From: IN%"minow@bolt.enet.dec.com" "Martin Minow, ML3-5/U26 14-May-1990 0946" 14-MAY-1990 12:02:39.72 To: _TERRY CC: Subj: carl4.txt Received: from CUNYVM.BITNET by SPCVXA.BITNET; Mon, 14 May 90 12:00 EDT Received: from CUNYVM by CUNYVM.BITNET (Mailer R2.03B) with BSMTP id 2511; Mon, 14 May 90 11:43:52 EDT Received: from decpa.pa.dec.com by CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.2MX) with TCP; Mon, 14 May 90 11:43:40 EDT Received: by decpa.pa.dec.com; id AA08952; Mon, 14 May 90 08:42:50 -0700 Received: from bolt.enet; by decpa.enet; Mon, 14 May 90 08:42:52 PDT Date: Mon, 14 May 90 08:42:52 PDT From: "Martin Minow, ML3-5/U26 14-May-1990 0946" Subject: carl4.txt To: address@bolt.enet.dec.com Message-id: <9005141542.AA08952@decpa.pa.dec.com> X-Envelope-to: terry "It is better to have tried and failed than to have failed to try, but the result's the same." - Mike Dennison %% "Creation science" has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false, and because good teachers understand exactly why it is false. What could be more destructive of that most fragile yet most precious commodity in our entire intellectualy heritage -- good teaching -- than a bill forcing honorable teachers to sully their sacred trust by granting equal treatment to a doctrine not only known to be false, but calculated to undermine any general understanding of science as an enterprise? -- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Skeptical Inquirer", Vol. 12, page 186 %% It is not well to be thought of as one who meekly submits to insolence and intimidation. %% "Regardless of the legal speed limit, your Buick must be operated at speeds faster than 85 MPH (140kph)." -- 1987 Buick Grand National owners manual. %% "Your attitude determines your attitude." -- Zig Ziglar, self-improvement doofus %% In arguing that current theories of brain function cast suspicion on ESP, psychokinesis, reincarnation, and so on, I am frequently challenged with the most popular of all neuro-mythologies -- the notion that we ordinarily use only 10 percent of our brains... This "cerebral spare tire" concept continues to nourish the clientele of "pop psychologists" and their many recycling self-improvement schemes. As a metaphor for the fact that few of us fully exploit our talents, who could deny it? As a refuge for occultists seeking a neural basis of the miraculous, it leaves much to be desired. -- Barry L. Beyerstein, "The Brain and Conciousness: Implications for Psi Phenomena", The Skeptical Enquirer, Vol. XII, No. 2, pg. 171 %% Thufir's a Harkonnen now. %% "By long-standing tradition, I take this opportunity to savage other designers in the thin disguise of good, clean fun." -- P. J. Plauger, from his April Fool's column in April 88's "Computer Language" %% "If you want to eat hippopatomus, you've got to pay the freight." -- attributed to an IBM guy, about why IBM software uses so much memory %% Parkinson's Law: Work expands to fill the time alloted it. %% Karl's version of Parkinson's Law: Work expands to exceed the time alloted it. %% It is better to never have tried anything than to have tried something and failed. - motto of jerks, weenies and losers everywhere %% "Our journeys to the stars will be made on spaceships created by determined, hardworking scientists and engineers applying the principles of science, not aboard flying saucers piloted by little gray aliens from some other dimension." -- Robert A. Baker, "The Aliens Among Us: Hypnotic Regression Revisited", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII, No. 2 %% "...all the good computer designs are bootlegged; the formally planned products, if they are built at all, are dogs!" -- David E. Lundstrom, "A Few Good Men From Univac", MIT Press, 1987 %% "To take a significant step forward, you must make a series of finite improvements." -- Donald J. Atwood, General Motors %% "We will bury you." -- Nikita Kruschev %% "Now here's something you're really going to like!" -- Rocket J. Squirrel %% "How to make a million dollars: First, get a million dollars." -- Steve Martin %% "Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about." -- B. L. Whorf %% The language provides a programmer with a set of conceptual tools; if these are inadequate for the task, they will simply be ignored. For example, seriously restricting the concept of a pointer simply forces the programmer to use a vector plus integer arithmetic to implement structures, pointer, etc. Good design and the absence of errors cannot be guaranteed by