Category: Quote for the Day

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Quote of the Day – Elon Musk

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

 “I just fed USAID to the wood chipper and I could have gone to some great parties instead.” “ ~~ Elon Musk

To give the quote some context it is from Krugman’s Substack posting today: On Holding Elon Musk Accountable

The paragraph read:

“It’s not just that Musk more or less personally set out to destroy this aid agency set out to cut off healthcare, nutritional assistance, just basic necessities of life for millions and millions of extremely desperate people. But he did so callously, carelessly, he even actually tweeted out, oh, ‘I just fed USAID to the wood chipper and I could have gone to some great parties instead.’”

To give it even more context some very reputable agencies and people have estimated that it has cost MILLIONS of LIVES in these venerable populations.  And to set some more context US foreign aid was around 1.2% of the US budget, a minuscule amount in the scheme of things. The Republican tax breaks to the super rich and corporations are several magnitudes more harmful to the US bottom line than the charity we were giving to the poorest people on the planet. Apparently it is alright with the MAGA crowd for the rich to get richer and the poor to die.

Are we really a nation of living Christian values?  I think not.

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Quote of the Day – Mark Twain

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.” ~~ Mark Twain

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Quote of the Day – Franz Kafka

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

“What if I slept a little more and forgot about all this nonsense.” ~~ Franz Kafka

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Quote of the Day – Carl Sagan

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

I came across this excerpt of an interview Carl Sagan did with Charlie Rose.  Sagan died in 1996, and the interview was in the last year of his Sagan’s life.  He died much too young of myelodysplasia. For my money he nailed the current situation in the world with technology 30 years before the current invasion of AI (artificial intelligence).

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology in which nobody understands anything about science and technology. This combustible mixture of ignorance and power sooner or later is going to blow up in our faces. Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking.  If we are not able to ask skeptical questions to interrogate those who tell us something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs for the next charlatan political or religious leader who comes ambling along. It’s a thing that Jefferson lay great stress on. It wasn’t enough, he said, to enshrine some rights in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the people had to be educated and they have to practice their skepticism and their education. Otherwise, we don’t run the government, the government runs us.” ~~ Carl Sagan

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.” ~~ Carl Sagan

I originally posted this as one quote, as that is what the source I got it from did.   On further research this was actually a mashup of a couple Sagan quotes.  The poster eliminated the part in red then continued with a second Sagan quote as if it was part of the first. But it remains valid as far as I am concerned. Both quotes from Sagan on the same subject.

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Quote of the Day – Tom Waits

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

“We have a deficit of wonder. I think it’s because of computers. When I ask people questions now, they get on their computer – `Gimme a few minutes and I’ll let you know….’ And I’m, like, ‘Nooooo!’ I want them to wonder about it, man! I don’t want to know the answer. I just want them to wonder about it.” — Tom Waits

Not everything worthwhile is coded in 1s and 0s. And an AI generated answer certainly takes the mysticism away and any opportunity for reflection on a subject… IMHO. Life does not come with a technical manual, or at least I hope so. Although reflecting on that last sentence, humans have been trying to write such a document for millennia and fighting about which is the correct document.

I do not know if Tom Waits is an acquired taste or not, but sometimes, depending on my mood, his music is all that will do.   Out of curiosity,  I went and counted.  I have 11 of his albums.

His official website: Tom Waits

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Quote of the Day – Robert O. Paxton

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

“[Fascism is] a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.” ~~ Robert O. Paxton, a professor emeritus at Columbia University, defining fascism in his 2004 book The Anatomy of Fascism

He was writing about American Fascism that reared its ugly head here in the United States between the two World Wars.  Unfortunately, it sounds on point for what is happening in this country at this moment.

May Omoikane save us all.

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Quote of the Day – Elizabeth Warren

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

“If  Jeff Bezos can drop $10 million to sponsor the Met Gala, he can afford to pay his fair share in taxes.”  ~~ Elizabeth Warren

And let us not forget his $500 million yacht Koru, that along with its support ship, Abeona, cost $75 million a year to operate.

Jeff Bezos is selling his $500 million megayacht Koru

I Am Guilty Too

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Quote of the Day – Walt Whitman

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

“If you want to know where your heart is, look to where your mind goes when it wanders.”  ~~ Walt Whitman

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Quote of the Day – Donald J. Trump, Another Day, More Threatened War Crimes

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

“Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day, all wrapped up in one in Iran. There will be nothing like it. Open the fuckin strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in hell. Just watch. Praise be to Allah.” ~~ Donald J. Trump

Targeting civilian targets like power plants and bridges are war crimes under international law.  Obviously, this man has never heard the poker maxim about not drawing to an inside straight.  At last count his sycophant, Pete Hegseth, has fired 20 generals who were trying to put some brakes on this madness.

Still happy with your vote for this madman, may Allah save your soul.

For a little more nuance on the quote (verified from several sources), here is Krugman’s article: Living in Hell… read the transcript rather than watch the video.

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Quote of the Day – Donald J. Trump, Another Day, Another Faux Pas

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

“We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of day care.” ~~ Donald J. Trump

To put this quote in context, here is his remarks before he said that revealing gem.

“I said to Russell (Office of Management and Budget Director), ‘Don’t send any money for day care,’ because the United States can’t take care of day care. That has to be up to a state,” Trump said. “We can’t take care of day care. We’re a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people.”

Here is the CNN article I lifted the quote from: ‘We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of day care’: Trump’s ill-timed rant 

We are not taxing the ultra rich so El Pendejo can fight an unnecessary, unjustified, and IMHO, immoral war that we, the middle class are paying for, instead of funding day care?  WTF!  For my money that quote tells you all you need to know about Cadet Bone Spur and the Nazi Republican Party… no bread for babies, but billions to bomb innocent people. Again WTF!

May Allah save us all.

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