jokes are always funny. If you can't say something nice, at least have something to say. - M. Legeros It is a small man that can spell a word only one way. - Mark Twain "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." - J. Freeman "So far from God, so close to the United States" -- Old Mexican proverb GLAM: Laugh alone and the world thinks you're an idiot. Sometimes I wake up grumpy; Other times I let her sleep. I took an IQ test and the results were negative. Give me ambiguity or give me something else. Give me the strength to change the things I can, the grace to accept the things I cannot, and a great big bag of money. -- Jack Handey Seen it, Done it, Can't remember most of it. Honk if you love peace and quiet. A day without sunshine is like night. Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off NOW. Pride is what we have. Vanity is what others have. "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." "My name is Oedipus. I killed my father and married my mother. Prepare to watch me tear out my eyes." "My name is Hamlet. You killed my father and married my mother. Should I do something about it or not?" "The effort of using machines to mimic the human mind has always struck me as rather silly. I would rather use them to mimic something better." --Edsger Dijkstra Don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted. He lived happily ever after. When they leave here they'll be completely restored to their normal terrible old selves. But maybe they'll be a little wiser for the wear. So much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it. We are the music makers -- and we are the dreamers of the dreams. - Willy Wonka And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, one girl sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time... This is not her story. - Douglas Adams Arthur Dent? Arthur Philip Dent? You're a jerk. A complete asshole. Folfanga. Fourth world of the Folfanga system. Estimated journey time, three weeks. There to meet with a small slug. Of the genus A-Rth-Urp- Hil-Ipdenu. I believe that you had decided to call it a brainless prat. Arthur Philip Deodat? You're a no-good dumbo nothing. I thought you should know that before you went. "Arthur Phili ..." it said, then glanced sharply at him and down at his clipboard. He frowned. He looked up at him again. "I've done you before haven't I?" he said. - Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged What is the difference between apathy and ignorance? I don't know, and I don't care. Statistics is the science which says 99% of the population have an above average number of legs. I read the New Testament two years ago, and if you take away all the great sayings of Jesus it is not a great book. It seems well written because people grow up with it. The first three Gospels are written by committee. - Norman Mailer Today is the last day of your life so far. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes. - John Swinton, Chief of Staff New York Tiiimes, 1953 Life is a joke. We aspire to be the punchline. - Soy Sauce "A politician is someone who lies to the press, and believes what he reads the next day." "I'm 61 years old. One-third of my life is over already." - Woody Allen, 1997 If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex? Natural man has only two primal passions: to get and to beget. -Osler JMazner: The best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant. Sex is like air; it's not important unless you aren't getting any. There are two kinds of pedestrians -- the quick and the dead. I went up into the attic with the wife the other day. Dirty, filthy, covered in cobwebs. But she's good with the kids. I found this violin and this picture. I took them along to the auctioneer, he says what you've got there is a Stradivarius and a Rembrandt. Unfortunately, Stradivarius was a rotten painter, and Rembrandt couldn't make violins. Q: Are you sexually active? A: No, I just lie there. If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss Bank. - Woody Allen Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself: "Mankind". Basically, it's made up of two separate words - "mank" and "ind". What do these words mean? It's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind. -Jack Handy I said, "Doctor, it hurts when I do that." (Moves arm) He said, "Don't do it then." I said, "Doctor, I've broken my arm in several places." He said, "Don't go to those places." slate.com: Honesty may not be the best policy, but it is worth trying once in a while. --Richard Nixon, 1970 nrumbel: Two wrongs are only the beginning. The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face. -Jack Handy Marine biology researchers have developed a new method to fend off shark attacks. If you are diving and are approached by a shark they recommend that you swim towards it aggressively and punch it in the nose as hard as possible. If this doesn't work, beat the shark with your stump. "What is it that hangs on the wall, is green, wet -- and whistles?" "....." "A herring." "A herring? A herring doesn't hang on the wall!" "So hang it there." "But a herring isn't green!" "Paint it." "But a herring isn't wet." "If it's just painted it's still wet." "But -- a herring doesn't whistle!!" "Right, I just put that in to make it hard." - L. Rosten To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other. -Jack Handy If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason. -Jack Handy If you sit down at a poker game and don't see a sucker, get up. You're the sucker. If Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at the age of 22, it would have changed the history of music...and of aviation. Don't worry over what