mere language features. -- Bjarne Stroustrup, "The C++ Programming Language" %% "For the love of phlegm...a stupid wall of death rays. How tacky can ya get?" - Post Brothers comics %% "Bureaucracy is the enemy of innovation." -- Mark Shepherd, former President and CEO of Texas Instruments %% "An organization dries up if you don't challenge it with growth." -- Mark Shepherd, former President and CEO of Texas Instruments %% "I've seen it. It's rubbish." -- Marvin the Paranoid Android %% Our business is run on trust. We trust you will pay in advance. %% "Infidels in all ages have battled for the rights of man, and have at all times been the fearless advocates of liberty and justice." -- Robert Green Ingersoll %% The history of the rise of Christianity has everything to do with politics, culture, and human frailties and nothing to do with supernatural manipulation of events. Had divine intervention been the guiding force, surely two millennia after the birth of Jesus he would not have a world where there are more Muslims than Catholics, more Hindus than Protestants, and more nontheists than Catholics and Protestants combined. -- John K. Naland, "The First Easter", Free Inquiry magazine, Vol. 8, No. 2 %% I find you lack of faith in the forth dithturbing. - Darse ("Darth") Vader %% "All Bibles are man-made." -- Thomas Edison %% "Spock, did you see the looks on their faces?" "Yes, Captain, a sort of vacant contentment." %% "The triumph of libertarian anarchy is nearly (in historical terms) at hand... *if* we can keep the Left from selling us into slavery and the Right from blowing us up for, say, the next twenty years." -- Eric Rayman, usenet guy, about nanotechnology %% "Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love." -- Albert Einstein %% "I think Michael is like litmus paper - he's always trying to learn." -- Elizabeth Taylor, absurd non-sequitir about Michael Jackson %% While it cannot be proved retrospectively that any experience of possession, conversion, revelation, or divine ecstasy was merely an epileptic discharge, we must ask how one differentiates "real transcendence" from neuropathies that produce the same extreme realness, profundity, ineffability, and sense of cosmic unity. When accounts of sudden religious conversions in TLEs [temporal-lobe epileptics] are laid alongside the epiphanous revelations of the religious tradition, the parallels are striking. The same is true of the recent spate of alleged UFO abductees. Parsimony alone argues against invoking spirits, demons, or extraterrestrials when natural causes will suffice. -- Barry L. Beyerstein, "Neuropathology and the Legacy of Spiritual Possession", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII, No. 3, pg. 255 %% "A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's printed on." - Samuel Goldwyn %% "We shall reach greater and greater platitudes of achievement." -- Richard J. Daley %% "With molasses you catch flies, with vinegar you catch nobody." -- Baltimore City Councilman Dominic DiPietro %% "Lead us in a few words of silent prayer." -- Bill Peterson, former Houston Oiler football coach %% "I couldn't remember things until I took that Sam Carnegie course." -- Bill Peterson, former Houston Oiler football coach %% "Right now I feel that I've got my feet on the ground as far as my head is concerned." -- Baseball pitcher Bo Belinsky %% "Ninety percent of baseball is half mental." -- Yogi Berra %% Two things are certain about science. It does not stand still for long, and it is never boring. Oh, among some poor souls, including even intellectuals in fields of high scholarship, science is frequently misperceived. Many see it as only a body of facts, promulgated from on high in must, unintelligible textbooks, a collection of unchanging precepts defended with authoritarian vigor. Others view it as nothing but a cold, dry narrow, plodding, rule-bound process -- the scientific method: hidebound, linear, and left brained. These people are the victims of their own stereotypes. They are destined to view the world of science with a set of blinders. They know nothing of the tumult, cacophony, rambunctiousness, and tendentiousness of the actual scientific process, let alone the creativity, passion, and joy of discovery. And they are likely to know little of the continual procession of new insights and discoveries that every day, in some way, change our view (if not theirs) of the natural world. -- Kendrick Frazier, "The Year in Science: An Overview," in 1988 Yearbook of Science and