Tag: QOTD

Jonas L.

| August 12, 2019

9 COMMENTS

“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this and you will find strength.” Marcus Aurelius More

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Quote of the Day: Vegetarian Philosophy

By Seawriter

Seawriter is a former Shuttle software engineer who successfully made the transition to the oil and gas industry as a technical writer after the end of the Shuttle program. It is not the first career

| August 10, 2019

46 COMMENTS

“But here’s my question. Why do the companies that sell ‘not meat’ — Frankenfoods made from plant cells and/or vegetable cocktails — spend millions of dollars to make it look exactly like meat? Wouldn’t that be a contradiction in vegetarian philosophy? ‘I’ve decided to chew leaves the rest of my life, but I want all the leaves to look like hot dogs.'” – Joe Bob Briggs

I am a vegan this week – and next. Voluntarily, although I hate it. Why? Because I believe God expects it from me. I am an Orthodox Christian. As @skipsul can explain, Orthodox are in the middle of the two-week Dormition Fast, observing the death of Mary, mother of Jesus. It is one of four fast periods for the devout Orthodox observer, where we forgo meat and dairy (and usually fish).

By Susan Quinn

Contributor

Susan Quinn

Retired consultant, avid biography reader and meditator

| August 9, 2019

26 COMMENTS

“Dare I say it? I must. I implore Jews to stop fighting with one another. Even if we disagree, we must try to do so respectfully, soulfully. I am psychologically very sensitive to Jewish self-hatred and anti-Semitism within the Diaspora. I fear it may very well function as a fifth column. I do not, however, think that other Jews are my enemies. It is important for Jews to remember this. Even if all Jews saw eye-to-eye on everything, we would still have real enemies whose goal in life is to kill us and to drive a Jewish presence out of the Middle East.” — Phyllis Chesler, The New Anti-Semitism

I saw Phyllis Chesler give a talk at a conference in St. Petersburg, FL, several years ago. It was a conference on Islamism; unfortunately, they haven’t held the conference again. Some great people were there, whose warnings were prescient, many of which have manifested in the years since.

By Seawriter

Seawriter is a former Shuttle software engineer who successfully made the transition to the oil and gas industry as a technical writer after the end of the Shuttle program. It is not the first career

| August 3, 2019

11 COMMENTS

“When no hill is worth dying on, eventually your enemy has all the high ground and you are surrounded.” – CDR Salamander CDR Salamander is a long-time milblogger. The quote is a a take on the saying, “Is this the hill you want to die on?” It is a response to the command “take that […]

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Quote of the Day: What I Tell You Three Times Is True

By Seawriter

Seawriter is a former Shuttle software engineer who successfully made the transition to the oil and gas industry as a technical writer after the end of the Shuttle program. It is not the first career

| July 27, 2019

18 COMMENTS

“Just the place for a Snark!” the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.
“Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What I tell you three times is true.” — Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark

By Seawriter

Seawriter is a former Shuttle software engineer who successfully made the transition to the oil and gas industry as a technical writer after the end of the Shuttle program. It is not the first career

| July 20, 2019

12 COMMENTS

“Government’s job is not to get you stuff, or to get somebody else’s stuff for you. It’s to preserve your liberty.” – Rand Paul

If you listen to the Democratic candidates for President, all they pledge is different ways to get you stuff or get someone else’s stuff for you. Liberty? Well, maybe so far as it does not interfere with getting you stuff or getting someone else’s stuff for you.

By B. W. Wooster

B. W. Wooster

Pip pip

| July 15, 2019

10 COMMENTS

Two days ago I lay on the grass beside the Virginia monument on the battleground called Gettysburg. It was late in the day and the heat was finally giving way to shade and milder temperatures. My son Sam and I had spent the day walking, pointing, listening and learning. Over 1400 monuments are scattered across […]

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Quote of the Day – Ragsdale’s Rules

By Seawriter

Seawriter is a former Shuttle software engineer who successfully made the transition to the oil and gas industry as a technical writer after the end of the Shuttle program. It is not the first career

| July 13, 2019

23 COMMENTS

Once upon a time, I was a green engineer a couple of years out of college. At the time I was working in the space program making the normal sort of blunders associated with green engineers a few years out of college. Then I started working for a gentleman by the name of Al Ragsdale. He was one of the sharpest engineers I ever knew. His specialty was simulators and simulations.

He had been working in the space program at JSC since the Apollo days. If you watch the films of Mission Control during the Apollo 11 landing you can see him on the other side of the glass window on the right side of the Mission Control room, to the right of the picture, working the back room at the time. He was also working on the Lunar Lander simulators. During Apollo 13 he kept the simulator at least four hours ahead of the actual mission making sure nothing done would kill the crew. (In sims he “died” half a dozen times, but was always able to develop workarounds to ensure the crew did not suffer a similar fate. I think he got a Silver Snoopy for that.)

By Seawriter

Seawriter is a former Shuttle software engineer who successfully made the transition to the oil and gas industry as a technical writer after the end of the Shuttle program. It is not the first career

| July 6, 2019

7 COMMENTS

“There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist.” ― Ayn Rand

Colin Kaepernick is a fashionable non-conformist. His non-conformity is a safe one, in which he is rewarded. His NFL career was going nowhere, so he created a new one as a non-conformist – a fashionable one, only striking out at safe targets.