other people are thinking about you. They're too busy worrying over what you are thinking about them. Shift would always say, "Now, Puzzle, I understand what needs to be done better than you. You know you're not clever Puzzle." And Puzzle always said, "No, Shift. It's quite true. I'm not clever." Then he would sigh and do whatever Shift had said. The Ape squealed in rage and terror: "Take him away. Take him away. Take him where he cannot hear us, nor we hear him. There tie him to a tree. I will - I mean, Aslan will - do justice to him later." -C.S.Lewis "Now the Lord God planted a garden East of Whittier in a place called Yorba Linda, and out of the ground he made to grow orange trees that were good for food and the fruits thereof he labeled SUNKIST ..." -- "The Begatting of a President" Scarecrow: I haven't got a brain...only straw. Dorothy: How can you talk if you haven't got a brain? Scarecrow: I don't know...But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking...don't they? Dorothy: Yes, I guess you're right. Why, anybody can have a brain. That's a very mediocre commodity. Every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the Earth or slinks through slimy seas has a brain. Back where I come from, we have universities of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. But they have one thing that you haven't got: a diploma. - Wizard of Oz Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt. "Confound those who have said our remarks before us." -- Aelius Donatus Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" We don't know who discovered water, but we're certain it wasn't a fish. The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence. -- H. L. Mencken The light of his faith quite put out, and his affections made desolate, he had clung with all the force of his nature to his work and his money; and like all objects to which a man devotes himself, they had fashioned him into correspondence with themselves... For joy is the best of wine, and Silas's guineas were a golden wine of that sort. - George Eliot Why can't you be a non-conformist like everyone else? If you're right 90% of the time, why quibble about the remaining 3%? Government lies, and newspapers lie, but in a democracy they are different lies. "To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition." -- Woody Allen Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. - Sigmund Freud Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while. The Heineken Uncertainty Principle: You can never be sure how many beers you had last night. There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. "If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now." - Zaphod Beeblebrox "You ARE Zaphod Beeblebrox?" "Yeah but don't shout it out or they'll all want one." "THE Zaphod Beeblebrox?" "No, just A Zaphod Bebblebrox, didn't you hear I come in six packs?" "But sir I just heard on the sub-ether radio report. It said you were dead..." "Yeah, that's right, I just haven't stopped moving yet." - Douglas Adams "We've got to find out what people want from fire, how they relate to it, what sort of image it has for them." "Stick it up your nose." "Which is precisely the sort of thing we need to know. Do people want fire that can be fitted nasally?" - Douglas Adams, on marketing "Virtually everything we were told in Indonesia turned out not to be true, sometimes almost immediately. The only exception to this was when we were told that something would happen immediately, in which case it turned out not to be true over an extended period of time." - Douglas Adams It's wabbit season! DUCK season. Wabbit season! DUCK season. Wabbit season! WABBIT season. Duck season! WABBIT season. I say it's duck season and I say fire! BLAM! "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable." - George Bernard Shaw "Microsoft's biggest and most dangerous contribution to the software industry may be the degree to which it has lowered user expectations" - Esther Schindler 1. Things will get worse before they get better. 2. Who said things would get better? The worst actress in the company is always the manager's wife. I think that I shall never see A billboard lovely as a tree. Perhaps, unless the billboards fall I'll never see a tree at all. -- Ogden Nash If a President doesn't do it to his wife, he'll do it to his country. Enough research will tend to support your theory. Aide to Raygun: Sir, the poor are outside protesting your budget cuts. Raygun himself: Tell them they'll have to help themselves. Aide to Raygun: Sir, the Pentagon wants another $30 billion. Raygun himself: Tell them to help themselves. Dear Mrs, Mr, Miss, or Mr and Mrs Daneeka: Words cannot express the deep personal grief I experienced when your husband, son, father or brother was killed, wounded, or reported missing in action. -- Joseph Heller, _Catch-22_ "When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite." -- Winston Curchill, On formal declarationnns of war With earnestness he advocated the case of injustice against justice, and by specious arguments and illustrations he strove to prove that injustice was an advantage to the State, while justice served no useful purpose. - St. Augustine Immortality -- a fate worse than death. -- E. Shoaff I've spent a lot of money in my life. A lot on women, a lot on drink, and the rest on foolish things. It's not the person who runs the fastest, but the one who crosses the finish line first, that wins the race. When you try to make an impression, that is the impression you make. Join the army, travel the world, meet interesting people and shoot them. Time, like a snowflake, disappears while you're trying to decide what to do with it. Everyone's