the Future, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. %% "jackpot: you may have an unneccessary change record" -- message from "diff" %% "One lawyer can steal more than a hundred men with guns." -- The Godfather %% What's the difference between a computer salesman and a used car salesman? A used car salesman knows when he's lying. %% "Those who will be able to conquer software will be able to conquer the world." -- Tadahiro Sekimoto, president, NEC Corp. %% "There are some good people in it, but the orchestra as a whole is equivalent to a gang bent on destruction." -- John Cage, composer %% "I believe the use of noise to make music will increase until we reach a music produced through the aid of electrical instruments which will make available for musical purposes any and all sounds that can be heard." -- composer John Cage, 1937 %% I did cancel one performance in Holland where they thought my music was so easy that they didn't rehearse at all. And so the first time when I found that out, I rehearsed the orchestra myself in front of the audience of 3,000 people and the next day I rehearsed through the second movement -- this was the piece _Cheap Imitation_ -- and they then were ashamed. The Dutch people were ashamed and they invited me to come to the Holland festival and they promised to rehearse. And when I got to Amsterdam they had changed the orchestra, and again, they hadn't rehearsed. So they were no more prepared the second time than they had been the first. I gave them a lecture and told them to cancel the performance; they then said over the radio that i had insisted on their cancelling the performance because they were "insufficiently Zen." Can you believe it? -- composer John Cage, "Electronic Musician" magazine, March 88, pg. 89 %% "One day I woke up and discovered that I was in love with tripe." -- Tom Anderson %% "Most people would like to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch." -- Robert Orben %% The rule on staying alive as a program manager is to give 'em a number or give 'em a date, but never give 'em both at once. %% An optimist believes we live in the best world possible; a pessimist fears this is true. %% "If John Madden steps outside on February 2, looks down, and doesn't see his feet, we'll have 6 more weeks of Pro football." -- Chuck Newcombe %% Dead? No excuse for laying off work. %% Lead me not into temptation... I can find it myself. %% "When people are least sure, they are often most dogmatic." -- John Kenneth Galbraith %% "Nature is very un-American. Nature never hurries." -- William George Jordan %% "We learn from history that we learn nothing from history." -- George Bernard Shaw %% "Flattery is all right -- if you don't inhale." -- Adlai Stevenson %% "Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago." -- Bernard Berenson %% "Summit meetings tend to be like panda matings. The expectations are always high, and the results usually disappointing." -- Robert Orben %% "A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices." -- William James %% "Tell the truth and run." -- Yugoslav proverb %% "The best index to a person's character is a) how he treats people who can't do him any good and b) how he treats people who can't fight back." -- Abigail Van Buren %% "Never face facts; if you do, you'll never get up in the morning." -- Marlo Thomas %% "Life is a garment we continuously alter, but which never seems to fit." -- David McCord %% "The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults." -- Peter De Vries %% "It is easier to fight for principles than to live up to them." -- Alfred Adler %% "Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature... Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." -- Helen Keller %% "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." -- Albert Einstein %% "Success covers a multitude of blunders." -- George Bernard Shaw %% "The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one." -- William Stekel %% "Yes, and I feel bad about rendering their useless carci into dogfood..." -- Badger comics %% "Is it really you, Fuzz, or is it Memorex, or is it radiation sickness?" -- Sonic Disruptors comics %% "Most of us, when all is said and done, like what we like and make up reasons for it afterwards." -- Soren F. Petersen %% "You're a creature of the night, Michael. Wait'll Mom hears about this." -- from the movie "The Lost Boys" %% "Plastic gun. Ingenious. More coffee, please." -- The Phantom comics %% The game of life is a