By Arahant

Arahant

39010383,791

Corporate governance, process management and change management consultant, poet, alchemist, and writer.

| July 1, 2019

5 COMMENTS

“Truth comes from the mouths of fools and children: I wish every good mind which feels an inclination for satire would reflect that the finest satirist always has something of both in him.” — Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Lichtenberg was an eighteenth-century scientist who spent most of his life in the Holy Roman Empire. He was born in Hesse-Darmstadt. When he was about twenty-one, he was granted tuition from his local ruler to go to the nearby University of Göttingen, which was in the Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg, one of the domains of George III. (The king/elector sent several of his sons to study at the University of Göttingen.) Lichtenberg spent the rest of his life there as student and professor with the exception of a couple of trips to England (one of George III’s other domains). He is probably best remembered today due to Lichtenberg figures, traces of paths left by electricity that are named for him. These are often seen in people who have been struck by lightning, for instance.

By Seawriter

Seawriter is a former Shuttle software engineer who successfully made the transition to the oil and gas industry as a technical writer after the end of the Shuttle program. It is not the first career

| June 30, 2019

15 COMMENTS

“It is amazing how many of the intelligentsia call it ‘greed’ to want to keep what you have earned, but not greed to want to take away what somebody else has earned, and let politicians use it to buy votes.” – Thomas Sowell

If we substituted Democrat presidential candidate for intelligentsia we would have a perfect one-sentence encapsulation of both sets of Presidential debates last week. Yet Sowell anticipated their positions by at least 20 and possibly 30 years with this statement.

By Seawriter

Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo…

Seawriter is a former Shuttle software engineer who successfully made the transition to the oil and gas industry as a technical writer after the end of the Shuttle program. It is not the first career

| June 16, 2019

20 COMMENTS

“Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.” – Thomas Jefferson

The good news for woke activists judges and the Living Constitution advocates is that Thomas Jefferson was a slaveholder and therefore anything he says that disagrees with their viewpoint can be disregarded. And certainly they will disagree with this – that the plain wording of the law is the plain meaning of the law. It was the foundation rock of this republic; the rock Progressives are trying to dissolve to sand.

By Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo…

Thatcher

211565,302

Mostly retired guy. For some more information you can go to my blog <a href="http://havechanged.blogspot.com/">Things Have Changed. About my avatar: In these days of diversity and multiculturalism, I wanted to ensure no microaggressions were caused. Picking an avatar that was non-threatening, flexible, and sexually ambiguous seemed to fit the bill. I hope I did not offend anyone with my choice.

| June 10, 2019

3 COMMENTS

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool”.
– Richard Feynman (1918-88)

By Seawriter

Seawriter is a former Shuttle software engineer who successfully made the transition to the oil and gas industry as a technical writer after the end of the Shuttle program. It is not the first career

| June 7, 2019

24 COMMENTS

I’m amused by people who make a living disclosing classified information, including the names of intelligence operative wringing their hands about whether I can handle classified information…. Sometimes people can convince themselves that what they’re doing is in the higher interest, the better good. They don’t realize that what they’re doing is really antithetical to the democratic system that we have. They start viewing themselves as the guardians of the people that are more informed and insensitive than everybody else. They can, in their own mind, they can have those kinds of motives. And sometimes they can look at evidence and facts through a biased prism that they themselves don’t realize.
– Attorney General William Barr, in an extended interview with CBS’s Jan Crawford.

By Keith Rice

Keith Rice

8121,235

A checkered past has brought me through Orthodox Judaism to ultra-Leftist, and finally finding me as an arch-conservative. My search for the truth has taken me to extremes to be sure but my current position is relative - the Left lost touch with humanity some decades ago and continues to forge a path perpendicular to reality. Retired business owner with two kids and three grandkids

| June 6, 2019

5 COMMENTS

Men’s souls will be shaken with the violence of war. For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but […]

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QOTD: What’s in an Old Man’s Head

By The Reticulator

The Reticulator

1681516,194

The real name of the Reticulator is John Gorentz. He lives near Battle Creek, Michigan USA. His life story, in reverse chronological order, begins as follows: “His days ended in one of Hillary’s internment camps.” The Reticulator is also known as The Spokesrider

| June 4, 2019

4 COMMENTS

“It’s amazing what a lot there is in an old man’s head when somebody else starts him talking and puts questions to him.”

By Seawriter

Seawriter is a former Shuttle software engineer who successfully made the transition to the oil and gas industry as a technical writer after the end of the Shuttle program. It is not the first career

| May 26, 2019

10 COMMENTS

“Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil.” – Thomas Paine

The only quibble I have with this quote is that some time since the beginning of this millennia, the government has ceased to restrain our vices, but now seems to encourage them. Government still creates distinctions, and still serves as a punisher. However, more and more it punishes those who still seek to restrain their own vices. And government is no longer in its best state.

By Jon Gabriel, Ed.

Chief

Jon Gabriel, Ed.

Jon Gabriel (a.k.a., @ExJon on Twitter) is the Editor-in-Chief of Ricochet. He is a political writer and marketing consultant, contributing articles to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, and USA Today among others. Until 2012, he served as Director of Marketing for the free-market Goldwater Institute, where he converted policy initiatives into compelling stories. In the private sector, Jon led marketing efforts for Cold Stone Creamery, Honeywell, and several technology companies. In his… [more]

| May 25, 2019

36 COMMENTS

“All I wanted to do is paint sunlight on the side of a house.” — Edward Hopper

By Seawriter