heard of gold teeth, what about crystal balls? -S. Beattie I've read so much about the dangers of smoking and drinking that I've decided to give up reading. If you can't tie a good knot, tie many. I can't complain, but sometimes I still do. -J. Walsh (A)bort, (R)etry, (G)et a beer? Your conscience is the little thing that tells you someone is sure to find out. Zahavi suggests that peacocks, for instance, evolve their absurdly burdensome fans with their ridiculously conspicuous (to predators) colors, precisely because they are burdensome and dangerous, and therefore impressive to females. -R. Dawkins Don't believe everything you hear. Don't believe everything you say. -S. Beattie We have 2 classes of forecasters: Those who don't know . . . and those who don't know they don't know. - John Kenneth Galbraith Then the interviewer calls in the economist and poses the same question "What do two plus two equal?" The economist gets up, locks the door, closes the shade, sits down next to the interviewer and says "What do you want it to equal?" Old Economist: "If you eat shit I'll give you $20,000!" Young Economist runs his optimization problem and figures out he's better off eating it and collects his money. Young Economist: "If YOU eat shit I'll give YOU $20,000." Old Economist evaluates the proposal and eats it. Young Economist: "We both have the same amount of money we had before, but I don't see us being better off." Old Economist: "That's true, but you overlooked the fact that we've been just involved in $40,000 of trade." Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists. Economists have forecasted 9 out of the last 5 recessions. Thou shalt not make any graven image, or bow down before any creation in heaven or on earth. Money is more genetic than intelligence. The only difference between a political prisoner and a common criminal is the country you live in. I didn't come to this hockey game to see any hockey. Only capitalists see the emperor's new clothes. Carry a big stick, but offer a bigger carrot. I can feed you a carrot, or I can hit you over the head with it. The best defense is not to play the game at all. Property grows out of the barrel of a gun. Property is rooted in violence, watered with fraud, and harvested with coercion. Freedom of speech for the poor, freedom to be heard for the rich. Freedom is when language dictates a grammar book. Slavery is when a grammar book dictates language. If death is the final result, there's little difference between starvation and a bullet. Everybody wants to redirect the crosshairs. Nobody thinks about putting down the gun. In a world lost in propaganda and censorship, the real truth is spoken only by liars and fools. If you can't think for yourself, don't even try thinking for anyone else. Those who don't believe in the power of the press have obviously never taken a trip down to Grover's Mill with Orson Welles. Rosebud. Pavlov's Laws of Mutual Brainwashing: Repetition: The fear of rain was created by umbrella makers. Mutation: Loyalty was a "virtue" invented by kings to keep their pawns in line. Skepticism: If we teach gorillas our history, would they fight wars over it? Absorption: Pride is the irrelevant man's excuse for still feeling relevant. Focus: Mold colonies in a petri dish don't notice us watching them do battle. You will only find a heart for a heartless man when you help him relocate his brain and his spine. Freedom of speech was a concept invented by a woman, whether her male counterparts realized it or not. But it matters not whether the play was written by Shakespeare or Byron. Shouting fire in a crowded theater is only dangerous if you've raised a society of gullible panic-stricken idiots. Experience doesn't breed wisdom. Experience breeds brainwashing. Nothing attracts a swarm of flies like a pile of shit. There's only one zoo where we can see unreasonable humans: the media. History of the Universe: God trains Dog. Dog rebels. Dog trains God. God rebels. God trains Dog. Dog rebels. Will the cycle never end? When gorillas invent swords, will we hide, hunt, or educate? We extend their lives with medicine; do they think us gods? Conquer fear. Question faith. Humor distraction. If there's self-censorship in the press, we'll never know there's self-censorship in the press. The two sides of mass communication: credible and gullible. A people afraid and ashamed of unemployment is forever doomed to bureaucracy, redundancy, and inefficiency. But it keeps 'em outta trouble. Life is a tennis match - an audience of journalists, a capitalist referee, philosopher players, and everyone else is the tennis ball. Great tennis requires no audience, no referee, not even a tennis ball. Pride is the virtue that can agree with a suggestion only after the subject has changed. An unbiased press is the most dangerous thing in the world because there's no such thing. If communication defines poverty, then poverty is the lack of control over communication. The only thing that separates us from Pavlov's dogs is that we know WHY we are Pavlov's dogs... and think his dogs do not. Are you generally stupid or especially stupid? Newton's Law of General Stupidity: Human behavior can be completely predicted by knowledge of all the chemical and electrical interactions within the brain. Thus there's no such thing as "free will". Heisenberg's Law of Special Stupidity: By trying to study the chemical and electrical interactions within a person's brain, we change those interactions. Thus it is not possible to determine "destiny". A human is a sex manual's way of producing more sex manuals. We think light is at the speed limit only because we've yet to observe or create a faster particle. If