game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later with astounding accuracy. %% If at first you don't succeed, you are running about average. %% "A child is a person who can't understand why someone would give away a perfectly good kitten." -- Doug Larson %% "The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was." -- Walt West %% "Silent gratitude isn't very much use to anyone." -- G. B. Stearn %% "In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current." -- Thomas Jefferson %% The first sign of maturity is the discovery that the volume knob also turns to the left. %% "But this one goes to eleven." -- Nigel Tufnel %% "Been through Hell? Whaddya bring back for me?" -- A. Brilliant %% "I don't know what their gripe is. A critic is simply someone paid to render opinions glibly." "Critics are grinks and groinks." -- Baron and Badger, from Badger comics %% "I've got some amyls. We could either party later or, like, start his heart." -- "Cheech and Chong's Next Movie" %% "Israel today announced that it is giving up. The Zionist state will dissolve in two weeks time, and its citizens will disperse to various resort communities around the world. Said Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, 'Who needs the aggravation?'" -- Dennis Miller, "Satuday Night Live" News %% "And, of course, you have the commercials where savvy businesspeople Get Ahead by using their MacIntosh computers to create the ultimate American business product: a really sharp-looking report." -- Dave Barry %% SHOP OR DIE, people of Earth! [offer void where prohibited] -- Capitalists from outer space, from Justice League Int'l comics %% "Roman Polanski makes his own blood. He's smart -- that's why his movies work." -- A brilliant director at "Frank's Place" %% "The following is not for the weak of heart or Fundamentalists." -- Dave Barry %% "I take Him shopping with me. I say, 'OK, Jesus, help me find a bargain'" --Tammy Faye Bakker %% Gary Hart: living proof that you *can* screw your brains out. %% Blessed be those who initiate lively discussions with the hopelessly mute, for they shall be know as Dentists. %% "I don't believe in sweeping social change being manifested by one person, unless he has an atomic weapon." -- Howard Chaykin %% "Ever free-climbed a thousand foot vertical cliff with 60 pounds of gear strapped to your butt?" "No." "'Course you haven't, you fruit-loop little geek." -- The Mountain Man, one of Dana Carvey's SNL characters [ditto] %% "I mean, like, I just read your article in the Yale law recipe, on search and seizure. Man, that was really Out There." "I was so WRECKED when I wrote that..." -- John Lovitz, as ex-Supreme Court nominee Alan Ginsburg, on SNL %% "Hi, I'm Professor Alan Ginsburg... But you can call me... Captain Toke." -- John Lovitz, as ex-Supreme Court nominee Alan Ginsburg, on SNL %% It's great to be smart 'cause then you know stuff. %% "Time is money and money can't buy you love and I love your outfit" - T.H.U.N.D.E.R. #1 %% "Can't you just gesture hypnotically and make him disappear?" "It does not work that way. RUN!" -- Hadji on metaphyics and Mandrake in "Johnny Quest" %% "You shouldn't make my toaster angry." -- Household security explained in "Johnny Quest" %% "Someone's been mean to you! Tell me who it is, so I can punch him tastefully." -- Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse %% "And kids... learn something from Susie and Eddie. If you think there's a maniacal psycho-geek in the basement: 1) Don't give him a chance to hit you on the head with an axe! 2) Flee the premises... even if you're in your underwear. 3) Warn the neighbors and call the police. But whatever else you do... DON'T GO DOWN IN THE DAMN BASEMENT!" -- Saturday Night Live meets Friday the 13th %% Victory or defeat! %% "Everyone is entitled to an *informed* opinion." -- Harlan Ellison %% "It's curtains for you, Mighty Mouse! This gun is so futuristic that even *I* don't know how it works!" -- from Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse %% "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house." -- George Carlin %% A university faculty is 500 egotists with a common parking problem. %% "Daddy, Daddy, make Santa Claus go away!" "I can't, son; he's grown too powerful." "HO HO HO!" -- Duck's Breath Mystery Theatre %% "If it's not loud, it doesn't work!" -- Blank Reg, from "Max Headroom" %% "Remember kids, if there's a loaded gun in the room, be sure that you're the one holding it" -- Captain Combat %% Delta: We never make the same mistake three