Three Political Aphorisms
When the ruthless win, there is no good they are holding in reserve.
People who don’t know their friends when things go bad will never care to know you.
Republicans don’t want taxes raised–because they don’t need that in order to get their hands on all of your savings.
Thinking Ahead
While watching the Olympics I noticed many ads featuring big winners of races–which of course had to have been made, along with others, far ahead of time. So I have decided to make some posts up ahead of time for possible outcomes of the presidential election. Here’s one I’ll run if McCain wins:
Fool me once: shame on you.
Fool me twice: shame on me.
Fool me three times: fuck me with a pile driver and tell me how useful I was.
Sturgeon’s Law
Originally, the first was the law and the second was the revelation, but over time, the second became known as the law.
Nothing is always absolutely so.
&
Ninety percent of everything is crap.
My WCW/Interstate Driving “Poem”
Has there ever been
a red pickup that
wasn’t hauling an
open-bed trailer full
of construction crap?
Part of the Problem
Poppy Harlow this morning on CNN, discussing cars and gas mileage:
“Well, you can’t really compare apples and apples.”
I’ve Been Meaning to Ask
Is it third time’s a charm, or three strikes and you’re out?
Something I need to tell some of my relatives
(and something my friends probably want to tell me):
“Y’all have got a lot more talk than I’ve got listen.”
Dog day mornings
“It’s enough to conclude that it’s learning, however late, to think of a day as connected in some way to what went on during the one previous, and what will on the one following, rather than treating one, as I have for years and years, as something to pad with distractions and microscopic achievements until it’s time once more to wage war with sleep.”
Arthur Clarke’s 2001 Diary
In memorial of Arthur Clarke at his passing, Coudal linked to the diary Clarke kept while working on 2001: A Space Odyssey with Stanley Kubrick.
After various false starts and twelve-hour talkathons, by early May 1964 Stanley agreed that “The Sentinel” would provide good story material. But our first concept, and it is hard now for me to focus on such an idea, though it would have been perfectly viable — involved working up to the discovery of an extraterrestrial artifact as the climax, not the beginning, of the story. Before that, we would have a series of incidents or adventures devoted to the exploration of the Moon and Planets. For this Mark I version, our private title (never of course intended for public use) was “How the Solar System Was Won.”
Here are some of Clarke’s aphorisms, known as his Three Laws:
1) When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. Corollary: When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2) The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to venture beyond them into the impossible.
3) Any significantly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Update: A few quotes from the diary:
October 17. Stanley has invented the wild idea of slightly fag robots who create a Victorian environment to put our heroes at their ease.
December 21. Much of afternoon spent by Stanley planning his Academy Award campaign for Dr. Strangelove. I get back to the Chelsea to find a note from Allen Ginsberg asking me to join him and William Burroughs at the bar downstairs. Do so thankfully in search of inspiration.
May 2. Strange and encouraging how much of the material I thought I’d abandoned fits in perfectly after all.
I’m making a list
Fat is flavor.
Food is fuel.
Food is love.
john contemplating 60
“the past is baggage, the future is potential baggage - what should one be doing?”
Hmmm
I prefer self-deprecation to self-inflation, but isn’t it self-inflating of me to say so?
Wit and Wisdom of Cambell, Age 5
“This little piggy went to Target.”
Nothing Exceeds Like Excess
I followed this guy along I-75 in northern Kentucky last fall, and tracked him down through one of the online MG forums. The car’s engineering is amazing, and the owner did most of it himself. Heavy modification of classic cars, particularly British ones, is not really to my taste, but Jim’s car is exceptional.
My Sporty Red Car (also here) can barely get out of the way of minivans.
Aphorism of the Day
Lookit what Simone wrote over on my Facebook wall last night.
It is those things disclaimed, not declaimed, that I find most interesting.
Pretty good, huh?
True or False: Beans Are the Musical Fruit
The more I eat, the more I toot. The more I toot, the better I feel.
Don’t judge a book by its cover
Kathy and I visited Books & Company yesterday and as I walked the aisles I remembered to look for some work by Cormac McCarthy. I have not yet read any of his books (yes, really) and the recent threads on clusterflock made me realize I had some catching-up to do.
A Sentence up-for-grabs
I came up with this on the way home from work. I’ll let you judge its merit:
“He was the sort of fellow who let situations, good or bad, roll off his back like water; the problem was he always woke up moist.”
I envision a film noir-like crime novel. What do you think?
What N. just said to me on the phone
As my father used to say, “The world is like a cucumber. One day it’s in your hand; the next day it’s up your ass.”
I had no idea.
Your Perspective on Art in One Sentence.
Art is best appreciated when it is not taken too seriously.
The Politics of Dancing?
Music and dance inspired by Bushisms:
S.A.D.
If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.
If you don’t like the weatherman, wait five months.
A Neglected Truth
I’ve been thinking.
The truth is whatever you choose to believe.
An Observation
Silent bravery in a child is the saddest thing in the world.