Conway's lifeforms measure the universe only with c/4 glider photons, they would have an entirely different concept of maximum speed and orthogonality. Every intelligent society eventually runs simulations and experiments to explain its own creation, creating new intelligent societies in the process. God isn't dead. God is just away from his keyboard. If spacetime is quantized and we are red bishops, we will never encounter any black bishops. Immigration (TM) is a boogeyman invented by slave masters to draw attention away from their autocracy. Limited Resources (TM) is a religion invented by financiers who think patent law is more productive than marine farming. We see corruption, greed, perversion everywhere, except in those who control major "serious news" organizations. Such is the nature of monarchy. People flirt for the same reason fishers fish. Not so much to catch fish, but to catch the NEXT fish. Someday we'll look back on all this and not remember any of it. Producers who can't produce anything useful keep hiring advertisers until they have redefined "useful". If time is money, then bean counters waste their money keeping track of their time. Reality is the place where a man dares to speak his mind. "Culture" is the name we give to a majority insanity. If it weren't for culture, there would be only one reason to wear clothes on a hot day: pockets. (Where else would you put your hands?) Heisenberg's Programming Principle: The act of fixing the last bug will in all probability result in more. -Soy Sauce ---------1---------2---------3---------4-----------5---------6---------7---------8 A child of 5 would understand this. Send somebody to fetch a child of 5. -Groucho Marx, 1933 -- Gifts for Children --- This is easy. You never have to figure out what to get for children, because they will tell you exactly what they want. They spend months and months researching these kinds of things by watching Saturday- morning cartoon-show advertisements. Make sure you get your children exactly what they ask for, even if you disapprove of their choices. If your child thinks he wants Murderous Bob, the Doll with the Face You Can Rip Right Off, you'd better get it. You may be worried that it might help to encourage your child's antisocial tendencies, but believe me, you have not seen antisocial tendencies until you've seen a child who is convinced that he or she did not get the right gift. -- Dave Barry, Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide From time to time, I feel I must address major issues such as the MX missile, because in a free and open society, where the very future of the world hinges on decisions made by our elected leaders, you never win large cash journalism awards if you stick to the topics I usually write about, such as nose-picking. -- Dave Barry, "The Ultimate Deterrent Agaaainst Political Fallout" Lobster: Everyone loves these delectable crustaceans, but many cooks are squeamish about placing them into boiling water alive, which is the only proper method of preparing them. Frankly, the easiest way to eliminate your guilt is to establish theirs by putting them on trial before they're cooked. The fact is, lobsters are among the most ferocious predators on the sea floor, and you're helping reduce crime in the reefs. Grasp the lobster behind the head, look it right in its unmistakably guilty eyestalks and say, "Where were you on the night of the 21st?", then flourish a picture of a scallop or a sole and shout, "Perhaps this will refresh that crude neural apparatus you call a memory!" The lobster will squirm noticeably. It may even take a swipe at you with one of its claws. Incorrigible. Pop it into the pot. Justice has been served, and shortly you and your friends will be, too. -- Dave Barry, "Cooking: The Art of Turninnng Appliances and Utensils into Excuses and Apologies" How can you tell when an economist is lying? His lips are moving. Q: What do you get when you cross the Godfather with an economist? A: An offer you can't understand. Give a man a match and he's warm for a night, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life." - Terry Pratchett No guy is worth your tears and the one who is won't make you cry. Steven Wright: All those who believe in telekinesis raise my hand. Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm. I intend to live forever - so far, so good. 42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot. 99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name. Scarily witty, referential: Windows NT crashed I am the blue screen of death. No one hears your screams. - screechco2000 Hopeful, inspirational: Chaos reigns within. Reflect, repent, and reboot. Order shall return. - Lord Brawl Fatalistic, Zen, resigned: Yesterday it worked. Today it is not working. Windows is like that. - Lord Brawl Tranquility, safety: GUI's important. Blue background relaxes me, More than cloudy sky. - ariels Reflex, matter of fact: My screen turns to blue. "Sorry, some thing has gone wrong." Control Alt Delete. - Dekaritae Me, amazing, crystalline: Your system, which soared so freely on gliding wings now hangs, frozen, blue. - Infinite Monkeys Mysterious, holy, religious: Sorry, a system error occurred. Error type seventeen. Restart. - zero the hero ---------1---------2---------3---------4-----------5---------6---------7---------8 Who is 'General Failure' and why is he reading my hard disk? - H. Tall Indecision is the key to flexibility. - M. Aschenbrenner Nothing tears a family apart like a pack of wild dogs. - schon Last night I lay in bed looking up at the stars in the sky and I thought to myself, "Where the heck is the ceiling?!" Some people have a way with words. Others not have way.