2011 Quotes

“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world.”
― Jack Layton

“Everyone loves a witch hunt as long as it's someone else's witch being hunted.”
― Walter Kirn

“The rich run a global system that allows them to accumulate capital and pay the lowest possible price for labour. The freedom that results applies only to them. The many simply have to work harder, in conditions that grow ever more insecure, to enrich the few. Democratic politics, which purports to enrich the many, is actually in the pocket of those bankers, media barons and other moguls who run and own everything.”
― Charles Moore

“I am just mystified by these people telling me I would think Obama was doing a great job if his skin contained less melanin.”
― Jonah Goldberg

“Kid 1: *examining my gorgeous strawberry and blueberry pies*: Wow, Mom, your pies don’t look awful this time.
Me (Ilona): ...

~A little later~

Kid 2: *wandering into the kitchen*
Kid 1: Hey, you’ve got to see these pies. *opening the stove*
Kid 2: Wow. They are not ugly this time.
Kid 1: I know, right?”
― Ilona Andrews

“American political culture quickly and always outpaces any attempt to satirize it.”
― Glenn Greenwald

“Incestuous, homogeneous fiefdoms of self-proclaimed expertise are always rank-closing and mutually self-defending, above all else.”
― Glenn Greenwald

“These are tough times for state governments. Huge deficits loom almost everywhere, from California to New York, from New Jersey to Texas.

Wait—Texas? Wasn't Texas supposed to be thriving even as the rest of America suffered? Didn't its governor declare, during his re-election campaign, that 'we have billions in surplus'? Yes, it was, and yes, he did. But reality has now intruded, in the form of a deficit expected to run as high as $25 billion over the next two years.

And that reality has implications for the nation as a whole. For Texas is where the modern conservative theory of budgeting—the belief that you should never raise taxes under any circumstances, that you can always balance the budget by cutting wasteful spending—has been implemented most completely. If the theory can't make it there, it can't make it anywhere.”
― Paul Krugman

“As the cleansing ocean closes over bin Laden's carcass, may the earth lie lightly on the countless graves of those he sentenced without compunction to be burned alive or dismembered in the street.”
― Christopher Hitchens, The Enemy

“For the purposes of science, information had to mean something special. Three centuries earlier, the new discipline of physics could not proceed until Isaac Newton appropriated words that were ancient and vague—force, mass, motion, and even time—and gave them new meanings. Newton made these terms into quantities, suitable for use in mathematical formulas. Until then, motion (for example) had been just as soft and inclusive a term as information. For Aristotelians, motion covered a far-flung family of phenomena: a peach ripening, a stone falling, a child growing, a body decaying. That was too rich. Most varieties of motion had to be tossed out before Newton’s laws could apply and the Scientific Revolution could succeed. In the nineteenth century, energy began to undergo a similar transformation: natural philosophers adapted a word meaning vigor or intensity. They mathematicized it, giving energy its fundamental place in the physicists’ view of nature.

It was the same with information. A rite of purification became necessary.

And then, when it was made simple, distilled, counted in bits, information was found to be everywhere.”
― James Gleick, The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

“I got my dad a great father's Day present. He called to say: 'Ach. Zis present is so good I now think it vas almost vorth having children.”
― Johann Hari

“They all wait impatiently for the blessed cloak of darkness to cover their wretched little deeds, but the sun will not be hurried by the whims of men.”
― Karen Maitland, The Gallows Curse

“When Loughner himself speaks and we find out his real influences are Spiderman, 'Gnome Chomsky,' Taylor Swift, and Dr. Bronner, then what?”
― Walter Kirn

“I think there needs to be a meeting to set an agenda for more meetings about meetings.”
― Jonah Goldberg

“Not reassuring when weathermen say 'Today will be terrible but don't worry it won't be as terrible as tomorrow or Friday.”
― Jonah Goldberg

“Tom Friedman says China is so awesome they make kosher pigs.”
― Jonah Goldberg

“The Aussies have spent so much time basking in the glory of the last generation that they have forgotten to plan for this one. It's just like the West Indies again; once their great names from the 1970s and 80s retired, the whole thing fell apart.

The way things are going, the next Ashes series cannot come too quickly for England. What a shame that we have to wait until 2013 to play this lot again.”
― Geoffrey Boycott

“Tip to all British tabloids: Do Not Hack Amy Winehouse's Phone. I repeat: Do Not Hack Amy Winehouse's Phone.”
― Jonah Goldberg

“For Wiener, entropy was a measure of disorder; for Shannon, of uncertainty. Fundamentally, as they were realizing, these were the same.”
― James Gleick, The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

“The American people are fed up...with political posturing.' True, but also an example of political posturing.”
― James Taranto

“Some libs took offense at my David Broder quip earlier. In my own defense, I was taught in college it's OK to disrespect dead white males.”
― James Taranto

“The great cause of the new Republican intake is the reduction of the deficit but to anyone seeking evidence of sincere attempts at deficit-reduction the evidence is baffling.

The Republicans showed before Christmas that they would seek to reduce the deficit but not when it came to a matter of the tax breaks that had aggravated the deficit in the first place.

Now there's a date set for the abolition of Barack Obama's healthcare plan, parts of which only came into operation at the start of this month. The Republicans are out to destroy the plan. Or, more precisely, to pretend to destroy the plan in the name of making good on election pledges. The measure won't get past the Senate.

But suppose it did get past the Senate, what effect would this have on the deficit? The answer is it would aggravate the deficit. Somehow, somewhere, there's an override mechanism that makes destroying Obamacare more important than destroying the deficit. If only one could figure out how it works.”
― James Fenton

“@bobbybaird i'm a writer, so are you. we try to compose our thoughts and words for effect as well as sense. vain of us? a bit.”
― Walter Kirn

“The British version of 'Shit My Dad Says' is really entertaining.”
― Jeremy Scahill

“Because of racism, he can't govern effectively' is not a great argument for re-election.”
― James Taranto

“Scenár postupného oživenia európskej a teda aj slovenskej ekonomiky je aj naďalej vystavený viacerým rizikám. Tieto obavy vychádzajú najmä z faktu, že spúšťacím mechanizmom súčasnej recesie bola systémová kríza vo finančnom sektore, kde pretrvávajú naďalej problémy a treba otvorene povedať, že situácia sa nijako nezlepšuje ani za posledné roky. Európsky finančný systém nie je zdravý a pseudoriešenia dlhovej krízy vo forme prekrývania starých dlhov novými nie sú správne a celkový dlh v Európe nezmenšujú. No a v neposlednom rade treba spomedzi ďalších rizikových faktorov ohrozujúcich pozitívny vývoj Slovenska a EÚ uviesť slabú kondíciu trhu práce a už spomínaný nepriaznivý stav verejných financií vo väčšine krajín EÚ, čo v kombinácii s dlhovou krízou a problémami jednotlivých krajín prefinancovať svoj dlh zatiaľ nenabáda k prílišnému optimizmu.”
― Radovan Kavický, Slovakia 2010. A report on the State of Society and Democracy and Trends for 2011

“Before Newton the English word gravity denoted a mood—seriousness, solemnity….”
― James Gleick, The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

“Nice mix of Tory MPs saying this issue shouldn't be used for petty political pointscoring, & Tory MPs trying to score petty political points.”
― Andy Zaltzman

“A jacketless Murdoch resumes his quiz, brushing off the assault as 'an overexcited autograph-hunter wanting to have his shaving foam signed.”
― Andy Zaltzman

“Scary discovery of the day: Most people who RT @yokoono's tweets do so without irony.”
― James Taranto