times. -- David Letterman %% Delta: A real man lands where he wants to. -- David Letterman %% Delta: The kids will love our inflatable slides. -- David Letterman %% Delta: We're Amtrak with wings. -- David Letterman %% "Where humor is concerned there are no standards -- no one can say what is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will. -- John Kenneth Galbraith %% "Hello again, Peabody here..." -- Mister Peabody %% "It's the best thing since professional golfers on 'ludes." -- Rick Obidiah %% "To your left is the marina where several senior cabinet officials keep luxury yachts for weekend cruises on the Potomac. Some of these ships are up to 100 feet in length; the Presidential yacht is over 200 feet in length, and can remain submerged for up to 3 weeks." -- Garrison Keillor %% "Well, social relevance is a schtick, like mysteries, social relevance, science fiction..." -- Art Spiegelman %% "One of the problems I've always had with propaganda pamphlets is that they're real boring to look at. They're just badly designed. People from the left often are very well-intended, but they never had time to take basic design classes, you know?" -- Art Spiegelman %% "If you took everyone who's ever been to a Dead show, and lined them up, they'd stretch halfway to the moon and back... and none of them would be complaining." -- a local Deadhead in the Seattle Times %% "And remember: Evil will always prevail, because Good is dumb." -- Spaceballs %% Why are many scientists using lawyers for medical experiments instead of rats? a) There are more lawyers than rats. b) The scientist's don't become as emotionally attached to them. c) There are some things that even rats won't do for money. %% "During the race We may eat your dust, But when you graduate, You'll work for us." -- Reed College cheer %% Pohl's law: Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it. %% Pig: An animal (Porcus omnivorous) closely allied to the human race by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, for it balks at pig. -- Ambrose Bierce %% "We don't have to protect the environment -- the Second Coming is at hand." -- James Watt %% "I believe that Ronald Reagan will someday make this country what it once was... an arctic wilderness." -- Steve Martin %% "To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition." -- Woody Allen %% Noncombatant: A dead Quaker. -- Ambrose Bierce %% "There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it is I'll get married again." -- Clint Eastwood %% A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I believe everything positively stinks. -- Lew Col %% Q: How many IBM CPU's does it take to execute a job? A: Four; three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off. %% Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock. %% Harrisberger's Fourth Law of the Lab: Experience is directly proportional to the amount of equipment ruined. %% Captain Penny's Law: You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool mom. %% "Because he's a character who's looking for his own identity, [He-Man is] an interesting role for an actor." -- Dolph Lundgren, "actor" %% "If Jesus came back today, and saw what was going on in his name, he'd never stop throwing up." -- Max Von Sydow's character in "Hannah and Her Sisters" %% "Nietzsche says that we will live the same life, over and over again. God -- I'll have to sit through the Ice Capades again." -- Woody Allen's character in "Hannah and Her Sisters" %% "In regards to Oral Roberts' claim that God told him that he would die unless he received $20 million by March, God's lawyers have stated that their client has not spoken with Roberts for several years. Off the record, God has stated that "If I had wanted to ice the little toad, I would have done it a long time ago." -- Dennis Miller, SNL News %% "Only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core." -- Hannah Arendt. %% Quod licet Iovi non licet bovi. (What Jove may do, is not permitted to a cow.) %% "I distrust a man who says 'when.' If he's got to be careful not to drink too much, it's because he's not to be trusted when he does." -- Sidney Greenstreet, _The Maltese Falcon_ %% "I distrust a close-mouthed man. He generally picks the wrong time to talk and says the wrong things. Talking's something you can't do judiciously, unless you keep in practice. Now, sir, we'll talk if you like. I'll tell you right out, I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk." -- Sidney Greenstreet, _The Maltese Falcon_ %% All