Brilliant observation.
ETA: First it was a melting pot. Then it was a salad bowl, separate but intermingled. NOW it’s a centrifuge.
Tag: QotD
Quote of the Day – Nice Daydream Edition
From a comment at Rachel’s:
Maybe it’s time to go rope-a-dope. Maybe this is the moment for Boehner to call a news conference on the steps of the capitol, with all House and Senate Republicans clustered behind him, to say something like: “Fellow Americans. Members of the media. We are here to congratulate the President and the Democrat party for their election victory. You want more candy? We’ll give you all the fucking candy you can eat. Higher taxes on the rich? You got it. Fast track for Obamacare? Let’s accelerate that sucker so the wait time for an MRI is a couple of months by 2016. History tells us that an iceberg is lying straight ahead of our unsinkable ship. History also tells us that if the Titanic had rammed the iceberg head on, it would have stayed afloat. So we’re not going to try to wrestle the wheel away from our teenaged Captain. We’re just going to tell him, and all the other passengers, that we’re about to hit a shitload of ice. So wear a warm coat, and full steam ahead.” – Buddhahat
Quote of the Day – Adaptive Curmudgeon Edition
Just a taste, you really need to read the whole post:
I have revised my earlier support for candidate A. I’m was going to vote for him. Now I’m going to build a shrine to him.
Quote of the Day – Visual Edition
— Thirdpower at Days of Our Trailers
Quote of the Day – Rachel Lucas Edition
HOLY SHIT I THINK ROMNEY IS GOING TO WIN THE ELECTION.
Have you seen the polls? And talked to people? Am I the only one with several historically-Democrat friends who are voting for Romney this time because they’ve “had a taste of the Turd Sandwich and would rather try the Giant Douche” now?
Whatever works.
Quote of the Day – Inevitable Fascism Edition
Before Fascism can arise, the people have to first believe in socialism – i.e. they have to believe in a total state that can solve all problems. By savaging the ideas of free-economics and democracy, the notionally international socialists pave the way for the national socialist.
All international socialist regimes eventually evolve into national socialist for the simple reason that while international class identity is utterly mythical, ethnic and cultural identity is not.
It’s not just the ideological indoctrination that lays the groundwork, it’s the active disruption of society and the economy by the international socialist. The history of Fascism clearly shows that all national socialist states arise after a protracted and significant attack on the society by international socialists. Mussolini rose to power only after his nationalist socialist thugs put an end to a crippling internationalist combo of strikes, riots and terrorism so bad that people in the cities were beginning to starve. Hitler rose to power thanks to the SA street brawlers protecting the urban lower-middle class from vicious attacks by ruthless gangs of (mostly) Stalinists.
Once you’ve decided to have some ice cream and enter the ice cream shop, it’s then just a question of what flavor you want. Once the pseudo-intellectuals have destroyed the widespread acceptance of individual freedom in economic matters, it then just becomes a matter of choosing which flavor of socialism people will choose.
— Shannon Love, in a comment to the World Affairs Journal post A Whiff of Weimar.
RTWT. EUtopia is ugly, and getting uglier.
And I have to add this, courtesy of Rachel – EU Parliament member Nigel Farage of the UK from a couple of days ago:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSoCZs8WlDg?rel=0]
Quote of the Day – What Agenda? Edition
From Michael Crichton’s 1/28/2005 American Enterprise Institute speech, starting at 1:07:
Michael Crichton: I gave a talk to the Press Club in ’93 in which I told them that they were out of the quality revolution, that they were in desperate trouble. But they didn’t care then and they probably don’t care now. I operate on the assumption that the mass media will never be accurate. I don’t think they ever have been. When did yellow journalism start? Almost at the beginning of American newspapers. And I don’t see any reason for them to change. The great dictum of journalism is “simplify and exaggerate,” which is exactly what Walt Disney told his cartoonists.
I do believe there will come a time, and it may come quite soon, when because of the internet people will be willing to spend a lot of money for verified information.(Audience member): The New York Times this week in the Science section reported that ice shelves are melting, and I guess that I’m willing to believe that’s not true, but I find it hard to believe that the reporter, the editors, the scientists quoted are either independently or in collusion advancing an anti-, er, pro-, sorry about that, global-warming agenda.
Crichton: Work on that.
The whole thing runs about 85 minutes. Good speech.
Quote of the Day – Tam, Again
Oh, Republicans, you never fail to disappoint me.
Sure, you talk a good small government game, and then the minute you get into office it’s all about the gays and the ‘bortion and the flag-burnin’ and drug warrin’ and Family-Values-with-a-capital-KJV and next thing you know you’re No Child Left Behindin’ and Department of Homeland Securityin’ and if I wanted all that snoopy government busibodiness I’d have voted for the Democrat in the first place.
Quote of the Day – Economic Disincentive Edition
From Silicon Greybeard:
Tyler Durden at Zerohedge pointed out In Entitlement America “a one-parent family of three making $14,500 a year (minimum wage) has more disposable income than a family making $60,000 a year.
(Chart)
Note that more than doubling pretax income from $14,500 to $30,000 results in a loss of 28% of their net income. It would take an exceptionally rare person to go through a drastic drop in quality of life for the possibility of getting really high income and better standard of life some day way in the future.
He has a chart and everything. Go read. Then read this.
I started off my “professional” (post-college) career in February of 1986 with a $5/hr. job at age 24. That’s $10,400/yr. I moved into my first (and only) apartment on Jan. 1 1987. It cost $225/mo. A year after starting employment, my pay was $15,600/yr. By the time I was 30, I was making $30k/yr. I bought the house I’m currently living in when I turned 29. I’m 50 now, and I’m doing pretty good, but nowhere near $250k. I’ve never taken food stamps, never received an Earned Income Tax Credit, Medicaid, a rent subsidy, or Utility Bill Assistance. I did my own taxes for years – 1040EZ for Federal before I bought the house. I guess all that stuff was available, but I was young, single, healthy and working.
If I’d been a young high-school dropout with a live-in girlfriend and a kid or four, perhaps I’d have been all over that “free money.”
And I’d still be making $15k/yr, afraid to make more because of the loss of those “benefits.”
And my kids would probably be in the same boat, and complaining that “The MAN” was keepin’ ’em down.
Quote of the Day – Thomas Sowell Edition
From his recent column Random Thoughts. It’s absolutely full of quotable bits, but I’ll start with this one:
The question to be asked of people in the media, and that they should ask themselves, should be: “Is your first loyalty to your audience or to your ideology?” The same question should be asked of educators, especially those who see themselves as “agents of social change,” even though that is not the job description under which they have been hired and paid.
Well?