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robin

I often quote myself; it adds spice to my conversation. George Bernard Shaw

Boon Mee

"(One) has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that. No ordinary man could be such a fool" -- George Orwell

Homer

"War is the health of the State. It automatically sets in motion throughout society these irresistible forces for uniformity, for passionate cooperation with the government in coercing into obedience the minority groups and individuals which lack the larger herd sense.": - Randolph Bourne (1886 -1918) Source: in War and the Intellectuals, 1964


"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought,but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)Physicist and Professor, Nobel Prize 1921

"All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it." - Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French historian - Source: Democracy in America, 1835


If we were to judge the US by its penal policies, we would perceive a strange beast: a Christian society that believes in neither forgiveness nor redemption: George Monbiot

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You know what 1B are AWESOME for?
throwing at cats
it only costs a single baht
and they'll either chase it, or get hit by it and look pissed off
I now use that system to value prices of things
for example, a 3,000B slag has to be at least as awesome as three thousand catbahts

Boon Mee

Boon Mee

“I don’t believe that any gun should be in the hand of a thinking, feeling, breathing human being. Americans are by nature filled with rage-slash-fear. And guns are a huge part of our culture. I know I’m crazy because I’m only supposed to say that in Europe. But violence corrupts absolutely.” -- Jodie Foster

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ผมเป็นคนบ้านนอก

Boon Mee

"A measure of hypocrisy is necessary to a functioning society. It's quite possible, on the one hand, to be opposed to the legalization of prostitution yet, on the other, to pull your hat down over your brow every other Tuesday and sneak off to the cat house on the other side of town. Your inability to live up to your own standards does not, in and of itself, nullify them. The left gives the impression that a Republican senator caught in a whorehouse ought immediately to say, "You're right. I should have supported earmarks for hookers in the 2005 appropriations bill." That's the reason why sex scandals take down Republicans but not Democrats: Sex-wise, the left's standards are that whatever's your bag is cool – which is the equivalent of no standards. Thus, Monica Lewinsky was a "grown woman" free to make her own decisions on the carpet of the Oval Office. Without agreed "moral standards," all you have is the law. When it's no longer clear something is wrong, all you can do is make it illegal." -- Mark Steyn

Boon Mee

Homer

"No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore our belief in our own guidance." -- Henry Miller (1891-1980) Source: The Wisdom of the Heart, 1941



"No man can emancipate himself, except by emancipating with him all the men around him. My liberty is the liberty of everyone, for I am not truly free, free not only in thought but in deed, except when my liberty and my rights find their confirmation, their sanction, in the liberty and the rights of all men, my equals.-BAKUNIN.



"Who ordained that the few should have the land (of Britain) as a prerequisite; who made 10,000 people owners of the soil and the rest of us trespassers in the land of our birth?" -- David Lloyd George - (1863-1945) British statesman, and Prime Minister 1916-1922 -



"The meek shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights." -- J. Paul Getty Oil magnate, billionaire

Boon Mee

"We have learned that terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength; they are invited by the perception of weakness. And the surest way to avoid attacks on our own people is to engage the enemy where he lives and plans. We are fighting that enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan today so that we do not meet him again on our own streets, in our own cities." -- George W. Bush, 9/07/03

Boon Mee

Boon Mee

"The very word empowerment gives me the heebie-jeebs, because its one of those words used by humorless, dead-earnest people who want to save the world. I don’t trust anyone who wants to save the world, unless they’re the people who want to save the world from the people who want to save the world." - James Lileks

sabang

If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams.

Yann Martel

Homer

"I went down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance ... and one night late it came to me this way. We could not leave (the Philippines) to themselves--they were unfit for self-government--and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's was.... There was nothing left for us to do but take them all and educate the Filipinos, and uplift and Christianize them.": President William McKinley


Our men.... have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents and suspected people from lads of 10 up... Our soldiers have pumped salt water into men to "make them talk," and have taken prisoners people who held up their hands and peacefully surrendered, and an hour later.... stood them on a bridge and shot them down one by one, to drop into the water below and float down, as examples to those who found their bullet-loaded corpses.": Philadelphia Ledger newspaper in 1901, from its Manila [Philippines] correspondent during the US war with Spain for the control of the Philippines

Homer

"And now the whole nation -- pulpit and all -- will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.": Mark Twain



"What a curious phenomenon it is that you can get men to die for the liberty of the world who will not make the little sacrifice that is needed to free themselves from their own individual bondage." -- Bruce Barton (1886-1967)



"To change masters is not to be free." -- Jose Marti y Perez (1853-1895)

Boon Mee

Greed captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. -- Gordon Gekko

Boon Mee

"There are two methods, or means, and only two, whereby man's needs and desires can be satisfied. One is the production and exchange of wealth; this is the economic means. The other is the uncompensated appropriation of wealth produced by others; this is the political means." - Albert Jay Nock

sabang

Every right implies a responsibility; Every opportunity, an obligation, Every possession, a duty.


I know of nothing more despicable and pathetic than a man who devotes all the hours of the waking day to the making of money for money's sake.


If your only goal is to become rich, you will never achieve it.


The only question with wealth is, what do you do with it?


John D. Rockefeller

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To err is human. To blame someone else is politics.

Whiteshiva

Easy for him to say!

Boon Mee

Homer

"We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it. ": U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, U.S. representative to the International Conference on Military Trials, Aug. 12, 1945



To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole: Nuremburg War Tribunal regarding wars of aggression


"A Society that is in its higher circles and middle levels widely believed to be a network of smart rackets does not produce men with an inner moral sense; a society that is merely expedient does not produce men of conscience. A society that narrows the meaning of "success" to the big money and in its terms condemns failure as the chief vice, raising money to the plane of absolute value, will produce the sharp operator and the shady deal. Blessed are the cynical, for only they have what it takes to succeed.." --- The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills


"Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of the colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change. Each time a person stands up for an idea, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, (s)he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." -- Robert F. Kennedy