extremists should be taken out and shot. %% "The sixties were good to you, weren't they?" -- George Carlin %% "You stay here, Audrey -- this is between me and the vegetable!" -- Seymour, from _Little Shop Of Horrors_ %% From Sharp minds come... pointed heads. -- Bryan Sparrowhawk %% There are two kinds of egotists: 1) Those who admit it 2) The rest of us %% "The picture's pretty bleak, gentlemen... The world's climates are changing, the mammals are taking over, and we all have a brain about the size of a walnut." -- some dinosaurs from The Far Side, by Gary Larson %% "We Americans, we're a simple people... but piss us off, and we'll bomb your cities." -- Robin Williams, _Good Morning Vietnam_ %% Why won't sharks eat lawyers? Professional courtesy. %% "You know, we've won awards for this crap." -- David Letterman %% It was pity stayed his hand. "Pity I don't have any more bullets," thought Frito. -- _Bored_of_the_Rings_, a Harvard Lampoon parody of Tolkein %% A good USENET motto would be: a. "Together, a strong community." b. "Computers R Us." c. "I'm sick of programming, I think I'll just screw around for a while on company time." -- A Sane Man %% "He didn't run for reelection. `Politics brings you into contact with all the people you'd give anything to avoid,' he said. `I'm staying home.'" -- Garrison Keillor, _Lake_Wobegone_Days_ %% "If you lived today as if it were your last, you'd buy up a box of rockets and fire them all off, wouldn't you?" -- Garrison Keillor %% "Mr. Spock succumbs to a powerful mating urge and nearly kills Captain Kirk." -- TV Guide, describing the Star Trek episode _Amok_Time_ %% "Poor man... he was like an employee to me." -- The police commisioner on "Sledge Hammer" laments the death of his bodyguard %% "Trust me. I know what I'm doing." -- Sledge Hammer %% "Hi. This is Dan Cassidy's answering machine. Please leave your name and number... and after I've doctored the tape, your message will implicate you in a federal crime and be brought to the attention of the F.B.I... BEEEP" -- Blue Devil comics %% "All God's children are not beautiful. Most of God's children are, in fact, barely presentable." -- Fran Lebowitz %% "If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?" -- Lily Tomlin %% Whom the gods would destroy, they first teach BASIC. %% "Look! There! Evil!.. pure and simple, total evil from the Eighth Dimension!" -- Buckaroo Banzai %% "I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid" -- the artificial person, from _Aliens_ %% "The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy." -- Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards %% David Letterman's "Things we can be proud of as Americans": * Greatest number of citizens who have actually boarded a UFO * Many newspapers feature "JUMBLE" * Hourly motel rates * Vast majority of Elvis movies made here * Didn't just give up right away during World War II like some countries we could mention * Goatees & Van Dykes thought to be worn only by weenies * Our well-behaved golf professionals * Fabulous babes coast to coast %% "Danger, you haven't seen the last of me!" "No, but the first of you turns my stomach!" -- The Firesign Theatre's Nick Danger %% Pray to God, but keep rowing to shore. -- Russian Proverb %% "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats." -- Howard Aiken %% "When anyone says `theoretically,' they really mean `not really.'" -- David Parnas %% "No problem is so formidable that you can't walk away from it." -- C. Schulz %% "The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell." -- Saint Augustine %% "For the man who has everything... Penicillin." -- F. Borquin %% "I've finally learned what `upward compatible' means. It means we get to keep all our old mistakes." -- Dennie van Tassel %% "The way of the world is to praise dead saints and prosecute live ones." -- Nathaniel Howe %% "It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and I'm wearing Milkbone underware." -- Norm, from _Cheers_ %% Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict, Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease". Disraeli replied, "That all depends, Sir, upon whether I embrace your principles or your mistress." %% "He don't know me vewy well, DO he?" -- Bugs Bunny %% "I'll rob that rich person and give it to some poor deserving slob. That will *prove* I'm Robin Hood." -- Daffy Duck, Looney Tunes, _Robin Hood Daffy_ %% "Would I turn on the gas if my pal Mugsy were in there?" "You might, rabbit, you might!" -- Looney Tunes, Bugs and