Borrowed glory

I read a lot. Here are a few of the things that caught my eye in the last week or so. Some funny, some tragic, but, as the quote from "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" shows, there's a lot to entertain a tiny lifeform stuck on the surface of a minor planet as we all hurl together through time and space:

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it." - Mark Twain


"He knew who I was, at that time, because I had a reputation as a writer. I knew he was part of the Bush dynasty. But he was nothing, he offered nothing, and he promised nothing. He had no humor. He was insignificant in every way and consequently I didn't pay much attention to him. But when he passed out in my bathtub, then I noticed him. I'd been in another room, talking to the bright people. I had to have him taken away." -Hunter S. Thompson on meeting George W Bush at Thompson's Super Bowl party in Houston in 1974





"Every GOP administration since 1952 has let the Military-Industrial Complex loot the Treasury and plunge the nation into debt on the excuse of a wartime economic emergency. Richard Nixon comes quickly to mind, along with Ronald Reagan and his ridiculous 'trickle-down' theory of U.S. economic policy. If the Rich get Richer, the theory goes, before long their pots will overflow and somehow 'trickle down' to the poor, who would rather eat scraps off the Bush family plates than eat nothing at all. Republicans have never approved of democracy, and they never will. It goes back to pre industrial America, when only white male property owners could vote." -- Hunter S. Thompson







The role of government is to help create a society beneficial to people. People are the priority. Not corporations. Certainly commerce plays a huge role in the betterment of any great society, but any society that forgets that its primary purpose is to serve the people cannot ever be great.

Senator Byron L. Dorgan, North Dakota


"The science is clear: Secondhand smoke is not a mere annoyance but a serious health hazard," said Richard Carmona.

There is no safe level of secondhand smoke -- even a few minutes inhaling someone else's smoke harms nonsmokers, he found. And separate smoking sections, even the best ventilated ones, don't protect enough. Carmona called for completely smoke-free buildings and public places to lessen what he termed "involuntary smoking."


George W. Bush deserves a fair trial. (t-shirt)

"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself."
-Thomas Jefferson

"In the beginning the universe was created. This has been widely criticized and generally regarded as a bad move." -- Douglas Adams

Peace,

Steve