Best quote on abuse of authority that you will hear for a while.

"When your only tool is a hammer, everyone looks like a nail."

Commenter "Cynical in CA" over at The Agitator.

Boffo Quotes Numbers 008 and 009

“[A] religion is no more than a cult with an army attached to it.”

Jonathan Meades in “Magnetic North” (Episode 2) (Youtube at 2 of 6, 0:37 et seq.)

"If God had wanted us to worship him, he'd have made it easier by existing."

Linda Smith, spotted by The Real Interrobang on Living the Scientific Life, comments

Coincidence? She thinks not...
And I agree with her.

[I]t is no coincidence that the War On Drugs heated up after the civil rights movement achieved a set of huge victories that gave this country a moment of hope for something like racial equality. Now we have a country where 1 in 15 black people are currently in jail.

Amanda Marcotte, "The brainless, pointless War On Drugs", March 6, 2008

One should also remember that a real wave of felony disenfranchisement laws gained steam at around this time. As the law in the USA currently stands::
* only two US states have no laws on voting by felons;
* only inmates convicted of a felony are barred from voting (with their right to vote restored upon release from prison) in 13 states;
* felons (in prison and on parole) are barred from voting but can vote upon completion of parole in 5 states;
* inmates, parolees, and probationers are barred (and so can vote only upon completion of all supervised release) in 20 states;
* inmates, parolees, probationers, and ex-felons are completely barred from voting (restoration of voting varies by state) in 10 states.

Given that Blacks are grossly disproportionately represented in the American prison population it should come as no surprise that every single state of the former Confederacy is found in the two categories with the toughest restrictions, as are three states which were Confederate Territories in whole or in part, as are three states that remained in the Union but had majority-Reb populations, and "bleeding Kansas", which is currently aggressively pro-GOP. (Further, many of the felony disenfranchisement laws in the Old South started during Reconstruction as the former Confederate states cast about for ways to prevent their'n newly free and unacceptably uppity niggers from votin'.)

Don't forget that these lists don't have to be accurate to stop a person from voting. By way of example: many, many people in Florida (mostly Black) in the notorious 2000 presidential election found themselves unable to vote because of being erroneously listed as having felony convictions, and could not get their right to vote restored in time or at all. (It was, I'm sure that we all agree, just a coincidence that the list was provided by a Texas GOP firm to a state with a GOP governor, a GOP legislature and a GOP Secretary of State - Katherine Harris - who was disgustingly overt about her efforts to stop people from voting Democrat. And most Blacks vote Democrat. Just a coincidence.)

Ralph Nader in a nutshell

"[M]y sense is is that Mr. Nader is somebody who, if you don’t listen and adopt all of his policies, thinks you’re not substantive. He seems to have a pretty high opinion of his own work."

Barack Obama, quoted in the New York Times,
February 24, 2008.

Self-Quoting Is Tacky, But I'm Going To Do It Anyway! - #1

"I strongly suggest that you keep your apology; do not offer worthless things as gifts."

Boffo Quote 007

"When you relax and don't try to be charming you can be quite charming."
___

Boffo Quote 006

"Modern conservatism is built around the idea that collective, government sponsored solutions to social problems can't work, and operates by making certain that those solutions won't work."

Robert Farley, "The Big Con: Disability Edition",
from Lawyers, Guns & Money
.

Boffo Quote 005

“Most people tend to blame their triumphs on internal excellence and their failures on environment, but reverse it for others.”

Amanda Marcotte, "Just admit it", November 26, 2007.

Boffo Quote 004

“Popular fiction doesn't just mirror its readers' reality, it inspires and creates it -- which makes it somehow more real than reality.”

Douglas Wolk summarizing Alan Moore’s take on pop culture in Moore’s graphic novel Black Dossier. Quote is found in the review “Who are these unmasked men?”, Salon, November 24, 2007

Dan Savage remains one of the best reads out there

You neglect generic guy/girl/girl threesomes.

I've neglected threesomes 'cause they're about as controversial as brunch plans for us gay guys...

Savage Love, November 14, 2007
.

Boffo quote Number 003

"You can say that `anecdote is not evidence', but isn't every day, every experience, every anecdote a sample? Are you not allowed to draw conclusions from thousands upon thousands of cumulative samples?"

Robert Rose, Friday, November 16, 2007

.

Today's boffo quote, Number 001

"Golden ages glitter only in retrospect as viewed from the junkyard of the present."
Sidney Blumenthal, "Journalism and its discontents", Salon, October 25, 2007

“There’s very few people that think that basing laws on dogma is a good idea unless they have repugnant political ideas that can’t be explained logically, so they have to hide behind god.”

Amanda Marcotte, “Crucifixes and Lapel Pins”, October 15, 2007

I guess that one must start with a profound thought. That's easy. I will steal one from Terry Pratchett:

“[T]here are hardly any of the excess of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal, kindly family man who just comes into work every day and has a job to do. … A man who knew that, knew everything he needed to know about people.”
Small Gods (Corgi Paperback edition), p.20