Thugs (1954, Friz Freleng) %% "Consequences, Schmonsequences, as long as I'm rich." -- Looney Tunes, Ali Baba Bunny (1957, Chuck Jones) %% "And do you think (fop that I am) that I could be the Scarlet Pumpernickel?" -- Looney Tunes, The Scarlet Pumpernickel (1950, Chuck Jones) %% "Now I've got the bead on you with MY disintegrating gun. And when it disintegrates, it disintegrates. (pulls trigger) Well, what you do know, it disintegrated." -- Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a half century %% "Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit!" -- Looney Tunes, "What's Opera Doc?" (1957, Chuck Jones) %% "I DO want your money, because god wants your money!" -- The Reverend Jimmy, from _Repo_Man_ %% "The majority of the stupid is invincible and guaranteed for all time. The terror of their tyranny, however, is alleviated by their lack of consistency." -- Albert Einstein %% "You show me an American who can keep his mouth shut and I'll eat him." -- Newspaperman from Frank Capra's _Meet_John_Doe_ %% "And we heard him exclaim As he started to roam: `I'm a hologram, kids, please don't try this at home!'" -- Bob Violence -- Howie Chaykin's little animated 3-dimensional darling, Bob Violence %% "The Soviet Union, which has complained recently about alleged anti-Soviet themes in American advertising, lodged an official protest this week against the Ford Motor Company's new campaign: `Hey you stinking fat Russian, get off my Ford Escort.'" -- Dennis Miller, Saturday Night Live %% "There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum." --Arthur C. Clarke %% "They ought to make butt-flavored cat food." --Gallagher %% "Not only is God dead, but just try to find a plumber on weekends." --Woody Allen %% "It's ten o'clock... Do you know where your AI programs are?" -- Peter Oakley %% "Ah, you know the type. They like to blame it all on the Jews or the Blacks, 'cause if they couldn't, they'd have to wake up to the fact that life's one big, scary, glorious, complex and ultimately unfathomable crapshoot -- and the only reason THEY can't seem to keep up is they're a bunch of misfits and losers." -- an analysis of neo-Nazis and such, Badger comics %% "Interesting survey in the current Journal of Abnormal Psychology: New York City has a higher percentage of people you shouldn't make any sudden moves around than any other city in the world." -- David Letterman %% "Tourists -- have some fun with New york's hard-boiled cabbies. When you get to your destination, say to your driver, "Pay? I was hitchhiking." -- David Letterman %% "An anthropologist at Tulane has just come back from a field trip to New Guinea with reports of a tribe so primitive that they have Tide but not new Tide with lemon-fresh Borax." -- David Letterman %% "Based on what you know about him in history books, what do you think Abraham Lincoln would be doing if he were alive today? 1) Writing his memoirs of the Civil War. 2) Advising the President. 3) Desperately clawing at the inside of his coffin." -- David Letterman %% "If Ricky Schroder and Gary Coleman had a fight on television with pool cues, who would win? 1) Ricky Schroder 2) Gary Coleman 3) The television viewing public" -- David Letterman %% "If you are beginning to doubt what I am saying, you are probably hallucinating." -- The Firesign Theatre, _Everything you know is Wrong_ %% What to do in case of an alien attack: 1) Hide beneath the seat of your plane and look away. 2) Avoid eye contact. 3) If there are no eyes, avoid all contact. -- The Firesign Theatre, _Everything you know is Wrong_ %% "Nuclear war would really set back cable." - Ted Turner %% "You tweachewous miscweant!" -- Elmer Fudd %% "I saw _Lassie_. It took me four shows to figure out why the hairy kid never spoke. I mean, he could roll over and all that, but did that deserve a series?" -- the alien guy, in _Explorers_ %% "Open Channel D..." -- Napoleon Solo, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. %% Save the whales. Collect the whole set. %% Support Mental Health. Or I'll kill you. %% "The pyramid is opening!" "Which one?" "The one with the ever-widening hole in it!" -- The Firesign Theatre %% "Calling J-Man Kink. Calling J-Man Kink. Hash missile sighted, target Los Angeles. Disregard personal feelings about city and intercept." -- The Firesign Theatre movie, _J-Men Forever_ %% "My sense of purpose is gone! I have no idea who I AM!" "Oh, my God... You've.. You've turned him into a DEMOCRAT!" -- Doonesbury %% "You are WRONG, you ol' brass-breasted fascist poop!" -- Bloom County %% "Well, if you can't believe what you read in a comic book, what *can* you believe?!" -- Bullwinkle J. Moose %% "Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberrys!" -- Monty Python and the Holy Grail %% "Take that, you hostile sons-of-bitches!" -- James Coburn, in the finale of _The_President's_Analyst_ %% "The voters have spoken, the bastards..." -- unknown %% "I prefer to think that God is not dead, just drunk" -- John Huston %% "Be there. Aloha." -- Steve McGarret, _Hawaii Five-Oh_ %% "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro..." -- Hunter S. Thompson %% "Say yur prayers, yuh flea-pickin' varmint!" -- Yosemite Sam %% "There... I've run rings 'round you logically" -- Monty Python's Flying Circus %% "Let's show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown!" -- The Ghostbusters %% ...Veloz is indistinguishable from hundreds of other electronics businesses in the Valley, run by eager young engineers poring over memory dumps late into the night. The difference is that a bunch of self-confessed "car nuts" are making money doing what they love: writing code and driving fast. -- "Electronics puts its foot on the gas", IEEE Spectrum, May 88 %% "Just the facts, Ma'am" -- Joe Friday %% "I have five dollars for each of you." -- Bernhard Goetz %% Mausoleum: The final and funniest folly of the rich. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Riches: A gift from Heaven signifying, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." -- John D. Rockefeller, (slander by Ambrose Bierce) %% All things are either sacred or profane. The former to ecclesiasts bring gain; The latter to the devil appertain. -- Dumbo Omohundro %% Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Forty two. %% Meekness: Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Absolute: Independent, irresponsible. An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins. Not many absolute monarchies are left, most of them having been replaced by limited monarchies, where the soverign's power for evil (and for good) is greatly curtailed, and by republics, which are governed by chance. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Abstainer: A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Alliance: In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pocket that they cannot separately plunder a third. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Disobedience: The silver lining to the cloud of servitude. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Egotist: A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Administration: An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to receive the kicks and cuffs due to the premier or president. -- Ambrose Bierce %% A penny saved is a penny to squander. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man -- who has no gills. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Physician: One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Politician: An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Pray: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Presidency: The greased pig in the field game of American politics. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Proboscis: The rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him in place of the knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him. For purposes of humor it is popularly called a trunk. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Inadmissible: Not competent to be considered. Said of certain kinds of testimony which juries are supposed to be unfit to be entrusted with, and which judges, therefore, rule out, even of proceedings before themselves alone. Hearsay evidence is inadmissible because the person quoted was unsworn and is not before the court for examination; yet most momentous actions, military, political, commercial and of every other kind, are daily undertaken on hearsay evidence. There is no religion in the world that has any other basis than hearsay evidence. Revelation is hearsay evidence; that the Scriptures are the word of God we have only the testimony of men long dead whose identy is not clearly established and who are not known to have been sworn in any sense. Under the rules of evidence as they now exist in this country, no single assertion in the Bible has in its support any evidence admissible in a court of law... But as records of courts of justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value. --Ambrose Bierce %%